Bengals coach calls Manziel ‘a midget,’ then apologizes

Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis apologized Monday after calling Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel “a midget” during a radio interview earlier in the day.

Asked about his team preparing for this week’s game against the Browns, who were deciding then whether to install Manziel as their starting quarterback, Lewis said on WLW-AM, “You gotta defend the offense. You don’t defend the player — particularly a midget.”

Manziel is listed at 6 feet, 210 pounds.

“I apologize to Johnny, the Browns and all the fans in Cleveland,” Lewis said later, according to ESPN. “It was just a poor remark. I really didn’t mean anything by it.”

Tuesday, the Bengals issued a statement from Lewis that said, “I’m aware that my comment on local radio last night was offensive to people of short stature and to their families and friends. It was thoughtless on my part to use the word I did, and not excusable, and I greatly regret it. I since have read about this issue on the Little People of America website. I understand it better, and as I have apologized to Johnny Manziel and the Cleveland Browns community, I offer the same to all others who I offended, and I pledge that I will learn from this. I hope that my mistake and the resultant publicity may serve at least to help others not make similar insensitive comments in the future.”

—Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther climbed into his car after a 42-21 home loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday and asked himself the same question most of the team’s fans wanted to know:

“What just happened?”

Guenther’s defense had done a solid job of holding the explosive Steelers in check for three quarters, helping the Bengals build a 21-17 lead. But 25 points and 229 yards later, Guenther was mumbling to his steering wheel.

“All I can tell you is I felt great, and then, all of a sudden, 12 minutes later, I’m in my car going home going, ‘What the hell just happened?’” Guenther said. “The wheels just kind of came off after they got the turnover. They converted on third down and scored on the next play. Then we give up the long pass and, before you know it, it’s a two-score game.”

The turnover was an Andy Dalton fumble on the Bengals’ 24-yard line just one play after the Steelers had closed to within 21-20. Four plays later, Le’Veon Bell smashed his way into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown to accelerate the fourth-quarter avalanche.

“One of the messages I am going to give the guys, that I have been telling them, is we have to be better when the odds are against us a little bit,” Guenther said. “When things aren’t going quite as smoothly as we want them to go — it’s the NFL — we have to go out there and buckle up and play good defense.”

The ability to do that has been a struggle all year for a Bengals defense that entered Monday night tied for 28th in the league.

The 543 yards the team allowed marked a season high, but it was the third time this year Guenther’s group has surrendered more than 500.

It’s the first season in team history the Bengals have allowed three 500-yard games, and there are only two other instances where they gave up 500 twice in the same year — in 1968 and 1969, the first two years of the franchise.

Before this year, the Bengals hadn’t allowed 500 since 2007, when they surrendered 554 in a 51-45 loss at Cleveland.

Despite Sunday’s implosion, Cincinnati still has a half-game division lead on Pittsburgh and Baltimore with three games remaining, including a rematch in Pittsburgh in Week 17.

“We know what’s in front of us,” Guenther said. “We control our own destiny. We need to move forward. We’ve got to get better and move forward to the next opponent.”