TAMPA, Fla. — The Cincinnati Bengals overcame a number of self-inflicted wounds, a sick quarterback and a late rally by their opponent to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 14-13 on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium.

The Bengals (8-3-1) won on the road for the third straight week, a franchise record, as they maintained their standing atop the AFC North.

“We overcame ourselves,” Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said. “We got it done and now we have to go back to work.”

Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, playing with the flu, threw for one touchdown and rushed for another, and the Bucs only managed 263 total yards.

But for a moment in the game’s final minute, it appeared the Bengals had let the game slip away.

The play looked like a backbreaker, a decisive strike that would cap off the Buccaneers’ frantic comeback and knock the Bengals out of first place.

Tampa Bay receiver Louis Murphy snagged a pass from quarterback Josh McCown and fell at the 20-yard line, setting up a potential game-winning field goal attempt in the final seconds.

But the Bengals’ coaches told Lewis before the snap that something was wrong: The Bucs had lined up with 12 men on the field.

The Bengals couldn’t challenge the play because there were only 30 seconds left, but Lewis threw a flag anyway. That stopped play long enough for the replay official to review what had just transpired.

Sure enough, the play was called back, and the Bucs were charged with a penalty. Three plays later, the Bengals stopped the Bucs on fourth-and-20 and escaped with a victory.

“A lot of safeguards are in place,” Bucs coach Lovie Smith said. “A lot of us should have caught it.”

What the Bengals said:

“It’s huge. I don’t remember the last time we won three in a row on the road, if ever. Anytime you can get a win in the league, I don’t care what the performance is — you don’t apologize for it.” — Offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth

“Obviously you want to play better, but a win’s a win regardless of how you get it. The ultimate goal is to win by one, and we’ll take the win any way we can get it.” — Quarterback Andy Dalton

What the Bucs said:

“That’s how 2-10 football teams play. Found a way to lose it at the end. … We’re a 2-10 team. Not a good feeling at all.” — Coach Lovie Smith

“We’ve been talking about playoffs for the last however many weeks. But we haven’t won a football game. We need to talk about winning a football game. You can’t go to the playoffs if you’re 2-10. At 2-10, you don’t need to go to the playoffs. So you’ve got to win football games, and we’re not doing it. So I don’t think we deserve the right to talk playoffs.” — Offensive tackle Demar Dotson

What we learned about the Bengals:

1. It wasn’t pretty, but winning on Sunday while the rest of the division lost was huge. Shortly after the Bengals scratched out a one-point win, word spread throughout the locker room at Raymond James Stadium that the Steelers had lost to the Saints. And the Ravens had lost to the Chargers. And the Browns lost to the Bills. All of a sudden, the Bengals hadn’t just maintained their position atop the AFC North — they’d moved ahead 1 1/2 games (two in the loss column) with an 8-3-1 record and the rest of the division standing at 7-5.

2. The Bengals are for real, but this is still going to be a tough stretch. Winning three straight games on the road — at New Orleans, Houston and Tampa Bay — was no simple task. But the Bengals got through it unscathed and still leading the division at 8-3-1. The problem for them is it doesn’t get any easier from here, and the games are about to count for a lot more. Cincinnati will head home to face Pittsburgh before going to Cleveland, hosting Denver and finishing up the regular season at Pittsburgh. That’s three divisional games and one of the NFL’s most dangerous offenses in four consecutive weeks.

–QB Andy Dalton was as sick as he said he’s ever felt while playing football in Sunday’s 14-13 win over the Bucs. Still, he managed to complete 19 of 27 passes for 176 yards and a touchdown while rushing for another touchdown on a read option. Dalton threw three interceptions in the first half, all of them on poor decisions or errant throws, but said he didn’t want to “make any excuses for the way things started out” despite the illness. Dalton said he began to feel better as the game went on. He didn’t get much sleep Saturday night, vomited repeatedly before the game and received an IV on Sunday morning. He believed the illness was a “24-hour thing” that shouldn’t affect him going forward.

–WR A.J. Green was the intended target on eight of Andy Dalton’s 27 pass attempts Sunday, finishing with four receptions for 57 yards and a touchdown in Sunday’s 14-13 win over the Bucs. In eight games this year, Green has 45 receptions for 686 yards and five touchdowns, putting him on roughly the same pace he performed at over the past two seasons if he had been able to play a full year. Sunday snapped a two-game streak of 100-yard receiving games for Green, as he had six grabs for 127 yards against the Saints and 12 receptions for 121 yards against the Texans. Green has reeled in a touchdown in five of his eight games this season.

–DE Carlos Dunlap led the Bengals with seven tackles in Sunday’s 14-13 win over the Bucs, tied for the team-high with linebacker Vincent Rey. Three of those tackles were for a loss, and Dunlap also added a deflected pass, a half-sack and another quarterback hit. Dunlap leads the team with six sacks on the year. The Bengals gave up yards on the ground early in Sunday’s game but adjusted accordingly, Dunlap said. “We had to settle down and stop their run and handle the sudden change,” he said. “There were a couple of times we had bad field position, but we didn’t want to make the (situation) worse and we just held them to three.”

What we learned about the Bucs:

1. The Bucs’ lack of discipline might be their biggest problem. They committed 13 penalties for 94 yards on Sunday. Just for the sake of comparison, consider that they only totaled 75 rushing yards on 25 attempts. You’re not going to win games that way, especially when your penalties prolong opponents’ drives and put your offense in impossible situations.

2. It’s safe to stop talking about the playoffs now. It felt ridiculous to talk about their playoff chances when they were 2-9, but the NFC South is simply so bad that the talk was somewhat realistic. Now, with the Bucs at 2-10 and one win since September, just go ahead and knock that off. As several of the Bucs said after Sunday’s loss to the Bengals, they have to worry about winning games before they worry about making the playoffs.

–QB Josh McCown completed only 15 of his 29 pass attempts for 190 yards and no touchdowns in the Bucs’ 14-13 loss to the Bengals on Sunday. McCown had been performing at a higher level recently, throwing for at least 288 yards and a touchdown in each of his last three games, but Sunday looked much more like the McCown who struggled out of the gate this season. He threw one interception, giving him nine on the year compared to seven touchdowns. The Bucs have won only one of McCown’s seven starts this season, and that was the only game with him under center in which they scored more than 17 points. In the other six games, they’ve gone 0-6 while scoring between 13 and 17 points. “We just have to do a better job working through it,” McCown said. “It starts with me.”

–RB Doug Martin didn’t finish Sunday’s game with a particularly inspiring stat line — 58 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries — but he looked much more early on like the 2012 version of himself. Martin picked up 55 yards on 12 carries in the first half, and two of those went for a total of four yards on the Bucs’ failed opening drive. Martin ran with more speed, toughness and decisiveness in the first and second quarters, breaking tackles and finding holes. It’s been a bad season for Martin, who entered Sunday averaging just 2.8 yards per carry, but for a while Sunday seemed to be a step in the right direction. His 4.6 yards per carry in the first half was right in line with his numbers in 2012, a career season in which Martin ran for 1,454 yards and 11 touchdowns. Whether Martin can build on that going forward remains to be seen.

–LB Danny Lansanah got the start at weakside linebacker in place of the injured Lavonte David on Sunday, and he put up the numbers to match David. Lansanah finished the 14-13 loss with a game-high 14 tackles, three of them behind the line of scrimmage. “I just did what I’m coached to do,” Lansanah said. “It’s the next-man-up mentality. … All through my career, I take the same approach as a starter. You are one play away from being up, and if you are out there and don’t know what you are doing, that’s the fastest way to get cut. Being a professional, you’ve got to prepare like you are a starter.” Lansanah entered the day with 34 tackles and three interceptions in 11 games.

–LB Lavonte David sat out for the second straight game Sunday with a hamstring injury. The Bucs’ leading tackler missed most of the week with a hamstring injury but was able to practice Friday, which would seem to be a good sign regarding his availability next week. David entered Sunday tied with Carolina’s Luke Kuechly and Detroit’s DeAndre Levy for the NFL lead with 116 tackles.