CLEVELAND (WKRC) – The Bengals found a way to wipe out a lengthy losing streak in Cleveland thanks to a second straight outstanding performance by the defense and just enough offense in the second half.<\/p>\n
Joe Burrow threw two second half touchdown passes and the defense posted a shutout for the first 28 minutes of the second half to help the Bengals pull away from a 7-6 halftime lead for a 21-14 win on Sunday at Huntington Bank Field.<\/p>\n
The win snapped a six-game losing skid in Cleveland and was the second straight overall for the Bengals, who improved to 3-4 on the season. Cleveland fell to 1-6.<\/p>\n
It was also the first win in Cleveland for Burrow, who had been 0-3, and head coach Zac Taylor, who had been 0-5.<\/p>\n
Browns starting quarterback Deshaun Watson left the game with 1:22 left in the first half after suffering an Achilles injury on a non-contact play.<\/p>\n
The Bengals lost left tackle Orlando Brown late in the first half due to a right knee injury, and after initially being listed as questionable to return he was downgraded to doubtful early in the second half and didn’t re-enter the game.<\/p>\n
They also lost safety Geno Stone late in the game as he was carted off with a left leg injury.<\/p>\n
The Bengals finished the game with 12 first downs and 223 yards total offense.<\/p>\n
Burrow completed 15 of 25 passes for 181 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions for a passer rating of 108.9.<\/p>\n
The Bengals rushed for 59 yards on 25 carries.<\/p>\n
The Browns finished the game with 18 first downs and 336 yards total offense. <\/p>\n
Watson completed 15 of 17 passes for 128 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions for a passer rating of 98.0. Dorian Thompson-Robinson replaced Watson and completed 11 of 24 passes for 82 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions for a passer rating of 19.8. Thompson-Robinson suffered a finger injury in the fourth quarter that knocked him from the game. Jameis Winston came into the game as the emergency quarterback with 3:43 remaining and completed 5 of 11 passes for 67 yards and one touchdown for a passer rating of 95.6.<\/p>\n
The Browns rushed for 77 yards on 21 carries.<\/p>\n
The Bengals led 7-6 at halftime and the Browns drove to the Bengals 35 on the first possession of the second half, but on 4th-and-2 Thompson-Robinson’s pass intended for running back Nick Chubb fell incomplete.<\/p>\n
The Bengals responded to the stop by driving for a touchdown in only five plays with the score coming when Burrow hit wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase on an 18-yard touchdown pass that increased the lead to 14-6 with 7:56 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
The big plays on the drive were a 22-yard run by running back Chase Brown and a 19-yard catch-and-run by running back Zack Moss.<\/p>\n
Two possessions later, the Bengals increased their lead to 21-6 when Burrow hit wide receiver Tee Higgins for a 25-yard touchdown with 1:30 left in the third quarter. Higgins caught the pass at the Browns 19, broke a tackle attempt by cornerback Cameron Mitchell and raced into the end zone.<\/p>\n
The Bengals had a chance to increase the lead to 24-6, but Evan McPherson’s 50-yard field goal attempt went wide right with 3:43 remaining.<\/p>\n
Cleveland then drove from there to pull within 21-14 with 1:27 left on an eight-yard touchdown pass from Winston to David Njoku. The Browns then added the two-point conversion.<\/p>\n
Cleveland attempted an onside kick after that touchdown, but Mike Gesicki recovered it for the Bengals.<\/p>\n
The Bengals jumped out to a 7-0 lead 12 seconds into the game after Charlie Jones returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Jones was the lone kickoff returner deep with tight end Drew Sample lined up about 10 yards in front of him, and Sample threw the key block that sprang Jones.<\/p>\n
It marked the first time a Bengals player returned a kickoff for a touchdown since Brandon Wilson did it against the New York Giants on Nov. 29, 2020.<\/p>\n
Both offenses sputtered for much of the remainder of the first half.<\/p>\n
The Browns pulled to within 7-6 on Nick Chubb’s one-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-goal with 56 seconds remaining in the first half. It capped a 12-play, 78-yard drive and the TD came six plays after Watson suffered his injury. Dustin Hopkins missed the extra point after earlier in the first half missing a 49-yard field goal.<\/p>\n
The Bengals finished the first half with five first downs and 86 yards total offense.<\/p>\n
Burrow completed 8 of 15 passes for 81 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions for a passer rating of 69.0 in the half. He was sacked three times for losses of 17 yards.<\/p>\n
The Bengals rushed for 22 yards on six carries in the half.<\/p>\n
Cleveland finished the first half with nine first downs and 142 yards total offense.<\/p>\n
Watson completed 15 of 17 passes for 125 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions for a passer rating of 98.0. Thompson-Robinson went 0 for 1 after replacing Watson.<\/p>\n
The Browns rushed for 27 yards on 16 carries.<\/p>\n
NOTEWORTHY: The Bengals on Saturday activated cornerback DJ Ivey to the roster from the Reserve\/Physically Unable to Perform list and elevated center Trey Hill from the practice squad to the active roster. Hill is classified as standard elevation. As a practice squad player being elevated to the active roster automatically will revert to the practice squad on Monday. … Defensive end Sam Hubbard recorded his first career interception in the third quarter. It came after a pass from Thompson-Robinson ricocheted off the hands of wide receiver Cedric Tillman.<\/p>\n
INACTIVES: Here are the players that each team placed on the inactive list 90 minutes prior to kickoff in order to get down to the 48 player game day roster limit:<\/p>\n
Bengals: WR Trenton Irwin, DE Cedric Johnson, T Andrew Stueber, DT Lawrence Guy, TE Tanner McLachlan, DT Jay TufeleBrowns: QB Jameis Winston, CB Kahlef Hailassie, S Ronnie Hickman, RB Jerome Ford, LB Nathaniel Watson, DT Quinton Jefferson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (WKRC) – The Bengals found a way to wipe out a lengthy losing streak in Cleveland thanks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[1990,228,86,85,54,2337,2908,563,7,3144,1577,6,1287],"class_list":{"0":"post-336007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-afc-north","9":"tag-bengals","10":"tag-browns","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-browns","13":"tag-clevelandbrowns","14":"tag-defense","15":"tag-deshaun-watson","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-injury","18":"tag-joe-burrow","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-touchdown"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115135446064012040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}