Tee Higgins supplied the separation the yardage totals missed

The result was decisive. The total-yardage comparison was not: Baltimore gained 359 yards, Cincinnati 357, and the Bengals won 35–13. This was not a Cincinnati yardage rout. Treating the score as one would obscure the more useful explanation.

Cincinnati recorded 7.0 yards per play to Baltimore’s 5.5. That distinction matters: the Bengals gained slightly less overall but more per play. The two measures answer different questions. Total yards describe accumulated gain; yards per play describe the average return. Neither tells us where a particular gain left an offense or what happened when a possession ended.

The higher average therefore belongs in the explanation, but it cannot carry the explanation alone. It does not allocate the 22-point margin to individual plays or establish why those plays worked. The useful next step is to examine the possessions beneath the totals: where Cincinnati’s long gains landed, and what preceded its opportunities to score.

Tee Higgins’ 148 receiving yards are less revealing than the destinations of two catches: Baltimore’s 23-yard line and its 6. His 44- and 43-yard receptions supplied first downs on consecutive Cincinnati fourth-quarter touchdown possessions, helping turn a 14–13 lead into a 28–13 advantage.

The first came with 12:52 remaining, on second-and-6. Joe Burrow’s 44-yard completion moved Cincinnati to Baltimore’s 23. Samaje Perine later finished that possession with a one-yard touchdown run, and the extra point made it 21–13.

On Cincinnati’s next possession, Higgins caught a 43-yard pass to Baltimore’s 6. Burrow subsequently found Ja’Marr Chase for a two-yard touchdown; the extra point extended the lead to 28–13 with 7:25 left.

Neither Higgins catch was the scoring play. That is precisely why they deserve emphasis. A touchdown records the finish; these completions supplied first downs deep in Baltimore territory before those finishes. I would put them at the center of Cincinnati’s separation rather than leave them as supporting entries in a receiving total.

The observable mechanism is substantial enough without inventing a coverage explanation: Higgins delivered a long gain on each of two consecutive touchdown possessions while the Bengals expanded a one-point margin to 15.

Before Higgins helped enlarge Cincinnati’s lead, a different sequence helped the Bengals acquire it. With Baltimore ahead 13–7 in the third quarter, a four-yard Derrick Henry loss and a four-yard sack of Tyler Huntley pushed the Ravens from second-and-7 to fourth-and-15.

Baltimore punted. Dohnte Meyers returned it 31 yards to the Ravens’ 47, and Cincinnati’s ensuing possession ended with Burrow’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Higgins. The extra point put the Bengals ahead 14–13 with 4:29 remaining in the quarter.

That handoff between possessions deserves more attention than a generic claim that Cincinnati found momentum. The record gives us specific contributions: Baltimore lost ground on consecutive plays, Meyers returned the punt into Baltimore territory, and the Bengals finished the next possession with a touchdown.

The return was not the touchdown, and its independent effect on the score cannot be isolated from this sequence. Cincinnati still had to finish the possession. But Meyers’ contribution should not disappear beneath the passing touchdown either. His 31-yard return belongs in the account of how the opportunity changed hands.

This is another reason the final yardage comparison is incomplete as an explanation. The lead change involved a stalled Baltimore possession and a special-teams gain, not simply the offensive yards Cincinnati accumulated afterward.