The wind and '76-Cincy blows away '05-SD

The 2005 Chargers coached by Mark Miller came to Cincy (1976) andmiserable weather. The Bengals coach (Wayne Poniewaz) was ecstatic whenhe saw the forecast: 24 mph winds and 22*. I knew it would help to slowdown the SD passing offense. The Chargers took a 7-3 lead in the leadand in the first quarter then it completely unraveled in the second.Cincy scored a TD on a drive which started in the 1st quarter then theBengals too advantage of 3 Charger turnovers (two picks and a fumble ona sack) to score 16 more points. That made it 26-7 at the half and itwasn't likely San Diego would be able to generate the kind of offenseneeded to come back. They didn't. The only score was a 54 interceptionreturn by Marvin Cobb. Final: 30-7 Cincy.All told the Chargers committed 8 turnovers in the game. The generatedjust 208 yards of total offense. Brees was 11-21 for 90 yards with 4picks. Tomlinson ran for 97 yards on 21 carries but a lot of that wasagainst Cincy pass defenses in the second half. Cincy only had 215 yardsbut committed just 2 turnovers. Anderson was 6-16 for 107 yards andthey ran 37 times for 108 yards.As Mark commented, those southern California boys just couldn't handlethe weather.Cincy moves on to face 86 Miami in a rematch won 24-21 by the Dolphins. -contributed by Wayne Poniewaz-