40-year-old QB Joe Flacco showed he's still got some elite ability on Sunday, but the Bengals bungled a brief 4th quarter lead to lose a wild 47-42 shootout to Caleb Williams and the Bears. Flacco's 470 passing yards were a career-high and also set an NFL record for the oldest QB to surpass 450 passing yards, but it wasn't enough as Williams hit TE Colston Loveland for a 58-yard TD with 17 seconds to give the Bears the win.
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Flacco has been a revelation for Cincinnati's offense, but the Bengals are still finding way to lose games to their shoddy defense. Cincinnati has scored 80 points in their last two games but lost both affairs.
In Sunday's loss, Flacco led the Bengals to 495 yards of offense, but Cincinnati committed 3 turnovers and allowed the Bears to rack up 576 yards of offense.
All three of Cincinnati's turnovers came from Flacco, who threw a pair of INTs and lost a fumble on a 4th quarter sack. Still, Flacco's right arm kept the Bengals in the game.
Flacco missed practice time this week with a sore throwing shoulder, but it did not hamper him on Sunday. The veteran signal caller completed 31-of-47 passes for 470 yards, 4 TDs, and 2 INTs. The TD strikes went to:
• Tee Higgins 44 yards
• Tee Higgins 2 yards
• Noah Fant 23 yards
• Andre Iosivas 9 yards
In three starts with Cincinnati, Flacco has thrown for 1,035 yards and produced 10 total TDs. Cincinnati has scored 113 points in those three games but has lost two of three.
The Bengals have a Week 10 bye to regroup and will get a rematch with the Steelers in Pittsburgh in Week 11.