REPORT CARD: Grading the Bengals' loss to Steelers
Lewis said injured wide receiver A.J. Green will play if he’s physically cleared after missing four games with a hamstring injury. And Lewis was adamant that young, inexperienced players will not play simply to show what they can do.
“This isn’t junior high school,” Lewis said.
Some of the players on the roster weren’t too far removed from junior high the last time the Bengals were not in the playoffs. Only 10 players on the 53-man roster were on the 2010 team that went 4-12 one year after sweeping the division en route to an AFC North title.
“It sucks, man,” said defensive tackle Domata Peko, an 11-year veteran. “We’re so used to the past five years of going to the playoffs every year. It’s been kind of the culture here. It’s the first time we haven’t in a long time, and it hurts. It really hurts me — I don’t know how many years and I’m going to be gone. I want to get a ring so bad before I’m done. We fell short this year.”
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Lewis’ frustration with the shortcomings was as raw Monday as it has been all season.
“It pisses you off,” he said. “It gets you upset, and you stay upset. It doesn’t sit well. We’ll get to work immediately in righting it, and making a new way. A better way, with everybody understanding it. We have to be better.”
He then rattled off a litany of reasons why the team failed.
“We fell short scoring, fell short early on in stopping scores, and we haven’t made any explosive plays in special teams, or very few,” he said. “We continue to do a good job on the other side of special teams, but we have to complete it. We fell down in making field goals and PATs, and that hurt us.
“We failed in a bunch of ways that hurt us,” he continued. “We didn’t protect the quarterback early on well enough. We gave up explosive plays on defense early in the season. All of those things we can look back to as to why we are where we are. We never got it all the way turned around.”
One of the biggest issues was the fourth quarter, where the team failed again Sunday in the 24-20 loss to Pittsburgh.
The Bengals haven’t scored a fourth-quarter touchdown in the last six games and haven’t scored one on this continent since Week 5 at Dallas.
They haven’t scored at all in the fourth quarter three times in the last six games, and their 51 fourth-quarter points are the fewest in the NFL.
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Lewis said the failings are a surprise given the talent on the roster.
“You’re surprised, but that’s part of it, he said. “That’s shame on me. You can’t get surprised. We have guys that can do better than what they’ve done this season. They have the ability to do better. We have to pull it out of them and get others and bring them on board.”
The final two games are at Houston on Saturday and home against Baltimore on Jan. 1. Both of those teams are in the thick of the playoff race, which should help the Bengals continue the fight despite playing simply for pride for the first time in more than half a decade.
If the team can win the next two, the players will go into the offseason having won four of five and feeling a little better about the season.
“We have some players that will be here next season that have never experienced a non-playoff season,” Lewis said. “That will be good for them. We have this young group of guys who have never been out of the playoffs. To win four out of five is a big thing for them, and it will matter.”
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NEXT GAME
Cincinnati Bengals (5-8-1) at Houston Texans (8-6)
When: 8:30 p.m. Saturday
TV: Ch. 2, 5
Radio: 700-AM, 1530-AM 102.7-FM, 104.7-FM
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