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:
Taylor said if rookies had just three games to be evaluated there wouldn’t be a lot of players left in the league.
— Laurel Pfahler (@LaurelPfahler) November 24, 2019
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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