A quick look at Sunday’s 37-14 win over the Cardinals at Paycor Stadium.
Play of the Day
Joe Burrow gave Cody Ford a cave bear skull for Christmas. During the Bengals’ 37-14 win over the Cardinals Sunday at Paycor Stadium, Ford, his massive 6-3, 345-pound offensive lineman, celebrated his 29th birthday giving Burrow a memory to survive the ages.
A hellacious 21-yard catch-and-run that put the ball on the Cardinals 2 to set up their last score of the game with 1:38 left in the third quarter and put Ford’s teammates on the brink of delirium.
How about a 17-yard YAC for the big man?
“I couldn’t believe what I was watching. It was sick,” said Burrow, who said it was even a bigger surprise than last year’s touchdown pass to defensive end Sam Hubbard.
It certainly made Cards rookie cornerback Denzel Burke ill on the former Buckeye’s trip back to Ohio.
On first-and-10 from the Cards 23, Ford caught the hitch near the Bengals sideline and turned it niftily up field as if he were the Cardinals’ Trey McBride. A few minutes later, McBride set the NFL record for most catches in a season by a tight end.
The 5-11, 190-pound Burke was no match for the man twice his size. Burke tried to push him out-of-bounds, but Ford shrugged him off like a bad idea.
This idea, by the way, first broached by offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher earlier in the week, turned out to be a good one.
There was All-Pro wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase lined up tight to Burrow’s right. Then came wide receiver Andrei Iosivas in the next split. Ford, a guard-tackle who started at four spots last year, was split the widest near the sideline.
“Joe kept telling me to just get wider during the week,” Ford said. “Eventually, I thought he’s just telling me to get the hell out of the way so I didn’t mess up anybody else’s route. It was a different story when it all played out.
“I don’t even know what number in the progression I was,” Ford said.
It turned out third. As usual, Burrow looked for Chase first. A check-down to tight end Drew Sample jammed up. Ford was hard to miss.
He thought it was a joke until Tuesday night’s walkthrough under the lights at Paycor. They ran it on the left side, and Ford lost it in the lights, but still caught it. On Wednesday, they ran it during the afternoon practice on the grass, and he caught that one on the left side, too.
“I played tight end in junior high and freshman year in high school,” said Ford of his first catch since he grabbed one against Brame Middle School in a neighborhood rivalry game in Pineville, La.
“I got more nervous as he threw the ball to me and everything went slow,” Ford said. “In practice, he threw it to my chest. But out there, he threw it to my up-field shoulder … I’m thinking, ‘OK, I have to use my hands.'”
There he was. No. 61. Out wide.
“A dream come true,” Ford said. “Every lineman dreams to line up as a receiver one time.”
