“That’s a shame,” Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said after watching his team score 17 fourth-quarter points to get into the extra session, where they scored on their first possession but couldn’t finish the second one.
“For all the things we didn’t do right throughout the game, to fight back in and get the opportunity a couple times throughout the game and then not get it done is disappointing,” Lewis added.
The tie moved the Bengals to 3-1-1 and kept them in first place in the AFC North, but that was a hollow consolation after Nugent, who was 3 for 3 on field goals earlier in the game and a career 4 for 4 in overtime, pushed his 36-yarder wide right.
“I have one job to do, and I didn’t do it today,” Nugent said. “It’s something hard to face.”
Despite playing without Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Green, who was inactive with a toe injury, the Bengals put up 513 yards of offense against the Panthers (3-2-1).
Wide receiver Mohamed Sanu caught 10 passes for 120 yards – both career highs – and hauled in one of Andy Dalton’s two touchdown passes, while running back Giovani Bernard had a career-high 137 rushing yards, 89 of which came on a second-quarter touchdown that gave Cincinnati a 14-7 lead.
Dalton finished 33 of 43 for 323 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
“We executed really well and were hitting the plays we wanted to hit,” Sanu said. “We’re happy with it. We just have to keep getting better and keep working on the little things.”
The issues are much deeper for a Cincinnati defense that surrendered 431 yards one week after giving up 505 at New England.
Carolina quarterback Cam Newton led the Panthers on back-to-back touchdown drives to start the second half, and the Bengals had to play catch-up from there. Newton threw for 284 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for 107 yards and a score, with 15 of his career-high 17 rushes coming in the second half.
“It’s simple, little … mistakes that we keep making that should never happen,” Bengals cornerback Adam Jones said. “One guy’s got the quarterback, one guy’s got the pitch. Stay on who you’ve got. Guys weren’t doing their jobs.”
Jones had the biggest play of the day after Newton hit tight end Greg Olsen for a 13-yard TD that gave the Panthers a 31-24 lead with 4:50 left.
Taking the ensuing kickoff at the goal line, Jones went 97 yards for the longest kickoff return in Bengals history that did not produce a touchdown. The return, which was tied for the fifth longest in franchise history, set up Jeremy Hill’s 3-yard TD run that tied the game at 31-31.
Three plays after that the Bengals defense got its lone turnover of the game when Reggie Nelson picked off a Newton pass to set up a Nugent 42-yard field goal with 2:11 left in the game. But Newton answered with another scoring drive that set up Graham Gano’s 44-yarder as time expired, forcing overtime.
After trading field goals to start overtime, Dalton drove the Bengals to the Carolina 16 only to see Nugent miss the game-winner.
“On the last drive I thought we’d go down there and put ourselves in position to win it,” Dalton said. “We did that. We were close. It’s unfortunate to come out the way it is, but I guess it’s not a loss.”
No, it just felt like one.
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