Zac Taylor Drives Home Bengals' Best Route To Contending Again Entering 2026 Offseason

CINCINNATI — Bengals head coach Zac Taylor held his first media session of the 2026 offseason Monday, driving home a message that "growth" is the team's clearest path to contending like it did earlier this decade.

The Bengals just went 6-11 and are leaning on continuity (on the field and upstairs) to get there. Dalton Risner is the Bengals' only offensive starter pending as a free agent, while the defense is young and ripe to have resources pumped into it.

Taylor is not making any changes to his staff that he can control. Al Golden will get a second season to cement his tactics into the biggest weak point from the last four months.

"We have to just continue to grow," Taylor said on Monday. "I think that if you look at just our season this year, the last thing I left with our team is just the turnover differential, where we lost games we weren't good enough on either side of the ball, and that was taking the ball away from teams in the games we lost.

"That was scoring points for the other team on our offense, and we've given up nine touchdowns on offense this year. So there are things as simple as that. If you look at some of these one-score games where we just, we didn't do enough, just possessing the ball and taking the ball away to win the game, and it was as simple as that."

Cincinnati's defense ended up climbing from historic lows to be the 30th scoring unit in the league by season's end.

Getting that group to match the highs of the offense, while continuing to force turnovers, is imperative (21 TOs forced, 11th in NFL).

"I think everybody who exited the building today feels that players, coaches, everybody involved with this thing, and that this season was a disappointment," Taylor declared. "It didn't go the way we wanted. But I'm already re energized to get working on 2026 and get back to work, doesn't mean I won't take a couple days, but I just feel like with the energy of this group and the talent we have and the progress a lot of these guys made we've got a chance to be back in conversation of where we belong."

The offseason is here in full force, and the Bengals have clear markers for that aforementioned growth, coaching continuity, a franchise quarterback, and clear top-10 salary cap resources to fill the roster holes.

Having the ability and executing are different, but they've shown growth in different ways recently, and a championship path probably won't clear up without more.

Director of Player Personnel Duke Tobin is speaking on Friday at 1 p.m. ET.

For more on the Bengals, subscribe to our YouTube Channel and watch the video below as part of our in-depth coverage of the team. Prefer to listen? Check out Cincinnati Bengals Talk on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon Podcasts.

Make sure you bookmark BengalsTalk.com for the latest Bengals news, exclusive interviews, insight, film breakdowns and so much more!

Also, check out the podcast, Locked On Bengals, wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple: bit.ly/BengalsApple

Spotify: bit.ly/BengalsSpotify

YouTube: bit.ly/LOBengalsYouTube

-----

Follow us on X: @BengalsTalkSI

Like Our Facebook Page

Follow on TikTok