The four men inducted in the inaugural class of the Bengals Ring of Honor, along with nearly 40 of their teammates from the 1981 AFC Championship team, all had firsthand knowledge of how monumental a goal-line stand can be in the outcome of a game.
Before Ken Anderson and Anthony Muñoz walked onto the field to celebrate their enshrinement, along with the families of Paul Brown and Ken Riley, their thoughts no doubt flashed back 40 years to the time they walked off the field feeling the complete opposite. The 49ers had stopped them on four plays from the one-yard line in Super Bowl XVI in the most famous goal-line stand in team history.
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What triggered those memories might just live for years to come as the runner-up after spurring the Bengals to a 24-21 comeback win.
The Jaguars — 7.5-point underdogs and losers of 18 in a row — were leading 14-0 in the closing seconds of the first half and standing inches away from burying the Bengals alive for one of the franchise’s most disappointing losses among a litany of them. But the defense saved the night, and possibly the season for a been there, seen that franchise and fanbase.
Jacksonville rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who had already run for one touchdown and was averaging 5.2 yards per carry, called his own number out of shotgun formation on fourth-and-goal and seemed certain to give the visitors a three-touchdown lead.
But Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson was waiting for him in the hole, forcing Lawrence to cut left, where defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi beat guard Ben Bartch. Wilson and Ogunjobi teamed to drop Lawrence short of the goal line with 53 seconds left before halftime, and a booing and belligerent Paul Brown Stadium crowd of 63,198 exhaled.
“Our backs were against the wall, and we just came up with a stop when we needed it the most,” Wilson said.
“That was the difference in the game, for sure,” wide receiver Tyler Boyd added.
“Huge,” according to tight end C.J. Uzomah.
Trailing 14-0 at halftime is a large enough hill to climb.
Trailing 21-0 is Everest on two sprained ankles.
Teams trailing by 21 at halftime have lost 104 consecutive games. Teams trailing by 14 at the break were 4-61 since this time last year.
It’s now 5-61.
“It was the turning point of the game,” head coach Zac Taylor said of the fourth-down stop. “It was about to be 21-0 right before the half. That is a tough hole to dig out of. We believe we could do it, but you certainly don’t want that going into halftime and them getting the momentum. It felt like the momentum came back in our favor.”
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Like the four Ring of Honor inductees and the dozens of players from the 1981 team watching from suites, Taylor had seen firsthand a fourth-down stop completely flip a game, only his was much more recent.
In the season opener, Taylor went for it on fourth-and-1 at his own 30 and watched the Vikings use the stop to spark a 14-point rally to tie the game.
Thursday night, it was his defense with the stop and his offense with the 14-point rally to tie the game less than 10 minutes after the rousing Ring of Honor ceremony.
Making the stop even more impressive was that the defense was running on fumes. Playing just four days after an 83-snap workload Sunday in Pittsburgh, the defense was on the wrong side again of a nearly 2:1 possession ratio against the Jaguars.
Jacksonville had run 35 plays at the point. The Bengals had 19, only 10 of which had occurred since the 5:28 mark of the first quarter, producing just 27 yards.
“We hung (the defense) out to dry on offense,” Taylor said. “So that was huge for them to bow up and stop it. Our entire red zone defense has been tremendous through the first four games. That’s big. Keeping points off the board is critical.”
Unlike Taylor’s 30-yard-line decision, there was nothing controversial about Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer’s decision on fourth-and-goal from inside the one-yard line with a chance to swell a 14-point lead to 21.
“They really had nothing to lose,” Wilson said. “They might as well went for it. We ended up getting the stop there, which was huge for us.”
It was the first thing the crowd had to cheer about all night. Then came more with the ceremony and more yet when quarterback Joe Burrow hit Ja’Marr Chase for 44 yards on the second play of the second half.
That sparked a four-play touchdown drive that ended with Burrow hitting C.J. Uzomah for a 22-yard score to slice the lead in half.
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“We know the defense is going to build off our momentum as an offense and vice versa,” Uzomah said. “When the defense makes a big play, we’re going to build off that.”
Momentum and mindset are intangible advantages created by the goal-line stand.
But the bigger deal might have been Taylor’s call sheet. While 66 of the 69 yards on the opening drive came through the air, the 12-play, 86-yard drive that followed featured seven runs.
“We just needed to get the run game going,” Taylor said. “We were doing a couple of different schemes and they were doing a nice job on defense, so we just needed to find that one little crease to get going and 13 personnel was what that was for us today. That kind of opens it up, and then you get back to 11 personnel and run the ball a little bit. We just needed that confidence up front to get moving. They gave us the looks we expected, so that helped us get it going.”
If they’re down 21-7 instead of 14-7, running the ball is a tougher commitment.
“It’s not easy,” Taylor said. “It’s hard to do. I don’t want to put us in that situation. We were in good shape.”
And now they’re in great shape at 3-1 after Burrow, Uzomah, Boyd and the rest of the offense lit up the Jaguars defense for four consecutive scoring drives in the second half.
Does that happen without the goal-line stand? Maybe.
Would it have been enough to overcome 21-0? Probably not.
“That stop really got us going,” Boyd said. “The game probably would have gone a whole different way if they would have punched it in. I tip my hat off to our defense.”
(Photo: Ian Johnson / Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)