Bengals Eliminated from Nobel Peace Price Consideration

Self-immolation.

It's not just for Buddhist monks anymore.

The Cincinnati Bengals went to great lengths in the closing moments of their first-round playoff with Pittsburgh's Steelers to keep 1990 as the year of their last post-season victory. It wasn't easy, but if the Raiders don't do this sort of stuff anymore ... well ... someone has to carry the torch.

Who knew it'd be the dude who'd seemingly sealed the deal for Cincinnati?

Well actually, Vontaze Burfict had been living on the edge the whole damn game, so when his interception went up in flames as the Bengals' seminal historic moment, he lost it. Literally. In every sense.

How else can this unnecessary drive-by be explained?

That's how to turn an incompletion from a sore-armed Ben Roethlisberger into a 15-yard ref trek that put the Steelers in field goal territory.

And that was followed by the return of an all-too-familiar alter-ego to ensure the fire stayed stoked:

Adam Jones bumped a referee in the following fracas, earning another 15-yard walkoff that put the Steelers in range of a 35-yard Chris Boswell chip shot that, improbably, had the Steelers booking hotel rooms for next weekend in Denver.

Sure, there were heroic touchdowns, like this one from Martavius Bryant:

And this little number from AJ Green that looked like the game-winner:

But all anyone's gonna remember is that this game was built on smoldering embers from the start and they finally blew up in Cincinnati's face.

It's never a pretty sight.

They might beg to differ in the Bengals' locker room.

The signs that Burfict was outta control -- as usual -- were in plain sight a month ago:

The bottom line isn't a news flash: this is a team sport, and when individuals put themselves first, it usually doesn't end well.

And for the Bengals, who had victory virtually in the bag, it well and truly didn't.