The Cincinnati Bengals came out of half-time with a nice five-yard run by Cedric Benson on first down from their own 26-yard line. Following a pass into a tight window to Jermaine Gresham that fell incomplete, Andy Dalton fires a pass towards the first down marker on the left, where Ryan Whalen hauls in the first down reception, completing his first catch in his NFL career. Cedric Benson takes the handoff on the ensuing play and violently picks up 12 yards where Benson fumbled the football that the Bengals thankfully recovered.
Keeping to the ideals that Cincinnati’s rushing offense should be better than St. Louis’ rushing defense, Benson picked up another seven yards, edging the right side of the line and sprinting down the sidelines before he’s pushed out of bounds. Andy Dalton followed that up with a 10-yard reception on a beautiful Jerome Simpson route to the Rams 32-yard line.
Jermaine Gresham picked up nine yards on the following play, catching the football five yards short of the first down and fighting for another four yards to the Rams 23-yard line. A Jermaine Gresham targeted pass fell out of bounds and the Bengals thought, for some reason they could pick up one yard on third and short with a Cedric Benson run. They didn’t.
Mike Nugent converted the 41-yard field goal, tying the game with 10:22 remaining in the third quarter.