Tag: zac taylor

Everything Zac Taylor said about going back to Andy Dalton over Ryan Finley

Zac Taylor talked at length about the decision to go back to Andy Dalton.

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Zac Taylor shocked the NFL world Monday by announcing Andy Dalton would once again be the starting quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals, pushing aside rookie Ryan Finley.

Finley got to start three games. He struggled, but everything from Taylor and the coaching staff prior to Monday had reinforced the idea the rookie would be the starter the rest of the way.

Taylor met with the media and kept the explanation for the move simple: “Yeah, we just want to win. That veteran presence he has will certainly be helpful through all the things we’ve been experiencing so far on offense.”

Taylor wouldn’t commit to whether Dalton would finish the season and also said he’s not thinking about how it impacts things like the upcoming draft.

On his relationship with Dalton, Taylor offered the following:

“Andy and I have had many, many, many conversations since all that happened, before and after. We’ve been on the same page. Andy has handled it as well as you could hope any veteran would.”

Perhaps most interesting was Taylor commenting on whether this move had anything to do with possibly losing his locker room:

“The team has understood everything we’ve done up to this point. I always have an open door for those guys to come up and talk. There have been times throughout the season where players have felt like they needed to, they have, and they know that I’m going to be open with them. I feel like we’re in a good place with the locker room, and we have been throughout the whole season.”

After briefly attempting to evaluate Finley to get a better idea of the offseason plan — as well as looking for a spark — Taylor and his staff now have a focus on wins.

As Taylor pointed out during his chat Monday though, so many moving pieces have made it hard for either quarterback to excel. Dalton’s second chance this year starts with a visit from the New York Jets on Sunday.

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Could Zac Taylor’s staff be one-and-done?

Could the Bengals fire Zac Taylor and his staff after one season?

There seems to be an overwhelming thought among Cincinnati Bengals fans that head coach Zac Taylor is largely immune to whatever happens on the field this season.

Some evidence certainly points in that direction. The team just does things differently. Even Dave Shula got five years. It goes on and on.

But is Taylor exempt from a hot seat?

If the Bengals were to fire Taylor and his staff this offseason and start over again it would hardly be the first time a staff has gone one-and-done.

Just last year, the Arizona Cardinals fired a miserable staff that couldn’t get much out of a rookie quarterback, let alone an MVP-caliber talent like David Johnson. The front office then gambled on Kliff Kingsbury and took Kyler Murray first overall. The record isn’t great (3-7-1), but there is big hope for the future because the coach-quarterback tandem is dynamite.

Bengals brass has to at least consider making a similar change. Taylor is 0-11. It’s the worst start in team history. He was initially brought on not to rebuild, but to attempt contention. Or at least, that’s what the Bengals sold fans in an effort to keep folks coming to the stadium.

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And it isn’t just the record. There isn’t an overwhelming quantifiable thing Taylor and his staff have done to show improvement. The defense can’t stop anyone. Taylor’s offense is a mess that just went two of 12 on third downs. He benched Andy Dalton and in his third game, rookie Ryan Finely just coughed up two fumbles while completing 12 of his 26 passes.

Some of Taylor’s hires that looked questionable haven’t stood up. The inexperiened tag chased offensive coordinator Brian Callahan and he shares the offensive blame with Taylor. Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo’s unit is still good for big allowances, poor gap management and missed tackles. Offensive line coach Jim Turner has the Cordy Glenn controversy overshadowing bad play by the unit all year.

None of this is to say adversity hasn’t made the job harder. Everyone knows about the injuries. Everybody knew there would be some growing pains. But this staff just lost to a Steelers team without its top two or three players and eventually went to a third-string passer. Can the front office really just shrug off an 0-16 season? 1-15?

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Part of what makes this even a conversation is how the Bengals have changed the status quo over the last few years. The front office has unexpectedly fired a coordinator midseason. It moved on from Marvin Lewis. It has cut players in the middle of contracts to send messages. Things haven’t 100 percent changed — sitting on their hands at the trade deadline so they could keep losing like this was a whiff. But there has been enough unorthodox behavior out of the franchise later (of the good kind!) that one has to think perhaps even Taylor and his staff aren’t safe.

Maybe Taylor and Co. make this a moot point over the next few weeks with wins. But Sunday’s tumble into the franchise-worst start was one of the most winnable games of the season and minus a few miracle plays from guys who deserve better like Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd, the team never really looked close to pulling it off.

Maybe the Bengals do things differently than the rest of the NFL. But one has to think the seat is getting warm.

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Zac Taylor’s debut season is now the worst start in franchise history

The Bengals head coach has surpassed even Dave Shula.

It wasn’t supposed to be this bad.

The Cincinnati Bengals were never going to contend in 2019. There were too many holes on the roster, summer injuries and pending coaching growing pains.

But nobody thought it would be the worst start in Bengals history.

That’s what Zac Taylor secured with Sunday’s 16-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Those Steelers had a bevy of notables inactive and switched to a third-string passer in the middle of the game.

Yet, Taylor’s Andy Dalton replacement, Ryan Finley, completed just 12 passes and fumbled late. The defense coughed up 190 yards on the ground.

After the game, Taylor brushed aside the history his team made.

“It’s just defeating to lose. Period. I don’t really care about the stats or the records. When you’re competitive, and you’ve put everything you’ve got into it, to lose is the worst feeling there is.”

He also shared a brief message for fans:

“Trust me, I understand the frustration. We have to win games and have a good product on the field. I continue to believe in the guys we’ve got and that we’re going to get things turned around and get things headed in a positive direction.”

That’s 10 losses in a row to Pittsburgh, two this season. The Steelers were exploitable but the Bengals remain seemingly rudderless. The defense still has big lapses and the offense can hardly move the ball.

After setting this bit of history and even surpassing Dave Shula’s 0-10 mark, Taylor has an even bigger problem to worry about — 0-16. It’s a legitimate concern and one that isn’t going to just go away.

Over the final five games, the Bengals have to deal with two games against Cleveland, one against the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, and a notable against New England.

The magnitude of an 0-16 season is such that this 0-11, worst-ever Bengals start feels tiny by comparison.

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Zac Taylor isn’t ready to talk going back to Andy Dalton over Ryan Finley

The Bengals head coach won’t talk about benching Ryan Finley for Andy Dalton yet.

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor isn’t ready to declare Ryan Finley benched for Andy Dalton coming out of Sunday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Taylor’s Bengals are 0-11 for the first time in team history and the rookie Finley just put up another putrid performance, completing 12 of his 26 passes for 192 yards while fumbling twice, losing one late at a key moment in the game.

Finley has started three games now after the surprise benching of Dalton. His second start in the loss to Oakland last week saw him complete 13 of 31 attempts for 115 yards with a pick.

In his postgame presser after Sunday’s loss, Taylor made it clear he won’t talk about a change yet, per Laurel Pfahler of WCPO:

This falls in line with what Taylor had said earlier in the week coming out of the Raiders loss. But Finley’s fumbling issues, inaccuracy and the lack of strength behind passes look like problems another five games might not resolve.

If the Bengals don’t want to revert back to Dalton for a handful of obvious reasons, they could also throw rookie Jake Dolegala out there for an evaluation period too.

But for now, Taylor isn’t announcing any sort of change.

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As 0-16 questions begin, Zac Taylor focuses on Steelers week

The Bengal coach isn’t worried about going winless.

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The Cincinnati Bengals are legitimate 0-16 contenders.

Which isn’t to say the team hasn’t shown any growth over the course of the season. And isn’t to say the schedule doesn’t get a little easier.

But the questions popping up now at 0-10 make plenty of sense.

With another date against the Pittsburgh Steelers looming, Taylor can only focus on the now when asked about 0-16, as he told the media:

“No. I don’t even have time to think about that. We don’t want to be 0-11. We want to go get this win. We got on that airplane thinking we were going to go to Oakland and win that game. In the fourth quarter, we thought we were going to win the game. It’s extremely frustrating when you don’t. You put in all that work and feel like, ‘All right, we’re going to go out and get this finally,’ and then you don’t. You need to regroup. You have no choice. You need to keep your head up. We need to get after these guys this week. It’s a tough opponent for us. Our guys are looking to rebound, but we can’t think that far down the road. We just need to focus on this Sunday.”

But this Sunday comes with its usual batch of questions as the Steelers come to town. Pittsburgh owns the series and a new head coach didn’t exactly change that in Week 4 when Cincinnati went down on the road, 27-3.

The recent returns haven’t exactly helped fend off 0-16 talk either. The Bengals came out of the bye and took a 49-13 beating at the hands of Baltimore. A 17-10 loss in Oakland followed in which the passing game could only generate 115 yards on a 3.7 average.

It is going to take some serious help from an opponent for the Bengals to win a game or two. Maybe Pittsburgh’s rash of injuries makes it happen. Two games against Cleveland, one against the Jets and one against Miami could provide an opening.

But slowly, the 0-16 noise continues to build.

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Zac Taylor dismisses idea of going back to Andy Dalton over Ryan Finley

Zac Taylor won’t go back to Andy Dalton.

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Zac Taylor is focused on this week, and according to the Cincinnati Bengals head coach himself, this week is still about Ryan Finley.

The fourth-round rookie playing in place of Andy Dalton has a two-game sample on his resume now and given the results, it has been fair to wonder if the Bengals might go back to the veteran.

Monday, Taylor shot the idea down while talking with the media: “Ryan is our starter this week against Pittsburgh, and I have a hard time looking beyond that. He’s going to give us an opportunity to win this week.”

Later, he noted the growing pains weren’t unexpected:

“…I see enough really encouraging things from him, whether it’s his preparation over the course of the week, how he’s practicing, the difference between week two to week one, in a lot of those areas. You can see his confidence starting to grow. Now he’s playing difference styles of defenses each week.”

From the beginning, it always sounded like Finley was going to get a full eight games to show what he can do.

But two games into the switch, it is only understandable that questions have come up. Finley completed 13 of 31 attempts in Oakland and now sits on a 47.5 completion percentage with one touchdown and two interceptions over two games.

For now, Taylor sounds like he’s taking this on a game-by-game basis. A Pittsburgh defense awaits next weekend.

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Zac Taylor matches Dave Shula for worst start to season in Bengals history

Zac Taylor now holds some dubious Bengals history alongside Dave Shula.

The debut season has fully gone off the rails.

Zac Taylor arrived in Cincinnati as an inexperienced coach inheriting a somewhat talented roster, the plan to avoid a full-blown rebuild.

But the rebuild simply won’t be denied.

With the Bengals’ 17-10 loss to the Oakland Raiders on Sunday, Taylor has tied the worst start to a season in franchise history at 0-10. The only other coach to hold this mark is Dave Shula, who finished his tenure in the Queen City with a 19-52 record.

While the problems didn’t start with Taylor — the Bengals have now lost 12 in a row dating back to last season — he’s in trouble.

Fittingly, Taylor’s chance to avoid setting a dubious record comes in Week 12 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. But his first stab at taking down the team’s most sworn of rivals was a 27-3 stinker.

Also somewhat fittingly, it was Taylor’s offense that didn’t hold up its end of the bargain in Oakland.

Taylor’s defense did just fine, holding the Raiders to 17 points and less than 400 total yards despite more than 35 minutes of possession. There were problems, but it was overall the best defensive performance of the season.

Taylor’s offense, not so much. New starter Ryan Finley completed 13 of 31 attempts for 115 yards. He fumbled early and threw an interception to seal the game late. The ground game gained 7.9 yards per carry … but only ran it 22 times. As a whole, the offense sputtered to 246 total yards and a 3 of 13 mark on third down.

It isn’t all on Taylor. Injuries have ravaged the roster. The front office isn’t exactly helping in that department. He’s having to speak for an absent front office atop everything else.

But if asked to dial up what an overwhelmed first-year coach might do if he’s struggling, this is it. Taylor’s playcalling isn’t good. His talent usage — which included just three targets for Tyler Boyd in a game decided by seven points, to name one example — is questionable. At some point one would think it could trend in a positive direction. Even Miami is winning games.

These Bengals aren’t. And while Taylor might unfathomably steer an incredible long-term turnaround over the next few years, he’s fittingly right next to Shula so far in the early stages of his tenure in Cincinnati.

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Can Zac Taylor avoid a Dave Shula 0-10 start?

Can Zac Taylor stay away from Dave Shula’s Bengals mark?

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor sits on the cusp of dubious team history.

At 0-9, he risks matching Dave Shula’s putrid 0-10 start in 1993. The only chance at avoiding such a fate now rests on the results of a west coast trip to face the Oakland Raiders.

The outlook is bleak. Taylor’s side just came out of a bye and got dropped by Baltimore, 49-13. A.J. Green isn’t any closer to coming back. Unexpected names like Geno Atkins are now on the injury report. The roadtrip will be rookie Ryan Finley’s second NFL start. The front office cut linebacker Preston Brown but hasn’t made a corresponding move.

Taylor has said this is the toughest stretch the Bengals will face over the next 20 years. He isn’t far off.

But the questions surrounding the team change in complexity if he can’t avoid an 0-10 start. Taylor forever slotting himself next to Shula might be a stench he can’t ever remove.

Shula went 19-52 as a head coach over five years in Cincinnati as a key component of the lost decade. In 1993, his Bengals started 0-10 before finally getting a win on November 28 in a 16-10 stinker over the Los Angeles Raiders.

Under Shula’s command, the Bengals won five, three, three and seven games before the transitional year in 1996.

Shula’s 0-10 start morphed into winning three of six to close the year. Marvin Lewis’ terrible 2010 team lost 10 in a row in the middle of the schedule to finish 4-12. Feel free to throw in the dreadful Dick LeBeau-led 2002 campaign, a 2-14 effort with losing streaks of seven and six games in the same season.

Fair or not, Taylor’s 2019 campaign and debut as an NFL head coach now tracks dangerously close to these historically bad teams. It isn’t fully his fault, but the team is currently riding an 11-game skid from last year that ties a team record.

In Oakland, Taylor risks cementing a new losing streak record and joining the 0-10 club.

It’s easy to fall back on the claim Taylor is guaranteed another year or two to build the roster in his vision. But as the team keeps inching toward a one or two win total at max, it’s safe to wonder if Taylor and his staff will make it through the offseason.

After all, the last thing the Bengals can afford to do is slip fully into 90s mode, where stretches of six, seven, eight and sometimes even 10 straight losses in a row weren’t all that uncommon.

Draft positioning is important, but a win in Oakland might be even moreso.

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Zac Taylor says Bengals facing toughest stretch of next 20 years

The head coach didn’t hold back when asked about the reality of his team’s situation.

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Zac Taylor isn’t exactly pulling punches when talking about his team publicly.

The Cincinnati Bengals head coach said one of his linebackers needed to step up and be a leader. A day later, the Bengals cut Preston Brown.

Asked about the overall trajectory of this 0-9 campaign coming off a 49-13 loss, Taylor was blunt. The comments are eyebrow-raising.

Here’s what he told the media:

“This league is hard. It’s very unforgiving sometimes, and we’re facing that right now. What we do know is that this is the toughest stretch we’re going to go through in our next 20 years here. This is going to be the toughest one. We find out a lot about the character of the people in this building and what the approach is going to be so we can look back on this and say that it made us stronger, because we faced the hardest it was ever going to be — the most adversity we ever face. These people stuck through it and did it the right way, and we’ll build on that. There’ll be a time — I can’t wait to look back on it — and say, ‘Remember when all that stuff happened?’ You guys will laugh with me, I promise (laughter). We’ll get there.”

Bengals fans have been through a lot, which is putting it nicely. The 1990s were a brutal stretch too, and this sure reeks of familiarity. This is as nice as Taylor can be while sticking to his guns about the long-term build here, with this terrible stretch serving as the foundation for a culture overhaul.

By all accounts, Taylor has been the voice of the organization as a whole just as coaches before him were. The front office won’t say anything. Judging by this, it sure sounds like Taylor isn’t in any job danger regardless of season results.

And if Taylor comes out of the other side of this and indeed can look back and smile, Bengals fans won’t complain too much. But in the heat of the moment, it’s understandable if fans shrug the talk off.

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Zac Taylor issues challenge to LBs, asks one to step up and lead

The Bengals head coach issued a challenge to one of his biggest problem areas.

There aren’t many applicable words to describe Cincinnati Bengals linebackers right now.

Most land in the “horrendous” category and only get nastier from there. The Bengals have searched for an answer all year to this problem to no avail, the most recent catastrophe a 49-13 loss to Baltimore where Lamar Jackson put up some highlights fans will see for the rest of their lives while running for 65 yards and a score on a 9.3 average.

And it sounds like Taylor has seen enough. He told the media the following:

“One area where we need to step up is at linebacker. Someone needs to step up and be a leader there. We’ve been waiting on that and shuffling the lineup around waiting on someone to step up and be consistent and be a leader in that room. We’re still waiting on that.

He added some more potent thoughts later:

“That’s the challenge for those guys in that room right now. From the consistency, you can become a leader. It’s not one or the other. You can’t say things and then not do them. You need to be able to do them, and then guys will respect that and follow you. We just need some consistency from those guys at that position.”

This is a “yikes” for the players in that room but there isn’t much else Taylor can do. Besides the addition of LaRoy Reynolds, who has played minimally, the front office isn’t exactly ushering new talent in the door to help.

In the loss to the Ravens, Taylor even tried to give different faces a chance to step up. Rookie Germaine Pratt got 49 percent of the snaps while Preston Brown saw just 36 percent. The results speak for themselves. Taylor specifically talked about linebackers being the reason for some of the game’s biggest plays thanks to poor positioning and effort.

When specifically talking about the linebackers, some might make the suggestion this is a Lamar Jackson thing. But the struggles have been a constant all year but given something of a pass thanks to the blatant problems for the offensive line.

It is hard to say what happens next if the unit doesn’t respond, but one would think some of this will reflect on coordinator Lou Anarumo, too.

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