NFL: New York Giants given a thrashing by Cincinnati Bengals

Andy Dalton gave a career high four touchdowns against the Giants

Cincinnati Bengals ended a four-game losing streak in style yesterday as they handed out a 31-13 thrashing to Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants.

Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton thoroughly out-played two-time Super Bowl winner Eli Manning as the second-year man threw a career-best four touchdowns, each to a different receiver.

Manning has had a couple of poor games now and he was intercepted twice and failed to find the end zone as the faltering Giants turned the ball over four times in the second half alone.

Despite having issues all season, Tom Coughlin’s Giants still head into their bye week at 6-4 but after back-to-back losses there will be some tough talking in the Big Apple over the next week.

Cincinnati had plenty of help from a lacklustre Giants display, including early in the first quarter when the Big Blue secondary somehow let star wideout A.J Green have a ton of room to collect Dalton’s 56-yard pass for the opening TD of the game.

The catch made it eight straight games that Green has found the end zone, which is the third-best streak in the last ten years in the NFL.

Andrew Hawkins also had his run of the Giants secondary as his 11-yard touchdown made it 14-0 to the hosts before Lawrence Tynes got New York on the board with a field goal from 23 yards.

Jermaine Gresham and Mohamed Sanu then both received ten-yard touchdown passes from Dalton in the third quarter as the Bengals opened up a game-winning 31-6 lead.

Andrew Brown ensured the Giants at least got one touchdown in the game with a two-yard run late in the fourth quarter but it was still another bitterly disappointing outing for the defending champions.

The Bengals move on to 4-5 for the season but still only in third place in the tough AFC North being led by Baltimore and Pittsburgh.