Tag: zac taylor

What Joe Burrow, Zac Taylor said about Jermaine Burton before Week 9

What key members of the Bengals had to say about rookie Jermaine Burton.

Cincinnati Bengals fans really, really want to see more of rookie Jermaine Burton in Joe Burrow’s offense.

But the process has been a slow burn for the hyped rookie, even with Tee Higgins in and out of the lineup with injuries.

Burton started his pro journey off on the wrong foot, per reports, then rebounded in a big way.

This past weekend during the loss to Philadelphia, Burton linked up with Burrow on another bomb down the field, spurring the latest call from fans.

“It was nice to see Jermaine make a play,” Burrow said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “I think Jermaine is going to be a good player. He continues to get open, and we’re going to continue that dialogue that quarterbacks and receivers have to have.”

Whatever the real behind-the-scenes reason for Burton’s slow burn, it does seem to vibe that he’s on his way to earning more playing time.

“Continue to find roles for him,” head coach Zac Taylor said, per Hobson. “I thought he did a nice job on some things where he got the ball directed towards him, and some that didn’t even that were completions elsewhere. And so, continue to find ways to progress him along.”

Given the struggles of Andrei Iosivas as the third option, there’s certainly room for Burton to get more chances on the field. Whether that happens, at least partially, will hinge on whether Higgins is available, too.

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Bengals’ Zac Taylor dismisses questions about NFL trade deadline

Bengals fans know what to expect when it comes to questions about trades.

The Cincinnati Bengals and head coach Zac Taylor has come under major fire after the team’s embarrassing loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 8.

Part of the frustration, at least from the perspective of fans, is the understanding that the team isn’t likely to use the upcoming NFL trade deadline to help the team.

Speaking with reporters on Monday, Taylor all but confirmed that when asked about the topic, effectively saying that the current roster is what they have and that further questions should go to director of player personnel Duke Tobin.

Tobin and those at the controls, of course, only face the public roughly once a year around the scouting combine and draft, if that.

While it’s understandable that Taylor would respond in such a way, it’s equally as understandable that fans would be mad with the answer and how the franchise generally runs things.

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Bengals’ Zac Taylor takes blame for game-changing call vs. Eagles

Zac Taylor shares his thoughts on the super-aggressive call in Week 8.

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor veered far off his usually conservative path during the Week 8 blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, and it cost the team dearly.

Down seven points near the fourth quarter, Taylor went for it on a fourth-and-one from his own team’s 39-yard line. The effort failed, the Eagles took over with amazing field position and ran away with the game to the 37-17 final.

After the game, Taylor shouldered all of the blame.

“I felt like we needed to be aggressive there. It didn’t work out, so that’s frustrating,” Taylor said. “I put that on myself. It was a situation where we felt like we needed to be aggressive and get a score on that possession given we were down seven. Anytime it doesn’t go well, obviously, you’ve got to think long and hard about that decision.”

This is one of those things where a coach looks great if it works and even worse if it doesn’t.

The problem here is, it was an odd time to take the risk after just failing on a third-and-short and knowing Taylor’s defense had been struggling.

Taylor can’t really win either way, though. He’s had some infamous moments of crawling into a conservative shell this year. He didn’t here and the fact of the matter is simple — at 3-5, the team’s season is on life support.

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Bengals’ Zac Taylor waiting for NFL response to officiating gaffes vs. Browns

The Bengals and Zac Taylor want some answers.

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor and the team aren’t thrilled with the officiating from Ron Torbert’s crew coming out of the Week 7 win over the Cleveland Browns.

A few examples come to mind that might irk Taylor. But based on his comments to reporters on Monday, the big one is the flag Torbert’s crew actually picked up involving Ja’Marr Chase.

To keep it short and sweet, officials threw a flag on what seemed like pretty clear pass interference by a Browns defender. But officials then picked up the flag, citing the pass as “uncatchable.” Problem is, the defender stopped Chase’s route and the ball only landed five yards in front of the two players.

It was a silly turn of events, hence Taylor telling reporters he’s “waiting to hear” from the league — implying it is one of a likely few plays the Bengals sent to the league office for further explanation. That’s not an uncommon practice for all NFL teams weekly, but this occurrence was pretty out there.

Despite all this, we probably won’t hear about this again. But Taylor and the Bengals are at least right to point out the likely multiple instances of officiating miscues from Sunday.

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Zac Taylor addresses Bengals rookie Jermaine Burton being inactive

The popular Bengals rookie didn’t get a chance to play in Week 6 vs. Giants.

The hype around Cincinnati Bengals rookie receiver Jermaine Burton hit huge heights over the summer, making any and all decisions around him must-see material for fans.

Case in point, Burton’s status as a healthy inactive during the team’s Sunday night win over the New York Giants.

That’s a subject that came up with Bengals head coach Zac Taylor during the postgame press conference.

“Nothing to read into that,” Taylor said. “That was just a week-to-week decision we made based on some other things that could potentially happen just with the game plan stuff. But he’s done a great job. He keeps approaching it the right way. But we’ve got a lot of confidence growing with him. So, that’s just a this week thing. We’ll continue to make those decisions as we go along. There’s nothing to read into.”

No great shock here — Burton hasn’t seen the field in the base offense much since Tee Higgins returned, especially with Andrei Iosvias playing so well. In this particular matchup, Trenton Irwin’s usefulness on special teams gave him the nod on the game-day roster.

While Burton’s wild summer and eventual involvement in the offense with Higgins out during the regular season was notable, there’s little more to read into the situation about right now.

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Bengals’ Zac Taylor says he’s comfortable with OT play-calling

A day later, Zac Taylor says his Bengals offense did the right thing.

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor has heard the criticism of his play calling in overtime during the loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

But on Monday after the loss, Taylor wasn’t really going out and second-guessing the decisions made.

Speaking with reporters, Taylor chalked up the three consecutive runs that led to a missed field goal from 53 yards out as an unfortunate outcome after good decisions.

“I know we can make that kick,” Taylor said. “It didn’t work in our favor.”

Taylor added: “I’m very reflective on things that I can improve on. At the end of the day, the decision for me is we are in comfortable enough field-goal range for Evan and I don’t want to do anything to disrupt that.”

After the game, Taylor suggested that Joe Burrow had checked out of a passing play on first down due to the look the defense gave him.

But in hindsight, running three times in a row, predictably, to settle for a 53-yard attempt on a windy day with a rookie holder doesn’t reflect all that great.

While Burrow also made sure to publicly say he wouldn’t second guess the decisions either, there’s a reason fans are irate with Taylor, and the general vibe is that the Bengals are wasting a borderline MVP effort from Burrow.

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Tee Higgins says what everyone is thinking about Zac Taylor’s OT calls

The Bengals WR was honest about the OT collapse.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow isn’t happy right now coming out of that shocking overtime loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Neither are teammates such as Tee Higgins as head coach Zac Taylor draws the ire of fans.

Higgins was one of many players asked after the game about Taylor’s decision to run the ball three straight times while setting for a field goal attempt of longer than 50 yards in overtime.

While trying to keep it measured and fair, Higgins still said quite a bit.

“Personally, I think we should have gone a little bit more aggressive in the first and second downs just to try to get Evan in better field goal range,” Higgins said, according to Ben Baby of ESPN. “You know he makes those from that deep. I’m not putting it on him at all, you know what I’m saying. So it’s a team effort, we lost as a team, but we could have did a better job at putting him in better field goal range to make it an easier kick.”

Indeed, considering Burrow finished the day with a 30-of-39 mark with 392 yards and five touchdowns against one interception.

While onlookers will bemoan the pick and a few offensive hiccups like sacks, the numbers speak for themselves — against a defense like Baltimore.

And even looking beyond the numbers, the Bengals have one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league and two of the best wide receivers in the game, plus an assortment of other weapons.

Handing the ball off three straight times and not letting Burrow go attempt to win it deserves every bit of criticism it’s receiving, including from players.

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Zac Taylor, Bengals coaches spoiling Joe Burrow’s near-MVP efforts

The Bengals coaches (and the front office) are failing Joe Burrow.

Through five games, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has completed 72.3 percent of his passes for 1,370 yards and 12 touchdowns against two interceptions for what should be MVP buzz.

His Bengals are 1-4.

And for the most part, Zac Taylor and coaches like Lou Anarumo are to blame.

We can talk about players needing to execute. And Duke Tobin and the front office 100 percent deserve some blame for blowing recent drafts (they’ve cut a second-round pick and third-round pick in recent weeks) and just crossing their fingers with hope that guys would magically replace top-shelf talent like Jessie Bates and DJ Reader.

But Sunday was the biggest indictment on Taylor and Anarumo yet.

In overtime, Taylor crawled back into his conservative shell yet again. His quarterback had thrown for five touchdowns, 392 yards and just nine incompletions all day while tearing apart the Ravens. So he took the ball out of Burrow’s hands, ran three straight times and settled for a 53-yard field goal in heavy wind with a rookie punter as the holder.

Were this a one-off mistake, perhaps it would be more excusable. But there are three or more prime examples of Taylor absolutely getting too conservative in key moments, at least one of them during the Super Bowl.

With the difference being 2-3 and alive and 1-4 and dead in the water, Taylor took the ball out of an MVP-worthy player, who is surrounded by perhaps the best-supporting cast of weapons in the league, and jammed it up the middle three times with a jumbo-looking set. Field goal missed, game over.

And Anarumo, frankly, is flirting with Teryl Austin territory for Bengals fans with long memories. Last year he got a pass for the “miscommunication” issues and fans were told that was fixed. Maybe the communication problems have been fixed, but the defense is worse than ever. Things are completely broken when an offense needs to hang 40 for a chance to win.

These numbers about Burrow, from ESPN’s Ben Baby and Sports Illustrated’s Michael Fabiano, stand out:

Burrow shouldn’t need to throw a perfect game with five scores, 38 points, and absolutely not even a single mistake against the Ravens, of all defenses, to get a win.

The Bengals aren’t likely to make a coaching change, of course. But the spotlight now turns to whether Taylor really still has the locker room through this sort of adversity and how the front office might react if he doesn’t, especially if things get worse.

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Bengals’ Zac Taylor speaks on how summer contract drama impacted team

Zac Taylor addresses the contract standoffs and impact on the Bengals.

The Cincinnati Bengals have had to deal with a ton of adversity dating back to last summer.

There have been key injuries, like losing a huge chunk of the defense line. Joe Burrow was slowly working back from his own injury, among other notables.

And then there were those pesky contract standoffs.

Tee Higgins had the standoff over the franchise tag before reporting for camp. Trey Hendrickson, at one point, requested a trade before going full in camp. And Ja’Marr Chase’s big dispute bled into the season itself.

Yet, coming out of his team’s first win of the season, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor has nothing but praise for how his trio of stars handled things.

“I can’t point to that as the reason we’ve lost any of those games. And I couldn’t be happier with how those three guys are handling themselves right now,” Taylor told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. “Honestly, you wouldn’t even know that they had those situations going on because they’ve just kind of gone all in with the team. …

“We’ve got guys that deserve to be paid and want to be paid. But we also got guys that want to win a Super Bowl. I can’t speak for them, but I do know that they know, Hey, if I show up and I work, we got a chance to do some special things. That’s kind of the attitude I see from those guys.”

Normally, this might just fall under the “coach speak” umbrella, sure. But the attendance and performance for all three guys when the games matter has been stellar, for the most part.

So while outside noise like this tends to hit teams when it matters most, the Bengals have endured the hit. Were the slow starts isolated to this season, perhaps we could suggest the contract standoffs were big factors — but slow starts have been one of the most consistent details of the Zac Taylor era and injuries played a big role this year, too.

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Should Bengals coaches be on the hot seat after 0-3 start?

Are we approaching a Teryl Austin situation with the Bengals as coaches go on the hot seat?

The Cincinnati Bengals are now a historic long shot to make the playoffs after the 0-3 start.

That reality, unfortunately, starts some uncomfortable situations, as missing the postseason would mean missing in three of the five years under Zac Taylor. There was the rebuild and later the Super Bowl berth, among other factors, but that’s still the reality.

Staring down a possible 0-4 start, these are the two biggest names in hot-seat conversation, so let’s take a look.

 

Lou Anarumo

Without question, Anarumo should be on the hot seat if his defense turns in one more performance like the historic gaffe on Monday night.

In fact, one of the first names that comes to mind is Teryl Austin when thinking about that showing.

Remember Austin? In 2018, he became the second Bengals coordinator ever fired midseason after a 51-14 loss to New Orleans. The team had coughed up 500-plus yards in three straight games.

Anarumo isn’t there yet, but allowing 38 points without a punt to a rookie passer is bad, bad. If Andy Dalton carves him up next as a member of the hapless Panthers, that storyline angle alone and a drop to 0-4 will demand the team takes action.

There are excuses. The team-building from Duke Tobin has failed Anarumo. A team can’t let an All-Pro like Jessie Bates walk, then whiff on his replacement. And a team shouldn’t let a presence like DJ Reader leave. It especially can’t let Reader leave, then make terrible mistakes half-trying to fill that void. As it stands, Anarumo’s working without Sheldon Rankins and B.J. Hill, plus, for the most part, without the rookies meant to back them up. First-round edge Myles Murphy is on IR, too.

But still, a repeat showing against the Panthers might just sink Anarumo to Austin territory.

 

Zac Taylor

Here’s an interesting question—how much leeway does Taylor get for the Super Bowl appearance?

How many years, exactly, did that buy Taylor from an organization that nearly kept Marvin Lewis around for two decades?

The answer is impossible to say. One would like to think that a supposedly modernized Bengals front office wouldn’t let Taylor come near the decade mark if the team isn’t at least making the playoffs in a stacked AFC.

Frankly, though, it also wouldn’t be a shock if nothing short of a ruined relationship with Joe Burrow himself won’t have Taylor walking out that door.

The dynamics in Cincinnati are complex. The scouting department is small, and it shows. The way the front office handicaps things like major extensions and bleeds talent said scouting then struggles to replace is a problem. Taylor’s struggling in part due to these reasons — and these reasons can mean a possible new name will struggle just as much, if not more.

One thing we can confidently say is that Taylor’s seat won’t actually warm from within the team until after the season. Even dropping to 0-4 won’t move the needle much, barring something catastrophic. It’s hard to imagine the front office has any desire to see Darrin Simmons or Lou Anarumo in his place for half a season to see how the locker room responds, let alone even begin to start thinking about such a major move until the offseason.

That said, again, falling 0-4 — at the hands of Dalton, the last franchise passer — could possibly end the Taylor era, sure, in spirit.

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