In charge of one of the longest-odds Super Bowl entrants in NFL history, Zac Taylor has transformed his career this season. The third-year Bengals HC has gone from the hot seat to extension candidate.
The Bengals are indeed preparing to give their young coach a new contract, with Aaron Wilson of ProFootballNetwork.com reporting the surprise Super Bowl team is planning to extend Taylor soon after Sunday’s game.
The ex-Sean McVay disciple was 6-25-1 as a head coach coming into this season and had only a partial year of NFL OC work (with the 2015 Dolphins) under his belt. Rumors about Taylor’s firing emerged, but Mike Brown opted to keep his play-caller for a third season. Taylor’s offense took a significant step forward, and Joe Burrow‘s ACL recovery went historically well — despite the burgeoning-superstar quarterback leading the NFL in sacks taken — to the point the Bengals have reached the third Super Bowl in franchise history.
Taylor’s offense features Burrow and near-lock Offensive Rookie of the Year winner Ja’Marr Chase, with Tee Higgins taking a step forward as well. Burrow and his skill-position troops compensated for Cincinnati’s below-average O-line, which the AFC champions will surely aim to bolster in the offseason. Cincinnati’s offense ranked seventh in scoring this season — the team’s highest mark since 2015.
At 38, Taylor is one of the youngest coaches in Super Bowl history. The Bengals, of course, have a track record of patience with their head coaches. Most notably, Brown gave Marvin Lewis 16 seasons — far more than most expected — after the latter turned the team around in the 2000s.
Cincinnati is also planning to keep most of Taylor’s staff. Extensions are in the works for several assistants, per Wilson, who notes wide receivers coach Troy Walters, linebackers coach Al Golden, D-line coach Marion Hobby and tight ends coach James Casey are among those set to receive new deals. Re-ups for DC Lou Anarumo and OC Brian Callahan should be expected as well. Each received moderate interest on this year’s coaching carousel, with Anarumo interviewing with the Giants and Callahan with the Broncos — former employers for each — and no other teams.
Man was that guy in the right place at the right time.
I imagine the same was said about Matt Nagy when he won COY honors.
An example of why it pays to tank. Given his prior experience it is impossible to believe that Zac Taylor was anything other than the warm body needed to take the punches while the Bengals accumulated the pick(s) needed to rebuild.
By the way – why was Marvin Lewis hardly mentioned to take over the train wrecks that were the Jaguars, Texans, or Giants?
He’s been out of NFL coaching since 2018. Idk if he is still at ASU with Herm or not tho.
Because he’s an extremely mediocre HC. 16 years with ZERO playoff wins pretty much speaks for itself. Just look at what a completely inexperienced guy (Taylor) has done in his 3rd season with the franchise.. Also, Lewis made a living fielding teams of horrible guys (Packman, Burfuct..) who imploded on the field over and over.
They’ve always had one of the lowest payrolls in the NFL. They never spent on free agency under Lewis like they have the last offseason or two. And when you play that way financially, you can pretty much only win playoff games if you hit an absolute grand slam in the draft. Landing Burrow and Chase in back to back years is that.
Dude they ALWAYS spend on payroll. They never carry much dead cap space so their payroll is actually spent on players on the roster, not cap hits on guys they cut years ago. Spotrac is a thing you might want to use before talking out of your rear end.
OK, tell me what you’re looking at on Spotrac then, because it clearly isn’t active spending, which would be the stat reflecting what you’re saying–except it doesn’t reflect what you’re saying. Just because they don’t carry that much dead cap doesn’t mean they’re high on active spending.
My bet is he is getting calls for DC positions but doesn’t want to be a DC.
Taylor was never on the hot seat. Bengals knew when they hired him that he’d require time to grow into the roll of HC as well as completely turn over the roster with his own guys. This was the first season the roster was made of his guys. There was quite a bit of addition by subtraction of talented, but completely toxic players who were destroying the culture he was trying to create (and has been a big part of why this team has been so successful this year). Specifically guys like John Ross, William Jackson, Carlos Dunlap and even AJ Green were flat out cancerous and this team would not be where it is if they were still on the roster.
How much of it is culture and how much of it is that at most one of those guys is still (if having ever been) particularly good?
I don’t think anyone – EVER – characterized A.J. Green as “cancerous,” and John Ross never earned enough clout to be a cancer. He just wasn’t any good.
Marvin did a really good job with the Bengals, but he always gave veterans preferential treatment. In the end too many of those vets took advantage of that and it translated to inconsistent effort and a lot of free-lancing.
Taylor has a young hungry squad that plays with maximum effort. His challenge is getting that same level of effort now that these guys have had some success.
If he can pull it off, this Bengals team is going to be REALLY good for the five or six years.