The Bengals and Ravens have now played 58 times since the series started the year Joe Burrow was born in 1996 and never before had they combined for 79 points like they did Sunday in Baltimore's 41-38 overtime victory at Paycor Stadium.
For all of Burrow's career-high five touchdown passes and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson's 403 yards of total offense, it came down to a snap.
The snap for two of the NFL's best kickers. The Ravens got the snap right when Justin Tucker tied the game at 38 with 1:35 left in regulation on a 56-yard field goal. The Bengals didn't when rookie holder Ryan Rehkow failed to get the snap down for what would have been Evan McPherson's winning 53-yarder with 4:31 left in overtime.
Rehkow came in riding high as the NFL's leading punter and his 48.4-yard net Sunday with a long of 66 that set up a safety won't hurt. But the snap did.
And it's a shame because they were at this point, you could argue, because of Rehkow's tracer. The 66-yarder put into motion the Bengals' turning a 14-7 late second-quarter deficit into a 24-14 lead halfway through the third quarter.
"It's one of those things I felt like I let (McPherson) down and the team down a little bit. To look back, it feels like that cost us the game, for me personally," said Rehkow, who confirmed a good snap from Cal Adomitis.
"Watching the film, it looks like I don't get a super clean grip as I'm trying to bring it down. I think I was bringing it down too quick. And then the tail starts to wig out a little bit and it comes up, and I can't get my right hand out fast enough. Evan did a great job. He stuck with it. That says a lot."
McPherson, who had a streak of 14 straight field goals in the fourth quarter and overtime, did manage to get it in the air.
"I still put a pretty good hit on it. It actually ended up going pretty far," McPherson said. "It's a terrible feeling when you can't come through like that at the end. He's done a really good job in holding and I have full trust in him whether he drops it or it's perfect … If anything, I didn't put the ball through the uprights, so I think it has to fall on me."
Rehkow, who joined the team the first week of training camp, has made a minor adjustment in his holding since he came over from the Chiefs. Instead of holding the ball with two fingers, he's been holding it with one so he has the ability to spin it if need be.
He's been fine with it. Before that kick, McPherson had made all of three of his 50-yarders and he had only miss one from anywhere.
"That's one of those things. When I'm on the field, I usually feel really calm," Rehkow said. "That circumstance wasn't any different. I really do feel like almost the adrenaline was too much and I was just trying to get it down too quick."
ALMOST PERFECT: Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said last week he had to be "damn near perfect," to beat the Ravens. Until 3:05 left in a game the Bengals led by three points, he was better than that. He was hovering at a career-high 150 passer rating (153 is actually perfect in the stat world) and he had hit 14 straight passes.
Then on second-and-15 from the Ravens 33, Burrow threw an interception intended for wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase. Cornerback Marlon Humphrey knifed inside the leverage and made the catch instead.
"It was man-to-man. I had Ja'Marr on a slant and took a shot," Burrow said. "(Humphrey) made a really good play. I'm not sure I would have made any other decision than that. Credit to him."
Chase took the blame. Twice he called it "a (bleep) route.
"Marlon played inside leverage. The coaches on the sideline were yelling 'Slant," the whole time," Chase said. "I should have made him break a little more."
Burrow wasn't buying it.
"Marlon is a great player. We made plays, they made plays. That's a credit to him," Burow said. "He's a smart, savvy player who knows what we're trying to do in that situation. He played it perfect."
There's that word again.
Burrow finished with a season-high 137 passer rating fueled by completing 77% of his 39 passes for 392 yards. Chase had his biggest day in almost a year to the day with ten catches for 192 yards that included a 70-yard catch-and-run touchdown on a screen pass. He had 193 yards on a team-record 15 catches in Arizona last Oct. 8.
"I know exactly how we are 1-4," Burrow said. "We're not making plays at the end of the game to go and win it. (I'm) definitely not in disbelief. I know exactly what's happening."
TAKE A BOW, SAM: To butcher even more what Mark Twain supposedly never said, the reports of defensive end Sam Hubbard's decline seem to have been greatly exaggerated.
With defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo lining him up everywhere but at Gate A, Hubbard ranged from linebacker to defensive tackle for his first sack of the season and a team-high nine tackles, one for the game-changing safety late in the second quarter that cut the Bengals' deficit to 14-9.
Hubbard will forever be remembered in the highlights from this one because Jackson stiff-armed him before throwing a ludicrous touchdown pass late in the game. But Hubbard got them back in this one and helped keep them there.
It's Hubbard's most tackles in a game since Halloween of 2022. Since then, heck, since only late last season, it's been tough on the captain and seven-year vet. He played the last several games on an ankle that needed reconstructive surgery after the season and when he showed up for training camp he was part of an injury onslaught that gutted the defensive line. He missed most of camp with a hamstring injury.
"In the first half we played well," Hubbard said. "I was able to make some plays the team can feed off. I went through a really tough training camp. I didn't have the luxury of waiting until I was fully healthy to come back. Some of the (D-Ends) went down in camp. Cam Sample went down. Myles (Murphy) went down. I had to come back. I'm finally feeling a bit like myself again. No moral victories. They made more plays than we did. We're 0-1 in the division and have a long way to go."
The safety came the first play after Rehkow's punt stopped at the 2. Hubbard moved into the four technique, which is tackle in a 3-4, and when he shot a gap, Hubbard took fullback Patrick Ricard by surprise with the slant and he was able to dump running back Derrick Henry in the end zone.
That was Anarumo's philosophy Sunday. Aggressive. Keep up the pressure. When he dropped Hubbard at backer a few times, he did it mainly to blitz Jackson.
Keep him bottled up and Henry from going north and south. That's why The King had just 41 yards rushing on 14 carries before he gashed them on the last play from scrimmage for 52 yards to set up Tucker's chip-shot winner. Henry caved the right side of the defense for one of six Baltimore plays that went at least 22 yards.
"We stopped the run, but the explosives …," Hubbard said.
They got Jackson to third down 15 times, but they couldn't corral and tackle him before he converted ten of them on an average of nine yards per conversion. Cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt though the blitz was effective.
"He second-guessed himself a lot of times, but he can extend the play," Taylor-Britt said.
The Bengals did a good job plastering those outside receivers for the most part. But three tight ends combined for 132 yards on 10 catches, two of them Isaiah Likely touchdowns.
"You've got to be aggressive," said head coach Zac Taylor of the plan to blitz. "Obviously, they've got the top rushing attack in football, so we weren't going to just sit back there and let them do it. They've got a great quarterback. You've got to put pressure on him to make some plays and he answered the bell often. That's what he does.
"When you play (Jackson), you know that. He's strong, he's athletic, he's tough to bring down. That's just part of it. Our guys have played him plenty."
D DINGED: Anarumo threw the kitchen sink at the Birds, furiously rotating his linebackers enough that the little-used Akeem Davis-Gaither forced a third-down incompletion that forced the tying field goal late in regulation when he was part of an-out-seven-man pressure, and rookie free agent Maema Njongmeta saw a handful of his first snaps from scrimmage.
But starting cornerback Dax Hill limped off at the end of the Ravens' first series with a knee injury and the fear is it is serious. It also put even more stress on Anarumo because he had moved Hill to slot corner to replace Mike Hilton, and then had to turn to Jalen Davis, a vet slot cornerback promoted from the practice squad, and, at times, rookie Josh Newton.
END OF GAME: When Jackson fumbled a shotgun snap on the first series of overtime and Bengals linebacker Germaine Pratt chased down the fumble at the Ravens 38, it looked like it was over.
The Bengals chose to run it three times for three yards to set up the 53-yarder, although Burrow did check a pass to a run.
"It wasn't a good look for the one we had called," Burrow said.
Although Chase and wide receiver Tee Higgins (nine catches for 83 yards) said they were looking for the ball at that point, Burrow understood where Taylor was coming from.
"I'm not going to second-guess that. We were in field-goal range. We go into every week on game days understanding field goal range on each side of the field," Burrow said. "You want to get some yards to make it easier on them. But also, that defense is really good and makes negative plays happen all the time.
"So, if you drop back and get sacked, or sacked/fumbled, they have a really good rush. No, I'm not going to second-guess that. We had a shot to win it, and we didn't take advantage of it."
The kicker, author of a 59-yarder in this building, was also on board.
"It was kind of a crosswind, but it was going toward our tunnel. We had a good feeling going for the wind that way," McPherson said. "We didn't want to risk putting the ball in the air getting an interception. Usually, that's the game plan for a game-winning field goal. Get as close as you can. But ultimately just hang on to the ball so we get the field-goal attempt."
SLANTS AND SCREENS: The Bengals got the ball back at their own 30 with 1:35 left in regulation and three timeouts, but the drive blew up before it started when defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike worked a stunt and came off the edge around David Ojabo on first down and knifed through the right interior to sack Burrow for a seven-yard loss.
"(The sack) is the big one. That's the big one," Taylor said. "That changes you a little bit. We still pushed the ball down the field on the second play. It was a contested play that was incomplete. So then you get to third-and-17 and the percentages tell you that's a very low percentage (chance of success).
"You can throw the ball past the sticks. Any team that's ever played the game (will know) that's a low -percentage play and we risk giving them the ball back with time with a kicker that can kick it the length of the field, so that's where we just ran out the clock and felt like we could give ourselves another opportunity." …
If there was a silver lining for the Bengals, it occurred late in the game. Rookie right tackle Amarius Mims, carted off with an ankle injury in the first half, returned. …
