Frustrated Bengals are 4-7 at their bye week and still looking for ways to win the close games

CINCINNATI (AP) — After the Bengals let yet another close game slip away, Joe Burrow acknowledged that this is the most frustrating season of his NFL career.

Someone asked why.

“Self-explanatory,” Cincinnati's star quarterback said.

That it is.

Burrow is playing great football. He's making spectacular throws on the run and scrambling for first downs while regularly taking monster hits from poorly blocked pass rushers.

But the Bengals keep losing the close ones. They are 4-7 at the bye week and in danger of missing the playoffs for the second straight season. They'd likely have to win all of their last six games to have a chance at the postseason.

Burrow, still not completely recovered from surgery on his throwing hand, leads the NFL in completions (274), passing yards (3,028) and touchdowns (27).

He also joined Matt Ryan (2018) as the only quarterbacks in NFL history to lose consecutive games while throwing for at least 350 yards and three TDs with no interceptions.

Star wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase is also having an outstanding season. He's leading the NFL in yards receiving (1,056), yards after the catch (481) and touchdowns (12). Edge rusher Trey Hendrickson is leading the NFL with 11 1/2 sacks.

But Cincinnati has been hurt by turnovers, an inconsistent secondary, injuries that have shuffled the offensive and defensive lines, and a kicker with a case of the yips. Its rushing game is the sixth worst in the league.

Six of the Bengals' seven losses have been by one score. Five losses were by six points or fewer. The Bengals lost by one point to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and both games to AFC North rival Baltimore by one point.

Cincinnati fell to Kansas City on a 51-yard field goal as time expired. They lost by 3 to Washington, despite Burrow throwing for 324 yards and three touchdowns.

They were defeated by the Ravens 41-38 in overtime after Evan McPherson missed a potential game-winning 53-yard field goal.

In the second loss to the Ravens, Lamar Jackson threw three fourth-quarter touchdown passes. When the Bengals scored with 38 seconds left, a 2-point try for the win was no good.

McPherson missed two second-half field goals last Sunday night that would have given the Bengals a lead. They ended up losing to the Chargers 34-27.

“They just made one more on the play than we did. That’s kind of been the story of our season so far,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “By no stretch is our season over with. We have a chance to use a bye to kind of get back and get into a groove here in the last part of the season."

Part of the problem has been injuries. Rookie Amarius Mims was thrust into a starting role when right tackle Trent Brown was lost to a knee injury in Week 3. Then starting left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. went out with knee and fibula injuries.

On the other side of the ball, interior linemen B.J. Hill and Sheldon Rankins have missed time with injuries and illness. And cornerback DJ Turner II went on injured reserve with a fractured clavicle suffered in Sunday night's game.

The Bengals' four wins have come against losing teams. Taylor has trouble explaining why they can't seem to close out wins against the better clubs.

“I can’t. I wish I could,” he said. “It’s sick, the way that these games are ending and the way that we come off the field every week.”

The bye week is certainly welcome in the Bengals' camp.

“Just gives us a chance to be healthy,” Taylor said. “There’s not a lot of wholesale changes we need to make. Every game we lose comes down to the last play of the game. We’ve just got to find a way to win these and generate some momentum for ourselves.”

Cincinnati still has to play the AFC North-leading Pittsburgh Steelers (8-2) twice, plus the Dallas Cowboys (3-7), Tennessee Titans (2-8), Cleveland Browns (2-8) and Denver Broncos (6-5).

—

This story has been corrected to show Joe Burrow joined Matt Ryan as the only NFL QBs to lose consecutive games while throwing for at least 350 yards and three TDs with no interceptions.

AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase (1) reaches but cannot make a catch in front of Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Tarheeb Still (29) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) throws as he is tackled by Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley (0) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh talks to Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow after an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow answers questions after an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Chargers, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama inmate convicted in the 1994 killing of a female hitchhiker cursed at the prison warden and made obscene gestures with his hands shortly before he was put to death Thursday evening in the nation’s third execution using nitrogen gas.

Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was executed at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama. He was one of four teens at the time convicted of killing Vickie Deblieux, 37, as she was hitchhiking through Alabama on the way to her mother’s home in Louisiana. The woman was attacked, beaten and thrown off a cliff.

Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask strapped to his face, Grayson raised both of his middle fingers and cursed at the prison warden Thursday evening. When the prison warden asked for his final statement, Grayson responded with an obscenity. The warden turned off the microphone. Grayson appeared to address the witness room with state officials.

It was unclear when the gas began flowing. Grayson shook and pulled against the gurney restraints. His sheet-wrapped legs at one point lifted off the gurney in the air. He then clenched his fist and appeared to struggle to try to gesture again, then took a series of gasping breaths for several minutes before becoming still.

Grayson was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m.

Alabama began using nitrogen gas earlier this year to carry out some executions. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.

The execution was carried out hours after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Grayson’s request for a stay. His attorneys had argued that the method needed more scrutiny before being used again.

Deblieux’s mutilated body was found at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, on Feb. 26, 1994. She was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when the four teens offered her a ride. Prosecutors said the teens took her to a wooded area and attacked and beat her. They threw her off a cliff and later returned to mutilate her body.

A medical examiner testified that Deblieux’s face was so fractured that she was identified by an earlier X-ray of her spine. Investigators said the teens were identified as suspects after one of them showed a friend one of Deblieux’s severed fingers and boasted about the killing.

Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement minutes after Thursday's execution saying she was praying for the murder victim's loved ones to find closure and healing still decades after the crime.

“Some thirty years ago, Vicki DeBlieux’s journey to her mother’s house and ultimately, her life, were horrifically cut short because of Carey Grayson and three other men. She sensed something was wrong, attempted to escape, but instead, was brutally tortured and murdered," Kay said in the statement.

Grayson's crimes "were heinous, unimaginable, without an ounce of regard for human life and just unexplainably mean. An execution by nitrogen hypoxia (bears) no comparison to the death and dismemberment Ms. DeBlieux experienced,” she added.

Grayson was the only one of the four teens who faced a death sentence since the other teens were under 18 at the time of the killing. Grayson was 19. Two of the teens were initially sentenced to death but those sentences were set aside when the Supreme Court banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crimes. Another teen involved in Deblieux’s killing was sentenced to life in prison.

Grayson’s final appeals had focused on a call for more scrutiny of the nitrogen gas method. His lawyers argued that the person experiences “conscious suffocation” and that the first two nitrogen executions did not result in swift unconsciousness and death as the state had promised. Lawyers for the Alabama attorney general’s office asked the justices to let the execution proceed, saying a lower court found Grayson’s claims speculative.

Alabama maintains the method is constitutional. But critics — citing how the first two people executed shook for several minutes — say the method needs more scrutiny, particularly if other states follow Alabama’s path.

“The normalization of gas suffocation as an execution method is deeply troubling,” said Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, a group seeking to abolish the death penalty.

A demonstrator holds a sign during a protest outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, against a scheduled execution in Alabama using nitrogen gas. (Kim Chandler/Associated Press)

Abe Bonowitz of Death Penalty Action leads a outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, against a scheduled execution in Alabama using nitrogen gas. (Kim Chandler/Associated Press)