Taylor seem to think the offensive line is playing well

[THE PISTONS]

Zac is starting to come off as smug in interviews:


Q: The offensive line has improved in the last two games. What has changed?
A: “No one wanted to hear it, but we were close. Every played it seemed like, ‘Man, if one thing was a little better by one person, we were going to get there.’ I feel like the last two weeks, we were starting to hit our stride. That comes with the consistency of the lineup at offensive line. It’s the same people in the game, and that helps, because they’re starting to work all of these combinations together and starting to sink in a little bit (such) that, ‘OK, this is how we work together, and this is how all of this stuff is supposed to work.’ That’s been encouraging. With the protections, there were a couple protection errors yesterday. (Baltimore) presents a lot of challenging looks to you. They pressure you like crazy. If you look at the (QB) hits over the last three weeks against Seattle, New England and us, we’re on the lower end of that, to be quite honest with you. Our guys did a nice job for the most part. It wasn’t all perfect, but they gave us a chance.”

Q: According to certain metrics, Cincinnati is near the bottom of the league in both pass blocking and pass rushing. Is that accurate?
A: “To be honest, I don’t know what that means. Pass rushing and pass blocking?”

Q: ESPN tracks both. Cincinnati’s pass blocking is the worst in the league and its pass rushing is near the bottom. Is that the way you see it?
A: “The points we put up every game are due to a lack of rushing yards. We have given up pressures this year, there’s no question about it. I don’t know anything that goes into how anyone would rank that. We know what our issues are, based on who has what assignment and how they’re working together. For example, there was probably one against the Rams where John Jerry looked really bad because it looked like a pass protection when really it was a version of an RPO, but if someone was just watching the game, they would think, ‘Oh, that’s a play-action and he didn’t even block his guy,’ when in reality, it was a run play where he was throwing a pass block. He got rushed by the extra rusher that was blitzing off the edge. I don’t know what factors into any (of those metrics). I know that we see improvement from our guys and how they’re working together. They’re giving us a chance to move the ball. We just need to find ways to get more explosive plays down the field. That’s really what’s killing us, is it has to be more methodical. Marching down the field, we’re lacking those big plays — those one-play drives or those four-play drives. That’s really what we’ve been missing this year.”