(Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Over the decades, Bengals fans have grown accustomed to bad losses. But last Sunday’s catastrophic defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles was unsettling.
Good teams get beaten once in a while. Badly, even. But good teams don’t lose badly once in a while and lose to the New England Patriots in Week One. A good coaching staff doesn’t start 0 - 2 year after year. Good front offices don’t waste first-round pick after first-round pick. And good ownership doesn’t make a habit of stiffing their best and most important players.
That’s why the Bengals are a bad football team. Outside of a couple key players, they don’t have a good roster. They don’t have a good coaching staff or a good front office. They sure as hell don’t have good ownership. Once the dust settled on the Bengals 37 - 17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, there was no more doubt. Reality was setting in –
The Bengals are wasting Joe Burrow’s career. It’s withering under conditions that have proven, time and again, to be relentlessly hostile to success.
That’s why the Cincinnati Bengals should move on from Zac Taylor and his entire coaching staff. Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, offensive line coach Frank Pollack, even special teams coordinator Darrin Simmons – all should be receiving their walking papers. The Bengals should move on from de facto general manager Duke Tobin and the front office too. The Bengals need a clean break. Unfortunately, thanks to Mike Brown’s disastrous clingy-ness, neither is likely to happen.
This era of the Bengals is over. It was gloriously brief, but it's over all the same. It died with a whimper with 45 seconds remaining in the third quarter and nine pitiful games remaining in this hellish 2024 season. It died when, instead of allowing their $275 million quarterback to make the game-winning play, Taylor took the ball out of Burrow’s hands again.
Let’s get something straight: Taylor is a good football coach, but can he read the minds of defensive coordinators like Andy Reid? No. Is he an artistic play designer like Kyle Shannahan? No. Does he command authority and respect like Mike Tomlin? No.
As a head coach, Taylor is more middle-of-the-road. Still, he was able to lead the Bengals to a near-Super Bowl win and back-to-back AFC Championship Game appearances. Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say he didn’t get in the way. That shouldn’t be taken as a slight. Coaches throughout NFL history have done far less with much more.
All the same, Taylor needs to go. If he wasn’t getting in the way before, he is now. His regression went something like this…
Sometimes, when the pass rush is in a quarterback’s face, they lose sight of the whole field. They default to the checkdown. It’s hard to blame them. They have huge, man-eating pass rushers bearing down on them from all directions, protected only by five lumbering men who literally have to play on their heels. The job isn’t for the faint of heart.
Coaching isn’t for the faint of heart either. There are only 32 of these jobs, and those salaries pale in comparison to the players they’re trying to coach. They have to answer for every decision they make, and if the season goes sideways, the coach is always the first to go. For a coach, the only guarantee is an unhappy ending (ask Bill Belichick).
Like a quarterback who’s been pummeled all game long, Zac Taylor isn’t seeing the whole field anymore. Instead of looking at the game like what it is – a game – he’s become robotic. He sees two yards to-go, he goes with a play that can get two yards. He’s lost his feel as a play caller, if he ever had it. The leadership and culture-building qualities that were staples of the Bengals success over the last three years are mere shadows.
That’s why he continues to take the ball out of Joe Burrow’s hands, and why he insists on running hopelessly into the middle of the defense. He’s trying desperately to remain in control. He needs to be the reason the team wins, but these conditions have made winning almost impossible.
It’s not all Taylor’s fault – not even close. The Bengals front office has continued to undermine the coaching staff with obsolete negotiating practices, underfunded and inconsistent (at best) scouting, and a stubbornness that can only be rivaled by a teenager. Frankly, the way the Bengals operate, could anyone really be surprised if the Bengals directed coaching decisions like playing time a la Billy Bean and the Moneyball Oakland Athletics, except stupider and stingier?
How else do you explain Zack Carter getting 151 snaps in the first four weeks of the season? Or Joseph Ossai’s continued presence? Or that the Bengals are spending the 10th-most in the NFL on an offensive line that struggles in the most basic concepts? Or that they’ve alienated some of the best players in their franchise’s history, like Corey Dillon, Carson Palmer, Andrew Whitworth, Jessie Bates III, and now, Tee Higgins and potentially even Ja’Marr Chase?
But, if you’ve been a Bengals fan long enough, you probably know that the front office is going nowhere. A coaching move likely won’t solve anything, but it’s worth a try. Taylor came close to solving the Bengals question. There’s no shame in losing to Sean McVay and the Rams or Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. He nearly did what many thought was outright impossible. That time, though, is past. His part in Joe Burrow’s career is/should be finished.
There are better options out there, although they all sound like fairytales. Bill Belichick and Joe Burrow sounds about as sweet as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. For all those who’ve been sobbing at Taylor’s play calling over the years, how sweet does Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson sound? If badass is more your thing, Mike Vrabel and Brian Flores are out there too. There’s a very high chance of failure. It could be a lost cause. But honestly, the only guarantee is that the Bengals can’t be successful under Zac Taylor anymore. It’s time to pull the plug.
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