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Coming into the night, the dumb narrative was that Andy Dalton couldn’t win in prime time games. He did win tonight, even though he didn’t really do that much to earn it. Peyton Manning lost the game, because he’s old and busted, according to the narrative to come. Let’s just assume Pey-Pey is going to be fine and reap the hilarious benefits in case he isn’t.
Bengals scored 37 points despite only 2 scoring drives over 30 yards.
— gregg rosenthal (@greggrosenthal) December 23, 2014
Even if you can’t say the win was on him, Dalton did rebound from an early pick-six to have what was ultimate an okay game. He was lucky not to have more interceptions. At the same time, the Bengals probably should have won the game by a more decisive margin, were it not for a Jeremy Hill fumble in the red zone and Pacman Jones taunting the Bengals out of field goal range after one of four Pey-Pey picks.
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Rest assured the glory of Peyton Manning was well protected by Mike Tirico, who made sure to tell viewers that each interception was the result of miscommunication between the quarterback and receivers.
With the Bengals win, Cincy clinched a playoff berth and New England clinched home-field advantage in the AFC. Yup, Peyton meltdowns are a bit less enjoyable when they mean good things for New England.