Bengals vs. Titans Week 8: Joe Burrow's Overtime Scramble Seals a 43-36 Scorigami

The NFL has played 107 years of football, and until Sunday no game had ever ended 43-36. Leave it to Joe Burrow to throw for 462 yards, get picked off three times by the same safety and still find a way to invent a new final score.

The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Tennessee Titans 43-36 in overtime at Paycor Stadium, with Burrow scrambling 9 yards for the winning touchdown on the first possession of the extra period. Burrow finished 38 of 48 with five touchdown passes and three interceptions, Tee Higgins caught 10 balls for 155 yards and two scores, and Ja'Marr Chase added 141 yards and a touchdown. Cincinnati climbs to 5-2. Tennessee, a near two-touchdown underdog that led for long stretches, drops to 1-7.

Per CBS Sports, it was the 1,098th unique final score in league history, the first scorigami for the Bengals in four years and the first for the Titans since 2020.

Down 13-0, Again

For the second straight week, Cincinnati spotted its opponent a 13-0 lead. Joey Slye opened with a 46-yard field goal, and then Tony Pollard turned a routine carry into a 40-yard touchdown run, shrugging off a parade of would-be tacklers, safety Bryan Cook among them, on the way to the end zone. Slye added a 29-yarder before the quarter was out.

Burrow got the Bengals on the board early in the second quarter, hitting Chase for a 30-yard touchdown on third-and-18. It was the 60th touchdown of Chase's career, three shy of Carl Pickens for third in franchise history. Tennessee threatened again, but cornerback DJ Turner II punched the ball loose from Wan'Dale Robinson on a screen pass at the Cincinnati 37, and Josh Newton recovered. With 20 seconds left in the half, Burrow flipped a 1-yard touchdown to rookie tight end Jack Endries, the first career catch for Endries, and Cincinnati took its first lead at 14-13.

Three Picks, and Answers for Each

Titans safety Amani Hooker spent the afternoon sitting on Burrow's throws and came away with three interceptions, the first three-pick game by a Titan since Kevin Byard in 2017 and the first by anyone in the NFL since Jordan Whitehead in 2023. "It's just preparation throughout the week," Hooker said, per TennesseeTitans.com. Titans coach Robert Saleh added that "Amani is playing at a Pro Bowl level."

The Cincinnati defense kept bailing its quarterback out. Early in the third quarter, Boye Mafe strip-sacked Cam Ward, and Dexter Lawrence II scooped it up and rumbled 8 yards to the Tennessee 17. Burrow hit Higgins for a 17-yard touchdown on the very next snap, and the Bengals led 21-13. Pollard answered with a 1-yard touchdown run and the Titans converted the two-point try to tie it at 21. Late in the quarter, Lawrence and linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. dropped Pollard in the end zone for a safety, Cincinnati's first since 2024, and the Bengals carried a 23-21 lead into the fourth.

The fourth quarter was pure back-and-forth. Ward found Chimere Dike for an 11-yard touchdown and a 28-23 Tennessee lead. Burrow answered with a 25-yard score to Mike Gesicki to retake the lead at 29-28, though the two-point try failed. Ward came right back with a 15-yard touchdown to Robinson and another successful conversion, and with 3:46 left Tennessee led 36-29.

The Drive, Then the Scramble

Down seven with under four minutes to play, Burrow led Cincinnati 81 yards in 10 plays and finished it with an 18-yard touchdown to Higgins with 1:17 left. Tied at 36.

Tennessee still had time to win it, and the Titans pushed into range before Lawrence sacked Ward on third down with about 30 seconds left, shoving them back out of field goal distance and forcing a punt. That sack was the hinge of the afternoon.

Cincinnati received to start overtime and went 70 yards. Burrow capped it by scrambling around left end from 9 yards out, and the defense held on Tennessee's answering possession, forcing a turnover on downs to end it.

"In those spots, big-time players gotta step up, and Tee and Ja'Marr (Chase) certainly did," Burrow said, per The Cincinnati Enquirer. Burrow also called it "certainly a stressful day," which feels like an understatement.

Ward, Pollard and a Titans Defense That Showed Up

Lost a bit in the chaos was the best game of Cam Ward's young career. The second-year quarterback went 26 of 40 for a career-high 304 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions, his first 300-yard game as a pro, and added a career-best 41 rushing yards. "He looked awesome today," Saleh said. Pollard ran 21 times for 117 yards and two touchdowns, his second straight 100-yard game, and Gunnar Helm led Tennessee with five catches for 76 yards.

Jacob Martin tormented the Cincinnati line with three sacks, giving him 6.5 for the season, including a 15-yard drop of Burrow on a fourth-and-2 from the Tennessee 5. Linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. made 14 tackles. Tennessee won the turnover battle 4-2 and still lost. "Hell of a game by us, but it really sucks not to win," Martin said.

It was also the Titans' first game since trading defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons to Chicago, and the defensive linemen wore red sleeves to honor Simmons.

The Numbers Behind It

• 462 passing yards for Burrow, who became only the second player in NFL history with 450 passing yards, five touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown in one game.
• 175 career touchdown passes for Burrow, reached in Burrow's 84th game. Only Patrick Mahomes and Dan Marino got there faster.
• 5 straight games with a touchdown catch for Gesicki, the longest streak by a tight end in Bengals history.
• 3 interceptions for Hooker, and three sacks for Martin.
• 5 of 6 red zone trips ended in Cincinnati touchdowns.

What It Means

Burrow also passed Carson Palmer for fourth on the Bengals' career passing list, and Higgins and Chase both topped 100 yards in the same game for the fourth time. More important, Cincinnati has back-to-back wins after digging the same 13-0 hole, following last week's 35-13 comeback at Baltimore. At 5-2, the Bengals sit half a game behind Pittsburgh, which beat Cleveland 27-6 on Sunday, in an AFC North that now reads Pittsburgh 6-2, Cincinnati 5-2, Cleveland 5-3 and Baltimore 4-4. Undrafted's Week 8 preview noted that the Titans arrived as the AFC's only one-win team, and they played nothing like it.

The Bengals face the Atlanta Falcons in Madrid on Nov. 8, then host the Steelers on Nov. 15. The Titans have their bye and return to host the Jacksonville Jaguars on Nov. 15.

Never Taken for Granted

Cincinnati gave away four turnovers, trailed in the final four minutes and still walked off with a win and a piece of NFL trivia nobody had ever owned. Burrow sounded like a quarterback who knows how thin that margin was. "I don't take winning for granted," Burrow said. On a day the scoreboard did something it had never done before, neither should anyone in Cincinnati.

Stats from the official box score via theScore and ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by The Cincinnati Enquirer and TennesseeTitans.com. Additional notes from Bengals.com and CBS Sports.