Meet The Bungles

In answer to the question I posed Friday, the answer was "The bigger disaster was the Bengals themselves" as they managed to find a way to lose their home opener to Denver in the final seconds of the game.

For a team that has lost games by almost every conceivable scenario over the past 19 years, the Bengals 12-7 loss to the Denver Broncos in Sunday’s opener at Paul Brown Stadium came on the unthinkable – a fluke tipped pass.

After a Cedric Benson 1-yard dive play with 41 seconds remaining, Denver got the ball on their own 13 needing a miracle to get even in field goal range. After Brandon Marshall was unable to haul in a Brandon Marshall pass on first down, they got the miracle and much more.

On a play the Broncos fittingly call “All Go”, Orton once again tried to find Marshall, but Leon Hall tipped the ball up at the Denver 38 while Chris Crocker and Roy Williams tackled Marshall. The problem was that Hall tipped the ball backwards, where Brandon Stokley made the grab at the 45 and raced 65 yards up the left sideline, outracing Dhani Jones in the process.

Stokley then took some time off the clock by running parallel to the end zone along the 1-yard line.

“It was the wrong play, he caught it and he scored. The right play would be to knock it on the ground or pick it off,” Hall said.

Who Dey, indeed.