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Bengals back in the playoffs
bengals.com
With the Paul Brown Stadium sellout crowd screaming “Defense, Defense”
as Sunday’s play-in playoff game rolled into the fourth quarter, the
Bengals defense forced four straight Baltimore punts to give its team a
shot to make it on its own.
The fans ended up cheering the Chiefs when their 7-3 win over Denver
gave the Bengals a Wild Card berth for the playoffs despite a 24-16
loss to the Ravens before 63,439.
The Wild Card game is Saturday at Houston at 4:30 p.m. on Cincinnati’s
Channel 5.
In the end the Bengals bowed at the feet of Ravens running back Ray
Rice when he rushed for nearly 200 yards that included touchdown bolts
of 70 and 51 yards to drop the Bengals to 9-7, but the Bengals
qualified for the playoffs for the second time in three years when Tim
Tebow and Denver bowed to the Chiefs.
With the Ravens leading, 17-13, with seven minutes left in the game,
Baltimore forced the game’s first turnover when outside linebacker
Terrell Suggs knocked the ball out of tight end Jermaine Gresham’s hand
at the Ravens 41 and three snaps later Rice popped his 51-yarder behind
fullback Vonta Leach’s big block on middle linebacker Rey Maualug that
cleared out a big patch of green that put the Ravens up 24-13 with 5:41
left.
The third-and-one play mirrored the 70-yarder Rice broke on
first-and-10 on the third snap of the game. As the dust cleared, the
proud Bengals defense allowed Rice to rush for 191 yards on 24 carries.
After running back Bernard Scott’s 25-yard sweep to the left cut the
Ravens lead to 17-10 late in the third quarter, left end Carlos Dunlap
registered the first Bengals sack of the day when he dumped Ravens
quarterback Joe Flacco.
That set up a drive highlighted by two huge third-down plays. One was
wide receiver Andrew Hawkins’s nifty reach-and-grab six-yard catch on
third-and-six working on cornerback Chris Carr in the middle on the
last play of the third quarter and the other was running back Cedric
Benson’s 11-yard bolt on third-and-one. Bengals left tackle Andrew
Whitwort solved the short-yardage problems that stalked the Bengals in
the first half when he drilled Ravens middle linebacker Ray Lewis to
move Benson.
But the drive bogged down at the Baltimore 28 when on first down
Dalton’s naked bootleg got nothing and he had to throw it away.
The Bengals didn’t deliver a playoff effort in the first half and fell
behind the Ravens, 17-3, on a drive at the end of the second quarter
that consumed more than five minutes and Cincinnati’s first three
penalties of the game.
Still, hope was live with the Jets loss to Miami already in the books
and the Chiefs win. The Bengals became the sixth seed and second Wild
Card team with a date in Houston next weekend.
The Bengals again struggled against opposing tight ends and Flacco
found a wide-open Dennis Pitta for a nine-yard touchdown catch in the
right corner of the end zone with 11 seconds left in the half as
cornerback Kelly Jennings was the only defender in the frame.
While the Ravens were able to efficiently convert their
third-and-shorts, the Bengals couldn’t in gaining just 19 yards on 12
carries and Dalton’s goal-line overthrow may have cost the Bengals a
touchdown early in a half he would finish 9-of-14 for 85 yards.
Flacco couldn’t get anything deep, but he was deadly underneath even
when he couldn’t get a completion and finished the half 9-of-12 for 101
yards. On that last drive, Bengals cornerback Nate Clements was called
for holding Pitta on a third-and-three from the Ravens 39. Then when
Flacco hit tight end Ed Dickson for a 20-yard gain over the middle,
Bengals safety Reggie Nelson was called for hitting a defenseless
receiver even though he appeared to get Dickson below the head with his
shoulder. The extra 15 yards put the ball on the Bengals 25 with 1:52
left in the half and Baltimore got a first down at the 19 when Maualuga
was called for illegal contact on Pitta.
The Bengals had a shot to put the Ravens on their 1 to start that
drive, but when safety Jeromy Miles covered Kevin Huber’s punt he ended
up stepping on the goal line for a touchback.
The Bengals defense’s vow to cut down its penchant for giving up the
big play melted early when the Ravens got off the bus and immediately
put the Bengals into a 10-0 hole in the game’s first eight minutes even
though they were moving into a wind predicted to gust up to as much as
42 miles per hour.
The Bengals cut it to 10-3 on Mike Nugent’s 46-yard field goal late in
the first quarter but his 35-yarder into the wind five minutes into the
second quarter stayed wide right to keep it a seven-point deficit.
The miss spoiled a 59-yard drive highlighted by Gresham’s 25-yard catch
and run over the middle that burned linebacker Jameel McClain.
But on third-and-two from the Baltimore 18, Dalton had tight end Donald
Lee open at the goal line but he overthrew it to bring on Nugent and
his miss.
It took the Ravens just four snaps and 2:02 to silence the crowd when
Rice bolted behind Pro Bowl guard Marshal Yanda for a stunning 70-yard
touchdown run through a an empty secondary that gave Baltimore the 7-0
lead.
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