3 key plays that secured Bengals' Week 6 win over the Giants

It might not have been pretty, but the Cincinnati Bengals managed to stave off defeat at the hands of the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium and improve to 2-4 on the season on Sunday night. It was an important win that keeps their slim playoff chances alive.

As noted by announcers Mike Trico and Cris Collingsworth several times throughout the night, it was a very weird game, with Cincinnati flipping the script of past weeks by having the defense come up big time and time again while the offense seemed to take the night off.

Still, as ugly as it was, the Bengals got the win and that's all that matters at the end of the day. The optimism of the Bengals' faithful may be as cautious as ever right now, but the team showed some semblance of life, and as long as there's that, then there is something to root for. For most of the contest, it was either a one-score game or tied all together, making every down feel more critical than the last.

Speaking of which, as the 4th quarter wound down, a series of plays made by both the Bengals' offense and defense sealed the win, and those plays proved to be the difference between staying alive at 2-4 or being dead in the water at 1-5. Here's a look at three key plays that secured the win for Cincinnati.

Play 1: Pass defense from DJ Turner II

First, is the setup. While the Giants' offense struggled to get points on the board, they had fared well on fourth downs. They came short on their first attempt at the start of the second half, going four and out, but had gone three-for-three since then. This included two 4th down conversions on their only touchdown drive, which went on for a grueling 16 plays.

Down 10-7 on the Bengals' 36 yard-line, Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll elected to go for it yet again on 4th-and-2. After all, Lou Anarumo's unit had been unable to stop them on their attempts in their last three, and this decision was likely further spurred on by the fact that Giants' kicker Greg Joseph had missed a game-tying field goal from 47 yards away. Daniel Jones dropped back and looked to receiver Darius Slayton for the conversion, but 2nd-year player D.J. "JuanDrago" Turner II made an incredible play, diving in front of the pass and batting it away to force a turnover on downs.

It was an incredible play by the former Wolverine, who had started the season by mostly watching the defense from the sidelines, before being thrust into action in Week 4 against Carolina. Plays like this show why he's earned more playing time, and it's good to have that added body in the secondary, especially after Dax Hill went down.

While that was a huge play, it didn't necessarily seal the win for the Bengals, it just put the offense in position to put the game on ice. Unfortunately, the offense started the drive by giving the fans a harsh reminder of what happened at the end of last week's devastating divisional loss, with two straight run plays that went nowhere and actually lost yards, setting up a long 3rd-and-12 for an offense that had gone 3-for-10 on third downs up until this point, to convert.