Made the trip to PBS today -- my first live game in two years. Way too many Cowboys fans there! Anyway, needless to say, I left angry. Plenty of drops on both sides of the ball, no doubt. But the game changed with about 10 minutes left in the 4th Quarter when we once again went into prevent defense mode way too early -- a Marvin Lewis trademark -- and allowed Dallas to dictate the rest of the game. I told my brother at the time, when we were still up 19-10, the final score would be 20-19. I've seen it too many times in the Marvin era.
What I want to know is, why did The Law Firm not get any carries in the 4th Quarter? He was killing the Cowboys, then when we needed to eat up clock and finish out the game, we stop going to him? And of course we enter the 4th Quarter with zero timeouts left -- another Marvin tradition. Our M.O. this year is play really well in the first half, then hope we can hang on in the second half, which means our opponents are making adjustments, but we aren't.
Why be angry? Apparently we are supposed to accept this loss as nothing is wrong
Just ran it through one of those playoff generators... this week's game against the Eagles most likely won't mean anything. The Bengals have to beat Pittsburgh and Baltimore to get in. They would own the tiebrakers over both Pittsburgh and the Jets if they all finish 9-7. The only way a Bengals win against the Eagles helps them is if the Colts (unlikely) or Ravens (small possibility) would lose out and then the Bengals would be the #5 seed (Colts lose out) or win the division (Ravens lose out).
Just curious here. Is there a scenario that has the Bengals getting in the play-offs at 8-8?
Very unlikely. The Bengals one win would have to be at Pittsburgh, no exceptions. You'd also need Pittsburgh to lose to the Browns and the Jets to lose one more game. The Bengals would win the tiebraker with the Steelers only if they beat Pitt and the Steelers lose to the Browns. The Steelers would win the tiebraker with the Bengals at 8-8 if they lose to Dallas but beat the Browns as they would have a better divisional record.
The only way the Bengals can lose at Pittsburgh and still get in is to beat both Philly and Baltimore (Cincy at 9-7) and the Steelers lose at Dallas and home against Cleveland (Pitt at 8-8), and then you'd still need the Jets to lose one of their remaining three games (NYJ at 8-8).
http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/machine
The Bengals control their own destiny with wins over PIT and BAL. They do that and they are in.
However..........if Dallas beats Pittsburgh next week and the Bengals beat the Eagles, then all the Bengals need is a win over Pittsburgh.
The Eagles game is important, depending on what Dallas and Pittsburgh do. Dallas owes us big time for that gift yesterday.
You'd still need the Jets to lose once if the Bengals lose to the Ravens. The Jets have three conference games left (@ Tenn, home San Diego, @ Buffalo) and if they win out, they'd have a 7-5 conference record. If the Bengals beat Pitt but lose to Baltimore, they'd have a 6-6 record.
I place alot of the blame on Marvin. You CAN'T go into the 4th quarter of any football game without any time outs. Just awful use of TO's, something Marvin has never been good at.
Two calls really bothered me in the game. The first one was the face mask on Dunlap. He did get the face mask but the official should have blown the play dead a couple of seconds earlier. Romo was in the grasp and the ref blew the call. That hurt the Bengals because they would have gotten the ball back with over 2 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. As it ended up they got the ball with about 20-30 seconds deep in their own territory.
The second was the personal foul on Reggie Nelson for a picture perfect hit. If your going to teach a defensive back how to hit, you hit with the shoulder on the ball and try and separate the ball from the WR. There was nothing illegal about the hit but it gave the Cowboys 15 yards and a first. If your going to allow a ref's interpretation to potentially change the game you should allow the coaches the opportunity to challenge a personal foul flag.
The Cowboys had nothing up front. NOTHING. I cannot for the life of me understand why we quit running the ball, especially when you have somebody as locked in as Green-Ellis in the backfield. Unless there was something physically wrong with him, that type of play calling is inexcusable. I don't care how bad the Cowboys secondary is playing, or that Claiborne isn't on the field - your passing game sucks right now. So why not go with the hot hands instead?
Arise and walk, come through. A world beyond that door is calling out for you. Arise and walk, come through. It's calling out for you.
I'm a Cowboys fan, and I agree with you that was a horrible call. But that's the NFL, now. Shameful, really. Defenders can't play defense.
The refs also hurt the Cowboys when they blew the whistle on the kickoff return where Harris was in a pile, but never down. He was off and running again when the whistle blew. The play isn't reviewable since the whistle blew.
I was shocked that the Cowboys won this game. The Bengals could've run all day, but for some reason they went away from the running game.
"The players make the manager, it's never the other way." - Sparky Anderson
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