The noise around Zac Taylor got louder this week. A day after Stephen A. Smith called for a coaching change in Cincinnati, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler wrote Wednesday that the Bengals’ head coach is “one back-pocket name” to watch among coaches whose seats could warm up.
“Cincinnati is 26-29 since that impressive two-year playoff run in 2021-22, despite having one of the league’s best quarterbacks,” Fowler wrote. “The Bengals don’t like to pay coaches not to coach, but Taylor’s deal expires after next year. Progress would be helpful.”
Why the contract timeline matters now
Taylor’s contract runs through the 2027 season, a year longer than the team had announced, The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr. reported last December. Taylor declined to confirm it at the time. “I don’t think it really matters,” he said. “I coach every day like it’s my last.”
The timing is what gives Fowler’s note weight. When this season ends, Taylor will be heading into the last year of that deal, and the Bengals will have to decide whether to extend him, let him coach it out or move on with one season of salary left to cover. Cincinnati has missed the playoffs three years in a row.
What the first four games showed
Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images
The Bengals are 2-2 after Sunday’s 22-17 loss to Jacksonville, a game in which Joe Burrow threw for 428 yards and the offense ran for 23, the fewest in any of his 81 starts, according to the team’s website. Burrow has an 85.8 overall grade from PFF, which ranks seventh among 33 quarterbacks. He also lost Ja’Marr Chase to a concussion and Tee Higgins to an adductor injury in that game. Asked about the run game afterward, Burrow said, “My response to that would be, ‘Let’s throw it more.'”
Taylor pointed to the schedule. “We’ve played some good teams, and I was hoping we’d be 4-0 when we came out of that stretch, but we’re not,” he said.
That stretch was Tampa Bay, Houston, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, and ESPN’s Dan Graziano wrote that the schedule “looks a lot more forgiving from here on out.” It starts Sunday at Miami at 1 p.m. ET, followed by the bye week.
