Marvin Lewis knew it was just a matter of time — at some point, A.J. Green’s breakout would arrive in grand style.
“He’s a patient guy,” the Cincinnati Bengals coach said after watching his star wideout light up the Baltimore Ravens secondary in crunch time on Sunday. “He understands that when he gets his opportunities, his plays will come.
“Before this game, everybody was talking about, ‘What’s wrong with A.J.?’ There’s nothing wrong with A.J. The quarterback delivers the ball where it needs to go. Sooner or later, if coverage rotates to where A.J. gets one-on-one opportunities, he’ll take advantage of it.”
Green’s 10-catch, 227-yard effort was highlighted by an 80-yard, go-ahead score midway through the fourth quarter followed by the 7-yard game-winning touchdown pass from Andy Dalton with little more than two minutes left.
During the first two games, Green produced eight catches for 108 yards.
“I’m not concerned with my statistics,” Green said. “We’re winning. That’s all I care about. But when my number is called, I want to respond and make big plays.”
For the second year in a row, the Bengals are 3-0 and sitting firmly in the driver’s seat in the AFC North — which has seen three different division champions in three years — given the knee injury that will sideline Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for several weeks and the assorted woes of the winless Ravens.
It leads to a bigger-picture question about patience for Green and his talented team. Are the Bengals poised to finally get over the hump given the quarter-century it's been since their last playoff victory?
Cincinnati has earned playoff berths in each of the four seasons since Dalton and Green arrived in 2011 to formulate one of the NFL’s most lethal passing combinations. Maybe this will be the year they actually make a deep postseason run.
“We’re going to keep playing one week at a time,” said Dalton, mindful that the Kansas City Chiefs will visit Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday. “But we like where we are right now.”
It will take more patience before this edition of the Bengals is able to address whether the end result of the season will be any different.
“We’ve got to keep it up,” Lewis said. “We’ve got a lot of things to fix. We gave up too many explosive plays on defense (against Baltimore). We had too many penalties on offense. We’ve got to tighten it down and do better.”
When someone asked his during his Monday news conference about how Roethlisberger’s knee injury will affect the divisional landscape, Lewis knew better than to go down that track.
“I have no idea,” he said. “Not my concern. Ben doesn’t play for the Chiefs.”
The Bengals fully realize they need to take matters one week at a time to earn their stripes.
About the Author
