Paul Daugherty: These Cincinnati Bengals keep your heart racing, but they're still playing

NASHVILLE, TN – This is no miracle. There is no magic involved, no fluke led by a hot quarterback who, by the way, was sacked nine more times Saturday. Forget everything you thought you knew about Cinderella. This ain’t that.

This is just how it is.

The Cincinnati Bengals are this good. How good? Good enough to beat the top-seeded Tennessee Titans in their own building. Resilient enough to survive blowing a 10-point lead in the 3rd quarter, while Joe Burrow was getting criminally rag-dolled by the Titans defense. Nine sacks was an ugly byproduct of a brute-iful game.

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Yeah, good enough now to be so far “ahead of schedule’’ you couldn’t find them with WAZE. The Bengals are going to the AFC Championship Game.

Cincinnati 19, Tennessee 16. That’s pretty good.

Ultimately, it was Evan McPherson’s game to win or lose, and you’d have to be crazy or a terminal pessimist to think he wouldn’t do the former. The rookie is 8-for-8 this year on field goals of more than 50 yards. Who ever said you shouldn’t draft a kicker as high as the 5th round might need to rethink that. McPherson might be more valuable than a guard added for offensive line depth.

Afterward, McPherson was 1-for-1 in the all-important quote game. Of Cincinnati, he said, "The city’s on fire. It’ll probably burn down tonight. It’ll definitely burn down next week."

Figuratively speaking.

"We’’ll have a full city fly out to California hopefully," said McPherson. The Super Bowl is in Los Angeles. Perhaps you knew that already.

Burrow set the aspirations straight at a players-only team gathering Friday night. No more Cinderella Men, he said. "I’m tired of the underdog narrative. We’re a really, really good team. We’re here to make noise." That was accurate, same as his passes.

What’s interesting though, is as talented as this team is and as poised as it has proven to be in big games, it’s still young enough to have a little gee-whiz in it. The Bengals are cool. I mean, Ja’Marr Chase? Cool.

But they’re not too cool. After the W, the players allowed themselves a little giddiness, honest and completely unjaded. “I literally feel like I’m dreaming in front of y’all,’’ Joe Mixon said.

He took it an innocent step further: "It’s already written. It just seems like it’s meant for us, for the Bengals to go to that bowl."

That’s a super honest thing to say, At this point, it’s not even audacious.

In the first half, the Bengals played the Titans game and led 9-6 at halftime. In the second half, they played more of their style and won. The keys to a Titans victory are basic and prehistoric. We will run, we will not let you run. We will keep the ball as much as we like. Our mastodons are better than your mastodons.

Except the Bengals had an overwhelming lead in possession time at halftime. Except even with the mass sacking of Burrow, the Bengals still had their way with Tennessee’s secondary when the game was on the line.

Burrow came out chucking in the 3rd quarter. With attitude, naturally. After scrambling for seven yards to the Titans 16, Burrow popped up and signaled first down. Given he’d been on his butt a decent amount of the day, that move was either very cool or a little, um, rambunctious.

No matter. Mixon ran for a touchdown on the next play. Bengals 16, Titans 6, 9:34 left in the 3rd quarter. Maybe you were thinking, if they don’t turn it over, they win.

Unnaturally, they did turn it over. A swing pass from Burrow to Samaje Perine skipped off Perine’s hands. Titans safety Amani Hooker picked the ball off his shoe tops. The refs reviewed the pick which, to impartial eyes, appeared to have nicked the ground before it arrived in Hooker’s hands.

Impartial eyes lie. Tannehill threw a deep touchdown to A.J. Brown and with 15 seconds left in the 3rd quarter, we had the game we guessed we’d have. Tied at 16, up for grabs.

The game made one point clear. Painted it red, in fact. This time of year, you better have a better than average quarterback. There is no team in the NFL that plays great enough defense to overcome an average passer. It wasn’t that Tannehill wasn’t good. He was very good, in the 2nd half. He just wasn’t Burrow.

On what the Titans hoped would be a game-winning drive or, at worst, overtime, Tannehill threw his third interception. The Bengals had 20 seconds and the ball on their 47. Burrow, for once, had plenty of time. He threw to Chase for 19 yards and from there, McPherson had 52 yards to bang home a dream. He did.

What now?

It has been 33 years since the Bengals have played in a conference title game. Most of us don’t know how to act. Even those of us who’ve seen it before. Best to let it ride and watch the show.

It’s the Bengals time, said Joe Mixon. It could be. At this point, who can argue that suggestion?

The Bengals keep your hearts racing, literally. Another coronary-in-waiting next week. Nothing to it.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bengals vs. Titans: Cincinnati moving on to AFC title game after win