Left end Carlos Dunlap, whose sack-strip of Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill led to rookie Sam Hubbard's 19-yard fumble return for Sunday's clinching Bengals touchdown with 2:37 left at Paul Brown Stadium, couldn't resist sticking his cell phone into the post-game media mob surrounding Hubbard.
"I have just one question," said Dunlap, after hearing Hubbard say it was his first touchdown since pee wees. "How can an All-American safety at Moeller High School not have a pick-six until he gets to the league?"
Hubbard shrugged.
"Came at the right time," he said.
Dunlap smiled and reached in his fist.
"It really was the right time," Dunlap said. "Give me some." …
Time has been on their side this season. The Bengals won even though they didn't score until there was 5:07 left in the third quarter, didn't score a touchdown until the first play of the fourth quarter and unloaded for 24 fourth-quarter points for just the fourth time in history and first time since they beat the Ravens at the gun in Baltimore, 27-26, on Dec. 4, 2004.
It was also the first time they survived giving up a punt return for a TD since they beat the Ravens in the 2007 opener.
And, it's the second straight fourth quarter comeback and game-winning drive for Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton and third of the season when he directed a four-minute drive covering 62 yards that yielded Randy Bullock's 21-yard tie-breaking field goal, 20-17, with 3:30 left.
That gives him 23 game-winning drives, one more than Boomer Esiason had in Cincinnati. It was also Dalton's 20th fourth-quarter comeback, one more than Esiason had in his entire career and one behind Jim Kelly and Dan Fouts, among others.
"This one is hard to put on me, the way the defense played at the end," Dalton said. "I mean, it's doing whatever it takes to win and if you can do it in the fourth quarter, it's huge." …
Running back Joe Mixon should get some of that. He accounted for 50 of the 62 yards on three runs in that drive and rung up 74 yards on 12 carries in the second half. Plus, when he caught his first NFL touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter that cut the lead to 17-10, he felt the pendulum swing.
"The crowd was going crazy. I felt like I was in a dream," said Mixon, who thought that was the turning point.
It was Dalton's best throw of the day even though the 18-yarder floated behind Mixon at the goal line and he had to come get it, catch it and then step over the goal line. Considering end Charles Harris was bearing down unblocked and unabated, it was a rope.
"I felt like if I could just get it out there, he could come down with it," Dalton said. "As soon as I let it go, I got hit, and I wanted to make sure I got it there." …
How about this? Hubbard, in his fifth game, and 10-year vet Michael Johnson, in his 144th game, scored their first NFL TDs. Not only that, it was Johnson who went to the NFL Draft in Dallas back in April to announce the Bengals' third-round selection. Naturally, it was Hubbard: "I'm happy for him. That was fun," Johnson said. ...
The Dolphins only have themselves to blame for waking up Johnson. Johnson beat a back-up left tackle to start the string of events that led to his TD with 11:43 left in the game. That came after starting left tackle Laremy Tunsil left with a head injury. But it all started way before that, back when Johnson was called for a roughing penalty on the Bengals' first defensive snap of the second half. The always classy Johnson was enraged. He felt he had been roughed with on that play and said, "That fired me up." ...
Mixon didn't look the worse for wear in his first game back from arthroscopic knee surgery. He had 22 carries and 25 touches, just one off his career highs set in Cleveland last year.
"I feel great," Mixon said. "The only thing that hurts are my feet." …
Wide receiver A.J. Green's last catch of the day, a nice 15-yard hookup over the middle that put the Bengals inside the Miami 10 on the go-ahead TD drive, gave him a 100-yard day (112 on six catches), the 32nd of his career that gives him the Bengals record and is the first of Chad Johnson's all-time records he'll break by the time he's done.
"It was just another option route," Green said. ""It's hard to double me when I'm in the slot." ...
Last year it took cornerback Darqueze Dennard all 16 games to become the only Bengal to have two interceptions on their way to just 11 for the season. In his fifth NFL game Sunday, rookie safety Jessie Bates came up with his team-leading second of the season and the Bengals are just about halfway to last year's total with five. Bates, the draft's top-centerfielder, did exactly that with 1:35 left in the game when he roamed the middle of the field and leaped in front of Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills at Bengals 29 as quarterback Ryan Tannehill got desperate.
"It's kind of funny," Bates said. "In the DB room this week we were joking about who's got the best hands," Bates said. "We'll be talking about that one for a while."
