The last impression is the one that lingers. Shayne Graham knows what that means for him after he missed the 39-yard field goal attempt that would have put the Bengals in the playoffs. "It’s just a feeling no one wants to remember," Graham said after Cincinnati lost 23-17 in overtime to Pittsburgh on Sunday. "I’m sure I’ll have people ask questions all year until I get the first game out of the way next year." Questions will be asked about the 2006 Bengals, and the makeup of the 2007 Bengals, for the next several months. When a team flops the way Cincinnati did, everyone comes under scrutiny. The knee-jerk culprit Sunday was Graham, just as it had been long snapper Brad St. Louis the week before, when his errant snap on an extrapoint kick prevented the Bengals from taking the Denver Broncos to overtime. None of the Bengals blamed Graham or St. Louis for the losses. They understood that no one should be absolved of responsibility when a team comes as close as Cincinnati (8-8) did to reaching the playoffs and fails. That includes Marvin Lewis, credited for the Bengals’ resurgence after the franchise spent 15 years in the NFL wilderness. On Sunday, he called a timeout that might have proved one of several factors in the paper-thin difference between a January in the playoffs and a January at home. Cincinnati had two timeouts remaining when Steelers kicker Jeff Reed got set to kick a tying 35-yard field goal with 1:07 left. Just before the snap, Lewis called timeout in an attempt to ice Reed. On the opposite sideline, Steelers coach Bill Cowher had a big smile, which could be taken as acknowledgment of his former assistant coach’s gamesmanship. Or maybe he just thought he’d caught a break. Reed made the kick. So instead of having two timeouts, the Bengals had only one when they began their final drive with 55 seconds left. After an incompletion, Carson Palmer completed a 47-yard pass to Chris Henry to the Steelers 20-yard line. Not wanting to burn the final timeout, Palmer spiked the ball with 23 seconds left. Cincinnati then called the timeout to avert a delay-of-game penalty after confusion over the play clock. To prevent the possibility of the field-goal unit having insufficient time to set up, Palmer then took a kneel-down and spiked the ball to kill the clock. If Cincinnati had had an additional timeout, it could have run a meaningful play during that series. Would it have mattered? Nobody will ever know. But it’s worth pointing out that Graham’s kick looked good until it faded right. A few more yards might have made a difference. Lewis defended the timeout, saying he had done the same thing at the end of the first half of the second Baltimore game, and normally reliable Ravens kicker Matt Stover missed a 29-yard attempt. He added that Cowher called timeout just before Graham’s kick. But neither of those timeouts would have had any other value to the team taking it. Both teams took kneel-downs after the miss. In a season with countless decisions and plays, it’s unfair to pin the blame on one. But taking that timeout didn’t help. Ahead to 2007
In addition to the six games against their AFC North rivals, the Bengals’ 2007 schedule will consist of home games against New England, the New York Jets, Arizona, St. Louis and Tennessee. Cincinnati will go on the road to play Buffalo, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle and Kansas City. The Bengals have the 18 th overall pick in the draft. Columbus Dispatch http://columbusdispatch.com/bengals/bengals.php?story=dispatch/2007/01/02/20070102-E5-00.html |
