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For the first time in13 years the Bengals go into next week's last game of the regular season with a shot to qualify for the Wild Card playoff game, courtesy of Saturday night's numbing 30-24 overtime win over the Broncos at Paycor Stadium.

But, unlike 2011, when they did secure the Wild Card, they have to win. At Pittsburgh. And they still need the Chiefs to beat the Broncos, and both the Colts and Dolphins have to split their final two games.

But never mind. The Bengals are the team nobody wants to play after their fourth straight win Saturday. Four weeks ago at 4-8 after the loss to the Steelers, nobody gave them a shot.

It's a 12% chance now. But it's not five or nine, as it has been.

"We know we've had a good football team all along. In those games, it's disappointing that we came up short. It didn't change our process," said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor. "It didn't change what our guys believed in. We didn't have to change everything we did. We still believed in what we were doing and now we've won four in a row, and now we've got to make it five in a row."

Slot cornerback Mike Hilton, the old Steeler who continued to have a torrid month with Saturday's seven tackles, heads to Pittsburgh for his Bengals-leading 44^th AFC North game.

"It's going to be another do or die. We've got to go out there and win a game against a good opponent," Hilton said. "Obviously, we need some things outside of our control to happen. But tonight was big. To be able to have a shot at it. That's all you can ask for at this point of the year."

TEXTING T-E-E-E

If Saturday night was indeed wide receiver Tee Higgins’ last Paycor game as a Bengal, he gave the crowd of 66,546 and himself a postcard memory.

It's the first time he ever scored three touchdowns during his five NFL seasons here, and his 11 catches for 131 yards is surpassed only by his 12-catch,194-yard game of three years ago during Joe Burrow’s 525-yard passing day against the Ravens, also here.

On Saturday night, he caught the last two balls of Burrow's 412-yard overtime masterpiece, running down a 31-yard moon ball before it went out of bounds down the left sideline, and then the three-yard walk-off touchdown pass with 67 seconds left in OT on an arrow to the front left pylon.

(For those scoring at home, that's the first Bengals' overtime touchdown since cornerback Corey Sawyer's 1998 pick-six in Detroit against old friend Scott Mitchell.)

Higgins let Taylor know how much he wanted to play Saturday back on Tuesday, 48 hours after he nicked his ankle against the Browns. In the offensive meeting, Higgins didn't see his name in the personnel groups on the board, and pounded out a text to Taylor from the back of the room.

"I'm playing."

"You never know when a guy doesn't finish the (previous) game. It's early in the week. Trust me when I say this, we do this all the time, so that's nothing big," Tayor said. "But that was his way of telling me early on, 'You're going to have me.'"

An easy call for Higgins, playing on the franchise tag and staring at free agency. This is why he fired out that text to Taylor:

"It could be my last game playing here in this stadium with stripes on. I wanted to go out with a bang … Hopefully, it's not, but you never know what the future holds. You can't go out any better way."

Higgins made life miserable for Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and his No. 4 scoring defense. Joseph, for the most part, opted to cover NFL leader Ja’Marr Chase with No. 1 cornerback Patrick Surtain II and a little help while letting his other cornerback, Riley Moss, track Higgins.

In honor of Randy Moss, Higgins "Mossed" Moss on those last two throws, and the 12-yard touchdown pass that gave the Bengals a 17-10 lead when the 6-4 Higgins scraped a jump ball off the 6-1 Moss' helmet in the back of the end zone.

Higgins also beat Moss on a 19-yard slant in overtime that set up Cade York's 33-yard field-goal miss.

But it was the 31-yarder that ended up breaking the game open 69 minutes after it started.

"I had run five go routes before that," said Higgins with a smile. "I was a little cooked. But he was able to give me a chance to get that last one."

Burrow looked like he called the go rather than Higgins converting it into one.

"We'd been throwing it short on them with 10-yard stops and we'd been completing some of those, so I was waiting for the right moment to take our shot there," Burrow said. "What a great catch by Tee. Tee came up big. He was unbelievable today."

The same thinking was on tap for the winner from the Denver 3, where Burrow tucked it into Higgins running an out on Moss at the left pylon.

"They'd been playing it down there like that the whole day," Burrow said. "We'd already hit one to Tee in the back of the end zone and figured they'd be worried about it. So, it was a great call by Zac to throw one at the front pylon right there and then Tee made a great catch."

JINGLE BELL JA'MARR

Chase had nine catches for 102 yards. He called it a "quiet," game, but it was enough to break T.J. Houshmandzadeh's Bengals' single-season receptions record of 112 with 117 for a 16-catch NFL lead heading into Sunday's game. It also put him over 1,600 yards (1,612) and extended his yardage lead over Justin Jefferson to 225. He didn't score a touchdown but still leads by four over Terry McLaurin.

"Tell him, 'Thanks,'" said Chase, when asked about his reaction to eclipsing Houshmandzadeh. "I'll take it. I would have liked to have had a touchdown, but I'll take it."

Chase had an easy touchdown on the second drive on Burrow's flip from the Denver 2, separating from the unfortunate Moss to get himself wide open at the right pylon. But it was a flat drop that didn't haunt him the rest of the way. It was Higgins who told Chase on the sidelines to forget about it.

"I can't get frustrated when I do stuff like that," Chase said. "It happens. I have to stay in the game."

Higgins had a similar problem much later. With 5:08 left in regulation, Higgins fumbled a ball Surtain punched out at the Denver 40 before Higgins could secure it to his chest.

That could have been deadly at 17-17. But this is the kind of game it was. The Bengals responded six plays later at their own 49 when linebacker Germaine Pratt intercepted rookie quarterback Bo Nix at the Bengals 39.

"It could have lost the game," Higgins said. "Shout out to (rookie wide receiver) Jermaine Burton. "On the side, he said, 'Don't worry, you'll come back and win the game for us.' And sure enough.'"

CHASE STOPPED

Yes, running back Chase Brown sprained his ankle when he suddenly stopped on the Denver 1 with 1:31 left in regulation and had to leave the game. The idea was not to score, run the clock down, kick a field goal, and Denver would only have about 20 seconds, down, 20-17.

But when Brown got hurt, Taylor opted to have Burrow sneak it in for a touchdown with 1:29 left. Nix promptly marched Denver 70 yards, heaving a tying fourth-and-one 25-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. with eight seconds left.

"The injury (Brown) changed everything," Taylor said. "We were going to be able to, I believe, kick the walk-off field goal with about 10 seconds left and it's no one's fault. We were telling Chase to slide at the one (yard line) because we figured they were going to let us score there, which he did.

"He did a great job. Unfortunately, he got his ankle (hurt), so they charged us with a timeout, so that changed everything," Taylor said. "Now, you're at second-and-goal at the one and you can down it and make sure they use their timeout and then try to score a touchdown from there on third down and maybe kick it on fourth. But you saw our low red zone against them. It's tough all day."

The Broncos showed why they came in with the NFL's second-best red zone defense. They made things awful for the Bengals' third-best.

Cincy spent the night inside the 20 on seven trips, but scored only three touchdowns and came up with no points for only the fourth and fifth times this season.

"Nothing was easy for us, especially with the runs down there because they are just so overmatched with their personnel down there," Taylor said. "We just ran a quarterback sneak and told Joe to score and if you score, great, if not, we'll try something else and they'll have to use their time outs."

Brown said he wasn't under the impression that Denver was going to let him score; "They would have let me run through the gaps and let me walk in, but (they pursued)."

Brown didn't feel he could return to the game Saturday night 100% (Khalil Herbert had four big runs for 23 yards in his absence), but he didn't seem too concerned about playing in Pittsburgh.

"I had the same thing in college," Brown said. "I sprained it at Purdue going to play Michigan the next week and I played pretty well." …

SLANTS AND SCREENS

The most disheartening moment of the season, Cade York’s 33-yard-would-be-walk-off-winning field goal slamming into the left upright with just 2:43 left in OT, was followed by the biggest lift of the year. A 23-second three-and-out by a Bengals defense that has struggled at the end of games, but here prevented a first down that would have resulted in a tie and the Bengals eliminated from the playoffs.

"Here we go again," said Hilton of what he was thinking on the sidelines after the missed field goal. "It was just one of those moments where we didn't panic on the sidelines. We just needed one more stop. Biggest three-and-out of the season. We were in man. They were getting away from the run towards the end of the game and dropping Nix back. We were playing their receivers close and making the windows tight." …

There were actually two huge three-and-outs sandwiching York's miss. On the first one, Hilton made a sure tackle on a quick out to the elusive Mims. On the second three-and-out, rookie cornerback Josh Newton dropped Mims for a one-yard loss on a swing pass. That was on second down. On third down sophomore cornerback DJ Ivey had tight end Adam Trautman covered when Nix ran up in the pocket and threw an incompletion …

Bengals right tackle Amarius Mims, who reportedly broke his hand last week against Cleveland, tried to go Saturday, but couldn't make it out of the first half and was replaced by Devin Cochran …