Zac Taylor Changed the Culture of Cincinnati Football

[basballguy]

(12-22-2021, 10:33 AM)TecmoBengals Wrote: If you're analyzing the scope of Bengals history, your point is understood. The Bengals were a joke of a franchise throughout the entire 1990s and Marvin was part of the change in culture to bring some respectability back to the entire organization. He accomplished this with winning seasons and playoff football, albeit first round losses.

Marvin's final years, however, were marked by losing. People aren't discussing Zac changing the culture in the same context as Marvin, but are rather discussing how Zac worked to stop the losing ways he inherited from Marvin. Zac viewed this as changing the locker room culture to have more professionalism and a solid coach & player rapport, it seems. Marvin changing the franchise culture was more expansive than Zac's changes, but both have made their impact on the Bengals. It was just in different ways.

I apologize in advance if it seems like i'm arguing just to argue.  :)

But, ya I honestly don't think I can give an accurate take on what's going on in the locker room (I'm not following them to that extent anymore).  All I can really say is I would expect any coach to do that when taking over on a team that had multiple losing seasons in a row.  

However I don't really recall anyone ever talking about bad habits, losing ways, unprofessionalism, or anything like that during the ML era...in terms of how players prepared for the games.  I also seem to recall all the players loved ML which always a talking point on the old board.  "Players love ML cause he won't bench them when they're bad!"....things like that.  

JB gave the team a taste of winning and that's what everyone is feeding off of (in my opinion)...now I'd be foolish to say ZT has nothing to do with it but we can't kid ourselves....if we didn't land JB we'd likely be talking about how this was probably ZT's final year.  

When I think back to ML era....it was ML that gave us a taste of winning....if we remember, Palmer didn't even play his first season....it was Kitna....Jon f'n Kitna (love that guy).  

I don't know if I'd take ML or ZT or vice versa yet, but all I can give ZT credit for is his seemingly ability to make second half adjustments....everything else I credit to the players.  

EDIT: I also give ZT huge credit on penalty discipline....I meant to say that too. I do honestly feel like that sort of thing is a credit to the coaching staff.