Darrin Simmons addressed the elephant in the room with Cincinnati Bengals media on Monday. The special teams coordinator confirmed he called on his punt return unit to go after a block on the third-quarter play that resulted in a roughing the kicker penalty for Cincinnati.
The fourth-down call gave the Steelers a new set of downs and ultimately led to the deciding touchdown that the offense scored a few plays later in the 30-27 result.
Simmons didn't have a clear explanation for why that call was warranted when Cincinnati was leading 20-17 at the time.
"Yeah, we were rushing him. We're coming after him. We're trying to block the punt," Simmons said . "When is a good moment to rush the punter? We're ahead. We're behind. I mean, when is the best opportunity? I think it was the first punt of the game, the first time they punted. It's something that I felt very confident that we could get a lot of pressure on them, and we did. Ced ( Cedric Johnson ) just got too close to him. I think it's a situation for Ced where the only way you can get situations like that is to be live in the game. We can rep all this stuff over one practice, but he's going to block it each time in practice when that happens.
"But I think it's got to be a feel for him that he's got to make a decision, and it's a millisecond decision. 'If I can get there, I got to take the chance and go get it, and I got to block it. I got to get a hand on it. But if I can't, then I got to pull off.' That's a very, very tough call for somebody to make in a millisecond. I mean, it was the first opportunity they'd had in the game to come after it, and I felt confident that we could pressure him and get it. And he's extremely close. His arm's right there. It wasn't close enough."
That mixed with Ke'Shawn Williams muffed punt in the game were massive factors in the loss.
"Yeah, I mean, it was ten points. That's a big part of the game. It's momentum coming out of the second half. Went down, kickeda field goal. Got a stop. So, we were going to get the ball back. Roughing the kicker, they go score seven. Obviously, the mued puntled to three. That's ten points. That's tough," Zac Taylor said on Sunday.
It's hard to see a path to Cincinnati losing if they erased those two mistakes. The offense had been taking great care of the ball, and wouldn't have had to keep throwing late in the game (leading to the lost fumble by Joe Burrow ) if those 10 points didn't go to the Steelers.
Alas, it's all in the past now, but Cincinnati can't keep making these mistakes, paired with 55 penalty yards per game (15th in the NFL).
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/bengals/onsi as 'Don't Know When A Good Moment Is' - Darrin Simmons Explains Punt Block Call That Changed Steelers Momentum .
