Cincinnati – Christmas Eve was a special day in Denver. The Broncos beat the Oakland Raiders and clinched the AFC West Division title in the process.
In Seattle that afternoon, the Seahawks beat Indianapolis and secured home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs. Similarly, the following evening, long after Santa had delivered his goodies to all the good girls and boys, the Chicago Bears were unwrapping new hats and T-shirts that proclaimed them the champions of the NFC North.
But for the Cincinnati Bengals, the holidays were one major bummer. The team had clinched its own division title, the AFC North, the week before, and with it, its first playoff berth in 15 years. However, its Christmas Eve game against Buffalo represented opportunity – a chance to keep hope alive for climbing into the conference’s second seed, a means of telling the NFL that the franchise had indeed turned the corner and would be regarded as a genuine, serious contender.
Instead, those hopes were dashed. Playing on their home field, the Bengals were embarrassed, losing 37-27 to the 4-10 Bills. The yuletide hangover persisted, with Cincinnati getting routed 37-3 by Kansas City on Sunday in its regular-season finale.
As a result, few people expect that, a few days from now, Cincinnati will be preparing for a trip to Denver and a divisional game against the Broncos. Rather, the thinking goes, when the Bengals host Sunday’s wild-card game against Pittsburgh, they’ll go out like pussycats, slinking head-on into the offseason, another casualty of sapped momentum and low expectations.
“The last two weeks, people have started to say we’re not a physical football team, that we’re soft,” offensive tackle Willie Anderson said. “You would have thought we’d slayed that talk, but it takes more than one season to overcome 15 years of futility.
“We need to play Pittsburgh. Not because they’re a rival, but because we need to prove to the naysayers that we’re a for-real team.”
Team has calm focus
When the Bengals speak of their collective sense of urgency, the words aren’t coming through pursed lips, with fists clenched so tight it seems like knuckles can pop through skin. In the past couple of days, the team has seemed surprisingly relaxed, with music coursing through the locker room, with players going about their tasks with smiles on their faces.
Even coach Marvin Lewis has found it hard to suppress a grin. Asked if he has noticed the sense of excitement that has imbued the city as the Bengals’ playoff drought comes to an end, Lewis cracked that it’s hard to notice much of anything when you’re going to work at 6 a.m. and returning home after midnight.
That’s if he makes it home at all. When Lewis was asked if he and other Bengals coaches were spending their nights at the team’s practice facility, he said that was something he’d prefer to keep in-house, but added: “If you want, you’re welcome to. I don’t have satin sheets, but I’ve got a blanket and a couple of pillows under my desk.”
Part of his team’s relatively calm posture, Lewis said, comes from the fact the Bengals are playing the Steelers for a third time this season.
The teams split their regular-season meetings, each winning on the road.
“We should be comfortable. It’s a division game, so it’s more like something we look forward to,” said Lewis, who won a Super Bowl ring in 2000 as the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator. “At this point, for our franchise, it’s what we need. It’s like when we were in Baltimore and we needed to beat (then-division rival) Tennessee in the playoffs. This is one of those defining moments, and we need to be up to the challenge.”
While Anderson and other players have said they’re approaching the game as if it’s just another week, Lewis has chosen a different tack. They are treating the contest as if it’s the first week. The Bengals are acting like they’re in training camp.
On Wednesday, the team went so far as to practice in pads, something the players say hadn’t happened in at least five weeks.
“We don’t get a do-over. It’s important that the players understand that,” Lewis said. “So let’s begin the season all over again. When things are going crazy all around you, focus through all the trees in the forest and just concentrate on doing your job.”
If the Bengals can truly convince themselves that Sunday’s game represents Week 1, the thinking goes, then it won’t be a problem getting the nightmares that were weeks 16 and 17 out of their heads.
“The Buffalo game caught us by surprise,” Anderson said. “We didn’t play our best game. The K.C. game, to be honest, I don’t think anyone’s minds were on playing Kansas City. Everyone was excited about this week, and if you look past teams, that’s what happens.
“We couldn’t improve our position. Our minds were only on getting out of Kansas City healthy and moving on to the playoffs.”
Other teams fell late
Of the 12 playoff teams, four lost their final regular-season game, the New England Patriots, Bears and Seahawks joining Cincinnati. The Colts, regarded as a lock for the Super Bowl a month ago, dropped two of their last three.
Of that quintet, it appears New England is the only team that seems immune from questions about whether it will be able to retrieve its mojo. Certainly Tom Brady and Co. would seem better equipped to navigate the territory that Cincinnati finds itself in for the first time in more than a decade.
But, despite their lengthy absence from the postseason, the Bengals say their status is no different from any team trying to get to Super Bowl XL.
“We won the AFC North, and that’s all fine and dandy, and we can walk around with our hats and shirts on – and I don’t want to take away from that after not having it for so long. But nobody remembers that if we go out and lose,” defensive tackle Bryan Robinson said. “We’re trying to get to Detroit, and if we lose this game, we’ll just want to take those hats and shirts and rip them to pieces.
“We haven’t made any plans yet for what we want to do after this game, as far as the guys making (offseason) trips somewhere or whatever. If they have, they’ve kept them under wraps because we don’t want to hear about them.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
