After battling back from being down by as many as 14 points to take a three-point lead late in the fourth, the Cincinnati Bengals found themselves on the brink of snapping their eight-game losing streak against the reigning Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints on Sunday.

However, the Bengals hindered themselves with an offside penalty on fourth-and-2 on their seven-yard line with :34 seconds left in the game. Bengals' defensive lineman Pat Sims jumped across the neutral zone to give the Saints an early Christmas gift and helped them stay within one game with the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC South. After the penalty, the Saints put the game away with a three-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Drew Brees to wide receiver Marques Colston on the following play for the go-ahead win, 34-30.

"One play didn't lose the game," said Bengals' Head Coach Marvin Lewis in his Monday press conference. "There are a lot of plays we could have turned around and played better. Brees does a good job moving his left foot and draws Pat."

Although this game was probably Cincinnati's best performance all season, their play in the final seconds sums up their entire season. No matter how hard they play, the Bengals seems to manage away to get in their own way and lose.

"It's not that these guys don't expect to win," said Lewis. "They do expect to win. They expect to make the plays at the end of the game to win it. I don't see a lack of confidence... A team that doesn't expect to win doesn't return the ball to midfield. Same thing at the end of the first half. You don't make the play on the squib and get it to midfield if you don't expect to do well. You have the ebb and flow of the game."

Losing nine games consecutively was not in the plans of Bengals, maybe nine straight wins due to their high preseason expectations. Despite the wrinkles of improvement within Cincy's play, it does not create any victories.

"I've never lost nine in a row," said wide receiver Terrell Owens. "I don't know what it is. I feel like sometimes I can be a part of the solution. I just go on with the plays that are called. Offensively, we're just not getting it done. We can't worry about anything (other than) execution on the offensive side of the ball when we have to outscore opponents in these situations. I don't know what positives you can get out of losing nine in a row. I've never done that before. I don't think I've ever done this before, even dating back to college. It sucks."

Last year, Browns' Head Coach Eric Mangini was facing a pink slip for a poor coaching performance during the season. But with four games left, the Browns managed to win their last four games of the season. Mangini's job was saved and this season, he has Cleveland rolling towards a possible winning 2010 campaign. Now with four games left, the Bengals could follow the same path similar to the one the Browns rode last year. Also, depending on who stays or goes, they could build on something in hopes of getting to the Super Bowl next season.

"It's a difficult thing to do when you're where we are at this point in the season, but you've got to fight," said Bengals' quarterback Carson Palmer. "You've got to be prepared to go into Pittsburgh, find a way to win and spoil what they have going, and not let what happened the previous week affect you in the upcoming games."