The way it looks right now, if the Bengals win tonight, they will likely return home and play the Ravens or Steelers for the first round of the playoffs. If the Bengals lose, they'll play the Jets again in Cincy next week.UPDATE: according to nfl.com, the Bengals will play either the Jets or Texans next week. Bengals win tonight and get the Texans next week. Lose and it will be the Jets again, with the game in Cincinnati either way. [the anonymous commenter is right, the Bengals can not have a game against the Ravens next week - and the Steelers are OUT]
UPDATE II: Cedric Benson is listed as inactive tonight.
UPDATE III: the Bengals benched a bunch of their players, apparently not trying in earnest to win the game. But 27-0 at halftime? Was that really necessary?
UPDATE IV: Bengals were crushed tonight ... and embarassed. Marvin Lewis had better get things figured out before next Saturday. On the positive side, the Bengals exacted some revenge on the Texans tonight.
I would do it just to make the Steelers cry a little bit more about it.
ReplyDeleteLose and play the Jets next week at home. Win and play either the Texans or Broncos (losing as I type this). Ravens are winning. Ravens win and Steelers are OUT! Cincinnati CANNOT play the Ravens next week. If Bengals lose, they are 4th seed (barring a crazy turn of events) and will play 5th seed Jets. Bengals win, Jets are out and Bengals play 6th seed. 6th seed could not be Ravens because Ravens take 5th seed over from Jets. Texans have already won, so they would get the 6th seed if Denver loses. Denver wins and they get the 6th seed. Regardless, Bengals v. Ravens would not happen until AFC Championship. Then again, all these tiebreakers are a bit nutty so I could be entirely misled.
ReplyDeleteBroncos are losing big right now ... so it might be the Texans at #6. We lost bad - at home - to the Texans earier this year. I'd rather play the Jets. I like both match-ups though, Jets and Titans. I don't want to see the Ravens or Steelers anymore this year.
ReplyDeleteravens are IN. so i think if the bengals win tonight, then they play the ravens next week. lose and they play the jets. if it was me in charge, i'd let the jets play their best game, take a lot of notes, and plan on playing them again next week. rest everybody!
ReplyDeleteI 2nd playing the Jets next weekend. A rookie QB in his first playoff game in new surroundings? Yeah, I'll take it. But the Bengals can't "give away the farm" tonight against him. Don't throw complex blitzes at him because then he'll be able to recognize them next week if you pull starters late. Run Bernard Scott against the D and play O'Sullivan at QB. Let OchoCinco score a TD and do his routine, then pull him. The Bengals cannot afford another serious injury. FURTHER, I think the Bengals get the 4th seed and STILL play in San Diego in the Divisional Round if they win in the Wild Card, as New England just lost Wes Welker for the season today (in all likelihood), so the Ravens beat them and have to play against Indy instead.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, I've seen the Texans as a threat all year, and I would NOT want to play their big-time offense again if I am the Bengals.
I repeat: the Bengals CANNOT play the Ravens next week. Bengals win and they are the 3 seed. Bengals lose and they are the 4th seed with the JETS being the 5th seed and playing the same game next weekend at Cincy. The Bengals win moves the Bengals to the 3 seed and the Ravens move up to the 5th seed, moving the Texans into the playoffs as the 6th seed.
ReplyDeleteAll week, ESPN has had this particular scenario leading to the Ravens playing the Bengals if Cincinnati won tonight against the Jets. That's been incorrect. Every other site I've looked at had it the other way around. I think the internet may have misled the DarkeJournal.
ReplyDeleteBoth NFC games next week are rematches from this week: Arizona v. Green Bay, Dallas v. Philly. Bengals lose tonight, and it'll be 3 games that will be rematches from the prior week.
ReplyDelete7:48 ... are you suggesting that there might have been inaccurate informationon the internet ... :)
ReplyDeleteIt depends: were you using ESPN? :)
ReplyDeleteI was mostly just thinking that the bengals would be #4 no matter what. i forgot that they would move up to #3 with the win. that's what was throwing me off.
ReplyDeleteAs stated earlier, and followed by the Bengals: don't show a series of complex blitzes tonight so as not to give away the defensive scheme to the rookie QB. I saw one "big" blitz, and the Jets jumped for a false start. Everything else was puny. They were barely even RUN blitzing, let along bringing a corner or safety blitz at the QB. The loss of Pat Sims will be pretty big, as he was clogging a lot of the line up and was doing a great job when paired with Peko or Johnson in the middle of the DL.
ReplyDeleteThe Jets, on the other hand, blitzed over and over and over again in the first half. It gave Palmer a chance to get some free defensive reads of next week's opponent.
I feel sorry for Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels tonight for having to pretend to have something interesting to talk to for about 3 hours.