3 winners and 3 losers from Bengals demoralizing week 14 loss to 49ers

Bengals winners from week 14

Wide Receivers 

Rather than do separate entries for each of the three Bengals’ star receivers, I decided to just group them together. Tee Higgins now has three straight games where he went for over 100 yards receiving and the dude is a complete mad man in clutch moments. He finished the game with five catches for 114 yards.

Ja’Marr Chase was second in receiving yards and had a much-needed big game for the stripes. The first-round rookie totaled five catches for 77 yards and found the end zone twice. He had another incredible grab in the end zone in the first half but it was ruled incomplete after further review.

Tyler Boyd also got in on the action, tallying four catches for 55 yards and also taking over as the punt returner after things didn’t go so well there. More on that in a bit.

We’ve been waiting for all three guys to put up stellar numbers in the same game and we finally saw it happen. Joe Burrow spread the football around and the offense looked good when he did so.

Pass Rush

Despite Trey Hendrickson going down with an injury, the pass rush still played well. It obviously would have been nice to have had Hendrickson out there in those clutch moments down the stretch but four other guys notched a sack on the evening (Hendrickson did as well), giving the Bengals’ D five sacks on Jimmy Garoppolo.

B.J. Hill

This is a good time to mention that Cincinnati acquired B.J. Hill for first-round bust, Billy Price. At the time of the trade, people wondered if this would end up being a decent trade and there’s no doubt that the Bengals won the trade.

Hill was terrific on Sunday, racking up four tackles and a sack. The Bengals need to keep Hill around past this season because he’s been so good for them on defense.