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A.J. Green nearly outproduced Dolphins' offense as Bengals roll

The Miami Dolphins looked good Thursday night. For exactly their first two plays.

But for most of the rest of the night, it was the A.J. Green show in the Cincinnati Bengals’ 22-7 win on Thursday night. The shorthanded Dolphins secondary, which benched high-price trade acquisition Byron Maxwell before the game, had no answers for Green, who caught 10 passes for 173 yards and a touchdown — with most of the damage done early. Conversely, the Dolphins finished the night with a mere 222 yards of offense.

The Miami Dolphins had no answers for A.J. Green Thursday night (AP).
The Miami Dolphins had no answers for A.J. Green Thursday night (AP).

The Bengals’ offense stalled many times on the Dolphins’ end of the field, resorting to kicking five Mike Nugent field goals. But Green and the defense that saw the return of spiritual leader Vontaze Burfict from suspension picked up the slack — after an early busted coverage, that is.

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The Bengals settled for a field goal on their first drive, but the Dolphins struck faster and cut deeper. Ryan Tannehill pump faked and found a wide open Kenny Stills — who dropped a similar pass Week 1 against the Seattle Seahawks — for the 74-yard touchdown on the second offensive play.

After a pair of three-and-outs, the Bengals attacked the Dolphins’ biggest weakness: cornerback. They had no match for Green, who accounted for 77 of the Bengals’ 90 yards in a three-minute span and capped a TD drive with a 7-yard score.

The Dolphins couldn’t stop him most of the night until it was too late. Green surpassed the 100-yard mark with 12 minutes left in the second quarter and outgained the Dolphins by himself well into the second half, working against rookie corner Xavien Howard and converted wide receiver Tony Lippett, who started in place of Maxwell. Terrible tackling also was a problem for the Dolphins.

Another Bengals field goal made it 13-7, even though they had dominated time of possession in the first half. Then Tannehill helped make it worse, not feeling the rush of Carlos Dunlap, who stripped the ball away and into the hands of the Bengals. But again, the Bengals bogged down on the Miami side of the field and settled for Nugent’s third field goal of the half and a 16-7 edge at the half.

After the touchdown, the Dolphins gained only 41 yards on their next 18 plays in the first half. They did little of value in the second half, either. Tannehill was under duress most of the game behind a bad offensive line, and he made poor decisions — including an awful fourth-quarter interception when it was still a two-score game because of all the field goals. The Dolphins had only 62 rushing yards all night and had one play longer than 24 yards — the Still bomb less than a minute into the game. It was all uphill from there.

Green turned in the fifth-best yardage total of his career, but there are still issues with the Bengals. Jeremy Hill got banged up and held mostly in check, despite some hard runs in a 21-carry, 71-yard performance. The O-line was suspect. Andy Dalton still was off target on some throws and needed Green to haul in some tough ones to do what he did. And, oof, that red-zone performance this season has been mostly bad.

But for a night anyway, the Bengals got back on track with a game they had to have — and heck, prime-time wins have been hard for this franchise to come by, too. Extra rest now awaits them, and their record is even at 2-2. But there’s still a lot of progress that needs to be made if this team is going to consider itself a Super Bowl contender.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!