[More Cowbell]

Well, I went to the game yesterday, and I must say that it is ridiculous that it took Cincy until the last minute of the game to take their first lead. Cincy should have won by 2 TD's, but they just kept on making mistake after mistake in the first half and put themselves in such a hole.

First off, Nate Clements falls down not once, but twice during the Browns' opening drive, the latter of which allowed Cleveland to score an easy TD. Then Cincy drives down to the goal line, but a failure of the fullback to make his block leads to getting stuffed on 4th-and-goal.

But the biggest blunder of them all would be courtesy of Marvin Lewis, and it happened right before halftime. Cincy is down 10-7 and has the ball on their own 27, but there are less than 40 seconds on the clock, and they only have 1 timeout left. Does Marvin play it safe and go to the locker room down 3, but knowing that he gets the ball first in the second half? Of course not. Instead, he drops Dalton back to pass, where he gets sacked from behind and fumbles it away. Cleveland recovers on the 14 and promptly punches it in 4 plays later. Just like that, a 3 point halftime deficit becomes 10.

If the Bengals had lost, Marvin would have had some serious explaining to do. Fortunately, the offense woke up and scored 16 points in the second half, while the defense never let the Browns get closer than the Cincy 34 yard line and only allowed a 54 yard field goal.

This was a win they had to have, now moving on to the toughest game left on the schedule, a visit to Pittsburgh. Go Bengals!