Bengals might have jinxed any chance of beating Patriots with brutal mistake

Increased interest in the New England Patriots' 2025 season had all of the NFL pundits talking about their Week 12 matchup against the Bengals. The possibility of QB Joe Burrow returning from injured reserve only heightened that intrigue, but because he wasn't activated in time, Joe Flacco will be running the offense against the Patriots' stellar defense.

It's another knock doubters can add to their list of reasons the Patriots are not a legitimate team: they won't be facing the Bengals' starting QB, and they will be down WR Ja'Marr Chase, due to his suspension.

So, in an attempt to get Cincinnati fans excited about what is already being predicted as a loss, their social media team posted an image promoting Sunday's game.

The problem is that it was immediately flagged by fans as AI-generated or photoshopped, prompting far more headlines than any attempt to hype the game.

The Bengals brought more attention to their Week 12 game vs. the Patriots in the worst way possible

Without Burrow or Chase, and likely down Trey Hendrickson, too, it's unsurprising that the Bengals would choose to go with an image of Tee Higgins to promote this week.

But the decision to include superstar cornerback Christian Gonzalez being "Moss'd" by Higgins was a mistake by the Bengals, particularly since it is easy to debunk the image as legitimate.

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Since Gonzalez was drafted, the Patriots have only played the Bengals once, which was last season, and neither team wore the uniforms pictured. On top of that, Higgins didn't get one over on the cornerback in that game, so the image is easily identified as fake.

Patriots fans and even some Bengals supporters were quick to call out the mishap on social media, and in the days since it was posted, it has continued to trend on Twitter/X.

While this is just a silly thing for New England fans to laugh at, there is the superstitious side that could mean the Bengals jinxed themselves with creating a false image. They're already underdogs at home against the 9-2 Patriots, so posting a photo that features one of the top cornerbacks in the league was probably not a great idea.

This is certainly bulletin board material, even if it is far from serious. But it could embolden Gonzalez to ensure this image doesn't come to life even more than he already was, which is bad news for the Flacco-led offense.