In a season full of bad breaks and bad beats, they’ve been able to rummage through the rubble to find the reset button every time.
It’s something that began with an offseason resolve following the home playoff loss to San Diego last year — the team’s third consecutive first-round exit and fourth in five years — and continued through a rocky, injury-riddled regular season in which they lost five games by an average of 21 points but never two in a row.
“The biggest difference from previous years is we’ve matured,” safety George Iloka said. “You just have to roll with the punches, keep a smile on your face and go back to work through the ups and downs.”
There have been more downs than ups in past playoff appearances. Coach Marvin Lewis is 0-5 despite his teams scoring first in three of the games and holding a lead at some point in all five. Quarterback Andy Dalton is 0-3 with six interceptions and one touchdown. And the defense has allowed an average of 171.4 rushing yards per game.
But a win today would be the ultimate bounce-back performance for the Bengals, who not only lost to the Colts earlier this year and lost the AFC North title with a 27-17 setback at Pittsburgh last week, but also may have lost their best player.
Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Green suffered a concussion against the Steelers and won’t play against the Colts.. Green missed three full games this season and most of two others, and Cincinnati went 3-1-1 in his absence, although the loss was an abysmal 27-0 performance in Indianapolis in October.
“That was a bad loss and an embarrassing part of the season for us,” left tackle Andrew Whitworth said. “But this is a great opportunity to go and fix it and right the ship and make things right and play the way we thought we should have.
“We’ve lost a lot of playmakers and still been able to morph ourselves into a team that wins and gets to the playoffs, and I think that’s definitely a great sign that we’re growing into a team that year in and year out knows how to figure out how to win,” Whitworth added.
At least in the regular season. But that has not been the case in the postseason, when the Bengals have been in position to win before falling apart when adversity struck.
“The biggest thing is, the team has got to continue with the short memory of things,” Lewis said. “We’ve got to retool and regroup and get refocused on the next series. That’s important in any football game, that you focus on the next series and on the next play. We’ve been able to do that throughout most of the season.”
Forgetting the past is what got the Bengals to a fourth consecutive postseason.
Giving everyone something to remember is the goal moving forward.
“We owe it to this city, we owe it to these fans,” Iloka said. “We owe it to the ownership. We owe it everybody. We owe it to ourselves, honestly. You wouldn’t put your body on the line for dollars. That means nothing. At least for me it doesn’t.
“You want to get some hardware,” Iloka continued. “You want something that lasts forever. The dollars don’t last forever. Freaking division hats don’t last forever. You want something that the fans remember. You get remembered in the playoffs.”
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