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bengals.com...
Bengals win keeps playoff hope alive
If the Bengals end up making the playoffs, they will do so as the sixth and final seed and won’t get a home game. Considering how they have done on the road this year, that
might work out.
With Sunday’s 20-13 victory at St. Louis, the Bengals posted a winning road record for only the third time since the schedule was expanded to 16 games in 1978.
The Bengals finished 5-3 away from Paul Brown Stadium. They close the regular season with a pair of home games, Saturday against Arizona, then Jan. 1 against Baltimore.
The road wins are more than the amount many predicted the Bengals would win total.
“That was good. Now I want to finish with the same record at home, finish the season the right way and we’ll see what happens,” coach Marvin Lewis said.
Last year’s team was 1-7 on the road, including dropping their last six. Of the eight away contests in 2010, six were against teams that ended up making the playoffs. Cincinnati’s
only away win came in Week 3 against Carolina, which posted the league’s worst record.
When asked about the four-win improvement, running back Cedric Benson at first said he couldn’t put his finger on it, but then gave a couple of reasons.
“I think the new faces and new look of the team has contributed largely to it,” he said. “This team is probably a little hungrier. This team wants to win. Winning and losing is the
most important thing, and maybe last year it wasn’t.”
While the detractors and cynics will point to the lack of a quality road win this season, for a young team that has faced plenty of challenges, the fact that the Bengals won the
games against opponents with lesser records, something that hasn’t always happened for Cincinnati. And of the five road wins, four came when the Bengals were trailing at
halftime, including the Rams game, when they were down 6-3. There were only two road games in which the Bengals either led (Seattle) or were tied (Jacksonville) at the half.
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