Bengals' tackles bring in soup - lots of it

The Cincinnati Bengals did not entirely fail when they fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers during the Jan. 9 Wild Card playoff game.

In fact, the team helped all season long to donate thousands of cans of food to their loyal supporters through “Tackle Hunger,” the Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank’s second annual hunger awareness campaign sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company.

The name of the campaign wasn’t just a play on words – it was also the objective. For every tackle made by the Bengals defense during the regular season Campbell’s Chunky Soup pledged to donate 30 cans of soup to the Freestore Foodbank, according to a news release.

And with the Bengals coming off a strong 2015 season, that came added up to a lot of cans – 21,600, to be exact.

The team, which finished the regular season with a 12-4 record, chalked up 653 defensive tackles in that time to raise 19,590 cans for the local community. Campbell’s then raised that number to 21,600, which brought more than 43,000 servings of soup.

“The Cincinnati community is fortunate to have a company like Campbell’s with a strong presence in our city, and their contribution is much appreciated,” Bengals Executive Vice President Katie Blackburn said in the release. “We are glad to have had our defense contributing to the effort of building the donation total.”

The Bengals are not strangers to helping the Freestore Foodbank. On Nov. 16, 2015, the team and the foodbank worked together during the 29th annual Bengals Canned Food Drive to bring in 7,215 pounds of food and $21,600 for needy families in Cincinnati.

“Too many families are struggling every day to put food on the table,” said Bengals Defensive Tackle Geno Atkins at the time. “What the Freestore Foodbank is doing for the community is inspiring. Being involved with such an amazing organization gives me the chance to give back to a community that has embraced me with open arms since I became a Bengal.”