Bengals' defense shoulders load of loss to Broncos

The Bengals didn’t hide the game plan on Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium. Stop the run, crowd the box and make a young quarterback in his first career road start beat them.

Not only did Trevor Siemian beat the Bengals, he delivered multiple demoralizing haymakers to a group of defensive backs not used to losing many battles.

In the aftermath of Denver’s 29-17 win at Paul Brown Stadium, the Cincinnati defense which hoped to establish itself as capable of replicating the type of Super Bowl run the Broncos made last year were left to digest what being picked apart by Siemian means for where they stand.

“They put it on the DBs,” Dre Kirkpatrick said. “They put it on the secondary. Obviously, we didn’t get the job done in the end. We are devastated. I can’t smile right now. It’s hard, frustrating. We put so much work in and too many big plays.”

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Siemian finished 23 of 35 for 312 yards with four touchdowns and zero interceptions. Not only did the stat line stick out, but the way in which he achieved it.

Twice on third downs, he threw deep balls over top of the Bengals' cornerbacks on third-and-long. The first a 41-yard touchdown pass to Emmanuel Sanders over Adam Jones and the second — the defining final blow — a 55-yard bomb to Demaryius Thomas over Chris Lewis-Harris on third-and-11 in the fourth quarter.

Jones walked off the field seconds before the touchdown to Thomas with a cramp, putting Lewis-Harris in the crosshairs of Siemian and the $60-million receiver who snagged the ball over Lewis-Harris’ head.

Those two critical plays were both on double moves and part of a Denver gameplan targeting Adam Jones’ susceptibility to them.

“Watching film, you saw guys,” Thomas said. “They’re great. They’re the best group we’ve gone against this year, but they were vulnerable to the double moves. Mine was a double move, too. It was called against Pacman but he wasn’t in.”

Jones allowed he played “terrible” in the first half and forgot it by the time he came into the locker room at halftime, then felt he played better in the second half.

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Much of the gameplan for the Bengals was to put the ball in Siemian’s hands against one-on-one matchups with the defensive backs in third-and-long situations. managed to stuff the Broncos' run to the tune of 23 rushes for 52 yards. The deep ball made the difference.

That’s the most surprising aspect. Allowing even one touchdown pass of longer than 40 yards is a rarity for the Bengals' defense. They only allowed three touchdown receptions of longer than 40 yards all of last season. Still, to pinpoint blame on any individual aspect of the defense would be unfair.

“It’s not just the DBs, it’s everybody as a group,” Jones said. “When we call certain plays guys up front have to blitz. Guys have to do what we are supposed to do. It looks like, hey the DBs are catching balls, but if you don’t know the calls you don’t know where the blitz going and the quarterback scramble out and certain things happen. We’ll get it together.”

Blame could be circulated. Two easy interceptions were dropped, one by Vinny Rey which would have fallen into the arms of Rey Maulauga and another by Shawn Williams. Also, two sacks and six quarterback hits weren’t enough pressure to rattle the young QB.

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“We didn’t get to him. I didn’t get to him,” Michael Johnson said. “He had time to push the ball down the field. Normally that’s not the case.”

In this building in recent years, this defense snuffed out Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and even Peyton Manning. But on this day, Manning’s replacement took over the fourth quarter.

Siemian went 9 of 10 for 159 yards and two touchdowns in the final stanza, for a perfect 158.3 passer rating. He engineered a 13-play, 82-yard touchdown drive at the beginning of the quarter that contained seven first downs and eventually a 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end John Phillips for a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

This marked the first time in the Marvin Lewis era the Bengals allowed a quarterback to throw for 300 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions in a loss.

The defense shoulders much of this loss and - while keeping perspective on a long season - shaking the rarity of this type of rough defensive outing would take time to wear off.

“We just got to play better,” Kirkpatrick said. “Frustrating the hell out of me, you go out there and fight through injuries and you fight through certain things and you have a chance to win the game. Just kind of pissed me off.”