Monday, November 19, 2001
Bengals suffer 5th loss in 7 games
By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Bengals offensive captain Willie Anderson, who lost twice as many games as he won his first five seasons, sat at his locker Sunday afternoon and tried to explain how a 2-0 start has turned into 4-5.
Anderson wasn't buying the line of thinking that he should be happy because the team clearly is better than it was the past three years.
“It's an improvement if you're a loser and you're comfortable with losing,” he said. “It's still a losing mentality to say, "At least we're better than last year.' That's nothing, man.”
For the second game in a row, the Bengals were shut out in the second half and lost 20-7 to the Tennessee Titans. The Bengals have lost five of their last seven and dropped into a fourth-place tie with the Titans in the AFC Central.
Since taking a 13-7 lead at the half at Jacksonville, the Bengals have scored seven points and given up 43 over six quarters.
Anderson has seen enough.
“We can go the rest of the season and win one game and be one game better than last season,” he said. “We can't be happy because we're better than we were last year.”
The Bengals took a winning record into November for the first time since 1990, but legitimate playoff hopes are fading faster than autumn daylight.
Now, for the first time this season, the Bengals are under .500.
“I would hope it would be a stronger motivation force to them,” Bengals coach Dick LeBeau said. “I hope that they don't like it. I certainly don't.”
The Bengals fell behind on the game's first play, when Tennessee's Derrick Mason returned Neil Rackers' line-drive kickoff 101 yards for a touchdown. Mason was untouched, save a possible brush by Rackers, and a physically and emotionally fragile Titans team had new life.
They had lost 16-10 Monday night to Baltimore and played Sunday without starting safety Blaine Bishop. Titans quarterback Steve McNair, tight end Frank Wycheck and middle linebacker Randall Godfrey were all playing hurt.
Mason's return provided the lift the Titans needed.
“As a defense, we knew that special teams showed up to play, so we wanted to show up,” said defensive end Jevon Kearse, who had his ninth sack.
The Bengals outgained the Titans 149-115 in the first half but trailed 10-7.
Three times in the first half, LeBeau chose not to attempt field goals that were within Rackers' range.
On their first possession, the Bengals drove to the Tennessee 32, and Rackers lined up for a 49-yard attempt. Instead, holder Nick Harris pitched the ball back to Rackers, who punted into the end zone for a touchback.
“I wanted to keep them back in their own territory,” LeBeau said.
Tennessee drove 57 yards on its next possession and scored on a 41-yard field goal by Joe Nedney.
The Bengals drove 70 yards after Nedney's kickoff for their only touchdown of the game, a 10-yard Jon Kitna pass to Ron Dugans, who led the Bengals with five catches for 51 yards.
The Bengals got the ball right back when Artrell Hawkins intercepted a McNair pass intended for Eddie George at the 30-yard line. The Bengals were first down-and-10 on the Tennessee 17 when guard Mike Goff was called for holding on a 6-yard Corey Dillon run. Three incomplete passes and an illegal motion penalty put the Bengals into a fourth-and-25 at the 32-yard line, but LeBeau sent Harris in to punt.
“If someone would have been kind enough to tell me we wouldn't get down there again to kick a field goal, I probably would have gone ahead and kicked a field goal there,” LeBeau said.
The Bengals forced the Titans into three-and-out punts on their next two possessions to set up another sustained drive by Cincinnati's offense. The Bengals went 51 yards in 10 plays, but turned the ball over when Dillon was stopped for a 1-yard loss on fourth-and-1 at Tennessee's 29.
On a still, warm day, Rackers was making 55- and 60-yard kicks in warmups.
Rackers talked to LeBeau at halftime.
“I sure would have liked to hit them,” Rackers said. “I said to him, "Coach, I don't know what your reason is but before the game we were hitting those, and I just wanted to let you know you can feel safe putting me out there for those.'”
The Bengals scored just seven first-half points in spite of driving four times to at least Tennessee's 32-yard line.
Kitna was 12-for-18 passing for 127 yards for one touchdown and no interceptions in the first half.
“In the first half, we executed at a high, high level,” Kitna said. “When you do that and don't get points, that gives them hope. We should have come out with 13-16 points, and we came out with seven and down three points. Second half, we didn't move the ball at all.”
Kitna was intercepted twice and nearly a third time in the second half.
The Titans outgained the Bengals 178 yards to 115 in the second half and scored on McNair's 28-yard pass to Kevin Dyson in the third quarter and on Nedney's 37-yard field goal in the fourth.
The Bengals have been outscored 33-0 in the second halves of the last two games and outgained 369-274.
They were 4-3 after winning Oct. 28 at Detroit and entered the bye week talking playoffs.
This Sunday, the Bengals will go to Cleveland to play the 5-4 Browns, who are coming off an upset of the defending Super Bowl champion Ravens in Baltimore.
“It's real hard to fall below .500,” Bengals center Rich Braham said. “Over the last seven games, we've only won, what, two games. Early in the year, they were talking about urgency. It has to come now, this week. We have to get to .500 this week, and on the road.”
A few lockers down, Anderson was still trying to figure out how and why a promising season has begun to unravel.
“We can't sit here and be content,” he said. “We have to get back to being the team we were before the break.”
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That run-down feeling
