Why Bengals were upset after Browns' Myles Garrett set NFL sacks record

Sunday's regular-season finale involving the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals was temporarily paused after Browns star pass-rusher Myles Garrett set a new official single-season record with his 23rd sack of the campaign in the game's fourth quarter. 

After the Bengals suffered a 20-18 defeat, Cincinnati head coach Zac Taylor made it known he was upset that the contest stopped so that Garrett could celebrate his achievement with teammates and coaches.

Bengals were "playing for our lives" as Myles Garrett celebrated the record

"There’s five minutes left in our season," Taylor explained, per Tim Bielik of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "We’re playing for our lives here. And I was never told that we’re going to stop the game, and in a critical moment like that. And the refs just said that they made a decision that they were going to stop the game. And they said they tried to do it as quickly as possible. I didn’t feel that. We didn’t sub. We’re trying to be on the ball and go and play with tempo. And the umpire just held the ball so that we couldn’t do anything."

In the end, the Bengals ultimately got the ball back and then took the lead when quarterback Joe Burrow connected with wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase for a short touchdown pass. However, the Cincinnati defense was unable to stop Cleveland from getting into range for Andre Szmyt to make a walk-off 49-yard field goal. 

Ja'Marr Chase agreed with Zac Taylor about Myles Garrett celebration

"Yeah, I didn't think they could do that," Chase said about referees allowing for the game to be stopped, according to Russell Heltman of Sports Illustrated. "I never knew you could let the whole team get on your field. That's like me catching my 10th pass, and the whole team run on the field. We're gonna get flagged. But congrats to him and everything. But you know, they got to call a flag on that play. ...We're trying to hurry up, too. We couldn't even hurry up. The refs was looking at us like we did something wrong the whole time."

That one moment is not why the Bengals closed their season with a record of 6-11. It's also worth mentioning that Cincinnati could have prevented the celebration from occurring by making sure that Garrett didn't get to Burrow before Sunday's matchup wrapped up.