Jim Owczarski

jowczarski@enquirer.com

A soft rain fell outside of Paul Brown Stadium on Monday, a quiet afternoon for the Cincinnati Bengals. Trucks carrying the last loads from the game in London were coming in, and players carefully dodged the backing up semi-truck trailers and forklifts.

Reality has set in for a team that began the year with Super Bowl aspirations, but who were given the postgame message on Sunday that not only do they need to win out, but they also need multiple losses by Baltimore and Pittsburgh to win the AFC North.

“Oh, it’s real. It’s real,” Bengals corner Adam Jones told The Enquirer. “But you can’t make excuses. It is what it is.”

He paused and looked at the floor for a couple of reversing truck beeps. Jones says it's not the 2015 roster, players or coaches, "And we don’t win the close games. All the close games last year we won. We won five or six games by a point, or two points or three points. I don’t know, man."

Indeed.

In a 12-win, division-winning season a year ago, the Bengals went 5-3 in regular season games decided by eight points or fewer. This year they are 1-4-1, the lone win coming back in the regular season opener on Sept. 11 against the New York Jets.

“We had some of those breaks last year,” left guard Clint Boling told The Enquirer. “Now this year it’s just one of those things where it just seems like everything is going the wrong way.”

Marvin Lewis: 'We need help'

Left tackle Andrew Whitworth ran through the season in his head, the missed opportunities, when the offense had the ball and a chance to tie a game, take a lead or win late in Pittsburgh and in Baltimore, against Washington and Buffalo. Linebacker Karlos Dansby did the same, recalling defensive stops that weren’t made in key spots against Denver, New England and the New York Giants.

“Sometimes the ball don’t bounce your way, and it’s tough when it don’t,” Dansby told The Enquirer.

Boling noted how this year Detroit has trailed in the fourth quarter in all 11 of its games this year yet are 7-4, in first place in the NFC North. All of their wins have come by seven points or less.

Standing under an overhang to stay dry, Whitworth noted the opposite turn such games have taken for the Bengals.

“It’s been a plethora of those,” he told The Enquirer. “It’s what happens in NFL football if you don’t finish the games. As bad as people make the season out, look how many of the games we had the ball in the fourth quarter with a possession to win the game. It’s that close.”

Which sets the stage for the Bengals at 3-7-1, and the slim hope for something great, for the breaks head coach Marvin Lewis says the team has to make for itself along with help from others.

It seems far-fetched, but it can’t be an impossible dream. The loss in Baltimore can’t be…

“The nail in the coffin type situation or something?” Dansby said, finishing the question. “You can’t. You can’t call it that. We’ve still got a chance to do what we want to do. These kinds of situations, man, you know, I’ve seen it happen before. My faith is strong. That’s when God really shows himself, in situations like this when people think it’s impossible. That’s when He makes it possible. You can’t hang your head. You’ve got to keep pressing.”

Boling agreed.

“I think as long as there is some kind of hope, you’ve got to try to hold on,” he said. “Until you’re statistically eliminated you want to, you gotta hang on and fight and do everything you can.

“Obviously things aren’t going well right now but I think at the same time you want to try and end on a high note and continue to play well. I don’t think there’s anybody in this locker room that just wants to lay down and shut it down for the rest of the season. So, as long as there is still hope I think we gotta keep trying to win.”

Doc: What to do with Marvin, Dalton

The consensus among the half-dozen veterans The Enquirer spoke to Monday is that the Bengals aren’t ready to call it a season – regardless of the outcome Sunday, or the near future.

“Tank it?” Dansby said, eyebrow raised. “No. No. No. No. We ain’t about that. No. We’ve been through too much as players. Even the younger guys have been through too much to get here. The way we was made, the way we was created, we’ve been primed for this moment. So, we’ve got to go press and go get it.”

“I’ll be really upset if guys are just packing it up and not going out and giving 110 percent,” Jones said. “But with the guys we got in there, we don’t have those type of guys. That’s not a question.”

Linebacker Vinny Rey admitted there is pain, though.

His eyes drifted to the high ceiling of the PBS loading dock as equipment men unloaded the truck. The loss of a controlled destiny hurts. The unfulfilled expectations hurt.

“We all want to start winning but a coach used to say this – before you can start winning you have to stop losing. We have to stop losing,” Rey told The Enquirer. “We’ve developed some losing habits that we have to correct. We’re playing better on defense, but, we just have to start; we have to find a way to win a game. We have to stop losing. Find a way.”

Regardless of whether or not the Bengals do the nearly impossible, or eventually find themselves eliminated from the playoff picture for the first time since 2010, the realization has also set in that jobs are on the line – so a look in the mirror can, in effect, affect the entire room.

“Defensively we cannot allow teams to drive down the first drive and score touchdowns on us. I say us because I’m included in that,” Rey said. “I’ve been the reason why at times, that’s happened. We can’t allow those things to happen.

“This is a performance-based business. Those of us who aren’t performing, they’re going to look to replace us. So, we have to pick it up, man. If not for the sake of the team, then for the sake of yourself. Pick it up for your own self.”

And they can only do it at the next opportunity, which is Sunday against Philadelphia.

“This is an important game for us just to get back on track and to get believing,” Lewis said. “Each player in himself most importantly, and what he can do and take care of his business and get his job done productively throughout the entire football game, not the ups and downs, but to play through the entire thing and do a great job on his own.”