Game Recap: Bengals Defeat Titans 19-16

A number of wild, impressive, and accurate observations can be made about the divisional round of this year’s NFL playoffs.

Three games into the action, we’d seen the same ending play out three times over: the visiting team lined up for a field goal, and the ball split the uprights as the last seconds of regulation ran off the clock. In a vacuum, it’s an exciting way for a football game to end. To see it three times in a row – as we did – is absolutely uncanny.

It’s often said that games in the NFL are won on a handful of deciding plays. Several platitudes exist about how those plays decide playoff games and separate champions from also-rans. Several other platitudes exist describing how, so often, excellence at the quarterback position can turn those plays in a team’s favor despite any number of forces working against them.

We saw excellence from Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes on about 27 of those plays in a row to close out their game Sunday night, with Mahomes ultimately getting the last word and earning the Chiefs a fourth consecutive bid to the AFC Championship Game. We also saw it from Joe Burrow en route to the Bengals earning their first bid to the game since 1989.

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That’s the biggest takeaway anyone should have from watching Saturday’s game. Since 1966, only one team – the 2003 Philadelphia Eagles – had won a playoff game despite giving up eight sacks. The four teams to give up nine sacks in a postseason game over that stretch lost by a combined score of 105-47. The Bengals made themselves the fifth such team in the divisional round, as Jeffery Simmons and the rest of the Titans defensive front roundly abused the Bengals’ banged-up offensive line. Burrow became the second quarterback in such a game (joining Warren Moon) to take each one of the nine sacks his team allowed.

Burrow led the Bengals to victory anyway, of course, because Burrow doesn’t care what humans think is impossible. He’s one of those guys at the quarterback position, and – no matter what happens next weekend – his run is just beginning.

Notes

• What went wrong for the Titans? Many will blame the 3 interceptions thrown by Ryan Tannehill, which all came at comically opportune times for the Bengals. While turnovers are a great place to start with this kind of breakdown, this framing unfairly shifts accountability for them away from the Bengals defense. Jessie Bates, on the first play of the game, followed Tannehill’s eyes through a switch-release curl concept and stole a ball intended for Julio Jones from his deep middle zone. In the third quarter, Mike Hilton made perhaps the best individual defensive play of the game, peeling off a blitz to deflect a pass to the flat behind him, before intercepting the ball himself and advancing it 20 yards. With about 30 seconds left to play, Eli Apple sat on a deep curl by Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, played the ball through him, and deflected it into the hands of Logan Wilson. None of these plays were the result of exceptionally horrible decisions or throws by Tannehill – the Bengals just made them.
• On another front, the Titans much-ballyhooed weapon Derrick Henry played for the first time since suffering a foot injury against the Colts on Halloween night. Fans who are used to seeing Henry wear defenses down over the course of games – then breaking off his biggest plays in the final minutes – wouldn’t have recognized him by his performance Saturday. The former First-Team All-Pro averaged only 3.1 yards per carry over 20 rushing attempts and never broke a run longer than 9 yards. D’Onta Foreman – who filled in for Henry during much of his absence – finished with more total yards on 4 carries. D.J. Reader in particular did an excellent job stifling the run, tackling Henry for a loss twice in the first quarter.
• Evan McPherson was phenomenal, converting two field goals from 50+ yards out and scoring 13 of the Bengals’ 19 points. Any praise that can be thrown at Burrow for his performance is well-deserved – he played cool and elevated his team despite an overall performance that wouldn’t win them many games otherwise. McPherson is due the exact same praise. It was clear what the coaching staff thought of McPherson by how content they were to set him up with 52-yard field goal to win the game. It was even clearer what his teammates thought of him by their reaction to him making it.

– Andy Hammel is the Managing Editor for the Bengals at Full Press Coverage. Follow @Andy_Hammel