Chick Ludwig
For the past 30 years, Chick Ludwig has been one of the Miami Valley’s most popular sports columnists, the past twelve as the Bengals beat writer for the Dayton Daily News. He retired from the DDN in October of 2009, and currently writes a weekly Bengals blog for the Cincinnati Enquirer and is the Bengals correspondent for the The Sporting News. A former voting member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee, Ludwig is a journalism graduate of Ohio State University.
CONTACTThe Bengals finished their season in the same manner of so many promising opportunities past. They look totally unprepared against a better Houston Texans football team!
Cincinnati - How is it possible for one NFL team, making its playoff debut, to look so prepared in victory, and the other team — making its second postseason appearance in three years — to look so unprepared in defeat?
Why is it that a Houston rookie defensive end can pluck a football out of the air after getting blocked and return it for a “Pick-6,” while an unblocked Cincinnati safety drops an easy interception and denies his team a tide-turning touchdown?
The answer is easy, peasy, lemon squeezy: “They’re just a better team,” said Bengals rookie Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Green after the Bengals were bludgeoned, 31-10, by the Houston Texans in an AFC Wild Card game in front of 71,725 spectators at Houston’s Reliant Stadium on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012.
“(Our) team is young and we’ve got a lot of guys that are coming back next year and we can be like this every year fighting for the playoffs. Except we’re hoping we can get the home spot because it’s hard playing on the road. Especially in an environment like this.”
Green and quarterback Andy Dalton represent hope for the future. But on this day, Dalton finally looked like a rookie, tossing three interceptions as the Bengals got outscored 24-zip the final 31 minutes, 48 seconds in a memorable not-ready-for-prime-time, end-of-the-season meltdown on national TV that can only be characterized as embarrassing.
Cincinnati finishes the season with a 9-8 record and 0-3 playoff mark in nine years under head coach Marvin Lewis, who went from the Penthouse (possible NFL coach of the year candidate) to the Outhouse (lucky to keep his job).
The loss came exactly 20 years and a day after the Bengals’ last playoff win — a 41-14 triumph over the Houston Oilers on Jan. 6, 1991, at Riverfront Stadium. And the beat, along with the drought, goes on.
The Bengals weren’t dead on arrival in Houston. They actually led 7-0 and 10-7, and had the ball in the final minute of the second quarter with the score tied at 10. Then Watt in the World happened! That’s not a question. It’s a factual statement … with an exclamation point.
With the Bengals facing first and 10 at their 34-yard line at 0:59 before halftime, Dalton dropped back, turned to his right, fired a pass intended for Green …
… and J.J. Watt — the Texans rookie first-round defensive end from Wisconsin — leaped. Instead of swatting it away, the ball stuck in Watt’s hands and he rumbled 29 yards for the TD and a 17-10 halftime lead the Texans wouldn’t relinquish. Houston swaggered and Cincinnati staggered — all because of the “High Wattage” heroics.
Bengals right guard Mike McGlynn got the first look at it.
“I got a pretty good jam (block) on him, and he stepped up and made a really good play,” McGlynn said. “By the time I realized he had caught the ball, I was at his feet trying to trip him from behind. It was a heck of a play by him. Big momentum swing. It was a pretty hard ball, and he caught it. I was surprised he caught it.”
Talk about karma. This was it. Watt got a measure of revenge against Dalton, who led the Texas Christian Horned Frogs to a victory over Watt and the Wisconsin Badgers in the 2011 Rose Bowl.
“I came around (off the edge) and I really was trying to put my hands up, get in the way of the passing late and it happened to kind of stick,” Watt said. “I realized I had the ball so I was running to the end zone just trying not to fall down. I scored and got mauled by my teammates and the stadium went absolutely nuts. Thank you to our fans for really helping us change momentum because that was unbelievable.
“Having big hands definitely doesn’t hurt when you’re trying to catch a ball. I don’t think I got that high off the ground, but I do have a 37-inch vertical, so thank you. It’s really one of those moments where you’re like it really couldn’t be any better, and especially at that point in the game when we needed a big play. It was truly something special.”
Special for the Texans. Backbreaking for the Bengals.
And it was evident in the second half when the Bengals looked more interested in grabbing their golf clubs, tennis rackets, bowling balls and fishing rods than playing playoff football.
PPM's Chick Ludwig can be heard on Monday mornings as host of the "Monday Morning Quarterback", on
Four plays after Bengals safety Chris Crocker dropped an easy interception in the third quarter, Texans rookie quarterback T.J. Yates launched a 40-yard TD pass to wide receiver Andre Johnson, who beat cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones on a double move.
In the fourth quarter, Texans tailback Arian Foster swept around right end for a 42-yard TD that made a trio of Bengals defensive backs look silly. Crocker got run over; Nate Clements quit running; and Kelly Jennings got run ragged.
“I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to get us in position to win the game, and get us over the hump,” Lewis said. “I am proud of how our guys fought and played. I told them it was my responsibility to get them over this hump.
“I thought we did a lot of good things in the first half and had an opportunity to put more points on the board and get it done. Then we had the turnover right before halftime for the touchdown. We didn’t do well enough, long enough, and then they had the touchdown pass and we’re down by two scores and playing uphill.
“It comes down to taking care of the football and we were unable to really get any (turnovers) on defense to give us some short fields. I thought there with (Watt’s) touchdown, it was backbreaking.”
(Chick Ludwig’s final “Monday Morning Quarterback” show of the 2011 NFL season will be Monday, Jan. 9, from 6-9 a.m. Call the show at (513) 749-1360. Follow Ludwig on Twitter @ChickLudwig)
