For the second straight week the Bengals put together a solid effort in both trenches and reached the .500 mark with a 28-6 victory over the Chiefs on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium.
The result was their most balanced effort of the season with a season-high 189 rushing yards complemented by quarterback Andy Dalton’s 230 passing yards on the strength of his second straight triple-digit passer rating (109.8) fueled by no interceptions. Meanwhile the defense stuffed the Chiefs on 10 of 11 third-down tries and held them to just two field goals for Cincinnati’s first game without allowing a touchdown since a 14-0 win at Cleveland on Dec. 21, 2008.
The Bengals struggled on third down themselves, missing on 10 of 14 tries, but Dalton salted the game away early in the fourth quarter when he found wide receiver A.J. Green and tight end Jermaine Gresham for third-down conversions to set up rookie wide receiver Mohamed Sanu’s 14-yard touchdown catch running out of the slot and beating Chiefs cornerback Brandon Flowers across the middle.
With 101 yards on 25 carries, Bengals running back BenJarvus Green Ellis secured his first 100-yard game as a Bengal and the club’s first in 15 games and nearly 365 days since the win over the Browns last Nov. 27. It was also the biggest day in nearly three years on the ground since the 210-yard game against the Browns in a PBS win on Nov. 29, 2009.
Hamstrung on third down and the deep ball kept in check by Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel’s Cover 2 defense, a resourceful Bengals effort flattened the Chiefs as they raced to a 21-6 halftime lead.
Green, another beastly day for 91 yards on six catches, still negotiated the minefields of zone defenses with his record-setting touchdown catch in the ninth straight game and his courageous catch on a 40-yard bomb despite taking a head shot to set up another touchdown.
The Bengals defense pitched a solid game, faltering only in the last 50 seconds of the half when it let the Chiefs hurry up for 66 yards to kick Ryan Succop’s 33-yard field goal on the last play.
With the Bengals continuing their season-long struggles on third down (they converted only one of seven in the half), they went 3-for-3 on fourth down and got two of them on their first touchdown drive as they erased Kansas City’s first home lead of the season and went up 7-3 with 2:51 left in the first quarter.
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