The news only continued to get worse for the Bengals on Sunday, who lost a big game in San Diego while learning that yet another member of the Bengals' family lost his life.
Three days after receiver Chris Henry died from injuries suffered in a fall from the back of a pickup truck following what police say was a domestic dispute with his fiance in Charlotte, N.C., a 34th former Bengal died today while Cincinnati was losing 27-24 to the Chargers.
"It was a little empty feeling," Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco said of Sunday's game. "It was bigger than football without (Henry). Today I played with an extra set of hands, an extra set of legs and an extra heart."
Too bad the Bengals didn't get him the ball more. Number 85 finished with just three catches, but one of them was huge.
Back home, Clem Turner, 64, of Green Township, Ohio, went left of center on Guerley Road near Sunset Avenue on Cincinnati's west side and crashed head-on into a minivan around 1 p.m. today. Police say Turner, a graduate of Woodward High School and the University of Cincinnati, died at the scene. Turner played as a running back with the Bengals for one season and with the Denver Broncos for three seasons.
About six hours later, the Bengals, wearing helmet decals to honor Henry, squandered yet another chance to get into the playoffs for just the second time in 19 years.
Talk about your bad news weeks.
Meanwhile, San Diego clinched its fourth straight AFC West title at Qualcomm Stadium with the victory.
The good news of the day for the Bengals was Carson Palmer finally got the passing game back on track with his first 300-yard performance since the 2007 season finale.
But San Diego's Philip Rivers outdid Palmer. The San Diego quarterback drove the Chargers 46 yards in 51 seconds with no timeouts to set up a Nate Kaeding game-winning 52-yard field goal with 3 seconds left that stunned the grieving Bengals. Rivers finished with 308 yards passing with a pair of touchdowns to Vincent Jackson (5 catches for 108 yards), and one to Antonio Gates, which gave the Chargers a 7-0 lead.
For the second straight week, the Bengals (9-5) failed to clinch the AFC North Division title, while they let playoff-bound San Diego (11-3) put a stranglehold on the conference's No. 2 seed with its ninth win in a row and 17th straight victory in the month of December.
The best Cincinnati can do now is earn the No. 3 conference seed. If the Bengals, who have the same record as the 9-5 New England Patriots, make the playoffs by winning just one more game, they will play the first week. They can still eke out home-field advantage for the first week if they win their final two games.
But, if the Bengals fall off the table instead of run the table over the last two games, they run the risk of not making the playoffs at all. Baltimore won again on Sunday and improved to 8-6. The Ravens stand just one game behind the Bengals in the division race. The Bengals own the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Ravens, but it won't matter if they can't win another game while the Ravens win their last two. There is a pack of AFC teams at 7-7.
For the snake-bitten Bengals, it looks dire on many fronts. But, they can redeem themselves with a win next Sunday at home vs. the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Bengals need just one win to make the playoffs. But they have been in a similar scenario before where they needed to win one game in their final three to make the postseason, and they didn't do it. Recall in 2006, the Bengals could have made the playoffs for the second year in a row with just one win in their final three games, but they lost them all and ended the season with a thud.
Could this happen again?
You bet.
In 2006, with Carson Palmer making his miraculous comeback from a knee injury, the Bengals were 8-5, but lost at Indianapolis, at Denver and at home to Pittsburgh to finish 8-8. The Bengals actually went into the season finale against the defending Super Bowl champion Steelers with an outside shot at securing a Wild Card playoff berth, needing a win plus help from other teams to make the playoffs. But they lost 23-17 in overtime.
The Bengals know heartbreak. They know bad dreams. They know history repeats itself.
They know this turn-around 2009 season could turn into an absolute nightmare if they can't win another game.
Kansas City is playing better football now after a tough start. The 3-10 Chiefs scored 34 points while losing to Cleveland on Sunday and had a 300-yard passer in Matt Cassell (331 yards on 22-of-40 passing), a 100-yard rusher in tailback Jamal Charles (154 yards on 25 carries) and a 100-yard receiver in Chris Chambers (114 yards on 4 catches).
The Jets, who the Bengals play on the road in the regular-season finale, have won three of their last five games to get back into playoff contention with a 7-7 record.
If the Bengals don't make the playoffs, it won't matter that Palmer looked like the old Carson Palmer on Sunday, wheeling and dealing for 314 yards during a passing game revival. Palmer found Ochocinco with a 49-yard touchdown toss to give the Bengals a 10-7 second-quarter lead, and he hit tight end J.P. Foschi! with eight passes for a team-high 82 yards. Chad totaled 79 yards. Palmer scored on a beautifully called keeper for a critical two-point conversion to cut the Chargers' lead to 24-21 early in the fourth quarter after finding Laveranues Coles! with a 2-yard TD pass on a drive set up by a Keith Rivers interception.
If the Bengals don't make the playoffs, it won't matter that they couldn't run on the Chargers on Sunday, even though they were expected to. Cedric Benson ran 15 times for 53 yards, that's it. Larry Johnson carried just four times for 35 yards. Meanwhile, San Diego's LaDainian Tomlinson totaled 117 yards and he had a 36-yard reception.
There were two critical junctures before the Chargers' game-sealing drive. Earlier in the fourth quarter, Cincinnati was driving for a go-ahead touchdown and had it first-and-16 from the Chargers 25 when Andre Caldwell took a pass from Palmer. ButTim Dobbins popped the ball loose and it bounced all the way back to the San Diego 45 where it was pounced on by Palmer who nevertheless was able to direct the Bengals back into field goal range for Graham. Had the Bengals scored a touchdown and made the extra point, they would have been sitting on a 28-24 lead with less than a minute left, forcing Rivers and the Chargers to drive for a game-winning TD, instead of just a field goal.
In the third quarter with the Bengals trailing 14-13, Palmer was picked off by cornerback Quentin Jammer. Two plays later, Jackson scored his second TD on a 34-yard pass from Rivers. That helped make it 21-13 Chargers, but the Bengals rallied.
Shayne Graham's third field goal of the day tied the score, 24-24, with 54 seconds left. However, the Bengals suddenly vaunted defense, which received opportunistic play from Keith Rivers, who also had a key sack, couldn't stop the other Rivers (3-for-4 passing on the winning drive) from dissecting them in the final seconds.
Leon Hall, the Bengals 5-foot-11 cornerback making a push for the Pro Bowl, had a particularly tough day against the 6-5 Jackson. And Hall let receiver Malcolm Floyd haul in a 15-yard pass along the sideline, which allowed the clock to be stopped for the Chargers on their game-winning drive. San Diego was out of timeouts, but Hall did not deny the 6-5 Floyd the sideline on a play the Bengals were blitzing.
That pass play to Floyd from the Bengals 49 yard line to the 34 set up Kaeding's heroics - a boot that was one of several kicks in the tail the Bengals received this week.
The deaths of Chris Henry and Clem Turner are tragic. In light of their deaths in the last four days, the Bengals failure to make the playoffs over the next two weeks after such a news-making season would not be tragic. It would be merely disappointing.
They can still do something about it by winning next Sunday at home against Kansas City. The Chiefs won't be pushovers. So the Bengals need to push on.
No comments:
Post a Comment