SI

Rex Ryan Clowns Zac Taylor for Complaining About Myles Garrett Record Celebration

The Bengals' coach wasn't a fan of stopping the game to celebrate Myles Garrett's sack record.

Kyle Koster

Rex Ryan had some advice for Bengals coach Zac Taylor.
Rex Ryan had some advice for Bengals coach Zac Taylor. / Get Up on X
In this story:

The Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals played their Week 18 matchup as scheduled on Sunday despite both teams seeing their postseason hopes vanish a long, long time ago. Browns pass rusher extraordinaire Myles Garrett took the opportunity of playing one more game to get the sack he needed to become the all-time single-season record holder. Unfortunately for the Bengals that came late in the fourth quarter as they were trying to mount a comeback. Which presented an awkward moment as coach Zac Taylor tried to keep his offense going uptempo as officials stopped the game so everyone could mark the history-making play.

Afterward, Taylor had some choice commentary about the officials' decision.

“There’s five minutes left in our season," he said. "We’re playing for our lives here, and I was never told that we’re gonna stop the game in a critical moment like that,” Taylor said. “The refs just said that they made a decision that they were gonna stop the game. They said they tried to do it as quickly as possible. I didn’t feel that. We didn’t sub. We’re trying to be on the ball and go and play with tempo, and the umpire just held the ball so that we couldn’t do anything.”

That lament did not land on sympathetic ears when it made its way to the Get Up studio. Rex Ryan, in fact, used the opportunity to clown on the commentary.

"You're fighting for you lives?" Ryan asked. "Your lives have been over for the last 10 weeks. Worry about your defense. Come on."

"Give me an absolute break," Ryan continued. "We've seen them stop games for Walter Payton when he broke the rush record, Emmett Smith, any of them."

Ryan concluded that Garrett deserved his moment, which is true. It's nice to see there be some in-the-moment appreciation for accomplishing something that's never been accomplished. But it's also funny to have the approach that only good teams are allowed to lodge complaints. Taylor was fighting for his life and the organization announcing they're going to stay with him proves it. And he's only going to come back more focused on exacting revenge against a division opponent for briefly delaying a last-ditch drive. Gotta see the whole picture.

More NFL on Sports Illustrated

FREE NEWSLETTER. SI BTN Newsletter. Start off your day with SI:CYMI. dark

feed

Published
Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

Home/NFL