12-01-2023, 05:10 PM
I'll preface this by signing I would find firing Zac Taylor a highly questionable move. It'd be quite something for a franchise as laughably unsuccessful as ours, to look at firing a HC who has taken us to the Super Bowl and AFCCG in back to back years... and to be talking of firing him, one year later.
But, I think it's fair to criticise some of the way the team is managed. We don't seem to prepare well for the beginning of a season. Part of that is on the QB's lack of training camp availability of course, but we simply don't come firing out of the blocks, and not even close. You don't want to play your best ball of the season in week 1, but nor do you want to start 2-3 every year. The week 1 mess against the Steelers last year was so bad in terms of preparation, that you had to wonder what the hell the team had done all offseason.
I personally think the management of Burrow's status for the first few weeks of this year was laughably bad. He wasn't close to ready in Week 1 and looked pretty bad up until week 5. Clearly injured and I question why he was sent out there for weeks 1-2 personally.
I certainly question the HC when the run game is as atrocious as ours has been for most of his tenure. This season seems the worst yet.
I think there are very valid criticisms to field of the coaching, and ultimately if we want to rightly credit ZT with the Superbowl/AFCCG appearances, we have to credit him with the less good as well.
But ultimately, this argument just returns to my first point in my opinion. He's been the HC during an unprecedented time of success for the Bengals, and that certainly gives him more of a grace period than one down year, where the QB was healthy for about 4.5 games.
But, I think it's fair to criticise some of the way the team is managed. We don't seem to prepare well for the beginning of a season. Part of that is on the QB's lack of training camp availability of course, but we simply don't come firing out of the blocks, and not even close. You don't want to play your best ball of the season in week 1, but nor do you want to start 2-3 every year. The week 1 mess against the Steelers last year was so bad in terms of preparation, that you had to wonder what the hell the team had done all offseason.
I personally think the management of Burrow's status for the first few weeks of this year was laughably bad. He wasn't close to ready in Week 1 and looked pretty bad up until week 5. Clearly injured and I question why he was sent out there for weeks 1-2 personally.
I certainly question the HC when the run game is as atrocious as ours has been for most of his tenure. This season seems the worst yet.
I think there are very valid criticisms to field of the coaching, and ultimately if we want to rightly credit ZT with the Superbowl/AFCCG appearances, we have to credit him with the less good as well.
But ultimately, this argument just returns to my first point in my opinion. He's been the HC during an unprecedented time of success for the Bengals, and that certainly gives him more of a grace period than one down year, where the QB was healthy for about 4.5 games.
