Bengals all talk, but end up with very few points

Chad Johnson wore sunglasses and spoke softly amidst the hush of a losing locker room.

His words came out sharp. Defiant even.

"We beat them on anything we wanted to beat them on," he said. "They didn't stop us all day in the passing game."

The Bengals ran up all kinds of numbers Sunday, just not the ones that mattered most.

The Bengals never punted in the fourth quarter and finished with 328 yards passing — Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh each amassed more than 135 yards receiving — yet Cincinnati scored only two touchdowns.

"You figure if you're moving the ball up and down the field like that we'll score more than ... ," Houshmandzadeh said, stopping to recall the final total. "I forget however many we scored."

That was 21 points, T.J., and two of those came courtesy of the defense.

Cincinnati got a touchdown midway through the first quarter and the next one in the final three minutes, two bookends sandwiched around 50 minutes in which the Bengals offense racked up 261 yards and produced just six points.

"It should have translated into more points," Johnson said. "I'm not sure what happened."

The answer: The Seahawks gave up plenty of singles and doubles and rigorously avoided the long ball. They were like a baseball team that has its first and third basemen guarding the lines.

"What beats you is the big plays," cornerback Kelly Jennings said. "And we felt like if we could eliminate the big plays and keep everything in front, we'll win the game."

That seemed improbable when Cincinnati drove 83 yards on its first possession of the game and scored on a 35-yard touchdown pass to a wide open Houshmandzadeh. He caught four passes that drive, feasting on what he said was man-to-man coverage.

"If they would have stayed in man-to-man, we might have scored 100," Houshmandzadeh said. "They knew they couldn't cover us."

Not many can. The Bengals are a high-powered offense. One that scored 45 points a week ago, and Carson Palmer is getting mentioned in that elite class of quarterbacks that includes Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

"They're a right-now offense," Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu said.

Perhaps the closest thing left to the run-and-gun, and the Bengals used a no-huddle offense, showed the guts to adjust play calls and protection schemes amid the din of Qwest Field and Palmer went out and completed 13 of his first 14 passes.

This wasn't part of Seattle's plan. No defense enjoys getting dragged around like the tin cans behind the newlyweds' car. No team wants to watch an opponent convert 11 of 18 third downs as the Bengals did. In the NFL, a 45 percent conversion rate is exemplary. A 61 percent rate like Cincinnati pulled off Sunday is usually insurmountable.

Those kind of numbers steamed Seattle safety Deon Grant. It had him storming around the sideline until an assistant coach came to soothe some feelings.

" 'Look at the scoreboard,' " the coach told Grant. " 'Forget them yards.' "

The Seahawks defense kept its chin up and its back covered. The Bengals never completed a pass longer than that 35-yard touchdown to Houshmandzadeh in the first quarter. Seattle abandoned man-to-man coverage, and while Palmer spent most of the afternoon strafing Seattle's secondary, he ended up getting a little impatient, too. He tried to force a pass to Houshmandzadeh in the second quarter, and Grant was waiting to leap in front for a sideline grab any receiver would have envied. Palmer fired to the end zone in the third quarter even though Seattle safety Brian Russell was behind Johnson, resulting in another interception.

Baseball players refer to that kind of play as timely hitting. Basketball players call it clutch shooting. In the NFL, it's defense at the goal line, and all the yards the Seahawks gave up Sunday didn't translate into the most meaningful category on the scoreboard.

"It's the points that count," Jennings said.

Seattle's Marcus Trufant stuck with Johnson; Jennings manned the other side. He had the wind knocked out of him in the second half and spent most of the day running after what might be the wildest offense in the NFL.

How did he do?

"Kelly, did they score on you today?" Grant asked him afterward.

Jennings shook his head.

"He did great," Grant said. "They didn't score on him, he did great. I don't care what else they did. They could have got 1,000 catches."

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364 or doneil@seattletimes.com