Rookie Sam Hubbard was disappointed as Ryan Tannehill slipped past him Mitchell Schwartz Jersey , avoiding a sack. A moment later, the football slipped out of the quarterback's grasp and flew right to Hubbard, who was as surprised as anyone to have it in his hands."All I had to do was run straight," Hubbard said.Straight into the end zone he went on a 19-yard fumble return , yet another wacky play that completed Cincinnati's indescribable comeback. The Bengals scored 27 straight points and rallied for a 27-17 victory over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday that extended their best start since 2015 鈥?the last time they made the postseason.This one is looking a little more like a playoff team each week."The vibe over here is crazy," running back Joe Mixon said.The Bengals (4-1) appeared headed for a desultory home-field loss as the Dolphins (3-2) 鈥?playing with depleted lines 鈥?rolled ahead 17-0 with the help of Jakeem Grant's 70-yard punt return for a touchdown. The Bengals' defensive line pulled it out with two wacky plays.Tannehill tried to avoid a sack by throwing the ball at his tight end's feet. Instead, it slipped from his hand and caromed off Durham Smythe's helmet, flying directly to Michael Johnson. He ran 22 yards untouched for his first NFL touchdown.The defense closed it out when Carlos Dunlap hit a scrambling Tannehill and the ball flew directly to Hubbard for his quick jaunt to the end zone and a 27-17 lead with 2:37 to go.The Dolphins were dazed."I didn't know what happened," said Tannehill, who had three turnovers. "I heard the crowd cheer and (saw) everyone run away from me, so I knew something bad happened."The win left Cincinnati alone atop the AFC North heading into a rivalry game next Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium against the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have won six straight and 14 of 17 in their series. The Dolphins have to recover from a 38-7 drubbing by New England and their meltdown against the Bengals Juan Thornhill Kansas City Chiefs Jerseys , with Bears up next.Some takeaways from Paul Brown Stadium:DEFENSE MAKES THE DIFFERENCECincinnati's young defense has given up a lot of yards but made decisive fourth-quarter plays in three of their wins. Safety Clayton Fejedelem returned a fumble for a touchdown to beat Indianapolis, and the Bengals forced a fumble by Joe Flacco that set up their win over the Ravens. On Sunday, they had the two decisive touchdowns."Look at the plays these guys made down the stretch today, and they're rookies," coach Marvin Lewis said.MIXON'S MARKThe Bengals got a break with Mixon, who missed only two games after having a piece of torn cartilage removed from his right knee. With their other veteran running back 鈥?Giovani Bernard 鈥?sidelined with a knee injury, they leaned heavily on Mixon and he came through. Mixon ran 22 times for 93 yards and had three catches, including an 18-yard touchdown.LONG TIMEThe Bengals hadn't been shut out in an opening half and rallied to win since 2004, when they trailed Miami 3-0 at halftime and pulled it out 16-13. It was only the fourth time in franchise history that they scored 24 points in the fourth quarter and won 鈥?they also did it in 1972, 1978 and 2004.RARE COMPANYGrant's 70-yard punt return made him the first Dolphin to score on a reception, a kickoff return and a punt return in the same season. He had a 102-yard kickoff return against Tennessee in the season opener. Grant joins Dante Hall (2003) as the only NFL players with a 100-yard kickoff return, a 70-yard punt return and a 50-yard TD catch in the same season. The last NFL player with a touchdown of all three varieties was the Chiefs' Tyreek Hill in 2016.DEPLETED DOLPHINS' LINEMiami already was missing two starters on the offensive line when left tackle Laremy Tunsil got a concussion early in the fourth quarter. The Dolphins struggled to protect Tannehill the rest of the way Kansas City Chiefs Jerseys 2019 , contributing to the Bengals' surge."Our left tackle wasn't in," coach Adam Gase said. "That kind of can do some damage. And when you get behind, it causes problems." The NFL’s effort to prevent a repeat of the Rams-Saints debacle has created a rule change that will sweep far more broadly than the Rams-Saints situation. And that won’t be good for business.“In my experience, I never thought creating a rule for one play — even as obvious as that play was — you can get bad rules that way,” former NFL senior V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino, now a FOX rules analyst, told Dom Cosentino of Deadspin.com regarding the league’s reaction to the NFC Championship debacle. “Nobody wants to see [that], and everybody wants to fix that. But I feel like, you create a rule to fix that play, and what we’re going to see is a whole bunch of other plays that are going to be impacted, and very few of the plays like what happened in the Rams-Saints game.”Blandino is right, primarily because the new availability of replay review for pass interference calls and non-calls could dramatically change the way a game is officiated in the closing moments of each half Juan Thornhill Jersey Cheap , by at a minimum bogging down those final two minutes with a rash of possible reviews. Then there’s the problem, as previously mentioned, that arises from the replay officials applying different standards to the question of whether sufficiently clear and obvious evidence exists to justify a full replay review by Blandino’s successor, Al Riveron.“You know, one person may look at that and think it’s clear and obvious — another may not,” Blandino told Cosentino regarding the late-game call in the Week 15 Chargers-Chiefs game that, according to Riveron, would have been altered by replay review. “And then once it goes to review, then the standard — they said that it’s ‘clear and obvious,’ but when you start to look at some of the plays they cited … that’s more of a letter-of-the-law standard. And it’s going to be interesting to see if they start overturning or creating fouls based on that standard, when really, on the field Juan Thornhill Jersey Womens , that was never intended to be pass interference.”That’s where the preseason comes in, allowing the league to see how the rule will play out in practice and to, if necessary, make more adjustments based on preseason games.“I don’t think anybody knows exactly how this is going to play out until we start actually playing games,” Blandino said.Again, he’s right. Here’s hoping that, once they start playing games, the league will make any and all necessary adjustments. Otherwise, the league’s 100th season will be remembered for entirely different reasons.
