Monday, November 29, 1999A turn from the worst
Bengals put it together for a day
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PITTSBURGH — The surly crowd flooded the stadium on the river with boos. The coach's future is in doubt, the quarterback is under fire and a few fans even put paper bags over their heads.
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Darnay Scott looks back after catching a 76-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jeff Blake in the first quarter.
(AP photo)
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But for once Sunday the Bengals weren't the down-in-the dumps story. It was the Bengals who pulled out an excruciating 27-20 victory over the reeling Steelers here at Three Rivers Stadium.
Cincinnati put together its most complete game of a 2-10 season, securing its third win in the last 23 games only when they held the Steelers at the Bengals' 26-yard line with 54 seconds left.
“It's nice to be on the other side,” said Bengals linebacker Brian Simmons after his beleaguered defense played well enough to turn Steeler quarterback Kordell Stewart back into a wide receiver.
It's a season in which Bengals linebacker Takeo Spikes has be moaned the Bengals' “Buzzard's Luck,” in which, “You can't kill nothing and nothing won't die.”
But on Sunday, after Steeler running back Ricky Huntley's run for a first down ended in a fumble that bounced into Spikes' arms in the second quarter and set up Doug Pelfrey's 29-yard field goal that gave the Bengals a 24-3 lead, Spikes could sense a change in the air.
“I've been talking about buzzard's luck. I think it flew away. Lady Luck, she tried to help us last week,” said Spikes of the last-second loss to Baltimore. “We took a little off the shelf, but couldn't convert. But this week, we got it. No more Buzzard's Luck.”
And no what-ifs? for Bengals quarterback Jeff Blake, who has wondered what his career would be like if he had a more consistent running game and stingy defense. On Sunday, he won his first start of the season and just his fourth of his last 21 with the help of a running game that chewed up 5.4 yards per carry against the NFL's fourth-ranked defense. The Bengals had 415 net yards, more than any Steelers opponent this year.
With the Bengals defense never giving the foe the lead for the first time this season, the coaches were able to pound running back Corey Dillon for 23 carries for 120 yards. His only better game this season was the 28-168 day in Cleveland, the only other Bengal win.
Which means the Bengals are 8-2 in games Dillon carries 22 or more times, which makes the case for Dillon's plea to get the ball more. It was just the fourth time in Blake's 62 starts the Bengals have had a 100-yard rusher, and Cincinnati is 2-2. When the defense holds a team to 20 points or less, Blake is 10-9.
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Bengals coach Bruce Coslet smiles during Sunday's game in Pittsburgh.
(AP photo)
| ZOOM |“That's the way it's supposed to be,” Blake said. “That's a team. The offense has to make their plays and the defense has to make their plays. There it is.”
But the pass set up the run Sunday. Blake completed his first four passes against the NFL's top-ranked pass defense, good for 141 yards that gave the Bengals a 14-0 lead in the first 6:56. The crusher came on the game's third play when Blake play-action faked a run to Dillon and hit wide receiver Darnay Scott on a deep post pattern for the Bengals' longest play of the season, a 76-yard touchdown pass.
“They were unsure of what we were trying to do,” Blake said. “They didn't know if we were going to play action over the top again ... They were just guessing, trying to figure if we were going to drop back and throw short passes because they were blitzing.”
Burned long, the Steelers benched free safety Travis Davis and went with rookie Scott Shields playing a deep center field to choke off the long ball. But when the Steelers couldn't get the lead in the second half, they had to start blitzing and that opened a running game that rolled for 120 of its 182 yards in the second half.
Blake saluted coach Bruce Coslet and offensive line coach Paul Alexander for believing the run would work against the safety blitz. For the first time since opening day, the Bengals ran more (34) than they passed (28).
“Sometimes when guys are blitzing like that, it's easier to run the ball,” Blake said. “The free safety's in the backfield with me. There's nobody back there to make a tackle. That's why they were getting in the secondary so fast. They hit a crease ... The backs did a good job of making the safeties miss.”
Dillon got a lift from two rookie backs. Michael Basnight relieved him for one carry and broke through a blitz for a 35-yarder that set up Pelfrey's 29-yard field goal that made it 27-20 early in the third quarter, blunting Pittsburgh's rush of 17 straight points.
Rookie fullback Nick Williams played much of the second half with Cliff Groce on the bench nursing a hip injury and threw some big blocks, but it was the Bengals' stubbornness running the ball that won the game.
Six times in the first half, Dillon carried for two yards or less. But on the Bengals' last three series when the game was in the balance, he ran nine times for 64 yards. It didn't produce points, but it was time the Steelers didn't have the ball.
“We didn't give up on the run, that was the key,” said Dillon, who has been frustrated when the running game has been eliminated much of the season because of deficits. “I kept my poise. I know sometimes there won't be holes, sometimes I won't make yardage. But I kept my poise, kept going and got a couple of breaks.”¦
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A turn from the worst
