Steelers fade late, lose to Bengals
CINCINNATI — Why was it so significant for the Bengals to beat the Steelers at home?
They hadn't done it since 2001, when receiver Chad Ochocinco was a rookie still going by the surname Johnson. Every year since, thousands of Pittsburgh fans had showed up, twirled their towels and reveled in another win — eight and counting.
Think that's embarrassing? Some years, the Bengals actually practiced snapping the ball on a silent count because the Steelers fans were making so much noise that the home team couldn't hear.
Yes, it was that bad.
The Steelers' annual visit-and-victory underscored how the two franchises were worlds apart. Now, maybe the distance has shrunk a little bit. By rallying in the closing seconds for a 23-20 win on Sunday, the Bengals felt like finally — finally! — they might be starting to measure up.
"It's huge," defensive lineman Tank Johnson said. "This team is a very good football team. If we eliminate the immature mistakes, the sky is the limit."
While the Bengals (2-1) began thinking big, the defending Super Bowl champs were thinking that they've got to reform themselves, and fast. They've lost back-to-back games in the final minute after wasting chances to pull comfortably ahead.
At 1-2, they're starting to look like the '06 Steelers, who also were defending Super Bowl champs, opened the season 1-3 and never recovered. They ended 8-8 that year, missing out on the playoffs.
"We need to finish football games better," coach Mike Tomlin said. "That's the mark of a champion, and that's not us at this point."
The Steelers had plenty of chances to finish the Bengals off early. They dominated the first half — Cincinnati had minus-10 yards on offense in the first quarter — but settled for field goals. In the second half, Jeff Reed missed another field goal — his third in two games — and Limas Sweed dropped a pass in the end zone, allowing the Bengals to hang around.
"If we score touchdowns in the first half, it's not even a game," Steelers receiver Hines Ward said. "It's 24-0 or 24-3. It's not very good. You've got to put up seven points instead of 3s. That's how you finish a team off."
Instead, Carson Palmer finished them off.Palmer led a frenetic five-minute drive that took 16 plays, covered 71 yards and culminated in his 4-yard touchdown pass to Andre Caldwell with 14 seconds to go. The Bengals converted two fourth-down plays on the drive, including Brian Leonard's 11-yard catch-and-run on fourth-and-10 that moved the ball to the 4 yard line.It was eerily similar to the season opener, when the Bengals did next to nothing against Denver's defense, then put together a long touchdown drive in the closing minutes. A tipped pass that Brandon Stokley took for an 87-yard touchdown rescued the Broncos and gave them a 12-7 win.There would be no weird play at the end of this one."The locker room was ecstatic after the game," said Palmer, who was 20 of 37 for 183 yards. "We hung around long enough, and we deserved to win the game."In the locker room, Sam Cooke's song "A Change is Gonna Come" played on a continuous loop. One of the lines from the opening verse summed up the day: "It's been a long, a long time coming.""Priceless," offensive lineman Bobbie Williams said. "The past is the past. This is a new team and a new day."
