2020 Retro Bowl Finals (Cincinnati Bengals vs. New Orleans Saints)

**The 2020 Retro Bowl Finals** was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Cincinnati Bengals and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New Orleans Saints to decide the Retro Football League (RFL) champion for the 2019 season. The Bengals defeated the Saints by the score of 31-25 in overtime, winning their first Retro Bowl. The game was played at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana due to the Saints having a better record than the Bengals, as the Bengals posted their third Retro Bowl appearance after posting an 11-5 regular season record, while the Saints posted their second Retro Bowl appearance after posting the league's best regular season record at 13-3. The 2020 Retro Bowl Finals featured one of the biggest comebacks in Finals history, with the Saints overcoming a 15 point deficit to tie the game at 25 and send it into overtime, although they did go on to lose the game at the end.

The Bengals victory was their first and their appearance in the finals marks the first of two straight Retro Bowl Finals appearances, as they were able to make the Finals the following year, but lost to the New York Giants, 35-21. Led by head coach Jefe Yamaam, offensive coordinator Alaine Cannon, defensive coordinator Moe Lester and the Who Dey Defense, the Bengals reached their third Retro Bowl Finals appearance and their first since 1989's Retro Bowl XXIII after posting an 11-5 regular season record, and quarterback Tanzel Wirtel was named the AP RFL Most Valuable Player (MVP). Meanwhile, the New Orleans Saints have made their second Retro Bowl Finals appearance and first since winning Retro Bowl XLIV in 2010 against the Indianapolis Colts after posting a league-best record of 13-3, and they were led by head coach Sean Peyton and the former Retro Bowl Finals MVP, Drew Brees, racking up the league's best offense. The Bengals finished the regular season as the AFC's 3-seed, while the Saints finished as the NFC's 1-seed.

Cincinnati scored three touchdowns to take an 18-3 halftime lead by 15 points, and it marked the first time in the post-season that New Orleans faced a deficit, and it was the largest deficit they faced in the entire season, both regular and post-season combined. However, the Saints scored 22 points in the fourth quarter to take the lead by seven points with 33 seconds left in the game, but the Bengals responded by scoring a 64 yard touchdown on the first play of their final drive in regulation, with Tanzel Wirtel throwing a pass intended for wide receiver Taj Zeitler, but running back Kendell Carter, nicknamed "The Kangaroo" for his ability to run past defenders and jump over them during running plays, made the catch in front him and scored the game-tying touchdown with 12 seconds left in the game, with kicker Randy Bullock scoring the extra point to take the game into overtime. In overtime, the Bengals won the coin toss and elected to receive, and in two plays, wide receiver Brendan Hall, who players and critics call him the greatest player of all time due to his status as the best player in the league, recorded two consecutive receptions with the latter scoring the game winning touchdown to claim the Cincinnati Bengals' first ever Retro Bowl title. League MVP winning Bengals quarterback Tanzel Wirtel cemented his MVP season status by throwing for 214 yards, four touchdowns, three interceptions, and two sacks, while running back Kendell Carter, who despite getting a fumble in the fourth quarter, he ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns, with the latter touchdown tying the game to send the Finals into overtime, and Taj Zeitler statistically had the worst game of his career, having only ran for nine yards while getting six tackles. The Who Dey Defense, led by Adam Yiadom, Shaun Myrick, Arden Cole, Devin Nwosu, Hale Irvin, and defensive coordinator Moe Lester, recorded a total of 26 tackles and only one interception courtesy of Arden Cole, with Yiadom having the most tackles of the game, making 13 tackles. Wide receiver Brendan Hall, who ran for 115 yards and scored 3 touchdowns, with the third touchdown in overtime to win the game, was named Retro Bowl Finals MVP for the first time in his career and is one of the oldest players to win the award, winning it at the age of 32.

The JefeZhai YouTube channel uploaded the full game onto YouTube on the day of the game, on December 31st, 2020, and as of September 2022, the game averaged around 163,730 views on YouTube, surpassing the 58,651 views of the 2018 Divisional Round playoff game between the Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens, a game which the Ravens won, 21-14, during Jefe Yamaam's first year as the head coach of the Bengals, and the views of the Finals surpassed the Divisional Round game by 105,079 views, making it the 6th most watch Retro Bowl video, as well as the 7th most watched JefeZhai video of all time. The game is regarded by many media outlets as the greatest game that was ever played in Retro Football League history.