CINCINNATI — The warm thoughts the Cincinnati Bengals have from sweeping their southern swing through New Orleans, Houston and Tampa Bay are about to give way to the bitter, brutal reality of December football.

“All the work put in by the players since April, it now comes down to these four weeks, but most importantly this week,” coach Marvin Lewis said as his team braces for a home game against Pittsburgh to kick off a stretch drive that could be even more trying than the recently completed three-game road trip.

With two games against Pittsburgh, one in Cleveland and a home contest against defending AFC champion Denver, December will be the decider.

“It’s winning time,” offensive coordinator Hue Jackson said. “This is when the real players show up, because this is an opportunity to really make something special happen. The great football players, this is when you get lathered up. People remember what you do in December.”

What the Bengals have done in Decembers of late has been impressive.

They are 10-2 in their last 12 December games, putting together impressive runs to reach the playoffs in each of the last three seasons.

It’s going to take another solid finish to make it four in a row, which is what made Sunday so important. The Bengals players were doing more exhaling than celebrating as they walked off the field after surviving the lowly Buccaneers for a 14-13 win. But things changed when they got to the locker room and saw the other games going final: New Orleans 35, Pittsburgh 32; Buffalo 26, Cleveland 10; San Diego 34, Baltimore 33.

“There was a real buzz in the locker room,” wide receiver James Wright said. “When we saw every other team in the division lost, that made our win even bigger.”

Sunday’s results gave the Bengals (8-3-1) a 1.5-game lead over the three other teams in the division. That means Cincinnati can clinch the division with a 3-1 December, or if the Bengals just go 2-2 they will force one of the other teams to finish 4-0.

“All the pluses and minuses and all the good, it keeps going,” Lewis said. “It provides one opportunity, provides the next opportunity, so December is very, very important that you play well. Obviously you want to play and continue through January, but we’ve got to take care of December first.”

NOTES: PR Adam Jones’ streak of 96 returns came to an end Sunday in Tampa Bay after he suffered big hits on his first two returns. Jones had not called for a fair catch since Nov. 16, 2006, while playing for Tennessee. … LB Vontaze Burfict, who has missed the last five games with a knee injury, is still day-to-day. … LB Jayson DiManche (broken arm) was placed on injured reserve. … DT Domata Peko (elbow) left after just 12 plays, but coach Marvin Lewis said he expects him to be ready to play against Pittsburgh.

REPORT CARD VS. BUCCANEERS

–PASSING OFFENSE: C-plus — A gutty and gut-spilling performance from quarterback Andy Dalton helped the Bengals avoid disaster. Dalton couldn’t have been worse in the first half, throwing three interceptions, including one on the first play of the game. The pass protection was suspect as well. Dalton was sacked just twice, although he was under pressure a good deal of the afternoon. But as bad as he was in the first half, Dalton showed great resiliency in the second half, going 12 of 16 for 114 yards and a touchdown. The TD to A.J. Green was the kind of spectacular throw that Dalton supporters point to as a reason for the huge contract he received in the offseason, as was the 30-yard, third-down strike to James Wright that extended the final drive and forced Tampa Bay to burn all three of its timeouts.

–RUSHING OFFENSE: B-plus — The production from Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill was decent as the two combined for 89 yards on 23 carries. But when your quarterback has been throwing up all night and the opponent ranks 20th against the run, it would be helpful to have more production than that. One of the most glaring deficiencies was something that has been a strength of late, closing things out in the fourth quarter. When the Bengals had a chance to do that Sunday, taking over at their own 20 with 4:01 to go, they stumbled. Jeremy Hill had two of his carries on the drive go for negative yards before the drive stalled and the Bengals gave the ball back to the Buccaneers with 2:01 left and a chance to drive for a winning field goal.

–PASS DEFENSE: A — For the third week in a row the Bengals completely shut down the opponent’s leading receiver as Mike Evans met the same fate as New Orleans tight end Jimmy Graham (three catches, 29 yards) and Houston’s Andre Johnson (3-36). Evans entered the game with an NFL-best 505 receiving yards in November, but he had one catch for five yards through three quarters and finished with four for 49. Terence Newman handled most of the duties on Evans and recorded his first interception of the year. The Bengals didn’t put a ton of pressure on Bucs quarterback Josh McCown, registering one sack, but they didn’t have to with the secondary locking everything down. McCown completed just 15 of 29 passes for 190 yards with the interception and a 58.1 passer rating.

–RUSH DEFENSE: A — Tampa Bay is hardly a juggernaut on the ground, but holding the Buccaneers to 75 rushing yards was huge, especially when they began two drives in Bengals territory, at the 9- and 31-yard lines. The defense held Tampa Bay to field goals both times. The Buccaneers had 32 rushing yards after the first quarter, but the Bengals held them to 43 yards on 16 carries the rest of the way, and the longest Tampa Bay run of the afternoon was just 11 yards.

–SPECIAL TEAMS: A-minus — Kevin Huber continued the best season of his career with a 48.2-yard average on six punts. He wasn’t happy with his final effort when he missed a chance to pin Tampa Bay deep to start its final drive. Huber nearly dropped the ball on the sideline at the 2, but it hit just inside the field of play and bounced into the end zone for a rare touchback (his fourth in 56 attempts this season). Despite the 25-yard net on that punt, Huber still finished with a 41.3 net for the day. On the negative side of things, returner Adam Jones made two poor two decisions to not fair-catch punts, and he paid for both of them with big hits. On his third try, Jones called his first fair catch since 2006, ending his streak of 96 returns without one.

–COACHING: A-minus — Catching Tampa Bay with 12 men on the field was huge and worthy of an A grade on its own, considering it prevented the Buccaneers from trying an easy 37-yard field goal to win the game. But the questionable clock management at the end of the first half can’t be ignored, especially when that makes two weeks in a row for that. Offensive coordinator Hue Jackson did a great job of emptying his playbook to help kick-start a lethargic offense, and Paul Guenther resisted the temptation to over-blitz an average quarterback and went with a lower-risk game plan that still reaped a nice reward.