Walk Off Safety? Cincinnati Bengals Lose Heartbreaker 22-20.

Halloween is known for nightmares and scary stuff, for the Cincinnati Bengals their nightmares and fears were a reality not only losing

to the Miami Dolphins in overtime on a safety but lose their all pro defesnsive tackle Geno Atkins to a torn ACL. The Bengals overcame a 17-3 deficit, to score 20 unanswered points but was not enough as the Dolphins defeat the banged up, emotional drain Bengals 22-20 in overtime.

Cincinnati’s bid for a fifth straight victory blew up when Dolphins defensive end Cameron Wake

sacked and safety of quarterback Andy Dalton with 6:38 left in OT to give Miami the victory. In this week of walk off obstructions and pickoffs, this was just the third game in NFL history that ended with a safety go figure.

The Bengals held the Dolphins on their opening possession of overtime to a 3 and out, the Cincinnati offense drove to the Miami 38, where on third and-eight Dalton couldn’t connect with wide receiver AJ Green on a deep sideline route. On the previous play, wide receiver Mohamed Sanu dropped a pass his first of like 10 he dropped last night.

In typical Marvin Lewis coaching strategy, rather than attempt a 57-yard field goal, Lewis opted for field position after kicker Mike Nugent drilled a 54 yard field goal to give the Bengals a short lead late in the 4th quarter.

After going on tear with three straight games of outstanding play by Dalton on this night threw over 50 passes for the first time in his career, hitting 32 of 53, but none went for a touchdown and three got intercepted. His 116.8 passer rating in the four game winning streak dropped to 55.4, and Green had a career high 11 catches for 128 yards in his fourth straight 100-yard game during what looked to be another thrilling victory, wasn’t meant to be.

The defense couldn’t stop the fins offense after Nugent gave the team the lead with a minute to go in the game, as it struggled big time with the Dolphins running game. With a minute and half to go, Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill drove them 50 yards to set up a 44-yard field goal with 11 seconds left to make it 20-20.Tannehill got away with a potential sack from Michael Johnson sack with a big throw to wide receiver  for 16 yards and then dropped a 21-yard pass to wide receiver Brian Hartline,well only to see Hartline make a fine play to keep his feet inbounds to help set up the field goal as the injury banged up Bengals defense went to overtime for the second time in four games

The Bengals like we said came back from a 17-3 deficit to tie the game at 17 early in the fourth quarter on rookie running back Giovani Bernard highlight reel 35-yard touchdown run.

After Green converted a huge third down play, the Bengals had a golden chance to take the lead. But Sanu on one of 10 dropped passes it seemed he had last night, dropped a ball over the middle at the Dolphins 14 and a linebacker  picked it off the deflection for the fourth Bengals turnover.

Bengals wide receiver Marvin Jones appeared to have a game tying 50 yard catch-and-run for a touchdown to tie the game at 10,  it was negated by Jermaine Gresham’s holding penalty in the middle of the third quarter which didn’t look like it at all, Dalton threw the second red zone interception of his career when he tried to hit Jones working on a corner on the right side inside the 5. Dalton threw it short and behind Jones and later said it slipped out of his hand.  Cornerback Brent Grimes was able to take it away from Jones and take off on a 94-yard interception return. That gave the Dolphins a 17-3 lead in the third quarter.

Bengals responded quickly with a  80-yard touchdown drive and Bernard was at the center of it with an three-yard run for the touchdown that cut it to 17-10 in the third quarter.

The Dolphins lead at the half 10-3, Tannehill sneaked it up for a 1 yard touchdown run to give them the lead after a 93 yard drive, on that drive is where Atkins got hurt. The Bengals scored first on a Nugent 31 yard field goal in the 2nd quarter. It looked like the Dolphins were gonna score as running back Lamar Miller burst through for a 41 yard run, but Carlos Dunlap tomahawk chop the ball at the 10 yard line as it rolled in the endzone and Adam Jones picked it up and ran it for 43 yards.

Well, the injury riddled Bengals (6-3) still atop in the AFC North, will have a mini bye 10 days to get over this devastating loss, they will play the Ravens in Baltimore on November 10th at 1pm.