The Cincinnati Bengals suffered a stunning loss on Sunday. The Bengals were leading by 10 points with six minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, but they ended up losing to the Baltimore Ravens in overtime, 41-38.
The Bengals actually had a chance to win in overtime, but their play-calling got conservative and it's something that's not sitting well with two of the team's biggest stars: Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
With game tied at 38 in OT, the Bengals defense came up with its biggest play of the day when Germaine Pratt recovered a Lamar Jackson fumble on Baltimore's first possession of overtime. Thanks to the turnover, the Bengals took possession at the Ravens' 38-yard line needing just a field goal to win the game.
After watching the Joe Burrow light up the Ravens defense during regulation, the Bengals decided to take the ball out of his hands during overtime by running the ball three straight times. At that point, Burrow had thrown for 392 yards and a career-high five touchdowns, but in overtime, he didn't throw a single pass.
Higgins, who caught nine passes for 83 yards and two touchdowns, doesn't seem to agree with what the Bengals did. The receiver would have liked to see the team go with at least one pass.
"Personally, I think we should have gone a little bit more aggressive in the first and second downs just to try to get Evan in better field goal range," Higgins said after the game, via NFL.com.
Brown's three runs went for a total of three yards, which set up a 53-yard field goal attempt for Evan McPherson to win the game. However, the kick ended up missing after a high snap from Cal Adomitis and a bad hold from Ryan Rehkow.
"You know he makes those from that deep," Higgins said of McPherson. "I'm not putting it on him at all, you know what I'm saying. So it's a team effort, we lost as a team, but we could have did a better job at putting him in better field goal range to make it an easier kick."
Ja'Marr Chase echoed his teammate. The Bengals star, who caught 10 passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns, said the team absolutely should have thrown at least one pass in overtime.
"I felt like we should have tried at least one play, to give it to one of our playmakers, me or Tee or Drei (Andrei Iosivas), try to get a first down, that's what we'd been doing the whole game," Chase said.
Chase is right, it is what the Bengals had been doing the whole game. During regulation, the Bengals didn't run the ball on three straight plays a single time, so they got conservative and it ended up costing them.
For his part, Bengals coach Zac Taylor did say that the team called a pass on first down in overtime, but Burrow changed the play to a run.
"We've thrown the ball in that situation before. We call the pass. Joe actually did a great job getting us out of it, back into a run, because the look was not there to throw it," Taylor said, via SI.com. "And so there was good management by him. Still got a couple of yards out of it, and then we're in a position to win with the field goal and we thought we'd win it with that."
Brown gained zero yards on the first down carry, which means second-and-10 probably would have been a good time to pass, but Taylor called for a run. After Brown gained three yards, the moved the ball up to the 35-yard line, which put the Bengals in line for a 53-yard field goal attempt instead of 56, and that's where Taylor felt comfortable.
"When you're in field goal range and you believe in your kicker, it really is as simple as that," Taylor said.
The Bengals coach noted that he wanted to avoid a sack or a holding penalty that might have pushed the team out of field goal range, which is why they didn't get more aggressive.
The bottom line is that the best player on the field for Cincinnati was Burrow and the Bengals took the ball out of his hands. Settling for a 53-yard field goal in overtime is a bold decision even if you completely trust your kicker.