Dalton’s 50-yard TD pass to A.J. Green highlights Cincinnati’s preseason victory

ATLANTA — Atlanta Falcons coach Mike Smith wants his team to stop committing penalties.

Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis wants his team to play smarter and focus on details.

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Both coaches have two more preseason games to get their players’ attention.

Led by quarterback Andy Dalton and receiver A.J. Green, the Bengals had just enough offense to beat the Falcons 24-19 Thursday night.

Dalton and Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan each directed a pair of scoring drives before Cincinnati’s reserves held on to help the Bengals win a matchup of teams that lost in the wild-card round of the playoffs last season.

Cincinnati (No. 14 in the AP Pro32) had the deeper roster.

The second- and third-string players for Atlanta (No. 13) struggled in the second half for the second straight week, and Smith has seen enough of the penalties.

The Falcons have committed 21 penalties for 242 yards over the past two weeks. Smith refused to blame replacement officials despite a couple of questionable calls.

“We never comment about officiating,” Smith said. “It doesn’t matter who is calling the game. I know that we’ve got to fix the amount of penalties that we are committing. You can’t have 21 penalties in two ballgames and be the type of football team that we want to be.”

Lewis liked what he saw from his team in the first half, but there are still plenty of issues to address.

“Our execution was crisp overall and of course the pass from Andy to A.J. was good,” Lewis said of his team’s first-half performance. “But we also had two dropped balls. You can never let that get into your program. Defensively, we got a couple of tipped balls, which was good, but you’ve got to come down with those and get the turnovers.”

Ryan, who completed his first 11 attempts, finished 18 of 21 for 174 yards and one touchdown, a 2-yard screen pass to reserve fullback Lousaka Polite in the second quarter.

Spreading out the offense and connecting with nine different receivers, Ryan completed passes of at least 20 yards to Roddy White, Tony Gonzalez, Julio Jones and Michael Palmer.

Dalton was 8 of 14 for 125 yards and one TD, a 50-yard pass that Green caught while running past cornerback Asante Samuel down the right sideline.

It was just the kind of preseason result that Cincinnati offensive coordinator Jay Gruden has been seeking. Gruden’s training camp emphasis for Dalton has been to improve his accuracy on deep balls.

“I’m surprised they left A.J. one-on-one in that situation,” Dalton said, “but I’m glad they did.”

Bengals tight end Jermaine Gresham limped off the field in the first quarter with a right knee injury. After the game, Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said, “He’s going to be fine.”

Cincinnati’s offense began the night with starting running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis out with a foot injury and his top backup, Bernard Scott, sidelined by a sore hand.

The Bengals lost starting left guard Travelle Wharton to a season-ending knee injury in last week’s preseason win over the New York Jets.

Atlanta’s Michael Turner had three carries for minus-3 yards. Turner’s best gain was an 8-yard completion on a screen pass.