Following the demise of the Northwest Football Alliance (NFA) and the folding of the legendary Auburn Panthers, Ron Baines, who coached the Panthers in their final season was brought in by Ed Bemis as head coach of the new rekindled version of the Pierce County Bengals which had last played in 1981.  Bemis, who still owned the gear from the Auburn Panthers, used it to get the Bengals off the ground and off to a good start.  Ed had tabbed 21-year old Steve Matychowiak, one of the leading linebackers with the Panthers to be his right hand man, but push-back from other league owners and managers over his perceived youth, led to Ron stepping up as GM as well and "Maty" focusing on leading the defense. 
 
Todd Chisman recorded 14 tackles and Ronny Johnson returned one of four Bengal INT's for a 62-yard TD in a 32-0 rout of the Blue Knights to move to 2-0.  Johnson led the NWFL in INTs for 1988.
 
Defense was again the savior, trailing the Warhawks 2-0 when Ben Alaalatoa returned a 23-yard fumble for a TD to secure the win.
 
The Oct 22 game with the Express was canceled when Darryl Baines, brother of Bengals coach Ron was shot and killed in Tacoma.
 
After the regular season finale, Bemis decided he was retiring and turned the team over to Baines.  Matychowiak was the starting middle linebacker for the next few years, before becoming one of the top defensive coordinators in the league.
 
In the playoffs, Marcus Sweet got his first start over Al Dotson and led the 7-2-1 Bengals to a 30-6 win over the Warhawks, sending Baines to his 5th consecutive championship game as a player and coach.  Willie Daigle caught 2 TD passes and Kevin Washington rushed for 26 and 18 yard scores.
 
Jimmy Dillingham, former star at Central Washington raced to 1,162 yards in just 7 games winning MVP honors for 1989
 
The Bengals spoiled the Eugene Blast 1990 home opener when Gary Braun threw 2 TD passes to Tony Lambert and Sean Sehlin tossed two more to Willie Daigle in winning 26-6.  Daigle was an 18-year veteran of the northwest leagues at the time. John Adair was 2-4 kicking PAT's.  Ben Ala'alatoa recorded 4 sacks and Patrick McCray (4) and Mickal Wood (2) picked off 6 passes.

Pierce County won the 1992 NWFL Championship 14-7 over the Sno-King Blue Knights.  Expected opponent Portland was disqualified from the playoffs when it could not find a night game venue in Portland and refused to travel to Edmonds instead.

Former Bengal runner Keith Evans scored the overtime game winner for the Puget Sound Jets in a 1994 battle with his former team.

1996 All-America selection Anthony Ruffin returned an INT 65-yards in a 10-7 win over Federal Way, then blocked a Renton point-after-try to preserve a 14-13 win and keep the Bengals playoff hopes alive.  Ruffin was the only Bengals defender selected to the All-League 1st Team while linebacker brother Armand received a 2nd team nod.  The Bengals acquired the services of Cowlitz County QB Lance Westendorf following the 1996 season where he would pilot the team to back-to-back 9-win seasons in 1997 and 1998.

Following the 1997 season, QB Lance Westendorf signed a December contract to play for Les Mousquetaires of the French Division of the European Federation of American Football League.  Westendorf, along with Ballard coach Jim Walsh and Emerald City Jet linebacker Leland Johnson were slated to leave for Paris on Jan 1, 1998.  Returning to the Bengals for the 1998 summer season, Westendorf broke a number of the Bengals franchise QB records along with setting a passing completion record at 91.3% on 21 of 23 for 318 yards in one 1998 game.
 
The Bengals made four NWFL Championship game appearances in the first five seasons culminating with a 1992 win over the Sno-King Blue Knights for the crown.  Ironically, that year was their worst regular season (4-4) during the stretch.  The Bengals would not reach the championship game again until 1998 where they lost to the Oregon Thunderbolts.
 
The new century did not bode well for the Bengals as they suffered their first losing season finishing 3-7 and missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993.  2000 was also the first exodus of a number of key Bengal players for the Puget Sound Jets.  By 2002 Pierce County suffered through a one-win season as many former Bengals celebrated a National Championship with the Jets.
 
2004 saw the Bengals accumulate 3 forfeits in a 2-6 season on the field of play and only two All-League selections.  Winning only four games the next two years, Pierce County finally broke back into the NWFL playoffs in 2007 on the strength of winning 6 of 7 in mid-season, helped in large part by an influx of spring league players who had finished their season. 
 
2008 brought the Bengals back down to the bottom of the NWFL and the team itself struggled all season to the point of having to place an injured player on the field away from contact just to meet the 11-man player requirement in the season finale.  They did manage to defeat arch-rival Washington in both meetings.
 
The 2009 collapse of the Northwest Football League forced the Bengals into an independent status and playing whomever they could find to fill dates.  The Cavaliers, also forced into independent status were the first two games which the Bengals won just as they have the previous two season.  Reality struck in the form of the Bellingham Blitz who smashed the Bengals followed by a dismantling by the Snohomish Vikings both new members of the newly formed PDFL.  The Vikings would put the capper on a 3-5 season for the Bengals as the two teams battled to a 9-6 loss for Pierce County.
 
The Bengals continued it's downward spiral with a 3-7 campaign in 2010 giving up 83 points to the cross-town "pro" Cobra team and later 65 to Bellingham.  The Snohomish County Vikings returned from the PDFL experiement to put the NWFL together as a 3-team venture along with the Cavaliers.  The Bengals and Vikings would play for the 2010 NWFL Championship one more time, with the Vikings winning 21-14.
 
With the Vikings joining the Pacific Football League, 2011 left the Bengals and Cavaliers as independent squads once again and a 3-3 season ensued as opponents dwindled, with only wins against the Cavaliers and Invaders in the middle of the season as bright points.
 
2012 was the worst team in franchise history, left without a league once again and finishing dead last in regional power rankings.  At 0-6, the Vikings, former NWFL foes started and ended the Pierce County season with wins over the Bengals.  A May 5 game against the Cobras was forfeited when the Cobras failed to schedule officials for the game.  With coaches filling in, the scrimmage turned into a 92-0 rout in some reports.  Grays Harbor hung 79 points on Baines' Boys who only broke through with a score in the final seconds of the game to avoid a humiliating shut out.
 
The historic program had hit rock bottom, but looked to bounce back in 2013 by joining the WWFA.  The weaker of the two regional leagues in terms of competition, the Bengals and long-time rival Cavaliers joined up after both slogged through independent schedules in 2012.  The Bengals lost a heartbreaker playoff game 15-14 to the Cavs and saw their rivals go on to win the 2013 WWFA title.

"If they can do it, so can we".  The Bengals would not be one-upped by the Cavaliers, and in 2014 took the WWFA by storm.  Two slip up losses to Renton and the Kings by a total of 4 points during the regular seaon were avenged in the playoffs and in the WWFA title game as the Bengals defeated the Kings 21-9 to take the crown.  The Cavs had split into two teams (Mayhem and Cavaliers) which the Bengals took full advantage of winning by a combined 66-21).  The Mayhem were being led by former Bengal James King, who had also been with the Cavaliers for the past decade.  The Baines-led franchise, suffering through it's worst seasons in history could have shut down like many others in the past, but the family-run team would not go away.  And that perseverance paid off with the 2014 WWFA Championship crown.  The Bengals franchise stayed the course and became a winning-program once more.

Newly emboldened, the Bengals raced out to a 6-0 record to start 2015 league play, however, the Kings had done some recruiting of their own and would end the season undefeated, then two weeks later, knock the Bengals from the WWFA playoffs.

The WWFA would expand once more bringing some old foes back into the Bengals schedule.  The losses of players to other local area teams brought Pierce County back into the middle of the pack, eventually being bounced out of the playoffs by the Bellingham Bulldogs whom they last faced in 2010 in a 65-14 hammering.
 
The WWFA came to a close in 2018 with the Oregon teams leaving.  Ron Baines resurrected the NWFL as a 6-team league for 2019.
 
The 2019 season would come to an unfortunate early end as an altercation between players and game officials resulted in Pierce County forfeiting the remainder of its games for the second half of the season.
 
Covid-19 restrictions came shortly on the heels of 2019 and the Bengals return was forced to be scrapped in 2020 and 2021 along with most football in the region.

When restrictions were finally lifted, semi-pro football in Tacoma had been reshaped with the Washington State Football League operating for a brief period, before being replaced by a division of the East-Coast based Gridiron Developmental League in 2023.  Heading into 2024 that league had been scrapped for a new West Coast Pacific Minor League organization but the Bengals had not reformed.  Rumors swirled that the team may come back under the third generation Baines family members but did not materialize.

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