Decisive. From the beginning bell, there was nary a doubt that the Bengals were going to win this game today. They drove 77 yards on the opening drive to score on the Arm of the God of Golden Arms.
Oh, by the way. Carson Palmer, who many have doubted of late, had twenty completions out of twenty-four attempts. He threw for five touchdowns on only 233 yards passing.
I'd say that's pretty efficient, wouldn't you? Perhaps even...elite?
Hit the jump.
Oh, you may have heard at some point during this past week that Cedric Benson used to play for the Chicago Bears as well. No? Well I understand, it was kind of swept under the rug. Swept under the rug about as much as Jerome Bettis hailing from Detroit was swept under the rug, that is.
Regardless of how many tweets I saw come through my feed about the Bears blackballing Benson over the past three days, I'd like to raise a question that was posed by a commenter here in one of the live game threads.
Is there some way we can brainwash Cedric Benson to think he's playing the Bears every week? Holy cow.
The man carried the ball thirty-seven times. Thirty. Seven. Times. He amassed a total of 189 yards with a long of 26 and a touchdown against his former team. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a different man than the Cedric Benson drafted fourth overall in 2005 by those Chicago Bears. Benson was a man possessed today, and it was a thing of beauty.
Oh, and picture this. You're a linebacker for the Bears, lining up for a feeble attempt to stop the Bengals from scoring from your one-yard line. You're trying to psych yourself up, knowing you're going to hit the hole and bring that no-good former teammate Benson down...and you see Domata Peko lining up in the I formation as the blocking fullback. I absolutely love the idea of lining Peko up as a fullback from time to time, I think that seeing Domata running full bore at you would loosen the bowels of any linebacker from Ray Lewis to Lawrence Taylor. I loved it.
And hey, let's not forsake the defense, shall we? Two interceptions by Leon Hall, a pick and a forced fumble by Chris Crocker and they held Matt Forte to 24 yards on six attempts (which admittedly falls back to the offense and their quick start, god bless 'em!).
The good guys held the ball for nearly thirteen minutes longer than the Bad News Bears today and absolutely dominated the field in every phase.
Solid special teams.
Solid defense.
An offense that couldn't have been stopped by the 1985 iteration of the Bears' defense...the 2009 version didn't stand a snowball's chance.
All that said, the bye comes at a good time for some of our nicked up boys in Orange to get right and get ready for the Ravens when they come to town in two weeks.
Bravo, boys. You did us proud today. Very, very proud.
As always I remain (and very happily so on such a beautiful day to be...)
A Pragmatic Bengals Fan