The Bengals had a brutal 30-27 loss to the Texans, losing on a field goal on the final play. Cincinnati had a furious rally to get back into it after trailing 27-17 with less than four minutes left.
Then, the Bengals blew a chance to take the lead.
On third-and-goal from the Houston 13, wide-open Bengals receiver Tyler Boyd dropped a perfectly thrown pass in the end zone. The Bengals settled for a tying field goal with 1:33 left, and the Texans won it 1:33 later.
Boyd declined comment after the game, but no one in the locker room was pointing a finger at him.
“We wouldn’t have even been down there if it wasn’t for him,” Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said, via a transcript from the team. “Obviously, you’d like to come down with it, but we were able to go down there and tie it up. [We would have] liked to punch it in, make them go down and score a touchdown in that situation, but we were able to tie it up.”
It was Boyd’s 64-yard reception to the Houston 7 that got the Bengals in position for the game-tying points. He finished with eight catches for 117 yards, taking up the slack for injured receiver Tee Higgins with his first 100-yard game of the season.
But the drop surely will haunt Boyd.
“Yeah, that’s a play, [but] it doesn’t come down to that play,” coach Zac Taylor said. “There were plenty of plays, of course, in the game that we could have got more points off of. We had some empty drives there, but you know, [we] had a good look at it there.”
Taylor, though, said he did not talk to Boyd after the game, because there was no need.
“No. Everybody knows,” Taylor said. “And again, he’s going to put a lot [of responsibility] on himself because it’s the end of the game, but there were so many opportunities we had over the course of the game. Players and coaches — all of us — there’s a lot of things all of us could have done better so we weren’t in that position.”
