Bengals Must Face Harsh Reality Regarding Zac Taylor's Future in Cincinnati
CINCINNATI — Sunday's loss to the Dolphins should be the end of the line for Zac Taylor.
The second-year head coach is 4-23-1 since the Bengals hired him on Feb. 4, 2019.
It isn't just his overall record or a lack of a road win in 15 tries (0-14-1). It isn't the communication and culture issues that AllBengals insider Elise Jesse reported last month.
It's everything.
Taylor can't and won't rebound from this. Bringing him back for a third season would just delay the inevitable.
Some think reshuffling the deck could give Taylor the help he needs to succeed. They believe moving on from defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo and/or offensive line coach Jim Turner could reverse the Bengals' fortunes.
The Jets fired Gregg Williams on Monday. Does anyone think Adam Gase deserves a third season in New York with a different defensive coordinator?
Gase is 7-21 in two seasons with the Jets. No one in New York thinks their problems are fixed with Williams gone. Moving on from Gase appears inevitable, even though he has three more wins than Taylor over the past two seasons.
The Bengals will be underdogs in all four of their remaining games. They'll likely finish 2-13-1 this year.
That would make Taylor responsible for two of the three two-win seasons in franchise history. The Bengals finished 2-14 under him last season and 2-14 in 2002.
This team is one Joe Mixon comment about flipping burgers away from being the Bengals of the 1990s.
It's not all Taylor's fault, but that doesn't matter. There are only 32 NFL head coaching jobs for a reason. They're hard to get and even harder to keep.
What has Taylor done to show fans, the Bengals organization or the rest of the NFL that he's the right guy for the job?
Joe Judge has more wins than him with a bad Giants roster. His team went into Seattle and beat Russell Wilson and the Seahawks on Sunday with Colt McCoy at quarterback.
Brian Flores and the Dolphins are in the playoff hunt. He's won 13 of his last 21 games in Miami. Taylor has won four over that same span.
Good coaches find ways to win. They get the most out of their players. They maximize the talent they have, even if they're outclassed by their opponents.
Has Taylor done that with anyone on this roster?
He was hired for his expertise on offense. They've scored 17 points in their last 10 quarters. They didn't score in the final three quarters of Sunday's game against the Dolphins and had 25 yards of offense in the second half.
"Preparing for them, we saw a lot of zero [coverage], a lot of man [coverage], a lot of [cover] one," rookie wide receiver Tee Higgins said. "Towards the end of the game, they started playing Cover 2 and we didn’t think they were going to ever do that. They showed it and I just think we weren’t ready for it."
How could an offensive expert like Taylor not have his team ready to face a cover two defense? Higgins probably didn't mean to rip his head coach, but there's no reason why the Bengals shouldn't have been prepared to face a cover two defense.
Freddie Kitchens is the worst head coach I've ever seen. I got a first-hand look at his ineptitude in Cleveland last year.
Taylor isn't on that level, but he's much closer to Kitchens than he is to Flores or Judge.
Most fans shot down the idea of hiring Hue Jackson to replace Marvin Lewis in 2018 due to his 3-36-1 record with the Browns. Taylor's 4-23-1 record with significantly more talent is just as damning.
The Bengals have an opportunity to turn a corner and avoid becoming the laughing stock of the league, which is exactly what they were in the 90s.
They have a star in Joe Burrow. They have cap space and plenty of high draft picks.
It's time for them to look in the mirror and be honest with themselves about the "Zac Taylor experiment."
It didn't work. It's over.
The Bengals should move on from Taylor. They need to cut their losses and find the right person to lead this franchise into the next decade.
Swapping out a few assistants won't fix things. It would simply delay the inevitable.
Hope is not a plan.
Hanging onto Taylor and hoping he can turn things around is what a losing franchise would do. It's what the Bengals of the 90s would do. It's something this organization cannot do.
It's up to Bengals President Mike Brown to make the right decision for Burrow, for the city and for the future of the franchise.
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