3 reasons why the Bengals can't blame officials for their Super Bowl loss

Much has changed over the last three decades. Alas for Cincinnati Bengals fans, their championship game fortunes remain distressingly similar.

Fans of the striped helmets experienced a horrifying case of deja vu during Sunday night's Super Bowl LVI proceedings, their team once again tamed by a game-winning drive in the final minutes of the big game. Back then it was a Joe Montana scoring toss to John Taylor that spelled the Bengals' doom by the hands of the San Francisco 49ers in the 23rd edition, while modern times saw the Los Angles Rams' Matthew Stafford and MVP Cooper Kupp become eternal Queen City villains.

Certain factions of Bengals fans, perhaps in a desperate effort to exonerate their beloved team, have taken to blaming officials for their heartbreak. Sunday's overseers, led by Ron Torbert, held a mostly subdued prescience throughout the game, calling only three penalties before a four-flag barrage on the final drive, all coming on inside Cincinnati's 10-yard-line while the Rams completed their game-winning trek.

The most controversial call was a defensive holding infraction against Logan Wilson, which gave Los Angeles four free yards from a fresh set of downs rather than a fourth-and-goal from the eight. Four plays later, Stafford found Kupp for the aforementioned victory tally from one-yard out. The Rams had gotten closer thanks to another Bengals flag (a unanimously agreed-upon legit defensive pass interference from Eli Apple), but Wilson's call loomed large over the final proceedings.

However, like almost every other game decided by officiating, the Bengals' case for a title was derailed long before the officials' laundry toss...

Officiating was the least of the Bengals' concerns

Another ball drop rings in the new (NFL) year

The football gods were especially cruel to Bengals representatives on Sunday, including NBC commentator Cris Collinsworth, a receiver from the aforementioned San Francisco-induced heartbreaker. Not only did the Bengals hold a 20-16 advantage in the latter stages (duplicating the final score of Super Bowl XXIII) but a crucial drop put them on a path to a dire fate.

Back then, cornerback Lewis Billups dropped a a fourth-quarter interception that would've preserved a 13-6 Cincinnati lead one play before Montana found Jerry Rice for a tying score, one that set the pace for the rest of the game, including the aforesaid late heroics.

This time, Tyler Boyd was the unfortunate perpetrator of defeat, as he dropped a potential drive-continuing third-down pass circa midfield that would've, at the very least, kept the clock running and put Cincinnati in a very manageable fourth-and-short situation.

Making Boyd's blunder all the more painful was the fact that the drop in question was his first official loss all season. Placing the blame entirely on Boyd is likewise misguided and foolhardy, however, as his dubious spot in Bengals history comes from a sense of pure irony.

Cats' meow becomes a whimper

Herm Edwards would weep at a majority of the Bengals' second-half effort; Cincinnati, simply put, did not play to win the game.

Trailing 13-10 while Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar serenaded SoFi Stadium, the Bengals couldn't have asked for a better start to the second half. Joe Burrow found Tee Higgins for a 75-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage before the second featured a Chidobe Awuzie interception that set Cincinnati up in prime scoring territory. From there, however, the Bengals played a mostly conservative contest, seemingly trying to win the game 20-13 after the post-Awuzie turnover ended in a field goal.

The team struggled to make adjustments to Los Angeles' relentless pass rush, the creativity and sense of healthy reckless abandon that defined the first half hour of play removed in favor of merely sitting on a lead.

Even when the Bengals had a chance to win the game after Kupp's fateful and plenty of time to work with, they played like a team that wanted to play for mere overtime rather than an outright win. That attitude was perhaps perfectly on display on their penultimate play: having reached midfield and with time trickling away, the Bengals used power back Samaje Perine to try and convert a one-yard third down rather than try to pick up yards in bunches with only one timeout remaining.

Cincinnati played like a team that believed it had a Super Bowl trip to throw away, like a team that would be back there in no time... which is a good way to assure they'd be back at any time.

The cleat moves to the other foot

If Cincinnati wound up winning on Sunday, we could well be writing this article about the Rams instead. The lack of referee intervention in a major NFL contest was seen as refreshing by many. But many felt that Higgins got away with at least an offensive pass interference and a facemask at worst on his 75-yard run to glory, one that, again, seemed poised to permanently shift momentum into the orange and black corner.

The fact of the matter is that Los Angeles did a better job at playing with the hands they were dealt. There were several opportunities for both the Bengals and the Rams to win the game after perceived slights from officiating. The Rams, evidenced by their Lombardi Trophy hoist, simply took better advantage. To that end, even if every play in the game was called "correctly", there's no guarantee the entire course of the game was changed upon it. Had Wilson's supposed holding simply been ruled incomplete, the Rams still would've had a fourth-down opportunity to go for the lead. Even if that scoring attempt failed, Los Angeles still had all of their timeout allotment to work with, and another Cincinnati first down was no guarantee.

The Cincinnati defense, in fact, had an opportunity to make sure Kupp never made to the end zone. Los Angeles' trickery on fourth down, bestowed on the hands of the accomplished receiver, kept their last trek alive. Officials didn't create those missed tackles, nor did they force the Bengals to go 3-of-14 on third down (they also didn't sack Burrow a tied Super Bowl record seven times, but that's another story entirely).

Blaming officials for a team's loss is a time-honored tradition of Super Bowl Sunday, a holiday ritual on par with the Gatorade dump and the trip to Disney World. It's understandable that fans would turn to a third party to blame for a loss 33 years in the making. But as magical as this past Cincinnati season was, they have no one to blame for their lost fortunes other than the team in the mirror.