A 29-yard punt return by Brandon Tate set up the Bengals at the Buffalo 33 in overtime, leading to Mike Nugent’s 43-yard field goal to give the Bengals a 27-24 win Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium and lift them into sole possession of first place in the AFC North at 4-2.
The Bengals were able to escape with the win after allowing the Bills 14 fourth-quarter points to tie the game at 24 when quaterback Thad Lewis hit wide receiver Marquise Goodwin for a 40-yard scoring pass with 1:08 remaining. Earlier in the period Lewis found tight end Scott Chandler wide open across the middle for 22 yards and the score on a fourth-and-eight conversion.
In overtime the Bengals won the coin toss and elected to receive. After an offensive pass interference call on wide receiver A.J. Green put the Bengals in a first-and-20 hole, quarterback Andy Dalton found Green for 12 yards, wide receiver Mohamed Sanu for 10 more, and then running back Giovani Bernard for 23 yards on a swing pass to the Buffalo 42. But the drive stalled there and a Kevin Huber punt pinned the Bills at their seven-yard line.
The Bengals defense forced the Bills into a three-and-out, setting up Tate’s 29-yard return.
After scoring one touchdown in the previous 130 minutes, the Bengals offense responded with three Dalton touchdown passes in building a 24-10 lead over the Bills at the end of the third quarter as Dalton ran his road record to 12-7 in the first away victory of the year.
The Bengals spent the game’s last 20 minutes trying to figure out how to give the game to Lewis, the Bills journeyman quarterback in his second NFL start. Dalton finished 26-of-40 for 337 yards and a passer rating of 105.9 with the 483 yards of offense tying the most the Bengals have generated in his 38 NFL starts and most in a victory. They had 483 in a 2011 loss to Balltimore.
But mistakes allowed Lewis to hang around. He finished 19-of-32 for 216 yards and a 100.5 rating.
The defense responded most of the day and it was called on to win it again after Bernard got stopped on third-and-two just inside the 50 and a Huber punt put the ball on the Bills 14 with 2:40 left in regulation.
Leading 24-10, the Bengals couldn’t deliver the dagger late in the third quarter when they had a first down from the Bills 10 following a facemask call after a Mario Williams sack of Dalton. But Dalton’s third-down pass to Green on the end zone’s back line as he scrambled out of the pocket was too high and Nugent’s 24-yard field goal was negated on a hold by tight end Alex Smith. Nugent then sliced the 34-yarder wide right with 1:15 left in the third quarter.
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