LOS ANGELES –– With seven seconds left in Week 16 of the 2019 season, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd was crawling down on the field and struggling to get back to his feet.
The Bengals were trailing the Miami Dolphins by eight points, but former Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton was leading a game-tying drive. Boyd, who finished that game with nine catches for 128 yards, was injured on one of the final plays of regulation, but he hobbled to the line of scrimmage to avoid a 10-second runoff that would have ended the game.
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For head coach Zac Taylor, the 2019 season was about identifying which pieces he could rely on when the Bengals were ready for the big stage. On a roster that couldn’t win more than two games, the Bengals were looking for a few long term pieces who could fit Taylor’s explosive offense and also set the tone he was looking for in the locker room.
Taylor’s first Bengals team gave 1,605 combined snaps to Auden Tate, Alex Erickson, Damion Willis and Stanley Morgan Jr. as wide receivers playing starting roles. Out of necessity, the Bengals needed to use a two-tight end system that went against what Taylor’s ideal offense looked like.
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Bobby Hart, Cordy Glenn and Andre Smith were the offensive tackles. John Miller, Michael Jordan, John Jerry and Alex Redmond played offensive guard.
Three years later, most of those players are out of the NFL. The Bengals completely rebuilt an offense with a vision of pairing concepts from Joe Burrow’s LSU offense with concepts from the Los Angeles Rams offense.
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Here’s how the Bengals Super Bowl offense was built.
2019 Bengals: A few core pieces
Before Taylor even coached a game in Cincinnati, he identified tight end C.J. Uzomah, Boyd and left tackle Jonah Williams as the first players he wanted to build an offense around.
Uzomah had always flown under the radar in a crowded tight end room, but Taylor was the first coach who made him the Bengals starting tight end. Before the season, the Bengals gave Uzomah a three-year deal worth $18 million.
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His athletic style, versatility in the run game and strong hands as a receiving threat immediately made an impact on the new coaching staff. Uzomah replaced Tyler Eifert as the dynamic receiving threat over the middle of the field who can take advantage of matchups against slower linebackers and smaller safeties.
Boyd, who had 1,028 receiving yards in 2018, was the next move. He signed a contract extension at the start of training camp in 2019, and this was the first sign of how greatly the Bengals would value the wide receiver position.
At the time, the Bengals had A.J. Green, former first round pick John Ross III and the reliable Auden Tate under contract. By extending Boyd, the Bengals showed that they were willing to allocate more resources to the wide receiver position than most teams.
By the start of the 2020 season, the Bengals were spending $30.9 million on wide receivers, which was the third-most in the league.
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The Bengals extended Boyd one year before they contractually needed to because he was a perfect fit for Taylor’s offense. Even though he was overshadowed by Green at the time, Boyd had the separation skills and the athleticism to run a wide variety of routes.
In 2019, the Bengals also found their left tackle and center of the future. Taylor’s first draft pick was Williams, and Williams was on track to be the Week 1 starter before a season-ending injury. In the pre-draft process, Williams stressed his athletic playing style and his meticulous preparation, which were the exact skills the Bengals were looking for in a tackle.
Center Trey Hopkins beat out former first round pick Billy Price in the training camp battle at center. Hopkins bounced between being a backup and a starter in 2017 and 2018. As a full-time starter in 2019, Hopkins earned a three-year contract extension.
Taylor has called him “the guy that makes things go mentally,” and Hopkins’ quick feet in have created space in the middle of the pocket.
2020 Bengals: Locking up three stars
Leading up to the 2020 NFL Draft, there was never a moment when it didn’t look like Burrow would be the Bengals top pick. The Bengals signed free agents that offseason who were looking forward to playing with Burrow, and Burrow spent a lot of the pre-draft process with Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard.
Aside from the quarterback, the Bengals added two of the most important pieces in making Burrow’s success possible.
In the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan said he had anticipated that the Bengals would add another receiver. Even though there were offensive linemen and linebackers on the board and even though the Bengals already had Boyd and Green, the Bengals saw wide receiver Tee Higgins as a potential No. 1 receiver.
Taylor has a saying that it’s harder than you’d expect to find receivers who are physical and can consistently catch the ball. Those skills, plus Higgins’ championship experience and leadership at Clemson, separated Higgins from other second-round receivers like Denzel Mims, Laviska Shenault and Michael Pittman.
The final piece of the 2020 offseason was extending running back Joe Mixon. It was a pivot point for Taylor’s vision for the offense.
Taylor believed so strongly in Mixon’s potential that he eventually redesigned the entire run game around Mixon’s strengths. This season, Mixon is having a career-year due to his cutting skills, his opportunity to play in a wide-zone offense and his significant strides as a receiving threat.
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Even though the Bengals offense starts with their passing game, Taylor believed in the value of the run game. Mixon rewarded that faith this season by wearing down defensive linemen, creating more chances for the deep-passing game and closing games by getting first downs down the stretch.
2021 Bengals: A franchise defining choice
The theme of Taylor’s tenure with the Bengals has been adding wide receivers when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. When the Bengals added Boyd and Higgins in 2019 and 2020, they had greater needs on the roster, but made adding a wide receiver the greatest priority.
The clearest example of this vision was drafting wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase over offensive tackle Penei Sewell in the 2021 NFL Draft. If that decision didn’t pay off and turn the Bengals into one of the most dynamic offenses in the NFL, then none of the Bengals success this season would have taken place.
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Taylor and the Bengals front office identified Chase as a deep threat, a dynamic route runner and a receiver who can create yards after the catch. Those skills brought more to the offense than any lineman could have.
The Bengals made a few other moves during the 2021 offseason to fill in the gaps. They made an all-out recruiting push for right tackle Riley Reiff with a dinner hosted by Taylor and Burrow.
Reiff has been out since December with an ankle injury, but the Bengals filled his spot with Isaiah Prince. He joined the team down the stretch as a waiver claim in December, 2019, and opted out in 2020, so he was an unknown entering this year’s training camp.
During camp, Prince was the most consistent backup offensive lineman in one-on-one pass rush drills versus the defensive line. He outplayed offensive tackle Fred Johnson, and Prince grew from a training camp depth piece into the first offensive tackle off the bench.
Left guard Quinton Spain, who initially joined the Bengals as a practice squad free agent in the middle of the 2020 season, was the other notable free agent the Bengals added to the offensive line. He played well enough down the stretch of last season to earn a starting opportunity somewhere in the NFL this year.
After the 2020 season ended, Spain wasn’t even interested in hitting the free agent market. He approached the Bengals coaches and told them how badly he wanted to return for the 2021 season.
“I don’t care what they offer me or whatever,” Spain said about the process.
He returned on a one-year deal that was well below market value for a starting offensive guard. Spain wasn’t promised a starting spot either, and he had to beat out Jackson Carman and Xavier Su’a-Filo for the left guard position.
Spain won the job in training camp, solidifying the final starting spot on the Bengals 53-man roster.
"You’ve got to love ball,” Taylor said. “That's the most important thing you want guys (who love football) because it's a grind … We had a draft class where almost every guy was a captain on their college team. So I think those are just indicators of the process that we go through, and we ended up finding the guys we want.”
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