The game ended the way you guessed it might. Weird seasons defy prediction and ignore fate. Weird does what it wants. So why would anyone be surprised that the Bengals’ postseason hopes took a header after a botched point-after-touchdown?
“We’ve done it (perfectly) a thousand times,” said Kyle Larson, the holder, who saw the snap sail high, wobbly and wide.
“If I could redo it, I would,” said Brad St. Louis, bless him, the snapper who had been perfect as a Bengal until Sunday.
Maybe next Sunday the Bengals exact revenge on Pittsburgh for wrecking their postseason last January. Maybe all the thrown bones land perfectly, and Cincinnati squeaks into the playoffs. It could happen, just as easily as it couldn’t.
Did you ever have a read on this team? Me, neither. After 3-0, we pronounced Carson Palmer completely healed. After the loss at Tampa Bay, we wondered what was wrong with him.
After allowing 42 points in a half against San Diego, we declared the defense a disaster. Four wins later, it was a strength. The pass offense, so defining to this team, was flying high again, until it wasn’t.
Nothing has made much sense in ’06. There has been lots of non-sense. Sunday continued the illogic. Sunday, in fact, put a top hat on non-sense and ordered it to dance around the room.
“It might have come down to us being tight, being nervous, scared,” suggested Palmer, though he couldn’t say for sure. He didn’t have his Ouija board. “The coaches talked all week about what a big game this was. It was overstressed.”
It was Palmer who seemed a bit overstressed. The Bengals’ QB was high and wide on several occasions, most notably twice to T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the end zone. You want weird? After three quarters, Palmer’s quarterback rating was 45.6. Denver rookie QB Jay Cutler, making his fourth start, had a rating of 101.4.
And yet, Palmer led the Bengals on what should have been a clutch, game-tying, 90-yard drive in the last four minutes, had the PAT not been DOA.
“That’s not the play that lost the game,” Palmer said, and he was right. “A whole quarter of football lost the game.”
The Bengals have alternately sunk and risen to occasions this year. The character and poise they showed in winning four in a row to get to 8-5 has disappeared down the stretch. Sunday, they played well enough on defense to win, yet torpedoed themselves with three turnovers in the first 18 minutes, and enough screw- ups in the passing game to make a lowlight tape.
Searching for key plays or defining moments is fruitless in games like this. The defense did what defenses should do to a kid QB: Blitz him with safeties and hound him into timidity. Then in the second half, the Denver running backs – Mike Bell, Tatum Bell and, who knows, Alexander Graham Bell – began gashing the Bengals with cutbacks, and before you knew it, Cutler was running a 99-yard, game-winning drive like he was John Elway.
Meantime, because of drops, slops and misfires, the Bengals offense scored nothing in the second half, until it had to. On the 90-yard drive, Palmer completed three passes to Houshmandzadeh, for 58 yards.
For whatever reason, the consistency, confidence and sense of purpose so evident last fall has never emerged this year.
“When it’s good, it’s good,” said Chad Johnson. “And when it’s bad, it’s very, very bad.”
The geniuses and the mathematicians can tell you what has to happen for the Bengals to continue their strange season beyond next Sunday.
All that matters this morning is, had they won Sunday, they would have been in, in spite of themselves. Now, they root for the Miami Dolphins. Or something. The playoff picture is as predictable as this team.
I would offer a prediction, but it’s hard to type while I’m throwing up my hands.
