Notes and quotes following Cincinnati's 39-32 loss to Atlanta on Sunday.
» The Bengals had killer 12-men penaltieson each side of the ball in the dreadful first half, but head coach Marvin Lewis bristled when asked about the lack of discipline and took blame for the one on offense that turned a third-and-eight from the Falcons 44 into a third-and-13 and sack of Carson Palmer by blitzing cornerback Brian Mitchell.
"That's not discipline. Discipline is personal fouls," he said. "We've got little things, that's not about a lack of discipline. We've got to pay attention to the detail of it. (On offense), that's my fault. I'm trying to get them to substitute and our guys don't understand that. Those are detail things when you're dealing with some new guys, dealing with some rookies, and we put a lot of pressure on the quarterback to try and get everyone on the same page."
The defense got nabbed with too many defensive backs on the field on first down coming out a timeout just after the Bengals cut the lead to 7-3 and it ignited a field-goal drive.
"Defensively that was coming out of a timeout and they had new personnel and we can't have that," Lewis said.
» The 39 points allowed by the Bengals were the most allowed in 39 games with Mike Zimmer as defensive coordinator.
» Quarterback Carson Palmer had 412 yards passing for the third 400-yard day of his career. His last 400-yard game was Sept, 16, 2007 when had 401 at Cleveland. The 412 yards are Palmer's second highest in a game behind 440 against San Diego on November 12, 2006, that was also a loss (49-41). All three of his 400-yard games have come in losses.
» Falcons wide receiver Roddy White had 201 yards on 11 receptions. It was the fourth-most receiving yards against the Bengals and it's the most since James Lofton had 220 in 1991 for the Bills.
» Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco had his second 100-yard game of the season with 108 yards on 10 catches.
» Two of the biggest plays in the fourth quarter that turned the game around were back-to-back plays. Facing a first-and-10 from the Atlanta 39 with 9:56 left and the Bengals down 32-25, Palmer lofted a pass down the left sideline to a wide open wide receiver Terrell Owens inside the five-yard line. Owens appeared to catch the ball, but he had one foot out of bounds. Palmer blamed himself for underthrowing the ball. "My fault; I underthrew him by 5-10 yards," he said.
"With the route that was called, I had my guy beaten," Owens said. "It was just a matter of me trying to make an adjustment to the ball. That's one of the things we have to correct. If we score a touchdown there it's a different game."
On the next play running back Cedric Benson fumbled and the Falcons recovered.
"Never in my life, 20 years of playing football, have I ever made a play like that," Benson said. "I don't know what I did. I was trying too hard to make a play and I don't know if the ball went off my knee or what."
» Dhani Jones on the defense:
"Missed tackles. Playing to your leverage and it also gets back to the second and third guys coming in that have to make the play."
» Chris Crocker on the Bengals:"We can play football if our head is on straight and we do what we're supposed to do. We don't lack talent, we just lack focus and efficiency."
» The Bengals had 469 total yards, their most in a game since the 2007 season.
» Palmer was pleased with the no-huddle offense, which the Bengals were in for most of the game.
"It plays to the strenghts of our guys," he said. "It's a little bit easier to tweak the no-huddle to guys' strengths like Shipley on the hot routes and Chad and T.O. in one-on-one situations. ... We can exploit our guys' strengths."
» Palmer on the offense's miscommunications (false-starts, too many men in the huddle):"Part of the deal of playing in the Dome is there is going to be some miscommunication, but there were too many for us today to get a win."
» Palmer on the state of the Bengals locker room:
"Everybody's got an opinion, but it's not a reality on this team. People have been saying we are going to explode the last three or four weeks. It's about one game at a time. We're 2-4 and we've got to find a way to get to 3-4."
» Crocker on the team's record:"Screw the record. We just have to play. We can't worry about that. We've got to get a win."
» Leon Hall on the third play of the game, a 46-yard pass to White:"I was trailing all the way and I didn't play it very well."
» The Bengals were hurt all day by the big play. The Falcons had six plays of at least 22 yards while the Bengals had three.
» Cornerback Johnathan Joseph, who was inactive for the game, tried to give it a go on his injured ankle in pregame warmups. He said it wasn't strong and he had trouble pushing off.
