Dallas (4-9) scored a touchdown on a fumble return and only needed to run 22 plays in the first half, totaling 108 yards of offense. Meanwhile, the defense shut Cincinnati (2-10-1) out in the second half to preserve the lead and give Dalton his second victory in six starts as injured Dak Prescott’s replacement.
1. Turnovers proved detrimental
Dallas entered the game leading the NFL with 13 lost fumbles, but it was the Bengals who couldn’t hold onto the football.
Giovani Bernard lost the ball on his first carry of the day, ending an NFL-leading streak of 829 carries without a fumble, and the Cowboys recovered at the home team’s 32-yard line to set them up for a field goal.
Cincinnati running back Trayveon Williams replaced Bernard on the next drive, and the Bengals moved 53 yards to get into the red zone before Williams ran into left tackle Hakeem Adeniji’s backside and fumbled. Aldon Smith scooped it up for a 78-yard touchdown return. Adeniji was replaced by Fred Johnson the next series, and Samaje Perine came in at running back.
“Irate, stunned,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “…I couldn’t have felt better going into this game, but to give them 10 points before they had to do anything is a disappointing way to start.”
Brandon Allen put together another good drive to get back into the red zone, but on the first play of the second quarter, Alex Erickson lost the ball at the end of a jet sweep that would have been good enough for a first down on fourth-and-1. Dallas responded with a 15-play scoring drive of 93 yards to extend the lead to 17-0 on Dalton’s 11-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper with 6:42 left in the half.
“That’s the type of year we’re having,” wide receiver A.J. Green said. “Like, nothing is going our way. Gio don’t fumble, let alone we have two more guys come behind Gio and cough the ball up.”
2. Dalton’s meaningful win
Dalton was 1-4 as the Cowboys’ starter but his second win was meaningful in that it came against his old team, in the city he spent nine years, and it also put Dallas just one game back for the NFC East lead. First-place Washington (5-7) was leading the 49ers at halftime and the Giants lost Sunday.
The Bengals had waived Dalton one week after drafting Joe Burrow No. 1 overall. As it turned out this year, Cincinnati could have used a veteran quarterback like Dalton but the Texas-native got his opportunity with his hometown team instead.
Dalton completed 16 of 23 passes for 185 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. His last touchdown came on fourth-and-1 on a short drive right after the two-minute warning as a final blow to his old team.
“This is definitely special for him,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said. “Make no bones about it, he wanted to win this game. More importantly, everybody in this locker room wanted to win it for him. … If you could have seen the reaction when he came into the locker room after the game, I think it speaks volumes about the men in the locker room and what this win, it means for us for as a team because of where we are in our season but how important it was to get that win for Andy.”
3. Second-half woes continue
The Bengals now have been outscored 62-10 in the second half of games since Week 10, and they have scored six third-quarter points since Week 5.
On Sunday, they scored their lone points on a Brandon Allen 5-yard touchdown pass to Green with eight seconds left in the second quarter to make it 17-7 going into halftime. From there, they were shut out and had just five first downs, four of them on one drive that ended in a fourth-down pass sailing out of the back of the end zone after a holding penalty negated a touchdown.
Ryan Finley replaced an injured Allen for the next drive and was sacked on two of his first three snaps before throwing an incomplete pass on fourth down, turning the ball over at the 16-yard line and setting up Dalton for his final score. Allen, who statistically had his best game in three starts with 217 yards passing, suffered what he called a bone bruise on his right knee and it continued to tighten as he played on it.
“(I’m) not sure, really,” Allen said when asked the cause of second-half struggles. “Today, I think it was us hurting ourselves. We had a penalty that backed us way up — it’s just tough (when that happens). We had a good drive late and we were about to go score, and (then) I made a very poor throw. I think we’re still moving the ball. We’re still doing good things, (but) we’ve got to put it all together. I think our second half needs to be our cleanest football, and it just hasn’t been.”
4. Defensive improvements
While the offense has been putting the defense in difficult positions, the defense has been holding up pretty well.
The Cowboys settled for field goals on three drives, and only one of their two touchdowns came without a short field. The Bengals also held Ezekiel Elliott to 48 yards on 12 carries, and the pass rush had one of its more productive games getting to Dalton twice.
Margus Hunt sacked Dalton on third down the first drive, forcing a field goal on a drive that started at the Bengals’ 32-yard line. Jordan Evans had a sack for a 10-yard loss in the fourth quarter on third-and-8 from the 27, and Greg Zuerlein ended up with a 55-yard field goal.
“I think we responded really well, especially in some of those sudden-change situations,” linebacker Josh Bynes said. “Regardless of where the ball is placed on the field, we have nothing to do with that part. All we have to do is show up whenever our name is called and just go out and make plays and especially on a short field, which is big, is not letting them score a touchdown. Three points or turnover, three-and-out, whatever the case may be, just don’t let them get 6. In response to the sudden change, I think we did really well defensively.”
5. Frustration mounting
Frustration continues to set in as the Bengals have now lost five in a row, and now Taylor is left answering questions about job security – both his own and that of players.
It seems Taylor is losing patience with some of the players who aren’t performing. On Sunday, kicker Randy Bullock was inactive for the first time this season after missing three of his last five field goal attempts and a PAT within the last three games, and left guard Michael Jordan was a healthy scratch for the first time this season. Johnson had been inactive for the last three weeks but ended up replacing Adeniji at left tackle on the third drive because Taylor said the rookie fifth-round pick was struggling.
Cincinnati also swapped running backs after each fumble, but Taylor said the team planned to rotate running backs anyway.
“I still have it (optimism),” Taylor said. “We all still have it. We’ll watch this tape and take the turnovers off the board — which you can’t do, they happen — and you have to find a way to play off of them and come back and win. It’s tough when you play a game and feel really good about a lot of things that you did. But the ball hit the ground three times, and they got 10 points from it. That’s it, that’s on the tape. It’s what we did. We weren’t good enough to win today, so that’s frustrating.”
Taylor said he doesn’t worry about his own job security, but with four wins in 29 games, it can’t be ignored.
“I just want to win football games,” he said. “I love going to work for these guys every day. That’s all that matters to me, is how we get ready in seven days to go win a game. That’s our focus, and we don’t worry about anything else. This is too important for us. We want to win so badly. We’re going to continue to work and find ways to create those wins.”
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