Maybe the Bengals should re-examine this idea of using someone else on kickoff returns while Bernard Scott has starting tailback duties.
Scott, the Bengals' explosive rookie, rendered Larry Johnson's Bengals debut a dud on Sunday by rushing for a professional high 119 yards on 21 carries against the opportunistic Oakland Raiders. Scott had a 61-yard run.
Usually, when the Bengals get 100 yards from their tailback, they win. But, they lost to the Raiders 20-17, in shocking last minute fashion, because they apparently don't want to give Scott too many things to think about in one game.
The Raiders were opportunistic in that they took advantage of the Bengals' kickoff return preferences by forcing an Andre Caldwell fumble on the ensuing kickoff return following a Raiders touchdown and a score-tying extra-point kick by Sebastian Janikowski with 33 seconds to play.
Janikowski come back to kick the Bengals while they were down just 21 second later by booting the game-winning 33-yard field goal with 12 ticks left on the game clock. It was the Raiders' 10th unanswered point after Shayne Graham's 25-yard field goal gave the Bengals a 17-10 lead with 3:29 to play in the third quarter.
"We gave them the game," Bengals safety Chris Crocker said.
The Raiders turned the tables on the Cardiac Cats with their rope-a-dope approach to winning on Sunday. After looking mediocre for much of the game while scoring a touchdown and a field goal over the first three quarters, Oakland saved its best play for late, after they'd taken their best shots from the men in stripes.
Bengals killer Bruce Gradkowski, who beat Cincinnati for the second time in two career starts, directed an 11-play, 80-yard fourth-quarter drive in 1 minute, 39 seconds. He capped it with a 29-yard touchdown pass to Louis Murphy.
On the play, Murphy's right knee appeared to touch the ground before the football crossed the goal line at the far front corner of the end zone. The play was reviewed, and upheld, setting up the first of two deadly Janikowksi kicks.
The ensuing kickoff landed in the hands of Caldwell, who had been replaced as returner after being generally unproductive and fumbling a kickoff earlier in the season.
Scott won the job after scoring a touchdown on a 96-yard return that helped beat the Steelers last week.
But starting tailback Cedric Benson suffered a hip injury in the Pittsburgh game. And even though Scott also got hurt against the Steelers and returned, he impressed Bengals coaches enough during this week's practices to earn the starting nod against the Raiders. This, despite the new presence of Johnson in the backfield following his signing earlier in the week, after Kansas City cut the disgruntled former All-Pro tailback.
Johnson carried two times for five yards Sunday. He made his Bengals debut with 5:42 left in the second quarter. He lost three yards on his first carry and ran eight yards on his second tote. Johnson didn't even have as good a rushing day as Caldwell, who had two carries for 11 yards while catching three passes for 35 yards.
That should have been the extent of Caldwell's touches in Oakland. But Cincinnati stuck him back there on kickoff returns again, despite previous evidence of slippery Caldwell fingers, because the Bengals wanted to use Scott only as a rusher.
There was little argument against the Sunday use of Caldwell on kickoff returns until he fumbled again, at the worst possible time, with the score tied, 17-all.
When Caldwell should have been protecting the football and playing it safe on the return so the Bengals' offense could put together a possible go-ahead scoring drive, he ran it out from one yard deep in the end zone and Oakland's Brandon Myers was able to pry the ball loose from Caldwell's possession as he was tackled.
The Raiders recovered at the Cincinnati 17. After three kneel-downs, Janikowski helped make it a winning day for the Raiders for just the third time this season.
The Bengals (7-3) still haven't beaten the Raiders in Oakland, falling to 0-10. Despite Caldwell's drop, they were able to hold on to their one-game AFC North lead over Pittsburgh because the Steelers lost their second game in a row, to the Chiefs, in overtime on Sunday.
A Bengals win would have all but virtually assured a division title as Cincinnati would have had, ostensibly, a three-game lead over the Steelers, a two-game lead in the standings, with six games to go, due to their securing of the head-to-head tiebreaker as a result of the series sweep against Pittsburgh.
But, nooooooooo....
Caldwell dropped the ball.
And when the Raiders scored after Caldwell's reoccurring case of the dropsies, the Bengals sent Scott deep to handle the next kickoff. But Quan Cosby returned a short kick 17 yards and did not fumble.
If Scott was the choice to field that particular Raiders' kickoff and the game's opening kickoff, why wasn't he the choice on the most important one of the game?
Caldwell is an easy scapegoat, but his fumble isn't as monumental if the Bengals don't go scoreless in the fourth quarter, or if rookie cornerback Morgan Trent wasn't exposed by the Raiders as still being a little green in pass coverage. Murphy beat Trent on the scoring pass pattern and separated himself from the former Michigan Wolverine as he lunged across the goal line for the game's final touchdown.
"On that play, I just went through my progression and Louis was the second look," Gradkowksi said of the TD pass to Murphy. "I kind of saw the D-back (Trent) playing on top of him, so I threw a back-shoulder ball and he made a great play. A great play to catch the ball and get it in the end zone."
The Bengals got the ball back for two final plays following Scott's lone kickoff return, but Nnamdi Asomugha intercepted a last-ditch Hail Mary pass from Carson Palmer to seal the win.
"We came out today and didn't play well enough to win. It's not something we need to sit around and talk about," said Palmer. "The point is, we lost. Anybody is capable of beating you on any day of the week, no matter how good you think you are. When it comes down to it, you have to make plays and beat teams you're supposed to beat, and we didn't do that today."
Palmer finished 14-of-22 passing for 207 yards with no TDs and the late interception, and he was sacked three times. Chad Ochocinco was the top Bengals receiver with four catches for 67 yards, but once again, Chad got most of his catches in the first quarter before being abandoned.
Cincinnati scored on two of its first three drives, as Palmer completed both marches with short rushing touchdowns to become the first Bengals quarterback to run for two scores in a game since Jack Thompson did so in 1979.
Gradkowski seemed to be the more effective quarterback Sunday, after replacing JaMarcus Russell as starter. Gradkowski, who relieved Russell in two of the previous three games, helped Oakland generate its first two-touchdown game since the season opener.
Gradkowski hooked up with tight end Zach Miller (5 catches for 65 yards) on a 10-yard touchdown pass with 59 seconds left before halftime, and finished 17-of-34 for 183 yards. Two plays before he found Murphy for the late TD, Gradkowksi hit Chaz Schilens with a 16-yard completion on fourth-and-10 down to the Cincinnati 29 yard line.
The Raiders couldn't run the football as Justin Fargas and Michael Bush combined for 12 carries and 59 yards.
But the Bengals weren't effectively passing the ball despite the fact Raiders defensive lineman Richard Seymour left the game in the first quarter with a lower back injury.
The Bengals had the ball nearly 17 minutes more than the Raiders. But that was offset by the fact Cincinnati fumbled five times and lost three, including one by fullback Jeremi Johnson, who coughed up the football inside the Oakland 15 as the Bengals were trying to expand a 17-10 lead with 11:31 to play. Also, Graham missed a 37-yard field goal, wide right, with 5:05 left in the third quarter after the Bengals couldn't score from the Raiders' 8 on six plays.
In all, the Bengals turned the ball over four times, which offset their 177-92 rushing advantage.
Middle linebacker Dhani Jones led the Bengals defensively with eight tackles, and he had a forced fumble. Cornerback Johnathan Joseph came up with his career-high fifth interception of the season. But the Bengals had no sacks.
"This is what happens when we don’t take care of the football and take care of things the correct way," Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. "All throughout today, we had a lot of opportunity. We didn’t take care of business when we had opportunity to make third-down stops. And we allowed the fourth-down completion at the end, and obviously the play for the touchdown. And the touchdown at the end of the first half. So I think our guys played hard today, but I don’t think we played winning football."