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Tag: Geoff Hobson

  • No Storybook Ending As Bengals Come Up Short , 23-20, In Super Bowl LVI

    No Storybook Ending As Bengals Come Up Short , 23-20, In Super Bowl LVI

    Hobson_Geoff

    Geoff Hobson

    Bengals.com Senior Writer

    INGLEWOOD, Calif. – In the Hollywood foothills Sunday, the Bengals took an improbable story that would have been rejected by any scriptwriter in town, but couldn’t produce their first ever Lombardi Trophy in heartbreaking 23-20 loss to the Rams on the steamy sound stage of Super Bowl LVI.

    The Bengals were creeping to rookie kicker Evan McPherson’s field goal range with 40 seconds left at midfield on fourth-and-one, but the Rams future Hall-of-Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald made the signature play when he nearly sacked quarterback Joe Burrow and made him get rid of a desperate throw that had no shot. The play defined how the L.A. pass rush took over the game with a Super Bowl-record tying seven sacks.

    The Bengals defense that had supplied so much magic at the end of games in this postseason, couldn’t conjure up any more. It incurred three penalties in 10 seconds inside the 10 inside two minutes.

    It set up Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s rolling one-yard flip to wide receiver Cooper Kupp with 85 seconds left to give them the margin of victory. It was Kupp’s second touchdown of the game and gave him 92 yards and the Super Bowl MVP trophy against a stubborn defense that deserved a better fate.

    With 1:47 left from the 8, linebacker Logan Wilson was called for a hold on Kupp. Then a TD was wiped away by offsetting penalties, a Rams’ hold and roughing on Bengals safety Vonn Bell. Again on Kupp. Then cornerback Eli Apple was called for holding Kupp and that put the ball on the Bengals 1.

    The Rams pass rush, docile in the first half with just one sack in the last minute, erupted in the second half and their record-tying seventh sack was particularly vicious early in the fourth quarter and sent Burrow limping to the sidelines grabbing his right knee. Rams edger Von Miller and outside linebacker Leonard Floyd broke him in half and twisted on a third-down play that sickened Who Dey Nation. When right tackle Isaiah Prince belted Floyd for the shot on Burrow, it was Prince who got flagged.

    But as Burrow waved off trainers and doctors the heroic Bengals defense pitched another stop and Burrow came back on. He finished a very brave 22 of 33 for 263 yards and a 100 passer rating.

    The Bengals offense just never did find any consistency Sunday. From his own 40 and the clock ticking under seven minutes, Burrow took a shot at slot receiver Tyler Boyd on a third-down slant and Boyd suffered his first drop since the third game of the year and that set up the winning 15-play drive.

    After a lethargic 155-yard first half that put them in a 13-10 hole, the Bengals stepped up as the third quarter team they’ve all year long in a wild opening to the second half. It only took one snap. Burrow stepped up in the pocket and whipped a long one to Tee Higgins (100 -yard night) battling Pro Bowl cornerback Jalen Ramsey on the left sideline. Ramsey fell down as Higgins outmuscled him and he was off on a 75-yard touchdown play that put them in front 17-13 on the longest postseason pass in Bengals history.

    Then on the next snap, cornerback Chidobe Awuzie came up with their eighth interception of the postseason when quarterback c’s pass tipped off the hands of wide receiver Ben Skowronek and in a span off 22 seconds the Bengals had a chance to put in the dagger as the momentum swung visibly to the orange-and-black-clad fans.

    But in no particular order, Donald awoke from a first half stupor he didn’t appear on the stat sheet and chased Burrow out of bounds for his first of two sacks of the night. But when he pushed Burrow to the ground as he was going out of bounds, the bench objected and the offensive line got in Donald’s face.

    There were no flags, but fireworks when a fan ran on to the field. Then on third-and-three from the Rams 11, Donald got Burrow again for a sack and as Burrow hopped up he appeared irked one of his receivers broke the wrong way.

    c kicked the 38-yard field goal to give them a 20-13 lead, but the sense was the Rams defense had turned the tide just as quickly.

    The Rams got a Matt Gay field goal to cut it to 20-16, but the Bengals couldn’t answer. Burrow had wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase wide open on third down, but Burrow one-hopped it.

    Then on the next series, the Rams rattled off back-to-back sacks. Von Miller, who also had been dormant in the first half, worked a stunt on the right side and came roaring inside to dump him for a 10-yard loss near his goal line.

    As the defense had done all postseason it kept them in it as the game veered into the fourth with the Bengals holding an eerie 20-16 lead, the lead they lost in with 34 seconds left in their last Super Bowl 33 years ago.

    The Bengals made the Rams punt three times in a row as their front play just as dominant as the Rams did. Nose tackle D.J. Reader ended one drive on a sack. Edge Sam Hubbard dropped running back Cam Akers for a two-yard loss to end another. Then Wilson and cornerback Mike Hilton combined for a tackle to stop another drive. The Bengals were immense in the run game, holding the Rams to 43 yards on 23 carries.

    The first half didn’t go the way the Bengals drew up it, but they had to feel fortunate that by the time Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg took the halftime stage at SoFi Stadium, they only trailed the Rams, 13-10, and were getting the ball to start the second half.javascript:falseJoe Mixon lofts back-corner trick-play TD pass to Tee Higgins

    When running back Joe Mixon throws your only touchdown pass of the half for his first career touchdown pass in the biggest game of all, you know your offense isn’t operating high octane. Burrow couldn’t get in a groove as the Bengals managed just 155 yards in a half they really only put together one good drive.

    At that point the Bengals had done a nice job controlling Donald. Neither he or Miller was on the halftime stat sheet.

    Burrow was 12 of 18 for just 114 yards while Mixon ripped off 40 yards on seven carries but they couldn’t string anything together. Still, down 13-3, Burrow put together a nice 12-play touchdown drive hitting all of thee of his receivers and a nice swing pass to Chase for a four-yard rush on third-and-two in the red zone.

    Then Mixon became the first non-quarterback in four Super Bowls to throw a touchdown (Eagles tight end Trey Burton courtesy of the Philly Special) when he took a pitch wide, ran, then straightened and lofted a ball over safety Nick Scott when he came up on the run and Higgins had a six-yard touchdown catch. Higgins had three catches for 25 yard in the half that included a nifty 14-yard YAC.

    Their only penalty of the half hurt them. It came after free safety Jessie Bates III made an end zone interception on a third-and-long, but Vernon Hargreaves III, who was inactive, came off the bench to celebrate. It left Burrow with the ball at the 10 instead of the 20 with three timeouts at the two-minute warning.

    In all three playoff games the Bengals had scored in the final two minutes of the half. But they couldn’t get anything going. On one snap, Miller and Donald chased him into an incompletion and the the first sack the Rams got was a coverage sack for Floyd with about a minute left in the half.

    The Rams got the ball in good field position, but on third-and-one Lions quarterback Matt Stafford took a deep shot to wide receiver Van Jefferson and Awuzie was draped all over him. Stafford played OK, but not good enough to become the 32nd quarterback to be Super Bowl MVP. He had three touchdowns and he survived Odell Beckham Jr.’s devastating knee injury in the second quarter. But he also threw two picks and completed just 26 of 40 passes for 283 yards.

    The lethargic Bengals offense got a spark from, who else? Burrow to Chase. Chase got by Pro Bowl cornerback Jalen Ramsey, something you don’t usually see, and Chase responded with a catch you don’t usually see, a diving one-handed catch for a 46-yard play.

    After the big play, the Bengals were snugly in the red zone at the Rams. But Burrow threw three straight incompletions and McPherson went 13-for-13 on a 29-yard field goal to cut the lead to 7-3.

    The passing game just didn’t click all day. Miller leaped over left tackle Jonah Williams to knock down the first down pass. On second down, Burrow went to Mixon in the flat, but there was nothing there. And on third down, with Ramsey on Higgins and not getting much room. The ball was a tad behind Higgins and broken up.

    Bengals edge Trey Hendrickson blew up the first series of the game with a sack when Rams running back Cam Akers knocked left tackle Andrew Whitworth off the block on second down and on third down tackle B.J. Hill hauled down Akers for nothing to complete a dominant first defensive series. It was a harbinger of the defense’s effort the rest of the way, but the offense couldn’t get to the magic 24 points.

    It seems like for the first time this postseason the Bengals didn’t play complementary ball on the Super Bowl’s opening sequence. The offense faltered despite terrific field position at their own 42. But head coach Zac Taylor opted to go for it on fourth-and-one at midfield, they didn’t get it and the Rams cashed for the game’s first touchdown.

    The Bengals couldn’t get three yards on three snaps after Burrow hit Boyd slanting underneath for seven yards on first down. On second down Mixon barely got two up the middle and backup running back Samaje Perine got nothing in the same place on third down. Then on fourth-and one, Burrow spread them out and it looked like he had Higgins open on the right sideline, but he went back to the middle where Chase was bracketed and the ball was defended by inside linebacker Ernest Jones.

  • Cris Collinsworth Welcomes The “Their Time,” Bengals To The Super Bowl 40 Years Later

    Cris Collinsworth Welcomes The “Their Time,” Bengals To The Super Bowl 40 Years Later

    Jim Breech and Cris Collinsworth (80) are watching all their postseason records disappear.

    Hobson_Geoff

    Geoff Hobson

    Bengals.com Senior Writer

    LOS ANGELES – If it seems like Al Michaels has called everything but a presidential election, it’s because he has.

    Michaels, NBC’s Miracle Man who is calling his record-tying 11th Super Bowl Sunday, puts another benediction on a team Thursday as he watches the Bengals practice at UCLA.

    “I think America has been captivated by this team,” Michaels says. “Come back down 18 to Kansas City on the road. And everybody said, ‘Whoa.’”

    Michaels could look across Bengals head coach Zac Taylor’s toughest practice of the week and see Pauley Pavilion, the gym where he called John Wooden’s last two seasons and 10th national championship. He also called some of the first great moments of the Big Red Machine and sees Sunday as a nice bookend to his days on the Ohio River that included a World Series.

    But Michaels couldn’t call it when he sat down with Bengals rookie wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase earlier Thursday and asked him who had the Bengals rookie postseason receiving record.

    Chase said he didn’t know and Michaels pointed at his partner and said, “Him.”

    “One of the great blank looks,” Cris Collinsworth says. “That’s the way it should be. This is their time.”

    Collinsworth, who has almost as many Emmys (16) analyzing the NFL as Chase has postseason catches (20), says Chase is the best receiver in Bengals history even though he’s built more like a running back.

    “That’s why,” Collinsworth says. “I think he’s a phenomenal athlete who just happens to play wide receiver. He plays the position like Gale Sayers would play it. You’ll probably have to tell him who Gale Sayers is.”

    While we’re at it, on the 40th anniversary of the Bengals’ first Super Bowl team, isn’t Joe Burrow playing quarterback like Collinsworth played that year? A rookie taking shot after shot and getting up and setting record after record on the way to the Super Bowl. And so cool while doing it. Collinsworth had ’80s aw-shucks swag. Burrow has 2020s social media swag.

    “There never has been anybody cooler than this kid,” Collinsworth says. “That’s impossible.”

    What’s not impossible is that Burrow has made an All-Pro team. You just have to go to Collinsworth’s Pro Football Focus web site to find it. It’s the Pro Bowl team he put together. Burrow is his quarterback.

    “He deserved it,” Collinsworth says.

    Shelve the PFF grades for a sec. Collinsworth can get a little nostalgic.

    “I’m like everyone else. If you can’t have fun watching these guys play football …” Collinsworth says. “They’ve got a certain energy. What’s the big deal? When I came in, I didn’t know. We were the top seed. We won the first two games at home and went to the Super Bowl. I did it in my first year. Doesn’t everybody? I get the same kind of feel with this bunch. ‘OK, we’ve won a couple of games and we’re at the Super Bowl at UCLA. We beat them in school, too, so we’ll keep winning.’ I mean, that’s just how it seems. They’re young and they’re just playing.”

    That’s why Collinsworth thinks these Bengals have repeated history and taken Cincinnati by storm. No one was expecting it.

  • Super PBS Crowd Rallies Bengals For L.A. Trip

    Super PBS Crowd Rallies Bengals For L.A. Trip

    Bengaldom in full throttle Monday night.

    Hobson_Geoff

    Geoff Hobson

    Bengals.com Senior Writer

    If Joe Burrow is the soul of the Bengals then here came the heart of the Bengals Monday night as Joe Mixon headed into the Paul Brown Stadium locker room filming the fans chanting “Who Dey” through their 28-degree breath.

    “A great sendoff,” Mixon said as the fireworks ending a roaring Super Bowl pep rally smoked like one of his Drew Estate victory cigars. “I’ve never seen anything like that before or experienced anything like that in my life. I thank them for my teammates. I love them, too. It was a huge moment, a historic moment and we’re looking to have many more.”

    The Bengals took the field in their Super Bowl LVI white sweat suits as an estimated crowd of about 30,000 offered a thunderous sendoff to Tuesday morning’s flight to Los Angeles and Sunday’s appointment with the Rams to decide the NFL championship.

    Go HERE to see the full photo gallery of the event.

    They serenaded Burrow with an “MVP, MVP,” chant. They went nuts when tight end C.J. Uzomah ripped off his brace from the knee he injured in Kansas City. They screamed when hometown punter Kevin Huber told them, “Hopefully we’ll be back next week for the after party.”

    “I’ve got goose bumps,” said Jim Foster, better known as Bengal Jim, who MCed the hour-long production with comedian Gary Owen. “And the great thing is that for about a half or two-thirds of them, they’ve never experienced something like this before. They weren’t here or weren’t old enough for ’88. I’m so happy for this city. And another great thing about it is how many kids were there.”

    Heck, the players on the first two Super Bowl teams had never experienced anything like it. Max Montoya, the right guard on both teams, Ken Anderson, who quarterbacked the first one and safety David Fulcher, who helped lead them to the second one, found themselves in a holding room as guests of the club for the rally and couldn’t remember anything like this back in the day.

  • Big Game Vonn Bell Eyes The Biggest One Of Them All

    Big Game Vonn Bell Eyes The Biggest One Of Them All

    Vonn Bell gets ready for another big game.

    by Geoff Hobson – Bengals.com Senior Writer

    After coming down with the most famous interception in Bengals history during that electric overtime of last Sunday’s AFC championship game in Kansas City, Vonn Bell got into Paul Brown Stadium a little late Monday morning.

    Call it 6:30 a.m. Still the crack of dawn for the rest of us. But for Bell, whose brutal work ethic has been bequeathed to him by Dr. Kills, that’s sleeping in.

    “First one in, though,” Bell says with a Bunsen burner smile that has helped ignite head coach Zac Taylor’s locker room special chemistry. “It’s a win. After a win. Everything is good after a win. I was feeling better.”

    Bell has paired the most famous interception in Bengals history with the play that put teeth in the Zac Attack and spawned this next eight days of history that ends in Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI against the Rams.

    It was at the end of the worst year of his life last year and the Bengals were grinding into a late December Monday night game at PBS with rookie quarterback Joe Burrow just out of knee surgery, Taylor’s two-year regime at 4-24-1 with seven losses in the last eight games and they were down to their No. 3 quarterback.

    Bell, as every Cincy school kid knows, made The Play in the second quarter when he blew up mouthy Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster with a blast that was as symbolic as it was significant. It turned into an interception to set them up for a 17-0 lead in a 27-17 win and they’ve been 15-8 since.

    “Let me take you back to a couple of other plays,” says Dr. Killls, otherwise known as Vencent Bell, Vonn’s father who told his wife in K.C. he wasn’t surprised it was their son who came up with This Play. “If you go back to Ohio State-Alabama and the Saints and Panthers in a playoff game, Vonn makes big plays. He’s one of those guys that just has a knack for it.”

    All Buckeyes fans know in 2014 he paved the way for Ohio State winning the first ever national playoff with his end-zone pick in the fourth quarter that preserved a six-point lead in the semifinal win over Alabama. And, he ended his first NFL playoff game in 2017 with the Saints on a 17-yard fourth-down sack of Cam Newton in a 31-26 win.

    “He’s a winner,” says Vencent Bell, executive director of a Montgomery, Ala., YMCA. “He gets up at 4:30 every day. He puts in the work.”

    That’s what time Vencent Bell used to start his chores on the farm when he was becoming one of the most heavily recruited players in Mississippi. It’s the only way his father would let him play at West Point High School, just across from the Alabama line. And when he practiced and played games in an All-American linebacker career, he had to find somebody to feed the chickens, hogs and cattle.

    “I did more between 4:30 and 7 than most people did all day,” Vencent Bell told Bengals.com the week before the hit on Smith-Schuster. “Then I would go to school.

    “A man that’s in the bed can do nothing, but a man out of bed has a chance to get ahead.”

    Vonn Bell called his grandfather “Big Dad,” and he lost him in the middle of this playoff run at age 84. On top of that is the loss of Vonn’s brother Volonte in a car accident in Chattanooga, Tenn., where was an assistant basketball coach at Chattanooga State Community College.

    It came just a few weeks before Vonn signed with the Bengals in the spring of 2020. A few years older, Volonte was more like Vonn’s safety-point guard twin. So close and so tight that Vonn has been calling him his “guardian angel,” this year and you’ll see how much he means to him if there’s a national anthem closeup Super Bowl Sunday. He’ll spread his arms, look to the sky and say, “Let’s go, Vee.”

    “This last year has been a tough year,” Vencent Bell says. “That’s why what’s going on now is double nice. It’s almost like the Super Bowl is a double reward. It makes you shift into a different way to see things and you have a reason to celebrate.”

    The last week has been one long celebration of the Bengals camaraderie on both sides of the ball, but particularly on defense. In each of the three postseason games, their last snap has ended in an interception. One preserved a win and two led to the winning points scored at the gun. They have been defined by their work in the red zone, where they have denied touchdowns on eight of 13 trips.

    “Going this deep at this level the teams are getting better and better each week. Guys are going to make plays,” Vonn Bell says. “You’ve got to think about that. They get paid, they are going to go out there and make plays for their team. And they are good. They are in the one percent of the world. The collective effort of the defense we always say they cannot score a touchdown, hold them to three. And we could get a block and block the field goal. We always remind people of that. Next play mentality. Things happen, but they don’t have to score, though.”

    The emergence of the Bengals began the night Vonn rang the Bell on Pittsburgh. But it has evolved with the free-agent signings of sack ace Trey Hendrickson and the trio of lead cornerbacks Mike Hilton, Chidobe Awuzie and Eli Apple, Bell’s Buckeye buddy, as well as the drafting of Cam Sample on the edge and Logan Wilson and Markus Bailey at linebacker. The proverbial nice mix of youth and experience.

    All those defenders, including nose tackle D.J. Reader and his massive postseason, showed up with playoff experience. And the more pieces he’s had, the more defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo has concocted. Bell calls him “a mad scientist,” and moments after the three-man rush had solved Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and put them in the Super Bowl, he asked Anarumo, “What are you going to cook us up?”

    “That’s the (biggest) thing that’s been talked about inside this locker room. It’s not about I. It’s about we,” Bell says. “How we get along so well is because we hold everybody accountable. There are no egos in the locker room. It’s family. That’s the biggest thing. And guys want everybody to eat. Everybody can be successful and we breed off that. When one guy is getting the shine, everybody will get the shine. Especially when you’re winning. There’s a lot of cameras that are going to be out there. They’re coming out to see us, just not one person. They’re coming to see us.”

    The way Vencent Bell sees it, when they come and get a look at this defense, they’re going to see how it was built from the back to the front with Vonn and safetymate Jessie Bates III. Vencent calls it the B &Bs.

    “When you have guys who are two driven guys, they’re alphas and guys just going out there, just want to make plays for the team and make plays for one another, it’s going to be something special,” Vonn Bell says. “He’s a smart guy, man. He knows football. He knows splits. He knows concepts. He knows what the quarterback is going to give to him. And that’s why you see him making so many plays out there in the middle of the field. He’s very detailed throughout his work. That’s the biggest thing. I’m a very detailed and through person, too. That’s the moment we clicked.”

    It was Bates who tipped the ball from Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill and it was Bell who caught it at his ankles just before it touched the ground. But that won’t be the only play he’ll break down. He’ll find things he didn’t do correctly, a relentlessness he says he gets from his parents.

    That was on display walking to the bus in Tennessee after he had been all over Nissan Stadium with a sack and six tackles and he called his dad, knowing he was there in the crowd.

    “I told him there were things he could work on. Things that need to get done if we want to get to the next level,” Vencent Bell says. “I knew what his numbers were. Sometimes numbers don’t measure how you played. I tell him, I want you playing really well and then have the numbers.

    “The league is getting better. He’s going to have to get better next year.”

    That’s a tough room. Vencent says even his wife objects, at times, about how tough he can be. But these are easy, natural conversations between father and son. Vencent got the nickname “Dr. Kills,” from his 153 tackles his senior year at West Point, before head coach Frank Beamer whisked him away to Murray State when he promised “Big Dad,” that his son would be the first in the family to get a college degree.

    “Vonn is creeping up past me now. Vonn is going to a whole other level,” Vencent says. “I don’t mind telling him he’s better than me. I want him to be. He’s passed me on forced fumbles and interceptions … It will be a little while before he goes past my tackling.”

    But his father also knows his son has the mark on the big stages.

    “When ever there’s a big game,” says Vencent Bell, getting ready to attend the biggest game of all, “you better find him.”

  • Bengals Hold Last Practice Before Heading To Super Bowl LVI

    Bengals Hold Last Practice Before Heading To Super Bowl LVI

    As he has been all postseason, free safety Jessie Bates III bubbled up around the ball.

    Geoff Hobson Bengals.com Senior Writer

    Media pool report filed by The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr.

    The Bengals held what is expected to be their last practice in Cincinnati Saturday before Tuesday’s departure for Los Angeles and a week of workouts at UCLA culminating in Super Bowl LVI against the Rams.

    The Bengals went to the University of Cincinnati practice bubble for the third straight day in a workout right guard Jackson Carman (back) didn’t participate. Carman, wearing sweats, missed his second straight day.

    Tight end C.J. Uzomah, who suffered an MCL sprain in last Sunday’s AFC title game in Kansas City, worked on the side during the portion of practice open to media. He worked on a stationary bike, worked his knee by repeatedly kicking into the air and did some easy running with resistance on a band from trainer Nick Cosgray.

     Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn took in the workout and spent time chatting with former Bengals wide receiver Collinsworth. Collinsworth, who played in the Bengals two previous Super Bowls, is calling the third an analyst for NBC.

     The Bengals won’t practice Sunday. Monday, save for workouts and treatments, is dominated by media commitments before the team appears at the 6 p.m. Paul Brown Stadium pep rally as part of Super Bowl Opening Night.

  • Bengals Next Playoff Stop In Tennessee in Even Stat Matchup With Titans

    Bengals Next Playoff Stop In Tennessee in Even Stat Matchup With Titans

    Tyler Boyd salutes Saturday’s crowd.

    Below is how the Cincinnati Bengals tell the story of their matchup with the Titans

    Geoff Hobson Bengals.com Senior Writer

    Joe Burrow tries to do what the Bengals’ two NFL MVP quarterbacks never did and win a road playoff game Saturday (4:30 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Local 12) in Tennessee against the AFC’s top-seeded Titans in what is unfolding as an even-steven statistical matchup.

    The Chiefs’ ouster of the Steelers Sunday night in Kansas City set the AFC’s Final Four and earned a home game against Buffalo. Standing between the Bengals and their first AFC title game since 1988 is Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill, a former pupil of Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, and Derrick Henry, a two-time NFL rushing champion coming off injury and expected to play for the first time since Halloween even though he has yet to be activated from injured reserve after returning to practice a few weeks ago.

    It looks to be a duel between two of the top running backs in the game. The Bengals’ Joe Mixon finished as the league’s third-leading rusher with a career-best 1,205 after missing last season’s game against Tennessee with a foot injury that limited him to six games.

    The Bengals’ AFC Divisional shot comes 33 years to the day they played Super Bowl XXIII in Miami in a game they lost a 16-13 lead in the final 34 seconds and against a franchise they beat in the 1990 Wild Card Game when the Titans were the Houston Oilers. Boomer Esiason, the ’88 MVP, engineered that one, but lost his only post-season road game the next week in Los Angeles to the Raiders.

    Ken Anderson lost his first three playoff games, in Baltimore, Miami and Oakland, before leading the 1981 Bengals to Super Bowl XVI.

    Burrow’s second NFL win came against the Titans back on Nov. 1, 2020 at Paul Brown Stadium when he outpitched Tannehill with a passer rating of 106.7 (249 yards, two touchdowns, no picks) to 92.8 (233 yards, two touchdowns, one interception) in a 31-20 victory in a game remembered for the Bengals starting four different offensive linemen because of injury and illness.

    But it’s a much different Tennessee defense. That one ended the season ranked 28th in yards allowed while this one is 12th and that includes a No. 2 ranking against the run.

    The Bengals offense, tied for seventh in scoring, plays a scoring defense ranked sixth. Cincinnati’s defense, ranked 17th in scoring, plays a Titans offense ranked at No. 15. The Bengals have a stingy run defense, too, ranked fifth, and tees it up against a Tennessee running game that is also ranked fifth despite the loss of Henry.

    Turnovers? The Bengals have forced 21 and the Titans 22, but Cincinnati is tied for 16th in the NFL with an even plus-minus differential and Tennessee is tied for 20th at minus-three.

     The Bengals’ banged up defensive line becomes a huge focal point in this one against the 6-3, 247-pound Henry, whose 112-yarder last year in Cincinnati came on 18 carries on his way to 2,027 yards.

    The tackle spot has been particularly hit. One in the rotation, Josh Tupou (knee) is questionable. His replacement, Mike Daniels (groin) has been ruled out by Taylor after playing just one snap Saturday night. It doesn’t sound good for starting three technique, Larry Ogunjobi (foot) after he was carted off the field in the third quarter with an injury still being evaluated.

    Fourth-round pick Tyler Shelvin, who has played in three games and was inactive Saturday, is an option and Taylor indicated they could also look outside the club.

    Sticking with the Saturday schedule, the Bengals are off Monday, have extended practices Tuesday and Wednesday and then a brief Thursday morning workout before heading to Nashville Friday.

  • Uzomah Merges Bengals Past and Present; Chase Does It Again; Classmates Bates, Hubbard Draft Postseason Win

    Uzomah Merges Bengals Past and Present; Chase Does It Again; Classmates Bates, Hubbard Draft Postseason Win

    Below is how the Cincinnati Bengals told the story of their first playoff win in 31 years:

    Geoff Hobson Bengals.com Senior Writer

    One of the many legacies left by former Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis is he wanted his players to know who came before them.

    The Pro Bowl list in the team’s main auditorium at Paul Brown Stadium is where tight end C.J. Uzomah saw Rodney Holman’s name and that’s why he wore his No. 82 jersey at his postgame news conference that was just as wild as Saturday night’s 26-19 Wild Card victory over the Raiders.

    “I’ve seen Rodney Holman’s name since I’ve been here, for seven years. I did some research and I know he was the last tight end to win a playoff game, went to a Super Bowl with the Bengals,” Uzomah said. “I thought it would be a nice tribute of things to come and kind of pay homage and say this is how it’s going to be. We’re going to run the table and win the whole thing.”

    Uzomah’s research began with Holman, along with Bob Trumpy regarded as the Bengals’ best all-round tight ends catching and blocking, making it to three straight Pro Bowls from 1988-1990. That spanned the 1988 Super Bowl trip and ’90’s last playoff win. He may have also gleaned that Holman caught Boomer Esiason’s longest pass of that 41-14 win over the Oilers, a 46-yarder during his two-catch, 51-yard day that also involved six rushers going for 187 yards.

    Uzomah played like a Pro Bowler Saturday night in the biggest game of his career. He was a perfect underneath weapon for quarterback Joe Burrow’s patience against the Raiders’ stubborn shells in the secondary.

    Uzomah’s six catches for 64 yards marked his best day since his 91-yarder in the Oct. 24 win in Baltimore. His seven-yard touchdown catch on third down, smoked through three defenders, was the 10th play of an opening drive quarterback Joe Burrow said set the tone for a night they would score points the first five times they had the ball.

    He also helped hold the Raiders’ feared pass rush, No, 1 in the league generating pressure, to two sacks and five hits.

    “I feel like I put it in a good spot. I threw it right out of the break,” Burrow said of the dart he threw for the touchdown, “and C.J. did a good job reading the coverage, and understanding that he doesn’t need to go anywhere, just turn around and he’s going to get the ball.”

    Uzomah said he had no choice.

    “Right when I broke the huddle and saw the coverage I knew it was coming to me. I knew he was going to throw it. I just had to hang on. Right when I turned I saw his eyes and said, yep, touchdown. Let’s go,” Uzomah said. “Joe threw me a dot. That was an incredible throw.”

    Maybe even more incredible is Uzomah’s touchdown celebration. It was even better than burying a time capsule under the two-yard-line, site of linebacker Germaine Pratt’s interception with 12 seconds left.

    Photos from the Bengals FaceBook Page…

    Uzomah wanted to pay homage to both Saturday night’s Ruler of the Jungle, Ickey Woods and his Shuffle, as well as rookie wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase’s New Orleans’ “The Griddy,” that has become the rage with Chase’s 13 touchdowns.

    So he started with “The Shuffle,” and merged it with “The Griddy” It also looked like he threw in a chug at the end to honor his old fellow tight end Tyler Eifert, the last Bengal to score 13 touchdowns.

    ‘Yo, if I score, I’m going to do the Ickey Shuffle into the Griddy.’ He said, ‘Not if, when,’ “Uzomah said of his talk with a friend. “I was like, ‘All right, bet.’ I probably should’ve practiced for sure because that was not well done. But hey, got in the end zone. Screw it.”

    CHASE AGAIN: This is why Chase should be everyone’s NFL Rookie of the Year.

    The Raiders came out in that first drive and tried to cover him one-on-one and it just doesn’t work with Burrow because they’re one in the same. Chase abused cornerback Brandon Facyson for three catches for 37 yards and Chase was off to the fifth 100-yard game in Bengals postseason history with nine catches for 116 yards. Only Marvin Jones with 130 in 2013 and Cris Collinsworth with 120 in 1982 had more and Chase had more than Collinsworth (107) and tight end Danny Ross (104) in Super Bowl XVI.

    Chase said the coverage was no different than what happened in Las Vegas Nov. 21, when he had just three catches for 32 yards with a long of 17.

    “We didn’t take advantage of it the first time,” Chase said. “I have that mentality that I’m unstoppable. I don’t think I can be stopped.”

    Burrow and Chase didn’t hit the knockout long punch. The long was 28. But they bloodied the Raiders with lethal jabs. The one that that got the TKO and wobbled Vegas came on the Bengals’ utterly necessary scoring drive after the Raiders had cut the lead to 23-16 with 14:17 left in the game.

    Six plays and less than three minutes later the Bengals were staring at third-and-seven from their own 39 and Burrow and Chase might as well have been back on the Bayou. Chase ran a go route down the right side but adjusted because he knew Burrow would be going back shoulder and cornerback Desmond Trufant would be screeching past him.

    Nineteen yards. The precious points to put them up two scores came five minutes later on Evan McPherson’s 28-yard field goal with 6:46 left. The 7:31 drive did in the Raiders as much as the points.

    Burrow: “Ja’Marr did a great job at the line creating some separation, and I had somewhere to put it on the back shoulder, and we’ve hit those all year, so that was a big play in the game.”

    All year?

    Chase: “I had a go route. Joe threw it back shoulder to slow me down and I adjusted.”

    Asked how many times they had done that, Chase said, “Probably 1,000 plus. We did it in college all the time.”

    The decision to take Chase with the fifth pick in the last draft keeps paying dividends in this season’s big moments showcasing the pair’s almost supernatural connection.

    “College is where you have one of the most fun times, where you get to meet people for a lifetime,” Chase said. “I met Joe at college and I’ll be (friends with him) for a lifetime. He’s helping me grow, I’m helping him grow. We’re getting each other better, getting the organization better, team better and getting better on our own.”

    BATES AT HIS BEST: Bengals free safety Jessie Bates III, one of the linchpins of this team since he was drafted in the second round of the 2018 draft, saved the best performance of his fourth season for his first playoff game. He had six tackles and for the second time in his career had three passes defensed. One was bigger than the next.

    Two snaps before Pratt’s interception, Bates nearly had one when he knocked it away from wide receiver Zay Jones in the end zone.

    Bates ended the first series of the second half in a Raiders punt when he didn’t give up on a third-and-four Raiders quarterback Derek Carr hit wide receiver Hunter Renfrow over the middle to the sidelines. As Renfrow was about to put it away for a 22-yard gain, Bates reached in at the last second and knocked it away as Renfrow was going out of bounds.

    “He stood out a lot to me. He made the big play on Renfrow,” said head coach Zac Taylor, “on the third down where it got overturned, and I think he had a play in the fourth quarter on a tight end. You’re right, I’ll certainly know better when I see the tape, but I definitely felt Jessie’s presence.”

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    SAM’S NIGHT: If this game belonged to anybody, it was Cincinnati native Sam Hubbard, Bates’ 2018 draft classmate. The Bengals left end typified the city’s resolve when it comes to their team on a night three of his brothers on the defensive line went down.

    It started with tackle Mike Daniels, already playing for the injured Josh Tupou, leaving with a groin injury in the first series. Then in rapid succession early in the second half they lost leading sacker Trey Hendrickson to concussion protocol and three technique Larry Ogunjobi to an ankle injury that got him carted off.

    Hubbard ended up playing 92 percent of the snaps, 71 of them, and can’t remember coming out in the second half.

    “To me personally, it means the world. Never in my lifetime have we had a playoff win,” Hubbard said. “I feel like we broke a curse. Really, just looking up in the stands, seeing the city come alive, it’s hard to put into words what it means to everybody in the city, and I’m just really happy to be part of the team that was able to do it. We got a lot more in store.”

    Hubbard was so exhausted he didn’t even know it was third down from the Bengals 10 with 3:42 left in the game and Carr needing three yards for a first down and the Raiders trailing, 26-16.

    But Hubbard had enough of a rush that Carr’s pass to tight end Darren Waller hit his helmet and forced a field goal.

    “We had a lot of guys go down on the defensive line. Guys stepped up and just had to grind it out,” Hubbard said. “We were trying to keep (Carr) in the pocket, doubling guys on the back end. Just grinding it out, keeping them out of the end zone, doing whatever we could. Everybody’s fighting, clawing together. I think the love we have with each other as teammates is what allowed us to bow up at the end and in the red zone so many times.”

    When Carr wheeled them right back down the field, tackle B.J. Hill slowed the momentum with a sack. Both Hill (81 percent of the snaps) and nose tackle D.J. Reader (66) were immense as the only tackles for much of the second half. And rookie edge Cam Sample slid into tackle at times, which he rarely did this year. His 34 snaps (44 percent) were the third most he took this season.

    SLANTS AND SCREENS: Chase was surprised his 15-yard run on a jet sweep came on fourth-and-one. It was a well-designed play that began with Burrow under center and when the Raiders tightened up they sent Chase wide right, one of the three times he carried for 23 yards.

    “I  haven’t played running back for a long time, but they’re giving me those tosses and getting my speed to the outside. Being hit by linebackers, I know how hits feel again. But it’s cool. Go out there and make a play with the ball in my hands,” Chase said. ” I’m built like a running back. They only do it for the receivers who are built like running backs. So I see myself doing it more.” …

    Chalk up two more Bengals records for rookie kicker Evan McPherson, who already has the career record with nine field goals of at least 50. His four field goals broke the Bengals postseason record held by Horst Muhlmann in 1973 and Jim Breech’s iconic three in Super Bowl XXIII. His 14 points broke the record of 12 held by four position players: Woods in the 1988 AFC championship game, running back Stanley Wilson in the 1988 AFC Divisional, Danny Ross in Super Bowl XVI and running back Charles Alexander in the 1981 AFC Divisional …

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