The Bengals suffered a brutal 30–27 loss to the Texans, losing on a field goal on the final play. Cincinnati had a furious rally to get back into the game after trailing 27-17 with less than four minutes remaining.
Then the Bengals missed their chance to take the lead.
On third-and-goal from the Houston 13, wide-open Bengals receiver Tyler Boyd dropped a perfectly thrown pass into the end zone. The Bengals settled for a tying field goal with 1:33 left, and the Texans won it 1:33 later.
Boyd declined to comment after the game, but no one in the locker room was pointing fingers at him.
“We wouldn’t have even gone there without him,” Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said, via a team transcript. “Obviously you’d like to go down with it, but we were able to go in there and tie it up. (We would have) liked to score, take them down and score a touchdown in that situation, but we managed to tie it.
It was Boyd’s 64-yard reception against the Houston 7 that put the Bengals in position for the tying score. He finished with eight catches for 117 yards, taking over for injured receiver Tee Higgins with his first 100-yard game of the season.
But the fall will surely haunt Boyd.
“Yes, it’s a game, (but) there’s more to it than that game,” coach Zac Taylor said. “There were a lot of plays, obviously, in the game that we could have scored more points on. We had empty aisles there, but you know, (we) had a good look at it there.
Taylor, however, said he didn’t talk to Boyd after the game because it wasn’t necessary.
“No. Everybody knows that,” Taylor said. “And again, he’s going to put a lot of (responsibility) on himself because it’s the end of the game, but we had so many opportunities during the match. Players and coaches – all of us – there are a lot of things we all could have done better, so we weren’t in that position.