Cincinnati Bengals Get Wake-Up Call with Loss to Texans Monday Night

It turns out the Cincinnati Bengals are a team of humans. 

Andy Dalton and the undefeated Bengals took to Paul Brown Stadium under the bright lights of Monday Night Football sitting on eight wins and ready to prove to a global audience the team was no fluke and that prime-time woes, acknowledged or not, were a trait of past, lesser teams.

Instead, the Bengals mustered six points against a sub-.500 AFC South team in a 10-6 losing effort. Go figure the seemingly improbable capped off a weekend in which the Denver Broncos benched Peyton Manning and Ronda Rousey suffered the knockout heard around the world (sorry, Manny).

And honestly, it's probably the wake-up call the Bengals needed.

This isn't some bantering for the notion every team needs a humbling now and then. It's more the fact the Bengals needed a reminder there's no reason to stray into the realm of the unbalanced, or even worse, the land of the too cute.

Unbalanced as in rushing Giovani Bernard just eight times and Jeremy Hill seven against a defense that entered allowing a silly 123.5 rushing yards per game. The duo combined for 51 yards on those chances.

It'd be one thing to point out that the team employed a pass-first approach to attack a secondary down a starting corner (Kareem Jackson) to exploit a rookie (Kevin Johnson), but A.J. Green received just seven targets anyway, tied with Tyler Eifert and behind Bernard (eight) and Marvin Jones (nine).

Too cute as in eye-popping formations such as splitting offensive tackles out wide so that Jon Gruden and Co. could draw diagrams on the screen and praise offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, who in part helped to ruin a superb performance from the defense.

Seriously, a defense puts on a great performance when one of the catches of the year is the lone score surrendered, as NFL Now captured:

Other than overthinking themselves with formations and trickery against a team they could have lined up and beat in basic fashion, the Bengals shot themselves in the foot time and again.

By night's end, the Bengals had totaled nine flags costing themselves 70 yards. Some were of the mind-boggling variety, too, such as pre-snap issues—quite hard to believe for a home team sitting on an extra day of preparation.

Simple execution slapped the Bengals in the face, too. Coming off a trio of touchdown catches the week before, Eifert dropped as many passes Monday night, each of them critical offerings. Green fumbled on the team's final drive to seal the deal. Dalton got impatient and lofted an easy interception to former Bengals member Johnathan Joseph.

Cincinnati's job? Take the positive, learn from the bad. Kaci Kust of CN2 captured just one example of the Bengals taking the initiative after the loss:

WLWT's Elise Jesse added another:

The bad isn't hard to figure out. The good? Gone are the missed tackles and huge chunk plays surrendered by a secondary prone to miscommunications. The team, for better or worse, looks back to the days where the defense can carry the load and needs minimal output from the offense to balance out the scales.

Finding the balance is what the Bengals need after their first loss of the season. Balance the offense, the deep shots-chain-moving plays ratio, the cute with the cram-it-down-the-throat power attack.

Better now than later, right? While the overwhelming narrative might focus on Cincinnati's inability to get out of its own way under the lights of a national contest, it's a finer learning point than in past years because these Bengals have already shown they are much better than this hiccup showcased.

The Bengals had their eyes opened to cracks in the armor Sunday. How the team addresses the issues after a capable Texans squad played exploiter will decide much, much more than a single loss on a Monday night can.

Stats courtesy of NFL.com. All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus.