Bengals snap winless streak, beat Eagles 32-14
On a day when Cincinnati broke from some long-standing norms off the field, the Bengals shed nearly all of the issues that have plagued them through 11 games on the field in a 32-14 blowout of the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
Prior to the game, the team recognized 14 former players spanning nearly three decades of play, and then the players made a decision to go with the orange-jersey, black-pants combination not worn since Dec. 11, 2005.
Analysis: Why Bengals beat Eagles
Once the ball was in the air, the following happened:
- The Bengals' defense didn’t allow a scoring drive on the Eagles’ opening possession, snapping a four-game streak in which an opponent scored a touchdown on their first drive.
- The Bengals led 10-0 after the first quarter, the first lead the team had held at that point since Oct. 23 against Cleveland.
- The offense scored on its first six possessions of the game for the first time since Oct. 25, 2009 (117 games). In that 45-10 victory against the Chicago Bears, the Bengals scored on their first seven possessions.
- Andy Dalton topped 300 yards passing for the first time since Oct. 23 and posted a season-high 130.0 quarterback rating.
- The defense forced a season-high three turnovers, all interceptions.
- Dalton was not sacked for the first time all year.
By pulling together their most completely game of the year, the Bengals were able to snap four-game winless streak and a three-game losing streak with the victory, improving to 4-7-1. The Eagles have now lost three straight and are 5-7.
Rookie receiver Tyler Boyd was asked in a noisy Bengals locker room if it felt good to get a win for the first time in 42 days, and in the background Dalton exalted, “Yes it does!”
The opening 15 minutes set the tone for the day, in which the Bengals were never truly pressed by the Eagles.
Philadelphia won the toss and elected to receive, but the Bengals' defense turned rookie quarterback Carson Wentz and the Eagles' offense away on three plays, leading to a bad Donnie Jones punt that gave Dalton and the Bengals starting field position at their own 47.
“We're tired of people saying we start off slow and let people score on the first drive,” said Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict, who had a game-high 15 tackles, four passes defensed and two interceptions. “We just did a good job focusing on the little details, route concepts, understanding what they're doing and what call we have and we have to execute.”
The Bengals advanced into the red zone before stalling out at the Eagles’ 14, but Mike Nugent kicked a 32-yard field goal and the Bengals had a lead.
Another forced punt by the defense, and the offense responded with an 8-play, 81-yard drive that culminated with a Jeremy Hill 2-yard touchdown run.
That 10-0 margin in the first quarter set the table, on both sides of the ball and for the embattled Bengals kicker.
“I don’t know what it was, but we came out with that sense of urgency that you see at times throughout the game with us, but it’s never consistent,” tight end Tyler Eifert said. “So, we came out with that sense of urgency and did a good job of maintaining it and kept pressing forward.”
The Bengals racked up 412 yards of total offense as Dalton (23-for-31, 332 yards, 2 TD) connected with nine different receivers. The rush game averaged just 2.4 yards per carry, but they ran it 33 times.
They also went 7-for-14 on third downs, but were 7-for-11 on the six scoring possessions, including a 93-yard touchdown drive at the end of the first half and a second-half opening touchdown drive. Only two second-half fumbles marred the total effort.
“When you've got a two-minute score before the half and then get the ball back and get points, it all comes together,” Jeremy Hill said. “Obviously we’d like to have those turnovers back but other than that, third downs were our key today. We converted on those third downs and kept our defense off the field. And our defense played their butts off, too. It was all-in-all a team effort.”
For Philadelphia, Wentz threw it 60 times but completed just 36 of them for 306 yards. Shawn Williams picked him off once to go with Burfict’s two takeaways, and the Eagles couldn’t get anything going on the ground (53 team rushing yards) without starting running back Ryan Mathews, or anything downfield without leading wide receiver Jordan Matthews.
Nugent did miss a point-after attempt for the third straight game and for the fourth time in his last five contests, but he went 4-for-4 on field goals. It was perhaps the Bengals’ most complete effort of the year.
“We were really eager for that,” Boyd said. “We’ve been really thirsty for that win, and now that it finally came, I feel we’ll have a pretty solid rest of the year. That’s the game that we needed to elevate our game – to take it where we should have been before.”
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