Monday, December 06, 1999

Dillon carries the day

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Running back has 210 total yards

BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Corey Dillon hugs Jay Leeuwenburg after Dillon scored a touchdown in the third quarter. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        After touching the ball 30 times for 210 yards in Sunday's 44-30 win over the 49ers, Bengals running back Corey Dillon looks like an NFL prophet. He has been saying all year his team has a better chance of winning the more he carries the ball.

        Dillon drew within 19 of 1,000 rushing yards for the season with 133 yards on 25 carries, and the Bengals improved their record to 9-2 when Dillon carries 22 or more times. The three times he's hit that figure this season, the Bengals are 3-0.

        “When Corey gets 100 yards, I can win a football game,” said quarterback Jeff Blake, saluting the fifth 100-yard rushing game in his 63rd Bengal start.

        Dillon also logged a career-high 77 receiving yards on five catches, one a 12-yard touchdown catch off a screen. His 10-yard tightrope run down the sideline for the game's first score was just his second touchdown of the season and first since the opener.

Dillon gets by San Francisco's Brentson Buckner. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        “I'll take the rock any way I can get it,” Dillon said. “Out of the backfield, however you want to give it to me. (Thirty touches), that's a good day for me. You can't ask for anything else. The screen was working for us all day.”

        On the touchdown screen pass, center Rich Braham tied up a linebacker while left guard Matt O'Dwyer and Dillon went into the end zone untouched.

        “The (Niners) were spread out and instead of there being three or four guys out there like they usually are, there was only one or two,” Braham said.

        Dillon has been discouraged about his lack of carries and the losing. But he showed little emotion as he closes in on becoming the first back since Denver's Terrell Davis to get 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons.

        “I'm not looking past Cleveland,” Dillon said of Sunday's game. “At the end of the season, I'll evaluate everything.”

       

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