NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ The thing had all the feel of an intimate rough-and-tumble-shirt-tail-out neighborhood pickup game, Right down to the old teammates, college buddies, scramble drills, hometown heroes, and big hits.
Before the game, the Bengals hugged Titans head coach Brian Callahan, their former offensive coordinator, and then proceeded to wrap their arms around Sunday's game at Nissan Stadium. They timed their most opportunistic defensive game since 2007 with another bolt of history from quarterback Joe Burrow in a 37-21 victory that kept the playoff monitor beeping.
"We found a way to walk out with a win and we're keeping ourselves alive," said slot cornerback Mike Hilton, who was then told the Dolphins lost, just one of the many things they need to have happen over the last three weeks of the season.
"Didn't know that. That's big. But we can't worry about anything outside here. We just have to keep on winning and let everything take care of itself."
Hilton's interception was one of six Titans' turnovers and Burrow took care of the rest. He didn't hit 300 yards (271), but for the sixth straight game he threw at least three touchdowns. All three came in the first half, giving him 36 for the season and breaking his own Bengals record for a single season while keeping a stranglehold on the NFL lead.
Even a game strewn with ten turnovers and 26 penalties didn't muss up Joe Lee Burrow's career season.
"Joe Burrow did Joe Burrow things, and we didn't do a good enough job of getting him down, but they converted way too many third downs," said Callahan, who helped create that monster during his five previous seasons in Cincinnati, after the Bengals reeled off their first seven third-down conversions of the day.
"We had to get him. When we had chances to get him down, get him down, and we didn't do a good enough job of it. He created a lot of their third-down opportunities off of structure and off the script. And that's what he does, he does that to everybody he plays … We had opportunities. We hit him, we affected him, but he made too many plays outside of the pocket and getting out of the pocket when we had chances to get him down and when we didn't finish it."
Burrow wasn't pleased with his first two-interception game of the year or the lost fumble that stopped the NFL's best red-zone scoring streak at 42 or the slew of pre-snap penalties.
But two third-and-Burrow plays defined this game and the first one, a third-and-two flip to Buckeye buddy Sam Hubbard for the tying touchdown at 14, swung it for good. The stunning play-action to a defensive end spawned 30 straight points and took Callahan out of his bid to control the game with the run.
But Hubbard, the popular dean of the Bengals who has known Burrow longer than anyone on the team from their days at Ohio State, knew it meant more than that.
Someone told "The Cincinnati Kid," that he was the first Bengal defender to ever catch a touchdown in the 57 seasons of the franchise. Not even at Moeller High School had Hubbard scored an offensive touchdown. Maybe, he said, freshman year in a scrimmage.
Hubbard lined up as the fullback and carried out two fakes. One was the play-action and the other was breaking the huddle while talking to one of the tackles about a block that would never be made.
"I think that it was just a really cool moment," said Hubbard, who tipped his hat to the play-caller and head coach Zac Taylor. "Something that Zac drew up for me and I'm thankful to him. He's done so much for me and my career. I'm just thankful."
Hubbard feared he injured his PCL on the play, which would most likely end his seventh season. It was enough to end his day in the middle of the second quarter. He felt "weird," when he came down on it. But before that, he ran a solid route to get behind backup linebacker James Williams, leaped, high-pointed the ball with a slight juggle, and held on coming down as Williams tried to knock it out.
"Usually, that's going to come pretty wide open; they had two backers leave the game, so they had back-up linebackers in there," Taylor said. "We thought it was a good time to call it, catch them sleeping and they covered it really well, and Sam made a heck of a catch.
"He's willing to do anything. Willing to go in there. He's played fullback in the goal line in 2018. We put him back in there and he's typically on the backside of the run game and the goal line just to work on the backside. So, you have to pick your moment at some point this season to release him and give it a shot."
They repped it last week in practice and Burrow knew they were going for it on fourth down, so he really wanted Hubbard to get it.
"That was the play, we had other options, but you're calling it because you want Sam to get a touchdown," Burrow said. "I had faith in Sam to go make that play, he's got good hands And it's a play we've talked about. So, I think that was a four-down situation that's why we ended up going with that one. Felt good."
They told Hubbard last week it would be contested. It turned out Burrow had the toughest assignment of the two on Sunday. After Hubbard Gronk-spiked it, Burrow made sure he got the ball for him.
"I'm going to cherish it forever. Catching a touchdown from Joe Burrow, that's something not everybody can say," Hubbard said.
It sounds like Burrow cherishes it, too.
"I stayed in Sam's dorm on one of my first visits to Ohio State. He's been part of my life for a long time," Burrow said. "He's been a great friend and really a guy that you can look up to when you're young because he does things the right way, works really hard, he's about the right things … all the off-the-field stuff that I do, a lot of it I got from Sam. And he's just a pros pro. Has been for a long time."
So have Burrow and Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins and they showed why moments later. Higgins, Tennessee's old Mr. Basketball a few post patterns up the road in Oak Ridge, put them ahead for good on third-and-10 from 38 yards out.
Higgins blew by old Bengals teammate Chidobe Awuzie, racing past his inside to the post, where safety Daryl Worley was waiting. While Burrow was getting leveled by linebacker Arden Key the instant before he let it go, Higgins was getting blown up by Worley in the end zone as he waited ever so slightly for the ball. Lying flat on his back as he raised his arms, Burrow told you Higgins held on.
"I was just hoping it got there; I was just hoping it got there," Burrow said. "The field safety stepped down, so I knew I had a good look for Tee. The corner's playing outside leverage, and I knew if I just could hang in there for an extra second, I was going to have Tee down the field. I threw it inside a little bit to keep him away from the corner and then he made a great play and showed his toughness with the safety coming over. Great play by him."
Toughness?
"I actually just saw that. He trusted in me to get me the ball," Higgins said. "We have been working on that all week. He trusted in me, and I came up and made the play."
With five catches for 88 yards (and one hellacious ball over the middle he plucked out of a head-on crash), that was five robust "T-eee---eee," chants that he says may not have been just Bengals fans.
"Cincinnati fans travel well. Any and every game they yell that "Tee" and it's a good feeling," Higgins said. "Especially back home. I feel like even their fans were saying "Tee" because I'm back home."
Third-and Burrow, the defense, and the running of Chase Brown stilled the crazy long enough to win for the first time since 2013 despite making four turnovers. Revealing a stubborn resolve, the Bengals also got their first win in 20 seasons despite committing as many as 14 penalties, the high in the Zac Taylor era.
How crazy out there? Hubbard's touchdown, the highlight of his seventh season, maybe his last play of his seventh season, was set up by his bookend edger Trey Hendrickson forcing a fumble recovered by rookie linebacker Maema Njongmeta, a name starting to be heard more often. Bengals safety Jordan Battle saw a 61-yard fumble return touchdown slip through his left hand a step away from the goal line. Half their penalties were pre-snap in the first half.
But with the Bengals up, 31-21, Burrow put away the madness by putting it in Brown's belly ten times on the final drive for 39 yards, the last one a five-yarder up the middle that took part of 366-pound T'Vondre Sweat with him for his tenth touchdown of the season.
"He's been unbelievable, he really has. It's exciting to see him come along like that," said Burrow of Brown's 97-yard day capping a month of four straight plus-100-yard scrimmage games. "He's going to play here for a long time, he's going to be a great player for us for a long time. That last drive the O-line came off on the ball, we ran it really well on that drive. He ran it really hard, that was a great way to finish it off."
And then there was the six-yard touchdown pass from Burrow to Brown to tie it at seven. With three Titans rushing and eight dropping, Burrow won a ten-second dance contest in the ultimate playground scramble.
"Left, right, up, down and then back and I got the ball," Brown said. "He's so poised in the pocket and he's able to navigate through there and just by him, his ability to extend plays is a lot of fun, especially as a skill player in the red zone. You never know when you're going to get the ball."
Just like you never know where the playoff trail can lead.
"We're not out of it yet. We've got to play better than we did today going forward, but we need a lot of help from across the league," Burrow said. "Teams beating teams that need to lose for us to get in, but as long as we keep controlling what we can control and keep winning, give ourselves a chance."
Third-and-Burrow is just looking for the next conversion. Nothing else.
"What I'm focused on right now, is playing as good as we can play, myself playing up to my standard," Burrow said. "That's why I was so frustrated. Because I didn't feel like we did that today."
