No jokes today. No easy humor at the football team's expense. They had the game won and then they didn't. They deserved better. They didn't get it. The Bengals are who they are. They'll live with that for another week.

They became a blues ballad long ago, a slow, steady trip to heartbreak. Muddy Waters would've loved this franchise. The Bengals play the way B.B. King's guitar sounds. Sunday's game was just another chord.

"We had the hole," Bengals coach Dick LeBeau said. "The guard slipped."

The guard slipped. That's not just an explanation for Cincinnati's seventh loss in seven attempts. It's a metaphor for the last 12 years. On fourth-and-goal from the Tennessee 1, left guard Matt O'Dwyer's foot caught quarterback Jon Kitna's foot. O'Dwyer slipped, and tripped Corey Dillon, who had the ball and a crease into the end zone.

"I could have took my daughter and wife through (that crease)," Dillon said. Sitting at his locker, Dillon extended his arms until they were 3 yards apart. "That big," he said.

Kitna said it was amazing Dillon got that close to the goal line, the play was so messed up. Dillon, being Dillon, nearly made something out of nothing for about the millionth time in his career, and in his life.

At the goal line, Dillon waited to see an official's arms raised. "I'm wondering," Dillon said. No raised arms.

The TV replays showed a pile of bodies, legs and shoulders and torn grass. Maybe Dillon crossed the line before his knee touched. Maybe he didn't. In the goal-line fleshpile, who could tell?

You didn't know anything. Except, maybe this: The Bengals don't win these types of arguments. They don't get the benefit of this sort of doubt. It's a product of their lost legacy. Kitna has been here just two years, but knows the local drill. "That should have been (called) a touchdown," he said. "But not when you're us."

It took a minute or so before referee Walt Coleman announced "there is not sufficient evidence" to reverse the call. Dillon, who wears the local legacy like a scab on his elbow, wasn't surprised. "They're the refs," Dillon noted. "We're Cincinnati."

Somebody should call a weatherman, because the black cloud over this franchise is the biggest in the history of the world. Much of it is self-induced, of course. Management has been seeding dark clouds for a decade. Not Sunday, though.

On Sunday, the Bengals played the way the optimists of July thought they could. The offense had no turnovers, the defense kept the game close. Because the game stayed winnable, the Bengals could pound Dillon, whose spirit in this dreadful season is a marvel, almost as appealing as the way he carries the ball.

Dillon had 30 rushes for 138 yards. On that last one, only a teammate could stop him. Naturally, a teammate did. "We'd have walked in" if the play had been clean, said Dillon. "Believe me."

Occasionally, good teams win because of who they are. Bad teams lose for the same reason. The Bengals have lost games they should have won, because they're the Bengals. One bad break, one bonehead play, their confidence is a cake in the rain.

Not Sunday, though. Sunday was one of those rare, fine days the Bengals worked to overcome themselves and their legacy. It still wasn't enough.

Cue the blues.

Email: pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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