Postgame Report: Bengals Collapse After Fast Start, Lose to Bills | Instant Reaction

Postgame Report: Bengals Collapse After Fast Start, Lose to Bills | Instant Reaction

The Bengals should have gotten to five and eight on the season. They should have left Buffalo with a win, but it didn’t happen. Hi again everyone and welcome in to Cincinnati Bengals talk. I’m James. The Bengals just wrapped up in Buffalo and I’m looking at the stats now. Boy oh boy 3934 they lose. They fall to 4-9 on the season. They fail to win back-to-back games uh for the second time this year. And look, this is a game they should have won that they should have won it. and Zack Taylor naturally is going to to talk about the turnovers in the fourth quarter and I’m going to talk about those as well, but that’s not the only reason the Bengals lost. Uh there are a bunch of reasons the Bengals lost. You can’t expect to go into Buffalo and be perfect on offense. It’s just it’s a chaotic environment. There’s snow. Weird things are going to happen. And what you need is when weird things do happen, you have to be able to overcome them. the Bills were good enough to overcome them. Weird things did happen to them. James Cook fumbled it twice on the goal line. First time didn’t burn them, the second time it did. And so when things like that happen, your team has to be good enough to overcome it. And the Bills, they forced a weird turnover. The Christian Benford turnover completely flips this game. The Bengals are up 28-25. They’re driving in the fourth quarter. It feels like they’re going to take a two-possession lead. And what happens? Benford jumps up, snags a Joe Burrow screen pass to Jamar Chase. Jamar Chase was heating up in the fourth quarter. Benford takes it to the house, gives them a 3228 lead. So, and I even tweeted this. All right, you have 525 left. Feels like season’s on the line. If you’re Joe Bro, you feel like you have plenty of time. You can rebound on the very next play. The the pass is tipped and AJ Epanessa, boom, is able to haul it in. and and so back-to-back interceptions on two plays, you have to be able to overcome the weird and the Bengals aren’t good enough to do that. That’s what’s so tough. Their offense is at times for sure. Their offense scored 34 points today. Their offense scored on three straight possessions, but when Joe Burrow has those two turnovers, well, you’re not good enough on defense to overcome it. Clearly, they had multiple times. And that that’s what’s so frustrating about this game is the offense could have finished it without turning the ball over. The defense could have finished it. You have fourth and three, fourth and goal from the three and some guy named Jackson Halls, who I’m aware of. You’re probably not aware of him because why the hell would you be aware of Jackson Halls uh hauls in H A LS and it’s H As for Halls. Um but he hauls in the the touchdown that felt like it put the game away. 3928. It was after that second turnover. And then Joe Burrow and the Bengals do respond. T. Higgins after a couple of ugly drops after he hit his head on the the grass multiple times on the ground multiple times. Rebounds, makes one of the catches of the year, a crazy touchdown catch one-handed, clearly being interfered with. Didn’t matter. He makes the play anyway. And it’s 3934 and you have a chance. And then Josh Allen, third and 15. You get the sack. You force third and 15. And suddenly you’re going to get the ball to Joe Burrow down five on the road. Season on the line with like a minute left, a little over a minute left, right? If it’s incomplete, much more than a minute left, but let’s just say a minute. I like those chances. I like those chances. I like his ability to overcome the weird. But you didn’t give him those chances. You didn’t give him that chance. And I I don’t know. Have to go back and look at the play. But if you’re going to go man on third and 15, you got to make sure someone’s accounting for Josh Allen. You got to make sure someone’s accounting for the guy who had the longest run in the game, 40 yards. A guy who finished with 78 yards rushing on nine attempts. Uh a guy who, you know, is capable of doing that, right? And so he runs for 17 yards on third and 15. There’s your game. And and that’s it. And that’s the unfortunate part here is the Bengals put themselves in position to get a big road win. And we’ll discuss some of that stuff coming up in a few minutes. But when you have the flaws on offense and you have the turnovers, which are super uncharacteristic for Joe Burrow, he’s never thrown an interception against the Bills until today. And and they’re weird, they’re fluky, right? But the one happens and it feels like you can overcome it. And then the second one happens and it’s like, all right, well, we’ve kind of seen this before and they had a chance to do it, but it’s just it’s too much. It’s too much for this defense. They’re just not capable of doing that. And and I’m not forgiving or or or saying that the the offense doesn’t deserve blame because they do. But they did a lot of good things. The defense did a few good things, but not many. Certainly not enough. And boy oh boy, they can’t guard a tight end to save their life. I mean, they look like Andrew Fox Miller with his injured hip and all. And yes, old man Andrew has an injured hip right now. Uh trying to guard me in space. Like there’s just no chance. It would never happen. So let’s get into that side of it. some of the the other stuff here and we will do that coming up next. But first, I have to tell you about Sleeper. The Sleeper app is exactly what you need in your life because well, you can get up to $100 uh $100 bonus in deposit match right now. If you go to Sleeper, you download the app and get in on all the fun. Maybe you’re out in your seasonl long fantasy leagues. Well, all you do is pick more or less on the different player projections Sleeper has and boom, you can get in on all the fun. All you have to do right now is use promo code Bengals Talk and you’ll get that deposit match. It’s free money. Take advantage of it. Spice up uh the rest of these week 14 games uh with the Bengals kind of being a a downer after losing in Buffalo. Again, get the sleeper app and use promo code Bengals talk. All right, let’s dive into uh some other thoughts on this game. Look, uh this Bengals offense, they were moving the ball up and down early. I mean, they scored touchdowns on their third first three possessions, four of their first six. Uh they had leads of 21. I mean, when you’re up like they were and you’re up 21 to1 11 at half and Joe’s moving the ball like he is, it’s like, all right, well, things are going to roll and you had to punt right before the half when you got the ball with a minute left in the half and then you punt on your first possession of the second half and you only had the ball for less than two minutes in the third quarter and and that’s another stretch here that can’t happen. And that’s on the defense because the Bills, they get the ball coming out, they go score a touchdown. It’s 21 to 18. Then the Bengals. And this is where it gets weird. T. Higgins had a big drop on second down on their first possession of the third quarter. Joe Burrow misses Jamar Chase on the third down play. And so T. Higgins and Joe Burrow uh make mistakes in in unforced errors and suddenly you’re punting after just 111 time of possession. And the Bills run the entire third quarter. That they have the ball the entire third quarter. Take control of the game. Kind of take the air out of the ball. Keep Joe Bro on the sideline. you get bailed out because James Cook fumbles and Orin Burks recovers and DJ Turner and and Jordan Battle force that fumble and then you’re like, “Okay, go score here.” And the Bengals do and they take a 28 to 18 lead and you’re like, “All right, well that might be it.” Joe Burrow is blitzed, comes up, steps up, finds Mike Cassiki. That wasn’t it because Josh Allen answered right away with a 40-yard touchdown run right away. And then the Bengals, they’re driving four plays, 34 yards. It feels like it feels like that in the the the last time of possession was at or the last uh line of scrimmage I should say was at the 33 yardd line. So they’re at the 33 yard line at Buffalo. They’re in scoring range and then you have the screen pass and the Christian Benford pick six and it just completely shifts everything and then you have another interception. And so that’s I guarantee you I’m not watching what Zach’s saying right now. I’m literally recording right after. I guarantee you that’s what Zack Taylor is going to discuss and going to mention. But there were times throughout this game that they could have taken advantage of it. The final drive of that first half. They’re up 2111. They have the ball with like a minute left. T. Higgins kind of slips on the third down where Joe’s guiding him. And honestly, I think T if he doesn’t slip, judges it a little better, makes the catch, it’s a huge play, and the Bengals are in scoring range. So that’s one. Coming out in the third quarter, T. Higgins with a drop, the miss to Jamar Chase. So, it’s not just the interceptions. I It’s It’s not just the defense. The offense could have been better, but this defense, man, I mean, fourth fourth and goal on the three. You got to find a way to get some pressure. They didn’t. And and this is Al Golden on down. Third and 15. You just have to find a way to make a tackle, make a play. And they didn’t make a play. By making a play, by the way, you it could mean giving up seven yards, eight yards, but getting off the field, giving Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, Mike Giki, giving these guys a chance. And they didn’t. And that’s what flawed football teams do. And look, they’re not eliminated with this loss, but like the these are the type of games, especially with Joe playing the way he was for most of this game, that you need to win. And I get it. Look, the the interceptions are brutal. He started 12 of 15. They started seven of seven on fourth down. Like this offense was cruising and and defensively at some point you have to find an answer. And there were no answers. There were no answers. Dawson Knox, Dalton Concade, and Jackson Halls combined for 11 catches for 137 yards and two touchdowns. Those are the Bills tight ends. I mentioned Halls because he had the one catch for three yards, but it was the the game- clinching touchdown, the game-winning touchdown, however you want to say it. And if you get that stop there on fourth down, Joe Burrow’s down 32-28, has to go the length of the field. I think we all believe that he could do that. And so the defense had multiple opportunities to get off the field. Didn’t do it. I think it’s the story of the game. I I really do. I There were some bright spots. T. Higgins two outstanding touchdown catches. I mean, that the the first one was amazing on the sideline and then the second one was just insane. I Tradavius White’s holding his arm and he somehow catches it anyway. It’s definitely defensive pass interference. They didn’t call it because T. Higgins just made it look so easy. For him to haul that in, bring that in for a touchdown to keep them in the game. It was just it was huge. I thought Joe Burrow for the most part was was really really accurate and dialed in. I mean, he had a 106.7 quarterback rating with two interceptions obviously both in the fourth quarter. Had four touchdown passes. Two to T. Higgins, one to Mike Cassiki, another to Chase Brown where he’s on the move. throws a just rifles the ball in uh to Chase Brown. Chase Brown had three catches for 12 yards in the touchdown. Also had 23 rushing yards and a touchdown. Uh his streak of yards from scrimmage games, 100 yards from scrimmage. Uh that goes away. He only finished with 35 yards from scrimmage today. Uh some JP Ryan had some nice plays as well. 38 yards from scrimmage. Uh 31 rushing yards on six carries. Like a lot of guys stepped up. And the one thing that the Bills did a really good job of on offense is they limited Jamar Chase. Jamar Chase entered the fourth quarter with just one catch for 13 yards and he was starting to heat up during that when that pick six happened. He had four catches uh for 31 yards in the fourth quarter. Pick six happens. He doesn’t get targeted. He might have gotten targeted again. He didn’t have another catch. He might have gotten one more target there. Uh but didn’t get another another catch. So it’s just it’s tough. The margin for error in these games is razor thin and you have to find a way have to find a way to to handle business and uh and so it’s going to be turnovers. It’s going to be there were chances for knockout punches uh from the offense. There were chances for counter punches from the defense and they did one. They forced that turnover. Just wasn’t enough. Got to get more than one stop. Got to get more than one stop in the second half. Like if you look at it from that standpoint, the Bengals stopped the Bills once in the first half, turnover on downs. They gave up a field goal, which felt like a stop, touchdown, turnover on downs, and then the fumble. Outside of that, in the second half, it was touchdown, fumble, touchdown, touchdown. It was just they were on the field the entire time. They could not get the stop. They could not get the stop. They could not get the stop. And then obviously the the last drive of the game, the the third and 15 that I keep mentioning and hammering home because you might have already turned it off. like at 3928. I get a lot of people probably turned it off. They were frustrated. There was a chance the Bengals had third and had the Bills third and 15 3934 a chance to get the ball back to Joe Burrow. Didn’t happen. 4-9. I’m going to have plenty of more thoughts. This is my instant reaction. Stick with us. Win- lose draw. We have you covered always right here on Cincinnati Bengals talk. So please, please, please hit that subscribe button on YouTube. Follow wherever you get your podcast. And until next time for Andrew Fox Miller, injured hip and all. I’m James. Thank you so much for watching and listening to Cincinnati Bengals Talk.

The Cincinnati Bengals let a huge opportunity slip away in Buffalo. Cincinnati falls to 4–9 after a brutal 39–34 loss — a game they should have won, but critical mistakes late made the difference. James Rapien reacts to the loss and breaks down costly mistakes that impacted the outcome of the game.

Joe Burrow and the offense put up 34 points, scoring touchdowns on their first three drives… but back-to-back fourth-quarter interceptions proved costly, including a brutal pick-six. Meanwhile, the defense once again couldn’t get off the field — giving up big plays to Josh Allen on the ground and struggling against the Bills’ tight ends in key moments.

There were bright spots: Tee Higgins’ two highlight-reel touchdowns, Chase Brown finding the end zone again, and stretches where the offense looked unstoppable. But in the end, the Bengals fall to 4-9 on the season.

The Bengals return home to play the Ravens on Sunday, Dec. 14 at 1 p.m. ET. They’re hoping to sweep the Ravens for the first time since 2021.

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