CINCINNATI – On a night when the Cincinnati Bengals scored a touchdown in the first half for the first time in more than a month and posted their highest point total of the season, maybe the biggest play was one where they fell short of the end zone.

Trailing by a point, Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins caught a 28-yard pass from Joe Flacco and purposefully slid down at the 7-yard line with 1:39 remaining.

From there, Cincinnati was able to exhaust Pittsburgh’s remaining timeouts and dissolve all but the final seven seconds after Evan McPherson’s 36-yard field goal lifted the Bengals to a season-saving 33-31 victory at Paycor Stadium.

Higgins said the order to slide came from head coach Zac Taylor early in the drive.

“It was a directive,” Higgins said. “If you’ve got a breakaway, just slide down at the 5.”

Taylor told tight end Noah Fant, who was standing next to him on the sideline, the plan and sent him into the game to tell the huddle.

There are three key components to that play. Let’s go through them.

First, what role did the Bengals defense play in it?

Yes, it was a smart decision.

But was it a no-brainer?

If it’s a game where the defense isn’t giving up touchdowns on second and 20 and third and 18 and missing nearly as many tackles as they made, would the call have been the same?

Had Higgins run it in, the Bengals would have surged ahead 36-31 and likely would’ve gone for two with 1:39 to go, and the Steelers and Rodgers would have had two timeouts.

“We would be biting our fingernails,” Higgins said. “It’s Aaron Rodgers on the other side. He’s a baller. So it was a smart play.”

“The Steelers are going to have a chance to win it,” Taylor added.

Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who caught a franchise-record 16 catches on a franchise-record 23 targets for 161 yards and a touchdown, summed up the decision to slide rather than score rather succinctly when asked how hard it would be to go down that close to the end zone.

“I would’ve slid,” he said. “If you wanna to win, you’re gonna slide.”

The second element to that play was the flashback.

Almost one year to the day earlier, on Oct. 13, 2024, Bengals running back Chase Brown ripped off a 30-yard touchdown run with less than two minutes to go in the game.

The score gave the Bengals a 17-7 lead, but it also gave the Giants some hope. Had Brown slid down, the Bengals could have taken three knees and ended the game.

“That’s on me. One hundred percent on me,” Taylor said after that game. “I’m very focused on finding the plays to get us that first down there and didn’t do a great job – I didn’t do any job – communicating that, to be quite frank with you. I don’t expect our guys to do math in the huddle.”

Taylor learned from that experience and made sure to communicate the mandate to Flacco, who in turn relayed the message to the team.

“Yeah, that play was definitely running through my mind out there,” Brown said after Thursday night’s win in which he had 11 carries for 108 yards, the second most of his career.

There also was the callback to Week 5 last year, when the Bengals got on the edge of field goal range and went conservative in overtime against the Ravens.

They settled for a 53-yard field goal try, and holder Ryan Rehkow dropped the snap, causing McPherson to hook the potential game-winning kick.

The Ravens took over and won.

“We were in this situation with Baltimore last year,” Taylor said. “We just felt like we needed to be aggressive and get as many yards as we could, and Tee did a great job.”

The third piece to the play centers on the man at the center of the Bengals’ resurgence – Flacco.

It was 18 years of experience summed up in about an 18-second span, from the time Flacco received the play call to the time Higgins slid down at the 7-yard line.

Not only did Flacco recognize the safety wouldn’t be able to get to Higgins, who had one-on-one coverage from Jalen Ramsey, the veteran quarterback knew he could exploit something he’s recognized throughout the game.

“They were kind of playing back shoulder (leverage), so the one adjustment I made there was just throw it up a little more and let (Higgins) kind of bend into it if he gets by (Ramsey),” Flacco said. “He got a good release, so I could kind of see that throw happening as I was doing it.”

Flacco said he’s learned a little bit about Chase and Higgins in their few practices together, but the games are when he’s learning the most.

As evidenced by him changing the style of throw on the biggest play of the game and trusting Higgins to adjust as well.

“Today I got to see how a defense has to treat those guys, and if you don’t treat them a certain way, they can hurt you,” Flacco said. “If you can’t get on the same page with kind of guys, then what are you doing? They’re pretty special. You can kind of read their body language. They get open, so it’s easier to throw to them.”

It’s crazy to think it might only get easier once they really get to know each other over the coming weeks.