Bengals going back to Dalton

Cincinnati returned to Andy Dalton in hopes of getting that elusive first win as the season slips away.

The Bengals (0-11), are off to the worst start in franchise history. They have their longest in-season losing streak as well.

They benched Dalton in favor of rookie Ryan Finley after the eighth loss, deciding they needed to find out how the fourthround pick fits in their long-term plans.

Coach Zac Taylor ended the experiment this week and went back to his 11th-year veteran in hopes of avoiding the ignominy of an 0-16 season. For Dalton, it’s a chance to show he can still be a starting quarterback somewhere next year.

“I feel like I’ve proven that throughout my career, and this is just another opportunity,” Dalton said.

In other news:

The Arena Football League LLC, which runs a scaled-down indoor version of the gridiron game, has shut down and plans to liquidate.

The league’s bankruptcy petition filed Wednesday in Delaware listed liabilities of as much as $50 million and assets of no more than $10 million. The Chapter 7 filing signals that the AFL will sell off everything it owns to pay creditors because doesn’t see a way to keep operating or any hope of a turnaround.

“We all love the game and tried very hard to make it successful, but we simply weren’t able to raise the capital necessary to grow the league, resolve substantial legacy liabilities and make it financially viable,” Commissioner Randall Boe said in a statement.

Along with the usual array of furniture and computers, the assets include an inventory of footballs, jerseys, hats and shirts with team logos, a long list of medical supplies and painkillers, eight sets of crutches (tall and regular), four boxes of mouth guards and a t-shirt cannon.

The league halted local business activities in October and explored other solutions before deciding to quit operating.