Gene Collier: 'Classy' Bengals Quietly Take Control

Monday, September 25, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Out-fumbled, out-bungled and generally out-dumbed across three fairly frantic football hours, the Cincinnati Bengals had little choice but to beat the Steelers yesterday, even if that wasn't quite the analysis emanating from the borderline giddy visiting locker room.

Quarterback Carson Palmer, who lasted one half of one play the previous time these teams met, didn't feel as if he played terribly well in this hyper-anticipated rematch, but he still led the Bengals in cogent observations:

"They're an intimidating team, a talking team," he reminded his teammates about the defending Super Bowl champions late in yesterday's second half. "We were getting to the point where we were talking ourselves, like we were playing their game. My message was -- shut up and play. We ended up getting back under control. We're a classy team, so we're not going to get into that. Just play football."

And ...

"If you're going to take Chad [Johnson] away, then you're going to have to deal with Chris [Henry] and T.J. [Houshmandzadeh] one-on-one, and I don't think that's a good thing for a defense."

Palmer is perhaps a decade away from his studio analyst career, but he passed the audition right there.

On an afternoon when Verron Haynes and Willie Parker and Mike Logan talked and taunted the Steelers into 25 yards of penalties, 10 of them to open an ill-fated final drive, Henry and Houshmandzadeh combined to score four touchdowns as Cincinnati put an early hammerlock on the AFC North. Johnson caught one pass for 11 yards.

Henry, the WVU product who spent part of the offseason fighting a bogus concealed weapon charge -- he was waving it about menacingly, not concealing it -- beat Ike Taylor and Ricardo Colclough like bongos for the first two Bengals touchdowns, the better ballet being a stunning up-the-ladder grab of a Palmer pass for the 16-yard touchdown that erased the first of the Steelers' leads late in the second quarter.

"Taylor's a pretty good defensive back, but I still feel like that's a mismatch," said the 6-4 Henry. "Carson just lobbed that ball high and I went up and made a play."

On Cincinnati's next possession, Henry scorched Colclough off the opposite corner to put the Bengals up by a touchdown at the break.

Before Palmer could begin to advance his I-wasn't-very-good theory very far, it has to be pointed out that on those two scoring drives, Palmer went 8 for 8 and then 4 for 4 for a total of 130 yards, never mind that he was technically 12 for 14 because he spiked it twice to stop the clock in the half's final minute.

"I put the ball on the ground too many times," Palmer said. "But I think it shows how good a team is when you play a good team and your quarterback doesn't play very well, and you still win."

And that right there would be the first incompletion among the cogent observations, because it is merely impossible to determine how good the Bengals are in a laboratory where the Steelers are cooking up five turnovers, four in the second half. Given all of that, Cincinnati still might not be unbeaten today without a monstrous contribution from Houshmandzadeh, who wasn't even expected to start because of a bum foot.

"He gave us some very productive snaps," allowed coach Marvin Lewis, who has beaten Bill Cowher on his home lawn three times in four years. "He was fighting through a very, very sore foot. We had a lot of guys fighting through things today."

When Colclough's fumbled punt return set the Bengals up at the 9 in the fourth quarter, Palmer had no doubt where he was throwing the next ball. He drilled Houshmandzadeh with a post pass that looked way too simple.

"[Troy] Polamalu's very aggressive playing the run in those situations," T.J. explained. "He was right up there tight and I just ran right past him. That was a systems touchdown."

And while that put the Bengals ahead to stay at 21-17, there is no system even in the annals of physiology that might explain T.J.'s second touchdown, the one that followed the Steelers' second fumble in 40 seconds. The one that started and ended Cincinnati's second consecutive one-play touchdown drive.

Houshmandzadeh streaked toward the left pylon with Deshea Townsend in his shirt, turned and skied for the lofted Palmer pass, tipped it with his left hand and caught it as he fell to the grass.
"That was by design," he said, barely suppressing a laugh. "I mistimed my jump when I went up with two hands, but I just tried to stay with it."

That's pretty much what Lewis had been telling his team all day long. Don't flinch. Stay with it. Keep playing. I guess because somehow he knew the Steelers would eventually make enough mistakes to hand this one over.