Heading into the 2021 season, Zac Taylor’s seat may not have been hot, but it was certainly warm. Cincinnati Bengals faithful’s patience was wearing thin for a coach with a 6-25-1 record. It seemed that Taylor continued to make the same mistakes, played too conservatively, and just was in over his head.
The 2021 season has been a tale of three seasons for the Bengals and the feelings towards Taylor wavered. However, a Zac Taylor Coach of the Year is not only not out of the question, but he is also deserving and should be awarded as such.
Following Divisional Title, Zac Taylor Should Win Coach of the Year
At 25/1, the Bengals were written off as an AFC North basement-dweller in the pre-season. Considering how the 2020 season ended — Joe Burrow‘s knee was obliterated and an embarrassingly lopsided loss to Baltimore — there was not much hype or belief.
Every day, fans, players, coaches, and media personalities clamored to give their perspectives on how to “fix” this team. When the Bengals selected Burrow’s favorite target in Ja’Marr Chase instead of Penei Sewell for the offensive line, the NFL world braced itself for another gruesome Burrow injury.
Arguments Against Coach Taylor
The Bengals are sitting at 10-6 after a massive, come-from-behind win over the AFC’s kings, the Kansas City Chiefs. Of those six losses, Taylor shoulders some blame because five of them were winnable. The beat down against the Browns was just that: a beatdown. The Bengals lost that game and there are no excuses.
In Week 2, the Bengals dropped their game against the Chicago Bears, 20-17. Long story short, the Bears are not a good team. However, the Bengals made them look really good by playing extremely conservatively. Chase even commented after the game that they waited too long to start taking shots downfield. Burrow was sacked five times and the offense turned it over four times.
In Week 5, Cincinnati lost to Green Bay in a wacky tilt that needed overtime. It was another case of going conservative. In that overtime period, Cincinnati was sitting at 1st & 10 on Green Bay’s 41. Despite the fact that Chase was torching the Packers defense and Burrow was dealing (weird overtime interception notwithstanding), Taylor took the foot off the gas. He drew up three straight Joe Mixon runs up the middle and settled for a field goal in a game where the four previous field goals attempted were missed by both teams. Losing to the Packers is not inherently bad, it’s just that it was certainly winnable.
The AFC North Champions Bengals lost to the (now) 4-12 Jets. With 7:29 to go in the game, Cincinnati went up 31-20. A long Jets touchdown drive, a first-play interception, and another Jets touchdown drive later, it’s 34-31 with 3:45 to go. While he does not directly coach the defense, it’s still Taylor’s team and how they responded to the Jets throwing out their fourth-string quarterback. They coasted and didn’t play with any kind of urgency.
Finally, losses against the Chargers and 49ers further encapsulated Taylor’s tendency to coach scared and he did not rely on the talent on his team. In each instance, the Bengals failed to step up on the big stage. Mixon is a great running back, but Cincinnati was down a few possessions in each game. Trust Burrow to deliver and don’t take the game out of his dislocated-pinky-having hands.
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Arguments for Coach Taylor
For a Zac Taylor Coach of the Year award to be reality, he would have needed to learn from these mistakes. Heading into this three-game winning streak, Taylor had 31 lessons in 45 chances. Maybe after loss number 31, it clicked.
After taking down the playoff-hopeful Broncos, divisional-foe Ravens, and AFC kings Chiefs, Taylor’s Bengals are AFC North Champions. He’s turned around a team that nobody outside of Cincinnati had any halfway decent hopes for.
What will win it will be the second half of the Bengals-Chiefs game. After allowing Patrick Mahomes to go off in the first half, Cincinnati held Kansas City to three points off of three drives in the entire second half. On offense, where Taylor’s strengths lie, the Bengals absolutely went off. Burrow capped off a back-to-back 400+-yard, four-touchdown, no interception performance, which had never happened before in the NFL. Chase shattered NFL rookie records and Bengals receiving records en route to an 11-catch, 266-yard, three-touchdown performance.
The way Taylor was able to minimize the below-average play of the offensive line due to injuries by taking advantage of what the defense gave them was ingenious. The final drive of the game stands out as a prime example of “genius if it works/incredibly stupid if it fails.”
With just over 6:00 to go in a tied game, the Bengals drove down the field efficiently. Burrow hooked up with Chase to convert a massive 3rd & 27. Then, they ran a ridiculous nine plays from inside the Chiefs one-yard line. The clock management by Taylor in that final drive was nearly impeccable.
Bengals Patience Has Paid Off
There are plenty of great coaches in the NFL. Matt LeFleur in Green Bay, Mike Vrabel in Tennessee, and Nick Sirianni in Philadelphia all have strong cases. However, none of them have turned a team that picked top-five in last year’s draft to winning their division as Taylor has.
Zac Taylor has had some ups and downs this year but nobody can deny that he’s earned an extension and many more accolades. Bengals fans have been harsh towards Taylor these past few years, this author included. But between winning more games in Year Three than he’s won the previous two seasons combined, topped off with an AFC North Divisional Title, and the Bengals patience has been rewarded; and his name should be on the Coach of the Year award on February 10th as a result.
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