When Zac Taylor was the quarterbacks coach with the Los Angeles Rams in 2018, he’d sit in his office and listen to the press conferences of other head coaches.
Taylor took notes about what questions these head coaches were asked and how they answered them. He studied how other head coaches handled the adverse situations they faced during the season. He saw it as another step in his preparation to become a head coach in the future.
“I wasn’t in those situations, so I wanted to learn how they handled the questions that went their way,” Taylor said. “But the other day, I was sitting in my office thinking I don’t do that anymore. Now I’ve experienced it.”
Over the course of this season, Taylor has mentioned where he was as a head coach in 2019, his first year with the Cincinnati Bengals. In 2019, he could have used his timeouts differently in a Week 1 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. In Week 4 of that season in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Taylor could have made a different decision on a play call that ended with a strip sack by the Steelers.
“You’re consistently looking to evolve and manufacture experiences you can’t possibly experience,” Taylor said. “In life, you’ve only experienced a certain amount of things. You try to pull from everything you can.”
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Taylor was still a young coach then, reflecting on experiences that he had seen other head coaches have. Three years later, Taylor has managed a quarterback change with Andy Dalton, a trade demand by Carlos Dunlap and a devastating injury to Joe Burrow. Taylor has dealt with hundreds of red zone situations, dozens of field goal decisions and thousands of play calls.
“Each year feels like 10 years in what you learn,” Taylor said. “You do look back on my first year and the challenges that you go through, it’s like the first year of any job. Quickly, you have to learn. It’s not different from any profession.”
Now, Taylor has the Bengals at 7-4 following Sunday’s 41-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Cincinnati is in the playoff picture. Burrow has become a top-10 quarterback in the NFL, the Bengals have created a balanced offense and they blew out the Baltimore Ravens and the Steelers. Taylor reinvented an inconsistent offense and built a team that’s strong enough to compete in the AFC North.
In 2021, the Bengals are becoming the team Taylor promised when he took the job.
“We’ve got great players, our coaching staff has tremendous cohesion right now and (we have) chemistry,” Taylor said. “There’s just so much belief back and forth between the players and coaches that this is the type of thing we’re capable of.”
It was only four months ago, in July, that Bengals owner Mike Brown stressed the urgency for Taylor to win in 2021. During Taylor’s first two seasons, the Bengals 6-25-1 record followed him. Brown called the Bengals “(Taylor’s) team,” but he also said that Taylor had to “go out on the field and prove” what the Bengals could do with him as the head coach.
At the time, the over-under for the Bengals season was 6.5 wins. With Sunday’s win over the Steelers, the Bengals hit the over on Thanksgiving weekend.
“I’d like to think we’re allowed to improve as coaches over time,” Taylor said. “I think we have done that, and I also think our players have. You (can) look at year three in the system and just the confidence and how different it is.”
The Bengals wins over the last two weeks against the Las Vegas Raiders and the Steelers have been two of the most impressive wins of Taylor’s career. Against the Raiders defense in Week 11, Taylor identified the Bengals run game as the best path to victory. Even after the run game struggled early on, Taylor stuck with the run and set up a 12-play, 62-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter that could wind up as the turning point for the entire season.
In Sunday’s win over the Steelers, the Bengals offense was unstoppable. Burrow had the most efficient game of his career, completing 83% of his passes. Running back Joe Mixon set a career high with 165 rushing yards.
“Our preparation all week, and the last two weeks, has been great,” Burrow said. “I knew exactly what I was seeing. Zac called a great game, put me in good positions to make completions.”
“What we have is special,” Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson said. “That’s what we’ve been planning on doing since I walked in the door.”
The Bengals win over the Steelers was a tour-de-force for how much has changed in Cincinnati.
Between 2004 and 2020, the Steelers had the edge in the rivalry with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and head coaches Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin. In 2021, the Bengals have their quarterback and their coach in Burrow and Taylor.
“We’ve got great players, our coaching staff has tremendous cohesion right now and chemistry, and there’s just so much belief back and forth between the players and coaches,” Taylor said. “This is the type of thing we’re capable of.”
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