Giovani Bernard Tore His ACL, Marvin Lewis Facing Long Odds in Cincinnati

Kansas City’s Dee Ford injured his hamstring and didn’t play in the second half of the Chiefs’ loss to Tampa Bay.

And, on Sunday afternoon at Paul Brown Stadium, his offensively undermanned Bills gutted out a 16-12 victory over the Bengals to keep their slim post-season hopes alive.

“Nobody is going to feel sorry for us”, Ryan said. Rex’s unit forced five, three-and-out drives, including four straight in the second half.

The previous high was 10 misses in a single week, but that was before the kicks were made more hard.

Green’s injury halts what had been a wildly successful individual season. “I don’t know when he can be back, but he has a hamstring injury, I can tell you that”, Lewis said. Cincinnati now sits at 3-6-1 on the season. He stayed in the game for a couple of plays after getting his knee twisted and then took himself out.

Team-mate Adam Jones said he felt “sick” as the extent of Green’s injury became apparent. “It’s depressing. It’s nerve-wracking”.

“Guys played well today”, safety Corey Graham said.

Some Bengals fans and media have come out and say they are excited to see what quarterback Andy Dalton can do without A.J. Green, who tore his hamstring and could be done for the year. Green hit the ground while trying to make a catch on the second play of the game against the Buffalo Bills, and he got up in obvious pain.

Buffalo has topped 160 yards rushing in each of its past three games and six times this season, including a 312-yard outing in a 45-16 win over San Francisco on October 16. The Bills averaged 5.4 overall against a defense that has struggled to stop the run all season.

The Bills had driven to a first-and-goal at the 5, but once again they could not punch it in as Mike Gillislee was stopped on first down, and Taylor threw a pair of incomplete passes to kill the threat.

“We take pretty wins … we take ugly wins … we just take wins wherever we can get them”. But more important than the ability to play within the rules, was the way in which the Bills defense rendered the Bengals offense powerless.

According to Pro Football Focus, 20 of Taylor’s aimed passing attempts did not travel more than 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

But Wilson scooted around left end, and Baldwin lofted an accurate pass that fell into Wilson’s hands, in stride, for the score.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought”, Lewis said. The Bills are already missing their top receiving threat, Sammy Watkins (left foot) and starting center Eric Wood (broken right leg). He didn’t disappoint, forcing two missed tackles on 14 carries and gaining 61 of his 72 yards after contact. The Bengals ran for a total of 93, only 3.4 yards per carry. Lewis said Bernard is now exploring his options, but will likely have surgery. There also are problems in the kicking game, as Mike Nugent has missed five field goals and three extra points. “I think they responded great (to the criticism) … it was just kind of a get-back-to-the-basics week for them really focusing on technique and doing the small things right”.