Kansas City initially made me think of The Wizard of Oz, until I remembered that movie was actually set in Kansas, not Kansas City, and that, in fact, Kansas City might not even be in Kansas, it might be in Missouri. In fact, it turns out (ok, I Wikipedia-d) that there are two Kansas Citys. One of them is, in fact, in Kansas, the other, the one in question, is not. But it is near to Kansas, and they are separated by the Kansas River. Man, and you guys think pronouncing ‘Leicester’ is difficult. I also discovered that Kansas City would like it’s nickname to be “The Paris of the Plains” (you know, like the French capital) but that people instead insist on calling it just “KC” (you know, like the Sunshine Band). Anyway, I haven’t met many people from any of the Kansases (Kanses?) but from those that I have, I think we can all be grateful that most of the Chiefs’ so-called fans spent the game with paper bags over their heads. This may have been some sort of protest against the Chiefs 1-8 start, or it may simply be the customary apparel for people from Kansas. I don’t know. Wikipedia didn’t say.
Either way, it is safe to say that not only are the Chiefs pretty terrible at football, but they have almost no Native American players on their team, despite Matt Cassell’s attempts to enter the spirit of things by putting the eye-black across his cheeks in stripes, and the (fairly racist-looking) beating of an enormous “Indian-style” drum by an old white dude with a stick. To each his own.
Joyously for the Bengals, the game was something of a wash. Although the Chiefs took an early 3-0 lead, Cedric Peerman made a huge gain on a fake punt for the second time this year and Cincinnati never looked back. A.J. Green once again made the ludicrously acrobatic look easy, a spectacular one-handed catch giving him his record-setting ninth consecutive game with a touchdown. He was helped by the most aggressive game from tight end Jermaine Gresham since he was the Bengals number one pick three years back, his bruising, battling efforts highlighted by his muscling the ball to the half yard line, which allowed quarterback Andy Dalton to run the ball home. When The Law Firm punched in a touchdown to cap off his first 100-yard rushing game for the team, the Bengals walked into the locker-room at half time with a comfortable 21-6 lead, and the Chiefs walked into the locker room to the sound of their fans calling for Brady Quinn. You know things are rough when your fans are baying for Brady Quinn. You know things are rough when your fans are politely inquiring if Brady Quinn might possibly be an option to be considered. So when they’re baying? That’s bad.
After that it was pretty much plain sailing for the boys in stripes. Geno Atkins continued his ridiculous levels of interior lineman-ing, forcing two fumbles, picking up a sack (two, actually, but one was eliminated for reasons not to do with him) and having the most tackles on the team. Vontaze Burfict recovered one of said fumbles, Leon Hall had his second shut-down game in two weeks and we even saw a burst of first round pick “Who”-Dre Kirkpatrick on defense. On offense, Mohamed Sanu grabbed another touchdown and Peerman breathed life into the running game, although Brandon Tate continued to build a solid case for never being thrown to. Kevin Huber continued his excellent season of punting and overall the Bengals pretty much cruised to victory.
Sure, there will be tougher tests to come, but for the second week running the Bengals took care of business with aplomb, and landed a comfortable win.
Final Score: Bengals 28 Chiefs 6
Man Of The Match: Jermaine Gresham. Geno Atkins was a superlative destructive force (once again), but Gresham’s fired-up attitude was fantastic to see: he bullied the Chiefs’ defense, was robbed of a touchdown, and thoroughly looked like the tight end who was drafted with our first pick (over New England’s Gronkowski and Hernandez and New Orleans’ Graham). We’ll need that sort of effort, energy, and effectiveness down the stretch.
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