"I think he had no choice in the matter. He had no choice in the matter to get free of John Henderson was to do what he did," Lewis said. "He got grabbed from behind. I think Andrew's tone of the game and how he played prior to that was very good."

Later on in his Monday afternoon news conference, the subject of the fight came up again. Whitworth and Henderson both were ejected.

"And again, Whit was not retaliating; Whit was trying to defend himself," Lewis said. "It's a shame, he feels bad about it because it took us out of position and we lost a very good player. That's the shame of it."

Whitworth was penalized with a personal foul. He will be fined by the NFL.

--RB Cedric Benson, in his third start, became the first Bengals back to gain 100 yards in a game since Kenny Watson on Dec. 23, 2007.

"Your running game tries to mesh with your back," coach Marvin Lewis said. "After you've had a running back for a while, like we've had Cedric, we try to do things that fit his style. He still had a couple miscues that we need to get corrected. ... Cedric's style is running behind his pads, and he is a good cutter. He is very quick and generally very deliberate in where he goes with the football. He has great vision and he has the speed and quickness when he does get to the next level ... better than the guys we've had."

For the record, former starting TB Chris Perry has not had one rushing attempt in three games.

--The Lions (0-8) are the NFL's only winless team. The Bengals are 1-8. Kansas City is 1-7.