The injuries are starting to creep up on the Bengals with the possibility they won’t have two of their top cornerbacks for Sunday’s game (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Channel 19) with Adam Jones (foot) dealing with it and Darqueze Dennard (shoulder) out for the year, according to profootballtalk.com.
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The Bengals were certainly sore losers in all of this, Marvin Lewis said it wasn’t that loud, he hardly noticed, and to his credit, his team did not false start the entire game (leaving the count at 132 at University of Phoenix Stadium), but costly penalties hurt them more than anything.
Arizona Cardinals kicker Chandler Catanzaro (#7) won the game with a late field goal against the Cincinnati Bengals. Domata Peko was flagged for simulating a snap call, causing Cardinals linemen to move.
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) – The matchup between two of the best in the National Football League lived up to the hype – with a freaky twist at the end for good measure.
The Cincinnati defensive tackle was whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct for calling out offensive signals to try to confuse the Arizona Cardinals as they lined up to spike the ball leading up to a field-goal attempt. “Penalties hurt us early in the football game… defensively and offensively”, said head coach Marvin Lewis. That was the name of the game.
He added, “We were fighting the refs and the Cardinals”.
Those who watched knew that the game was over when Kansas City player Justin Houston picked off Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers pass in the third quarter and returned the interception 16 yards for a touchdown to turn the game into a blowout. The 15 yard unnecessary roughness penalty that he was called for at the end of the second quarter almost forced the Bengals into a situation where the Cardinals could have entered halftime tied or even with a possible lead. While allowing Carson Palmer to throw for 300+ yards and four touchdowns isn’t exactly great, the two interceptions (one from each of Nelson and Hall) helped the team to build some early momentum.
“When Pat went down, we had a couple big changes in the secondary where our matchups got exposed a little bit from the rest of the game”, Arians said. “We caught fire in the second half”. Whether it was fellow MVP candidate Andy Dalton basically matching Palmer yard-for-yard or Geno Atkins blowing up plays, the Bengals did everything they could in this 34-31 loss. A sack and lost fumble by Dalton, however, led to a 24-yard field goal by Catanzaro. Dalton led the Bengals back to tie the game at 31 with 1:42 to play. He distributed his 22 completions to six different offensive players, including running back Giovani Bernard (8 catches for 128 yards).
But, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver J.J. Nelson isn’t going to let it get to his head.
Arians is not the first coach to do something like that. “You’ve got a lot of guys that work hard and a lot of leaders that talk what they talk and back it up on the field and off the field”. Hill scored on a 2-yard run that was set up by Bernard’s 441-yard catch and run on a dump pass over the middle after the Cardinals tried to bring the house on Dalton. In fact, Cincinnati is now tied for the second seed playoff position, if the season ended today. Despite the loss, the Bengals remain No. 2 – behind unbeaten New England – in the AFC.
Nelson said that he wanted to play well for his teammates – particularly Carson Palmer and Jermaine Gresham, who are former Bengals.
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While injuries created some mismatches in the secondary, it was a glaring error by veteran safety George Iloka that led to Palmer’s 64-yard touchdown pass to J.J. Nelson in the third quarter when Iloka jumped an under route leaving Nelson to sprint free. Old reliable Larry Fitzgerald hauled in eight grabs for 90 yards. “He’s alerting a run and not anything to do with what (the Cardinals) are saying”.
