Carson Palmer gets revenge, leads the Cardinals to great win over Bengals

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Carson Palmer got revenge against his former team, the Cincinnati Bengals. The way Sunday night’s game went, he might see them again.

If the Bengals and Arizona Cardinals played that game in the Super Bowl, we’d be good with it, right? In a season that doesn’t have too many great teams and not a ton of classic games, the Bengals and Cardinals played a good one on Sunday night. The Cardinals won 34-31 on a last-second field goal.

Palmer made some big throws to help the Cardinals pull off the win after the Bengals tied it in the final two minutes. He had consecutive completions to the ageless Larry Fitzgerald to get the Cardinals deep into Bengals territory. A penalty on Bengals defensive tackle Domata Peko, for calling out Arizona’s snap count to try to get a false-start penalty, moved the ball half the distance to the goal. That gave Chandler Catanzaro a chip shot to win the game, and he drilled it with a second to go.

Palmer admitted this week that the game meant more to him, because he had an acrimonious split from the Bengals. The win had to be pretty sweet. Palmer had 317 yards and four touchdowns. It was also important in the standings. The Cardinals keep their three-game cushion in the NFC West, and improve to 8-2. The Cardinals also keep a game lead over the co-leaders in the NFC North, Green Bay and Minnesota. Carolina currently has the No. 1 seed in the NFC, and Arizona is No. 2.

The Bengals, who were undefeated before taking on two losses in seven days, performed well in a tough defeat.

The Bengals looked to be in a lot of trouble after the Cardinals scored three touchdowns in the third quarter to take a 28-14 lead. But Cincinnati is a good team and has been resilient all year. Andy Dalton got the Bengals back in the game. His second touchdown pass to Tyler Eifert late in the fourth quarter cut the Cardinals’ lead to 31-28. Dalton then got the Bengals into field-goal range, and Mike Nugent tied the game after A.J. Green came oh-so-close to a third-down circus catch for the late lead.

Ultimately, the Bengals gave Palmer too much time and he drove the Cardinals for the win. It was some pretty good theater for “Sunday Night Football.” It would have been a worthy game for early February, too.