Monday Night Football: Cincinnati vs. Pittsburgh

It's an old AFC rivalry that dates back to the glory days of the NFL, when men weren't afraid to spit out a few teeth between tackles or cheat on their wives with prostitutes in seedy hotel rooms. Now players are putting extra teeth in their mouths while cheating on their wives with expensive escorts on luxury boat cruises. There was a time, however, between these two eras, where the AFC wasn't so proud and the men weren't so daring. A time when quarterbacks were taken seriously with names like Boomer and Bubby. A time when an offensive lineman named Bruce Kozerski posed for Fleer cards taking on two men, because photographers couldn't get a game-time shot of him ever getting up off his knees. The Bengals visit Pittsburgh, each team looking to break even at .500 and keep pace with the Oilers. Only one team can emerge victorious and attain that elusive goal, and it will be the team with the most drive, the most heart, and the most offensive linemen named Bruce.

It's dusk in Pittsburgh; either that, or the
radon's acting up again

Quarter One
This contest officially begins with the mysteriously named "S" Jennings returns a Gary Anderson kick to the Cincinnati 37-yard line. Mister Boomer Esiason quickly gets the Bengals into Pittsburgh territory with a play-action pass to Eddie Brown. Ickey Woods gains 10 yards on the next play, while James Brooks adds another 10 with a pitch and suddenly the Bengals are frothing from their Zubaz-designed helmets. Esiason gets in on the party with a 10-yard scramble of his own, while Brooks nears the Pittsburgh 7-yard line with a consecutive first down and game officials are letting Cincinnati in on the secret that they actually have four tries to get 10 yards. The Bengals take heed, with two consecutive pitches to Woods getting stuffed. Facing 3rd and 7, however, Woods is entrusted with the ball and less than five seconds later, fans of the Steel City are witnessing the first Ickey Shuffle of the day.

Cincinnati leads 7-0

Pittsburgh gets its first chance, starting in Bengals' territory after a poor kick and nice return by Dwight Stone. With three men wide open, Brister opts for the covered Eric Green and his pass is mercifully booted away. The fates don't approve of his tempting on second down, however, as they allow Lewis Billups to step in front of the pass and takes it back to the Bengals' 30-yard line.

Brooks gets the carry on first down, taking it around the right side of the Steelers' defense for 14 yards. The radioactive D-Line from Three Rivers hulks up for the next play, however, stuffing Brooks on first down. Esiason goes to the air for the first time since the first play of the game, finding his favorite target in Brown for 30 yards to flip the field at the Pittsburgh 35. Boomer shakes off a Greg Lloyd sack on first down, and then finds Brown in coverage for 10 yards as the quarter ends.

Quarter Two

Nobody ever commends the graphic division in charge of
the stone-faced fans, so here it is: nice work, fellas.

On 3rd and 4, the team with the ugliest helmets this side of the XFL are threatening. Boomer decides to flaunt a bit with a flea flicker to Tim McGee, but his pass is laughably intercepted in the back of the end zone, putting an end to any desire that any team may ever have of running the flea flicker ever again.

Some may say I set that last sentence up so that I could comically call a Bubby Brister flea flicker, but he ruins the fun with a conventional pass to Derek Hill for 26 yards. Kevin Walker reintroduces Brister to his childhood on the next play with a 9-yard sack, but Merrill Hoge gains it all back with his first rush of the game. The remaining ten yards aren't converted, however, and Dan Stryzinski is on for his first punt tonight.

Brooks and Woods show off the scariest rushing tandem this side of Los Angeles with a combined 60 yards on the next three plays, capped off with a blitz-avoiding pass from Esiason to Brooks in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown. The Pittsburgh defense can only sit and watch, with their heads spinning in cartoonish fashion as Brooks and Esiason perform their ceremonial Tecmo Touchdown fellatio.

Cincinnati leads 14-0

With 1:34 remaining in the half, Pittsburgh starts out at their own 36. The Steelers start off conservative with a lateral pass to Hoge for 7 yards, but are punished when he is carried off the field, frantically asking "who's going to feed the cats?" and wiping tears, blood and uranium-tinged sweat from his chin. Honoring his fallen comrade, Brister cuts loose with a long bomb to Louis Lipps, who sucks in the 54-yard pass to the Cincinnati 3-yard line. With just 40 seconds left, fullback Warren Williams makes the Miami Hurricanes proud with a run up the gut for a very important Steelers' touchdown before halftime.

Cincinnati leads 14-7

The Bengals effectively take a Tecmo knee with two straight Brooks runs up the middle to draw out the rest of the time on the clock, and they go into halftime with the lead in this exciting, somewhat incestuous hook-up.

Halftime - Bengals 14, Steelers 7

Quarter Three
From their own 27-yard line, the Steelers begin their drive to tie the game the same way their last one ended, with a Williams run up the gut for 10 straight yards in a row to convert the first down. It's nearly all moot when Brister's pass bounces off Green and is nearly intercepted by Billups again. Luckily for Brister, the same AI that makes him terrible is what kept Billups from picking off the deflected pass, and so the drive continues with a 10-yard gain by Tim Worley, in for the gushing-blood Hoge. Williams takes the next two carries, chugging his way for 29 yards into Cincinnati territory. It's only three plays later, and the Bengals have gained 14 of those back with a blitz of Williams and sack of Brister, but Gary Anderson puts his South African leg to use and nails it from 49-yards up.

Cincinnati leads 14-10

The excitement, the drama, the monochromatic uniforms.
Must be Tecmo.

With half the quarter used up and the Bengals' lead cut to 4, Boomer knows he needs to bear down like all the other blue-collar men he's putting on a show for and get his hands dirty. In reality, however, he stands back like the white-collar men and puts Ickey Woods to work instead on the next three plays. After a hard-earned first down, Esiason goes back to the air for McGee, netting 30 yards to the Pittsburgh 45-yard line. After an unsuccessful shuffle by Woods and a batted away pass to Brown, Esiason faces 3rd down in no man's land. From the gun, he finds a diving McGee, who falls short of the end zone by inches as the quarter comes to an end.

Quarter Four
Only seconds into the final quarter, and Brooks walks in for a touchdown. It's raining daggers in Pittsburgh. Literally.

Cincinnati leads 21-10

Not pictured: Chuck Noll's Cantaloupes.

Pittsburgh starts their comeback with 4:31 remaining from their own 21-yard line. Brister quickly finds Green for 24 yards, but the bad news continues piling on when Green's valiant heroics come to a bone-crushing end as he's carried off the field. Brister drops back again, and is saved from a few mincemeat pies in the face when Hill steals a sure interception from the Bengals and carries it to the Cincinnati 38-yard line. Two meaningless plays later, and the Steelers are suddenly facing a must-convert 3rd and 7. James Francis mercilessly takes them out of field goal range, however--at least by conventional standards--but Coach Chuck Noll isn't conventional, and as an avid student of the football video game curriculum, shouts "Nobody PUNTS in Tecmo!" and shoves Gary Anderson out on to the field for a 61-yard field goal. The ball travels far enough to actually hit the upright and bounce back on to the field, however it's still only Anderson's third-most heartbreaking field goal miss in his career.

Boomer's first pass to Brown is nearly intercepted, eliciting cries and perhaps a few grown-man sobs, a sound heard quite often on the drive as the Bengals convert one first down after the other, finally hammering in the last nail of Pittsburgh's coffin with an exclamatory flea flicker to McGee for a 45-yard touchdown.

Cincinnati leads 28-10

Down by 18 with 1:23 left, Dwight Stone is able to find midfield on the return. Worley is given the ball on first down, which is questionable enough, but the Bengals' foreknowledge of the play call and its ensuing blitz causes me to wonder what kind of illegal deeds are being done in Cincinnati, outside of their receiving corps, of course. Worley gets in some more work with a gain of 6 yards, but apparently Coach Noll doesn't like what he sees and asks Brister to throw on 3rd and 9 with a minute remaining. His pass, intended for Hill, is completely read by Barney Bussey, who intercepts the ball and ices the game.

The Bengals comically lose 13 yards on the next two plays of their drive, showing that even in winning, sometimes there is no glory.

Final: Bengals 28, Steelers 10

Hand it to the Bengals: they went into hostile rival territory, and hardly bungled it at all. Boomer was flaming, more than usual, with his 254 passing yards more than doubling his counterpart and fellow nickname-starting-with-B quarterback. Tim McGee continued his hot streak, causing 'McGee' jerseys to become the most popular since the hundreds of rapscallions showing up at school with 'Lipps' written on their backs. The Bengals slide one more game up in the division, trying valiantly to keep in line with the Oilers, while Pittsburgh sees itself sliding off the bubble as the playoff party is started to get more crowded and stuffy. Cincinnati will continue to look toward making things interesting, and if I get to see Boomer and Ickey in a simulated Tecmo playoffs, I'll finally get to that last item on my bucket list.