Bengals’ implosion straight out of the handbook on football stupidity
PETE PRISCO
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/pete-prisco/25444403/bengals-implosion-straight-out-of-the-handbook-on-football-stupidity
CINCINNATI — A.J. Green sat in his locker in full uniform, the shock of what he had just witnessed still on his face, the hurt as evident as the orange on his pants.
The Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver had just watched his team implode in one of the classic big-game meltdowns of all-time, straight out of the handbook on football stupidity.
The Bengals lost an AFC wild-card game to the Steelers 18-16 on Saturday night on a 35-yard field goal by Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell with 14 seconds left, ending their season, sending the Steelers to the divisional round and opening up the Bengals to a lot of questioning.
“You put in all this work for six months, and now it’s over,” Green said. “It’s tough. I’ve got no words.”
Losing is one thing. Losing the way they did is another, which made it even tougher to digest than a bowl of Cincinnati chili with onions and cheese on top. The Bengals rallied in the fourth quarter with backup quarterback AJ McCarron when he hit Green with a 25-yard pass with 1:50 left in the game.
Then it appeared to be over when Vontaze Burfict picked off Steelers backup QB Landry Jones. But Jeremy Hill fumbled at the Pittsburgh 20 with 1:36 left. They then had two personal fouls set the Steelers up for Boswell’s point-blank kick.
Oh, one more thing: Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was leading that drive after leaving the game with a bum shoulder. He couldn’t throw it 20 yards with any velocity, yet found a way to complete short passes before the Bengals’ gift personal fouls gave them the shot at the winner.
Thanks to the Bengals’ advanced lesson on knuckle-head-enomics, the Steelers were able to advance.
You hear coaches say it all the time: We can’t beat ourselves.
The Bengals missed that seminar.
This was a team that lost control, let the game get away, and looked in full meltdown mode when it ended. As the Steelers danced off the field, the Bengals were left to wonder how it all happened.
And now the real question comes into play: Who was responsible for this mess? There will be calls for coach Marvin Lewis’ head, and this is ultimately his mess. As the coach, he has to control his players.
Yes, there are veterans who lead too. But when players like Vontaze Burfict and Adam Jones, the guilty parties on the two late personal fouls that put the ball into field-goal range, aren’t reigned in, there are issues. Burfict got his penalty for a head hit to Antonio Brown, then Jones got one for pushing Steelers coach Joey Porter during the delay in play to get Brown off the field.
Both players have had their fair share of troubles in their career, both are considered hotheads of sorts, and both sometimes let their emotions get the best of them on the field.
That’s on Lewis now. They are his guys. He was short with his answers at the podium after the game, and when asked about the Burfict hit he said, “It was a penalty because they threw the flag.”
Even when Burfict’s late interception seemed to seal it, he ran off the field and into the tunnel with a handful of teammates following him. That could have been a penalty, and should have been.
Discipline fail.
At the same time, running back Jeremy Hill was doing a dance up and down the sidelines that could have been a penalty. Moments later, he fumbled to give the Steelers a chance.
Discipline fail.
Both teams were warned before the game that it would be called close, that extra stuff wouldn’t be tolerated. That’s because there was a bunch of incidents from the first two games this season that went past the limits of the game.
Yet here they both were with constant pushing and shoving, personal fouls on coaches (Steelers line coach Mike Munchak) for pushing players, a player coming off the sideline pushing another player to get one and plenty of big hits, extracurricular activity and the dumbest two penalties of all by the Bengals at the end.
“We have to have better control than that,” veteran Bengals tackle Andrew Whitworth said. “We have to be smart and make the best decisions to win. It’s unfortunate. It’s not about one guy’s mistake. Our team has to understand the discipline of winning a football game always has to be No. 1. When you get your priorities out of control, that’s what happens.”
So who is responsible? Individual players? Coaches?
“It’s falls on all of us,” Whitworth said. “It’s not a one-moment thing. It’s an every-day thing.”
Burfict briefly answered questions, but was curt and didn’t offer much of an explanation for what went wrong. Jones bolted through the locker room and howled loudly as he did with no accountability.
Thus lies the problem.
Players like Burfict and Jones aren’t held accountable the way they should be. Yes, they are valuable players, but they need discipline. That’s because a lack of it shows up at key moments like it did Saturday night.
When it does, it can haunt a franchise.
This is the one franchise we expect to lose games the way it did this one.
And you couldn’t blame this on Andy Dalton.
This one goes to a playoff meltdown that we won’t soon forget.
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