Evan McPherson hit a 57-yard field goal just before halftime to put Cincinnati ahead of Atlanta 24–10 in Madrid on November 8, 2026. The NFL’s highlights show how the Bengals went from trailing 10–7 to building that two-touchdown margin. Joe Burrow put Cincinnati ahead with a quarterback sneak, then found Tee Higgins for a touchdown before McPherson extended the lead. Atlanta had opened the game with a touchdown of its own and taken a brief lead through a Nick Folk field goal.
This is a first-half breakdown of the Week 9 game at Bernabéu Stadium. The score in the headline is the halftime checkpoint confirmed by the NFL’s clip of the kick. The official game center carries the full scoring record. If you are looking at search results from different points in the game, separate the quarter and clock from the score. Cincinnati’s lead appeared first at 13–10 before the extra point, then at 24–10 before the teams went to the locker room.
The opening drives showed two ways to move downfield
Atlanta opened with a touchdown catch by tight end Charlie Woerner. The NFL’s highlights also show Bijan Robinson gaining 19 yards on his first carry on a toss sweep and adding a 21-yard gain on another toss to the left. Those clips are worth watching before the touchdown. A toss lets the runner receive the ball while already moving toward the edge. What happens after the catch depends on how the blockers handle the defenders outside and how soon the runner can turn upfield. Those are different questions from whether a play starts out looking like a conventional run up the middle.
Woerner’s touchdown was his first NFL touchdown reception, according to the league’s clip. In a short highlight package that milestone can stand alone. In the game sequence it was also the end of Atlanta’s first scoring drive and the score Cincinnati had to answer. Atlanta’s early run gains demonstrated that it could make progress before asking quarterback Michael Penix Jr. to finish a drive in the passing game. The touchdown made that work count on the scoreboard.
Cincinnati’s answer came on a 47-yard pass from Burrow to Ja’Marr Chase. That is the first important contrast in the half. A drive can reach scoring territory through several gains, or a single long completion can cover much of the field. The Bengals did not need a long series of short gains on the scoring play itself. Burrow had enough time to throw deep and Chase turned the completion into six points. The extra point brought the teams level at seven, resetting the game after the Falcons’ opening score.
Official NFL highlights index with the Woerner and Chase touchdowns
How the score moved from 10–7 to a Bengals lead
Folk’s 31-yard field goal put Atlanta up 10–7. That margin tells you what Atlanta’s defense needed to do on the next drive. A stop would preserve the lead. Allowing a field goal could produce a tie. A touchdown would put Cincinnati in front. In the NFL video, Burrow’s sneak is shown as making the score 13–10 because the clip captures the touchdown before the extra point. A scoreboard updated after the conversion can show 14–10 for the same scoring sequence. The difference is a point added on the next play, not a disagreement about the touchdown.
The sneak illustrates the other end of Cincinnati’s scoring range after the deep throw to Chase. With the ball near the goal line, a quarterback can take the snap and use the space directly behind his blockers. The defense has much less field to protect and can concentrate players near the line. A short gain in that situation may have greater value than a long gain earlier in a drive because the short one crosses the goal line. The two Burrow touchdowns changed the scoreboard by the same number of points even though they required very different things from him and his teammates.
A useful way to watch the scoring plays is to keep an eye on the down and distance as well as the clock. A team that reaches short yardage can use a play like the sneak. From farther out, it may need an intermediate completion or a long throw to take the next step. A highlight clip often begins only seconds before the snap. The game center’s drive view gives the possessions around the clip, which helps explain why the offense had the option it chose when the score changed.
NFL clip of Burrow’s go-ahead sneak
Why the kick before halftime mattered
The NFL’s highlights show Burrow connecting with Higgins for a touchdown along the boundary. The completion added to the lead already created by Burrow’s sneak. Cincinnati then reached a position from which it could attempt McPherson’s 57-yard field goal near the end of the half. The kick took the lead from 21–10 to 24–10. Both margins required Atlanta to score on more than one normal possession to erase them. The wider margin made the type of scores that could do it more demanding.
At 21–10, an ordinary touchdown with a kicked extra point and a field goal would add ten, still one short. A touchdown with a two-point conversion and a field goal could match the 11-point gap. At 24–10, two touchdowns with extra points could tie the game, while a touchdown and a field goal could not. Those are examples of what the numbers permit. They are not predictions about how either team would play the second half. The practical point is that three points can matter even when the lead already takes two scores to recover.
A long kick is also different from simply running another offensive snap. The team must be close enough to attempt it and still has to execute the snap, hold and kick. For a play just before the break, the remaining time affects what the opponent can do if the kick misses or if the ball changes hands. The official clip establishes that McPherson made it and that the score reached 24–10. It gives a clear boundary for a first-half account, even if a separate page was captured earlier while the score was 21–10.
NFL clip of McPherson’s 57-yard field goal
What the inactive lists tell us about the available teams
The Bengals listed safety Kyle Dugger, center Connor Lew, offensive tackle Myles Hinton and defensive tackle Landon Robinson as inactive. Atlanta listed Zachariah Branch, Billy Bowman, Robert Longerbeam, Drake Jackson, Jack Strand and Andy Dalton. The Falcons identified Dalton as their third quarterback, and the NFL’s Sunday list called him the emergency third quarterback. That designation belongs with his name when reading the list, because it describes a different role from the quarterback who is expected to enter under normal substitution circumstances.
Atlanta’s own report also distinguishes Sunday’s list from the roster changes before the game. The club said it activated pass rusher James Pearce Jr. and placed running back Brian Robinson Jr. on injured reserve on Saturday. It said Samson Ebukam had gone on injured reserve earlier in the week. Those moves answer a different question from the game-day names. The roster transactions explain changes made before the final availability notice, while the inactive report identifies players listed for this particular game. A name can be absent from the short inactive list because the player is already on injured reserve.
A viewer checking the opening possessions can use the game-day information without trying to attribute each successful play to a missing player. The report establishes who was unavailable and which roster moves preceded kickoff. The highlights establish what the players on the field did. That distinction matters when looking at an offense that has more than one way to advance the ball. The Atlanta clips show Robinson running on the edge and Penix completing a pass to Drake London across the middle. The Cincinnati clips show a deep throw, a sneak and a boundary touchdown. Those are observable choices. The inactive list alone cannot show what each staff would have called with a different group of players.
Atlanta’s inactive list and roster notes
Why the Madrid game appeared in a morning NFL window
The NFL listed kickoff at 9:30 a.m. Eastern in the United States and 3:30 p.m. local time in Madrid. Both times describe the same Week 9 game at Bernabéu Stadium. In November the United States Eastern and Madrid time zones are six hours apart for this fixture. An early kickoff in a United States listing can therefore be a normal afternoon start for people at the ground. Use the local time label before deciding whether two posts describe different games.
The clubs came into the game with different records. The league’s Sunday inactive notice listed Cincinnati at 5–2 and Atlanta at 3–5. Those were their records entering Week 9. The game was part of the regular season, so the result would count in the standings in the same way as a domestic regular-season game. The halftime score shows how the teams entered the second half. A standings page that reflects the finished result answers a later question.
For another example of using the scoreboard at each scoring event, see our breakdown of Edmonton’s CFL Western Final win. That game followed Canadian football rules. The general reading habit carries over: keep the score after a touchdown separate from the score after the following conversion and check which code’s rules apply.
NFL Madrid kickoff information
NFL Week 9 inactive reports and pregame records
What to compare when the game center updates
To compare the half with the finished game, start with the scoring summary and identify the first scoring possession after the break. It can tell you whether the two-score margin immediately widened or narrowed. Then check the length of the possession and where it began. A short drive after a change of possession and a drive starting deep in a team’s own half can end with the same seven points while telling very different stories about the offense’s work.
You can also check which side was moving the chains between scoring possessions. A drive that ends without points can still take time off the clock or give the opponent worse field position on its next drive. In the first half, the highlights make Cincinnati’s scoring plays easy to find, but the drive view also shows the possessions that did not lead to a score. That makes it the better companion if you want to know how frequently Atlanta got the ball back after falling behind.
Finally, record the final score as a new line beside 24–10 rather than overwriting the halftime number in your notes. The two lines let you calculate how many points each team scored after the break. They also make clear whether a later article is describing the same checkpoint or the completed game.
What the United States search snapshot showed
The query “bengals vs falcons” was first in the United States Google Trends Trending Now capture at 17:31 UTC on November 8. The past-24-hours view included all categories and trend statuses and was sorted by search volume in descending order. Google displayed 500K+ and marked the query Active. The displayed band gives a view of interest in the query and its related terms. It does not provide an audience figure for the Madrid game or show how many people were checking the same moment.
For the fastest route through the first half, start with Woerner’s touchdown and Chase’s answer, then use Folk’s kick to identify the point at which Atlanta led 10–7. Burrow’s sneak, the Higgins touchdown and McPherson’s kick explain how Cincinnati took that lead away before halftime. If you are checking a later score, use the game center rather than a clip title. The title tells you what the score became at the moment of that play. The final line in the game center tells you what the teams finished with.
Sources consulted 8 November 2026, Bangladesh time.