Old Meets Young as 40-Year-Old QB Josh Johnson Connects with Youngsters Dohnte Meyers, Colbie Young in Bengals Win

The Cincinnati Bengals scored a generational win Saturday night in their second preseason game, defeating the Chicago Bears 27-9 at Paycor Stadium.

Forty-year-old journeyman quarterback Josh Johnson started with Joe Burrow, Joe Flacco and the rest of the starters and key backups in street clothes, and the 2008 draft pick threw two touchdown passes, the first of which went to one of the younger players on the team, rookie wide receiver Colbie Young.

Johnson also found an “old man to young man” connection with first-year receiver Dohnte Meyers, targeting him six times for five receptions and 41 yards, with four of those catches coming on the opening drive when the Bengals backups drove through the Chicago starters for a 25-yard field goal by Evan McPherson.

“I think it’s always good to out there and show you can still make plays,” Johnson said. “In this business, people want to put labels on you and tags on you. Everybody thinks they have the right answers.

“The one person I know who has the answers is the man above,” Johnson added. “For me, when I wake up with an opportunity, that means it’s purposeful.”

Johnson went 15 of 23 for 156 yards with touchdown passes of 17 yards to rookie wide receiver Colbie Young and 6 yards to veteran tight end Tanner Hudson, the latter of which came with 23 seconds left in the first half, earning him the rest of the night off.

“Josh, I thought played excellent and finished with a nice touchdown drive at halftime,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “I probably would have played him into the third quarter, but I just thought he played real clean and so I got Sean (Clifford) in there in the second half.”

Clifford opened the second-half by taking the Bengals on a six-play, 75-yard drive that ended with his 20-yard touchdown pass to undrafted rookie receiver Noah Thomas.

Taylor praised Clifford in his postgame news conference, saying the local product hasn’t had more than 10 reps throughout training camp and still went and played well.

Johnson’s reps haven’t been that limited, but they’ve been scarce. Yet he still was able to lead a scoring drive against Chicago’s starters in addition to the back-to-back touchdown marches.

“I’m grateful because my whole career has kind of gone like this,” Johnson said. “If you are a man of faith or have any relationship with God, you know the things he puts us through is for a reason. Now I’m 40 and I can look back at things I was going through at 22 that are helping me now in how I prepare and understand that reps might not be there for me.

“But what are the other ways I can still have opportunities to bring a calm to yourself and go out there and play confidently? (God) just kept nudging me to say, ‘You know, tis might be what it is for you. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. My whole career has been kind of been like, ‘You’ve got to get out of the mud.’ Now I’m just kind of used to it.”

Johnson said there a couple of plays he would have like to have back, one of which was a miss to a wide-open Meyers that had a chance to be an explosive play, which would have made the CFL imports night even more impressive.

Johnson said all of the quarterbacks have been talking about Meyers since OTAs.

“Dohnte pops off the film,” he said. “I think now you're just seeing him put his mind with his ability, and that's a great sign for a young player to be able to do that as quickly as he's doing it.

“All of the quarterbacks have confidence in him,” Johnson added. “You don’t need to say a lot when you’ve got Joe speaking out about him, Flacco always throwing the ball to him, and when I get out there, we throw the ball to him. There’s a reason. He’s been showing me there are no limitations to his game.”

Johnson could get another long look in the preseason finale Friday at Philadelphia with the starters and backups not expected to play again.

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