Bengals Rally to Kick Pittsburgh Hex

CINCINNATI -- One Bengals player said he ran into the locker room and one by one kicked over the bins that would hold the teams' soaked, stained jerseys.

"I really can't explain why I did that," linebacker Keith Rivers said. "It was so much emotion and joy that just came out that way.''

Really, a fitting act, because the Bengals had just kicked aside a harrowing hex crafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was a 23-20 Bengals victory that was half-pain, half-pleasure and all therapeutic.

Pittsburgh had won five straight in the series. Cincinnati had not won here at home against its division rival since 2001.

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"I heard somebody say that in the locker room after the game and I thought, 'Wow, I was in the 8th-grade then,'" Bengals rookie defensive end Michael Johnson said. "I want this feeling to be natural for us. I want us to come to expect these kind of outcomes. When I came to the NFL, I had people telling me I was leaving behind the real fun and joy of football in college and that this was all business. I don't believe that. Not with the excitement right now in this place."

He was talking about Paul Brown Stadium, rocking from the start, the 64,538 fans in it hyped till the end. Did their Bengals really just beat the Steelers? Those Steelers who always trample Cincinnati on the way to bigger things?

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis was 0 for 6 in this place vs. Pittsburgh.

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"How many different ways can you hear that, say that?" Lewis asked. "So, sure, it's great to have that change. You just have to believe that some things are inevitable. That if you keep doing things right you're going to get to stand up. We want our fans to feel that way."

Lewis wants the Bengals to feel that way. A bunch of misfits, rejects and grinders, he calls his team. He loves that.

The epitome of it in this game was tailback Brian Leonard.

He made a fourth-and-10 catch of 11 yards on the Bengals' late, winning drive that was electric and memorable.

"He was the guy, after the guy, after the guy, after the guy that was supposed to get the ball on that play," Lewis said.

Hex lifted.

Before we finish there, let's replay the setup.

Pittsburgh started fast, looked confident on offense and mean on defense. In the first quarter Pittsburgh led in total yards, 152 to minus-10. But the Steelers led on the scoreboard only 10-0. They kept driving deep inside Bengals territory, but then they kept slipping. The halftime yardage was Steelers 258, Bengals 91 -- the score just 13-3.

"We made a few mistakes, but we were good at getting back on the saddle," Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga said.

"You have to find a way to put up seven points and not three," Steelers receiver Hines Ward said. "That's how you finish a team off."

Pittsburgh defensive end Brett Keisel added: "It's frustrating. I felt like all game we were in control."

In the third quarter Bengals cornerback Jonathan Joseph intercepted Ben Roethlisberger and returned it 30 yards for a touchdown. But, in the same quarter, Roethlisberger scored on a 1-yard run and it was a 20-9 Pittsburgh lead.

The Bengals then outscored the Steelers 14-0 in the fourth quarter.

"We are unable to make significant plays at the end of the football game to secure a victory," Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said. "The reality is we need to make plays in big moments."

In other words, his lament was that in the final 15 minutes of this game -- and especially after squandering early chances to be more dominant -- his Steelers looked like the Bengals and the Bengals looked like his Steelers.

Tomlin must have thought somebody pulled a switcheroo.

"It's a tough loss for us," Roethlisberger said. "It was a tough, divisional fight. Stuff happens. We need to find our character and overcome a situation like this."

That is the kind of chatter the Bengals used to always provide after Steelers games.

This time, the Bengals won it with Cedric Benson's 23-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run, with a defense that forced the Pittsburgh offense to punt four minutes later and with a masterful offensive drive against the Steelers defense that began with 5:14 left at the Cincinnati 29-yard line.

The drive took 16 plays, covered 71 yards and ended with Carson Palmer tossing a 4-yard touchdown pass to receiver Andre Caldwell with :14 seconds left.

Of those 16 plays, two were successful fourth-down conversions.

The first was Palmer to receiver Laveranues Coles on 4th-and-2 at the Pittsburgh 20. The pass was completed for 5 yards.


The Steelers killer, the hammer to the hex, was the Palmer to Leonard 11-yard pass on fourth-and-10 from the Pittsburgh 15.

Fourth-and-10 is a lot to get in a must-get situation.

"I knew where I had to get to, I knew the yards were crucial and I got there," Leonard said of his catch of about 6 yards and run of 5 more and through the tackle of linebacker James Farrior to get the first down. To keep the drive alive. To set up the winning pass two plays later.

Palmer said: "He's just a football player. He just knows what it takes to win. He was a football player making a winning football play. It was time for something like this to happen for all of us."

The Bengals used to lose these kind of games to Pittsburgh.

Now the Steelers (1-2) are looking up at the Bengals (2-1) in their division.

"We're finding ways to lose games instead of win games," Steelers safety Tyrone Carter said. "We have to find a way to make plays to win games."

Palmer went back to Leonard.

He noted that after Leonard made that big fourth down catch, he made the two-point conversion catch and then sprinted down to cover kickoff because he is on the kickoff team. And he didn't say a word, Palmer said. He is a workhorse, said the quarterback.

He is a guy who Palmer trusts.

You need guys like that when you are pushing a team's foot off your throat. You need them all around.

And Lewis knows he has them. And Tomlin knows the Bengals now have them.

"They're the defending champs," Palmer said. "Our fans wanted it as bad as we did. It's as loud as anywhere I've played. To see everyone's hands go up and signal touchdown and to feel the roar of the stadium, you feel blessed and lucky to be wearing that uniform."

For a huge change in this series, that rare feeling came from the uniforms colored black and orange, not black and gold.