Greg Cosell's Week 5 Review: How the Bengals came back vs. the Seahawks

With a 24-7 lead heading into the fourth quarter, one would expect the Seattle Seahawks' defense to close out the win.

As we know, that didn't happen. The Cincinnati Bengals came back, tying the game on the last play of regulation and winning it in overtime. This did not have the feel of a strong defensive performance by the Seahawks. The defense did not look the same as we’re used to seeing.

The Bengals deserve credit too, and let's take a look at how they came back.

We have to take a look at a play early in the game, because it was repeated in the fourth-quarter comeback. Tyler Eifert scored a 14-yard touchdown, and it was open because of A.J. Green. The single-high safety Earl Thomas aligned to the side of Green, who was in the slot to the field side, Eifert was the line-of-scrimmage tight end and he ran a seam route on the boundary side. Safety Kam Chancellor had no awareness of Eifert's seam route.

Now look at Eifert's 10-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter, which got the comeback really going. It was the same play from the same formation, and the Seahawks played it the same way. And again, Chancellor did not carry Eifert down the seam.

Chancellor had a tough time in coverage in this game, and not just on the Eifert touchdowns. On a second-and-13 in the fourth quarter, a slot blitz by DeShawn Shead put Chancellor in man-to-man coverage against Mohamed Sanu. Sanu easily beat him to the inside with room to run.

The play that set up the game-tying field goal was also Eifert against Chancellor, but it's tough to blame Chancellor here. Eifert ran a corner route and Chancellor had excellent coverage on him. But quarterback Andy Dalton made a great throw, with precise ball location, and Eifert made a great catch.

It was a pretty surprising comeback win for the Bengals, and it was a combination of good execution by them and the Seahawks not playing as well on defense as we've grown accustomed to.

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NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.