"You don’t ever want to have to root for another team to beat another team to get you into the playoffs," defensive end Bryan Robinson said after Cincinnati’s 24-23 loss to the Denver Broncos on Sunday.

The Bengals have only themselves to blame.

Cincinnati (8-7) needed only to win one of its two previous games to put itself in excellent position for a playoff spot. Instead, the Bengals played soft against Indianapolis in a 34-16 whipping, and they selfdestructed against the Broncos.

Even Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said he would have regarded a victory over Denver as "stolen" because of the mistakes his team made.

"We didn’t play well enough to win," Lewis said. "It doesn’t matter what the playoff implications were. You have to play well. You don’t want to play tight and tense."

That’s exactly how it looked to Carson Palmer, who added the adjectives "nervous" and "scared" to describe the Bengals’ demeanor for what was billed as a must-win.

Of all the things that happened Sunday, such descriptions might be the most damning. After all, the Bengals are four years into Lewis’ tenure, three years into Palmer’s career as a starter and won the AFC North last year. Why would they play scared, particularly against a team using a rookie quarterback starting only his fourth game?

Until leading the Bengals on a 90-yard touchdown drive in the final four minutes, Palmer played poorly for the second straight week. His passer rating through three quarters was a dismal 45.6. Four times, he missed receivers for potential touchdowns, and he threw two interceptions. The first changed the tone of the entire game. The Bengals got the ball at the Denver 5 following a Dexter Jackson interception, but Palmer overthrew receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the end zone and was intercepted.

If the Bengals had scored then and taken advantage of other early opportunities, they could have forced the Broncos to rely on Jay Cutler’s arm. Instead, the game stayed close and Denver kept grinding away with its running game, which eventually clicked.

But it wasn’t all Palmer’s fault. There was that little botched extra-point attempt that prevented the game from going into overtime.

Chad Johnson and Rudi Johnson fumbled the ball away. The Bengals were called for an illegal shift that negated a 75-yard touchdown pass to Chris Henry. Ahmad Brooks was offside on a successful onside kick that would have given the Bengals a last-ditch chance for victory.

"We definitely left a lot of points on the board," left tackle Levi Jones said. "We had chance after chance, but we just didn’t seize the moment."

Now their moment may have passed.

Columbus Dispatch