Zendejas’ Kick Gives Oilers a 26-24 Victory

Tony Zendejas’ fourth field goal of the game with no time left capped a fourth-quarter duel between Warren Moon and Boomer Esiason that gave the Houston Oilers a 26-24 victory over Cincinnati Monday night and put the Bengals’ hopes of returning to the Super Bowl in jeopardy.

Zendejas’ 28-yard kick came at the end of a 70-yard drive engineered by Moon that began with 4:47 remaining after Esiason had twice brought the Bengals from behind.

“It was a great way to win it,” Houston Coach Jerry Glanville said. “If you go ahead of them with two or three minutes left, you’re in trouble. This is probably the only way we could have won it.”

Said Moon: “It was just a matter of not turning the ball over and not trying to force anything. I told them before the drive that all we needed was a field goal and that’s what we did.”

Esiason, who left last week’s game against the Raiders in the first quarter with a bruised lung, threw a 73-yard touchdown pass to tight end Rodney Holman after the Bengals had fallen behind, 16-13. He then completed two long passes to set up Jim Breech’s 38-yard field goal with 7:27 left that gave Cincinnati a 24-23 lead.

The Bengals are 5-5, two games behind Cleveland in the AFC Central and a game behind the Oilers (6-4). Cincinnati has what appears to be the toughest remaining schedule of the three.

The heroics all came in the fourth quarter that started after Zendejas had kicked field goals of 32, 42 and 37 yards in a 4 1/2-minute span late in the third period and early in the fourth to give Houston a 16-13 lead.

All were set up by special teams, which also had scored the Bengals’ only touchdown to that point when Johnny Meads blocked a punt and Eugene Seale fell on it in the end zone.

Only 57 seconds later, the Bengals were back in front, courtesy of the Esiason-to-Holman pass.

That lead lasted less than 90 seconds. Moon completed a pass to Leonard Harris for 36 yards, got a 15-yard facemask call tacked on, then completed another to Harris for 23 yards and a touchdown.

Back came the Bengals to make it 24-23 with 7:33 left, only to have Moon answer again.