CINCINNATI -- Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse for Andy Dalton, it did.
Once again, with all of America watching, the Cincinnati Bengals' fourth-year quarterback looked more like a junior varsity signal-caller unsure of his role in an incredibly anemic offense. For the second time in four games, Dalton's Bengals failed to score a touchdown.
Quite simply, he didn't look like a man with a $115 million arm in the 24-3 loss to the Cleveland Browns. Heck, he didn't look like the same man who just two weeks ago rallied his team from a late fourth-quarter deficit to a division win over the Baltimore Ravens that was sealed with his 1-yard touchdown sneak.
He looked lost Thursday. Discouraged. Out of sync.
His throws were mostly high and wide. When they weren't, they fluttered wildly in the winds that bandied about Paul Brown Stadium in gusts that reportedly reached 34 mph.
Coach Marvin Lewis chalked it up to a bad night. Dalton couldn't figure out what happened. He had no answers, but the rest of us knew. It wasn't simply an off game, nor was it a perplexing one. It was the same disheartening story Dalton has subjected the league to time and time again.
Again on the big, prime-time, nationally televised stage, Dalton wilted. The confounding Jekyll version of the young quarterback came back right when it seemed he had finally been tucked away. Dalton wasn't alone. The rest of the Bengals, who have a 6-14 record on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights since Lewis became head coach in 2003, felt it, too.
"We didn't play good again on national TV," receiver A.J. Green said. "I don't know what it is, but it's hard. We all had a hand in it, but you can't play like that on national TV."
What Green wouldn't say specifically is that your quarterback can't throw three interceptions, complete a career-worst 30.3 percent of his passes and compile a career-low passer rating of 2.0 in a big game that carried the weight of the division race atop its back. Your quarterback also can't pass for 86 yards in a game that he spent most of four quarters playing.
"He will break out of this night," Lewis said. "He had a bad day. He'll come out of this and be fine."
Dalton's rough night began on the very first series when he tried to lay in a pass over the middle to tight end Jermaine Gresham. The pass, his second attempt of the game, was a little high and to the left for Gresham, but had the tight end not abbreviated his route by a step -- a practice he's now repeated three times this season -- the ball might have fallen incomplete instead of into the hands of Browns linebacker Craig Robertson. When it got there, the game's entire momentum left with it.
"I just read Andy's eyes," Robertson said. "I saw the tight end drag. I just read Andy's eyes, and he went straight to the tight end when he got a little pressure."
From there, a penalty for too many men on the field, an illegal forward pass, an early timeout and an 0-for-3 showing on third down -- all in the first quarter -- set a poor tone for Dalton's night. It was a tone Dalton has come to know well.
"We didn't start fast. That's on me," Dalton said. "I have to play better."
So, when it comes to prime-time games, do it.
