3 winners, 3 losers from Bengals’ historic Week 17 win vs. Chiefs

Cincinnati Bengals Losers from Week 17

First Half Defense

Four Chiefs offensive possessions, four touchdowns. Enough said, right?

The Bengals’ defense started off forcing the Chiefs off the field on a 3-and-out but then Patrick Mahomes caught fire and didn’t cool off for the rest of the half. The Kansas City offense scored touchdowns on four straight drives to make it a 28-17 game at halftime and it felt like Cincy’s defense would have to get a few stops in order to have any chance at winning this game.

Fortunately, it was only the first-half defense that had issues. The second-half defense allowed just three points, which is really impressive given how many weapons the Chiefs have.

Markus Bailey

Germaine Pratt missed this game and that meant Markus Bailey would be starting his second consecutive game. It didn’t go great for the linebacker, who wasn’t effective in the run game and proved he’s not quite ready to be a starter yet. Bailey is a talented player but he’s definitely better as a depth piece.

Offensive Line

Hopefully, this offseason will be one where Cincinnati fixates strongly on upgrading the offensive line because this team won’t win a Super Bowl if the organization continues to ignore the position. Joe Burrow was sacked a total of four times including twice in the first five offensive plays of the game.

To make matters worse, Quinton Spain was carted off with an injury during the game. That led to rookie Jackson Carman stepping into action and while things could have gone worse, this is a less-than-ideal situation for the Cincy o-line. The unit has to be better if this team wants to make a deep postseason run.