One day after losing their quarterback, their composure and their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cincinnati Bengals got a much needed win Monday afternoon when they found out Andy Dalton’s fractured thumb is not expected to end his season. “Other than that, it was a pretty positive day for him”.
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It was a game that had little talking heading into the game, but the most any Steelers team has seen since Joey Porter stalked the 50-yard line after it. The Bengals tried that approach, failing to draw an extreme reaction when Vontaze Burfict crossed over the 50 to talk trash with Vince Williams before the game.
“Our football team has a lot of confidence in AJ McCarron”, said Lewis.
“That’s history”, McCarron said on Monday. “This is why we drafted him”.
It was a disastrous Sunday for the Bengals, whose hopes of securing the top overall seed in the AFC took a hit with Dalton and tight end Tyler Eifert leaving the game with injuries.
Dalton broke the thumb on his passing hand during a 33-20 loss to the Steelers on Sunday that left the AFC North up for grabs.
Cincinnati (10-3) entered Sunday’s game looking to wrap up a division title and inch closer to securing a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
“It’s the news we expected”, Lewis said.
After earning All-State honors in football and baseball at St. Paul’s in Mobile, McCarron played on three BCS national championship teams at Alabama. “We’ll find somebody that will come in here and back up until we get this thing back to where it needs to be, but we’ll be fine”.
The Ravens might not be winning as many games as they usually do, but at least they don’t make fools of themselves off the field.
In the meantime, the Bengals will hand the reins to A.J. McCarron, and no one really knows what to expect. “That’s never fun. But whoever they give us, we’ll take”. There’s also Keith Wenning sitting on the practice squad, but the Bengals probably want someone with more experience to help AJ McCarron adjust to his starting role.
-RUSHING OFFENSE: D. Coming off his two best performances this season, running back Jeremy Hill was a non-factor again, rushing for 16 yards on seven carries. Blaine Gabbert completed 18 of 28 passes for 194 yards and one touchdown.
-PASS DEFENSE: D. Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh offense has scored 30 or more points five straight weeks and figured to have success against the Bengals’ injury-riddled secondary.
Although he averaged just 3.3 yards per carry Sunday, Williams ran extremely hard and refused to go down on first contact. Right tackle Marcus Gilbert tweeted (and later deleted) that all he wanted for Christmas was the Bengals, who haven’t won a postseason game in a quarte- century. He was 4-for-4 on field-goal attempts against the Bengals, connecting on kicks of 42, 47, 45 and 31 yards.
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The Bengals are going to be in he market for another quarterback regardless of how long Andy Dalton is out, so it only makes sense for them to have already called some free agents.
