To some, the Cincinnati Bengals‘ 47-42 loss to the Chicago Bears may be the game of the year. For Bengals head coach Zac Taylor and running back Chase Brown, the game will go down as a far worse memory.
There are losses and then there’s what the Bengals experienced Sunday: An unlikely lost lead and last-minute heartbreak that left both feeling uneasy.
“It’s sick to lose like that, it’s sick,” Taylor said. “That’s what happened, so we got to own it, and we got to keep finding ways to improve and keep finding ways to find a win. These last two weeks, it hasn’t happened.”
Brown, much like his coach, was upset after the game but chose to express his thoughts in a more direct way after watching the collapse.
“What the f—,” Brown said to sum up his thoughts going into the locker room. “We put the ball in the end zone to go up a point at the end. Finish the f—ing game. Like, just end it.”
As Taylor alluded to, losing in Week 9 after last week’s 39-38 loss to the previously winless Jets has been tough, but Sunday’s outcome was downright brutal.
A Bears touchdown erased their 20-17 halftime lead in the third quarter, but the Bengals scored a touchdown to jump back in front. A second Bears TD flipped the score again before a fumble, missed field goal and a Joe Flacco interception ended Cincy’s next three drives.
Amazingly, the Bengals found life after Chicago scored 10 unanswered points to take a 41-27 lead with 2:15 left in regulation. Flacco, who turned in a career-best day, led back-to-back TD drives in 81 seconds, with the second happening after a recovered onside kick at the 1:43 mark.
With Cincinnati up 42-41 with 54 seconds to play, disaster struck for Taylor and Co. after the defense missed two tackles on Bears tight end Colston Loveland on a 58-yard go-ahead score at the 17-second mark to win it.
The scoring bonanza yielded 1,071 yards of offense, including a 470-yard, four-TD and two-interception day for Flacco that wasn’t enough to get the job done.
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