Not Yet Ready for Prime-Time: Cincinnati Bengals Need More Than Gritty Wins

Give the 2009 Cincinnati Bengals credit: They’ve got grit. For the third week in a row, the Bengals scratched, clawed, and held on until they could put together a game-winning drive in the final minutes to pull out a victory. If not for Brandon Stokely’s freak touchdown catch in Week One, it would have been four weeks in a row.

But before we all break our arms patting the Bengals on the back for their mental toughness, maybe we should take a look at the cold, hard fact that Sunday’s miracle finish shouldn’t have been necessary.

In the first quarter of Sunday’s contest, the Cleveland Browns held the ball for exactly 52 seconds. The Bengals had the ball the 14:08.

And yet the score at the end of one was only 7-0. Why? Cincinnati drove the length of the field, and then allowed Charles Rodgers to block the field goal attempt.

In the second, Cincinnati cornerback Leon Hall ripped the ball away from Cleveland running back James Harrison, and DE Robert Geathers snatched it out of the air and raced 75 yards for the touchdown. The rout was on.

Except it wasn’t.

The Bengals did not get a first down in the second quarter. Or the third. And they waited until late in the fourth quarter to finally get around to moving the ball again.

The fact that the Bengals only trailed 20-14 with six minutes to go is a testament to how good their defense is. If Johnathon Joseph hadn’t picked off Cleveland quarterback Derek Anderson in the end zone, Carson Palmer’s final magnificent drive wouldn’t have mattered.

But Palmer, as he did against Denver and Pittsburgh, engineered a 70+-yard drive for the winning score.

Except he didn’t. Because the Bengals allowed Rodgers to block the PAT, and it took Cincinnati 14:56 of overtime to get close enough for Shayne Graham to finally end it.

Good teams find ways to win, and the Bengals found a way on Sunday. But good teams also take care of business against the teams they’re supposed to.

Last week, the AFC North-leading Baltimore Ravens played the Browns. They destroyed them 34-7. The game was over early, and it just got embarrassing as it went on.

If the Bengals want to be a good team, that’s what they need to do. Cleveland should never have been in that game. Cincinnati should have proven Derek Anderson wasn’t the answer.

But instead, they did what they did against the Steelers and Broncos. They screwed around until the last drive and then got serious. This week, it was enough.

But Carson Comeback and his Cardiac Kids should remember something very important. Neither the original Cardiac Kids (the 1980 Cleveland Browns) nor the Cardiac Pack (1989 Green Bay Packers) made it to the Super Bowl. Eventually, they ran out of miracle endings.

Marvin Lewis has made great strides in the maturity of this team, but there is still work to be done. It’s good that the Bengals believe they are never out of a game, that late in the fourth quarter they will drive for the winning score. But they need to win a few games in the first half and the third quarter too.

Otherwise, they’re eventually going to be the ones on the short side of the scoreboard when the final gun sounds.