How the Cincinnati Bengals will respond to what has been a lost season despite an MVP-like showing from Joe Burrow could say much about the organization’s future.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is right at the center of such a response, of course.
According to Fox Sports’ Jordan Schultz, though, the Zac Taylor hot seat watch can slow down — there’s a feeling within the building in Cincinnati that the issues started up at the top.
“One thing about Zac Taylor is that he’s extremely well-liked,” Schultz told Colin Cowherd, “by the people and players that matter in that building. That helps him a lot. What also helps him is the fact that ownership did not give the Bengals the right opportunity to begin this season. They could have paid Trey Hendrickson, but they didn’t. They tagged Tee Higgins. Most importantly, they got to the goal line, the one-yard line with Ja’Marr Chase.”
Well-versed Bengals fans already knew these points. Failing to do a long-term deal with Higgins was expected. Now it seems to be going the other way already because of the failed season.
What wasn’t expected was botching a golden opportunity to get Chase’s big-money extension out of the way. Now the price goes up and they’ll suffer elsewhere on the roster because of it.
Tack on compounding losses of Jessie Bates, DJ Reader and others, plus a miserable track record in recent drafts (first-rounders Myles Murphy and Dax Hill can’t get on the field or have made position changes, etc.) and the miscues to get here have been immense.
What matters now is if this is just chatter or actually spurs organizational change. To their credit, the Bengals have done a good job of modernizing in many ways during the Burrow era.
Whether that next happens to the drafting process and how they pay players while constructing the roster will decide whether the contention window has slammed shut and they have another disgruntled franchise passer or if this was just merely a one-off whoops our bad season.
Either way, it sounds like Zac Taylor is safe.
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