Bengals deserve praise for effort after tragic week

SAN DIEGO -- In a fairy-tale world, the Cincinnati Bengals would've found a way to beat San Diego, to overcome tragedy and to prove once and for all that they're one of the best and most resilient football teams on the planet.

Chad Ochocinco: 'I went out there and I played with an extra set of hands and an extra set of legs and an extra heart.' (AP)

But this isn't a fairy-tale world. It's the world of the NFL where, usually, the team with the better players wins, and the better players Sunday were not with Cincinnati. They belonged to San Diego, a club that ran its unbeaten string in December to 17 with a last-second 27-24 win.

The Chargers won because, frankly, they deserved to win, but it's hard to find fault with the efforts that Cincinnati, in general, and Chad Ochocinco, in particular, extended, given all that they went through the past four days.

I'm talking, of course, of the death of wide receiver Chris Henry, a friend of Ochocinco and one of the team's top receivers until he suffered a season-ending injury earlier this season.

Though Henry had not been part of the Bengals for weeks, he was very much a part of Sunday's game -- with Ochocinco dropping to one knee after scoring the team's first touchdown to say a prayer and then have a private conversation with his former teammate -- repeating something he and Henry used to say to each other before practices and before games.

"85 plus 15 will always be a hundred ways to be great," Ochocinco said.

Number 85 is Ochocinco. Number 15 was Henry.

Ochocinco had wanted to do more than that. He had wanted to exchange jerseys for one day, wearing Henry's in remembrance of his teammate. But he changed plans after the NFL stepped in. First, it said it would fine him. Then, it indicated he wouldn't be allowed to take the field if he went through with the idea. So Ochocinco dropped his plans and played as he never played before in what, he would say later, was the toughest game of his career.

"By far," he said. "I felt really, really nervous. Usually, you have butterflies before a game. But today it felt different -- sorta like an empty feeling.

"A lot of people don't understand. I talked about wearing the jersey and things of that nature, and on the outside they didn't understand. It was bigger than football with me and him. It was that relationship like T.J. [Houshmandzadeh, former Cincinnati receiver] and I had. It was ... I can't even explain it. It was hard.

"You have somebody like that you take under your wing for five years, and you see him hit that turn, and turn the right way. I mean, you already know the story. It's hard."

Several of Henry's teammates wore the number 15 scrawled on black tape under their eyes. Others, like quarterback Carson Palmer, said Henry seldom was far from their thoughts. But it was Ochocinco who seemed to have the most trouble with it, dressing after the game in an empty stall with Henry's number 15 above it and not appearing in front of TV cameras until he put on dark sunglasses.

"He was like a brother," he said.

I don't know about that. But I do know that Ochocinco and his teammates played inspired football, just as they did earlier this season when they rallied behind defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, whose wife died unexpectedly only days earlier, and somehow pulled out a come-from-behind victory over Baltimore.

The Ravens were home, just as the Chargers were home, and they were expected to win, just as the Chargers were expected to win. But Cincinnati prevailed with a last-gasp push that found Palmer hitting Andre Caldwell with the game-winning TD with 22 seconds left. It was, as players said later, as if the outcome were preordained.

But Baltimore doesn't have the talent of San Diego, and so when the Bengals made a last-ditch drive for victory Sunday they were stopped short -- forced to kick the game-tying field goal that would take them to an overtime that, naturally, they would win.

They would win because, just as in Baltimore, something else -- or someone else -- was guiding them. An emotional team would win an emotional game, spurred on by the death of someone close to them.

"I really thought we had it in the bag," Ochocinco said.

And they might have if Philip Rivers wasn't on the other side of the line of scrimmage. But Mr. December ran his record this month to 17-0 by hitting three clutch passes in the last minute to thwart the hopes and dreams of Ochocinco and the Bengals.

"It's been an interesting four days," Palmer said. "I've never experienced anything like it. I have been fortunate enough not to have experienced tragedy like we've experienced this week. It's almost surreal. I almost don't believe it until I see him on Tuesday [at the funeral]. I think it will really hit home for myself and a number of the other guys because you're so far away from it your mind doesn't really grasp the situation."

In the end, the better team won. But give this to Cincinnati: It played well enough to win. The problem: It played San Diego, and nobody beats these guys in December -- not even the ghost of Chris Henry.

"We didn't win," said a disappointed Marvin Lewis afterward. "We're not taking satisfaction in not winning."

I understand that. But I also understand taking solace in how the Bengals played. In defeat, they demonstrated a resilience that most coaches -- including Lewis -- can admire. They played San Diego hard, and they played them tough, and when they dropped behind by 11 they could have gone away. But they didn't. Instead, they fought back and pushed the Bolts to find another gear.

Naturally, Ochocinco would have wanted another outcome. He would have liked to have won, to have made a second TD catch so he could throw the ball into the air as Chris Henry did and he would have liked to have done it wearing Chris Henry's jersey. But the reality is that this is the NFL, and sometimes reality bites.

"You had certain media types that had the nerve to say I was making the situation about me," said Ochocinco about not wearing Henry's uniform. "When I hear something like that and hear the NFL say they would still fine me for a situation like this, [it's like] are you serious? So now it's not becoming me doing everything I can for people to remember him.

"Everybody grieves and mourns a different way. My way? It would have been out there wearing his jersey, because I know if I was gone 'Slim' [Henry's nickname] would have had on 85 today. Trust me. When it turned to a negative -- and I'm sure if I wore it today it would've been spun into a negative -- that's when I had to backtrack. I think 'Slim' wouldn't have wanted that. He would've wanted me to go out and play for him. So I went out there and I played with an extra set of hands and an extra set of legs and an extra heart."

It was a noble effort, but it wasn't good enough. And now Cincinnati, losers of its last two, must wonder what happens next. The Bengals should make the playoffs and should win their division, but they've almost certainly blown a first-round bye and have lost the momentum they had entering the last month of the season.

Nevertheless, give them credit for what they were able to achieve here. They didn't win, but they demonstrated, as Norv Turner would say later, that they're a "heckuva football team." My only question is: Where do they go from here, and, just as important, how does Chad Ochocinco put what just happened behind him and cope with what is next?

"I don't know," Ochocinco said. "Stay busy as much as I can. That's all I can do. The more active I am the easier it is to keep it off my mind. The flight home is going to bother me. The funeral service [on Tuesday] is going to bother me. Anytime it's quiet and you have time to think it's going to bother me. Everybody says stay strong and focused. But it's easy to say when you have no bond with the individual. So it is what it is. That's about it."