To say we won ugly is to give ugly a bad name. This win was as ugly as it gets. But I’ll take it to win the AFC North. Accepting this win, however, is like accepting Ugly Betty’s uglier 2nd cousin – who has two teeth missing, the rest are the color of piss, has facial acne that resembles the side of a craggy mountain, and speaks with a high-pitched voice – as your date to the prom. Sure, having a date sounds better than nothing, but you open the door to IT and you’re like, gross.

A year ago if you told me that the Bengals would be AFC North champs after going 4-11-1, I’d be ecstatic. I’d be jumping up and down all over my house and doing an awkward jig and possibly the Truffle Shuffle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still happy, but the Bengals’ play still leaves a lot to be desired. I guess after your team starts to win more consistently you get spoiled. You want more. You want a blow out win every weekend. Unless the team is crushing other opponents you’re never happy.

You could look at the Bengals poor performance several ways:

1) The Chiefs aren’t AS bad as people say they are. They’ve been playing better lately with Jamal Charles turning out to be a really good running back. Their defense played pretty well.
2) The Bengals didn’t play well because it has been an emotional week and a half, with Chris Henry’s funeral. They had to fly back from San Diego on Sunday night and then fly to Louisiana on their normal day off on Tuesday. It was a tough week for them.
3) The Bengals play down to their competition.
4) The Bengals are really that bad.

I’m throwing out number four right now. I’d like to think that I’m a realistic fan (usually), but I just don’t think they are the team that we saw on Sunday. I think it was a combination of numbers one through three.

Many plays were left on the field due to lack of execution and some very close misses. Even still, there were some ugly, ugly, UGLY sequences in the game. Here are a few:

Ugly Sequence #1: On a 3rd and 1 play, the Bengals do a quarterback sneak to gain a first down. However, unbeknowst to the team, Marvin Lewis calls a time out a split second before the snap because he thought the team was in an illegal formation. No flag was thrown, though. If he hadn’t called for a time out, it would’ve been good for a first down. On the next play, the Bengals are called for a penalty to make it 3rd and 6 and we end punting. Awesome.

Ugly Sequence #2: The Bengals recover the ball after the Chiefs punter misses the snap. So it’s first and goal for the Bengals. On second down, Palmer throws a pass to Chad in the endzone, but it’s eventually called back because his heal barely touches out of bounds before he catches the ball. After the Bengals receive a gift of a first and goal at the five, they end up kicking a field goal. Pathetic.

Ugly Sequence #3: All of first half. The Bengals had 53 TOTAL yards on offense in the first half. Palmer had 10 yards passing in the first half. What the EF? Seriously, if we play like that in the playoffs, we’ll be one and done.

Ugly Sequence #4: TE J.P. Foschi. After catching 7 passes last week, he had two drops this week. Man, aside from wide receiver, the Bengals need to make sure to go after a tight end in the draft next year.

Some positives:

- Coles isn’t worthless. He actually led the Bengals receivers in yardage and had a TD. I’m glad I didn’t write him off after the Vikings game (wait, I did write him off? Eh, whatever).
- Cedric Benson: broke away a huge run in the fourth quarter to help us out. He had his sixth 100 yard game for this season. Good job Benson.
- Carson Palmer: Hey, he threw an interception, but he’s clutch when he has to be. Driving the Bengals 98 yards for the game winning touchdown, that’s not bad. Still, I wish he could be more consistent throughout the game so he wouldn’t have to do that.

-  Tribute to Henry:  After Chad catches the game-winning TD, he holds up the numbers one and five with his fingers as a tribute to Chris Henry.  This is weird to write this, but Chad has shown to be one of the classiest guys in the league.

-  Interceptions: the Bengals had three INTs.  The defensive backs did a good job overall today.

-  Michael Johnson: He had a sack and a pass defensed.  He had a great game.   With that said, we need to put more pressure on QBs.

Point of concern:

- Rey Maualuga broke his ankle and probably is done for the season. I like our backup linebackers with Brandon Johnson and Rashad Jeanty, but Maualuga is a starter for a reason. It’s a shame for him and for the team.

Bengals-Broncos Playoff Game?

- For now, the Bengals could play the Broncos in the first round of the playoffs. Of course, the AFC playoff picture is more muddled than a bowl of alphabet soup as seen by a dyslexic monkey. I like our chances against the Broncos.

Bengals and Jets Next Week:

- The Bengals still have a shot at the number 3 seed, so they’ll put their starters in next week against the Jets, who are fighting to get in the playoffs. It’ll be an interesting game with the Jets having the best pass defense in the league, and the Bengals have the most inconsistent pass offense in the league. We’ll see what happens.