If we go into Chicago and win, ZT would be 4-1 in his last 5 games going back to last year. Super cherry picking, I know. But hey, gotta look at the bright side.

(09-13-2021, 09:44 PM)Rubekahn29 Wrote: If we go into Chicago and win, ZT would be 4-1 in his last 5 games going back to last year. Super cherry picking, I know. But hey, gotta look at the bright side.

Zac Taylor has a 1-0 record which is his first winning record since becoming head coach.

(09-13-2021, 09:46 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Zac Taylor has a 1-0 record which is his first winning record since becoming head coach.

Gotta start somewhere, right?

I honestly feel Zac walked into a pretty poorly assembled roster when he got here. I think there have also been moves made to purposefully tank at moments throughout his tenure as well (Andy benching, Joe Mixon sitting last year after being cleared, etc.)

Say what you will about his lackluster coaching, but he has assembled a good maybe even great core group of players here through the draft and free agency. He does well there IMO. He put himself behind the 8-ball with the 6-26 record, but all will be cleansed with a winning season this year. I hope he does it, I like him for the most part and I think he doesn’t get enough credit for how he’s acquired his roster.

That said, he can make massive improvements in certain areas of his coaching. Decisions line yesterday’s 4th down call are unforgivable and he needs to cut that crap out ASAP without losing that aggressive edge.

IDK I feel like stars align for the guy this year… maybe luck, maybe as planned. I just hope the Bengals have struck gold by pure chance.

(09-13-2021, 09:54 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: I honestly feel Zac walked into a pretty poorly assembled roster when he got here. I think there have also been moves made to purposefully tank at moments throughout his tenure as well (Andy benching, Joe Mixon sitting last year after being cleared, etc.)

Say what you will about his lackluster coaching, but he has assembled a good maybe even great core group of players here through the draft and free agency. He does well there IMO. He put himself behind the 8-ball with the 6-26 record, but all will be cleansed with a winning season this year. I hope he does it, I like him for the most part and I think he doesn’t get enough credit for how he’s acquired his roster.

That said, he can make massive improvements in certain areas of his coaching. Decisions line yesterday’s 4th down call are unforgivable and he needs to cut that crap out ASAP without losing that aggressive edge.

IDK I feel like stars align for the guy this year… maybe luck, maybe as planned. I just hope the Bengals have struck gold by pure chance.

I really like the roster we have right now. I'm a little worried we're trying to go all in this year as it seems alot of the free agents are on 1 year deals. Also concerned about the oline and we need to clean up some of the miscues we had pass protecting also worried about Hopkins and hope we made the right decision relying on him so soon after injury.

I also hated that 4th and 1 call and disliked hearing Taylor told Bates after the failed attempt and ensuing touchdown that "we are gonna have to play like that this year". I hope he realizes that was a stupid call and really should've cost us a game that our team clearly outplayed the opponent.

(09-13-2021, 11:02 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: I really like the roster we have right now. I'm a little worried we're trying to go all in this year as it seems alot of the free agents are on 1 year deals. Also concerned about the oline and we need to clean up some of the miscues we had pass protecting also worried about Hopkins and hope we made the right decision relying on him so soon after injury.

I also hated that 4th and 1 call and disliked hearing Taylor told Bates after the failed attempt and ensuing touchdown that "we are gonna have to play like that this year". I hope he realizes that was a stupid call and really should've cost us a game that our team clearly outplayed the opponent.

Completely agree and I think Zac is so eager to prove himself he resorts to stupid moves like that when he doesn’t need to. Hoping a few wins here early will get him calmed down a bit as well.

from one extreme to the other.
I remember how many used to complain about Mr Conservative Marvin and how you wanted a more aggressive style... sheesh

(09-13-2021, 11:51 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: from one extreme to the other.
I remember how many used to complain about Mr Conservative Marvin and how you wanted a more aggressive style... sheesh

Taylor goes for it on 4th down a lot.  This is the only time I can remember not being on board with it.  There's being aggressive, then there's being reckless.  

(09-13-2021, 11:51 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: from one extreme to the other.
I remember how many used to complain about Mr Conservative Marvin and how you wanted a more aggressive style... sheesh

Okay.  I'm gonna just say this and leave it alone in this thread.

The complaint on Marvin was conservative types of plays and sitting on a lead.  Also not using time wisely at the end of a half. Playing prevent D with plenty of cushion from DBs with loads of time still left in the game.

Not, going for it on 4th down with plenty of time left on his own 30yd line.

That's stupid and most people can tell the difference between the two.

(09-13-2021, 11:59 PM)Whatever Wrote: Taylor goes for it on 4th down a lot.  This is the only time I can remember not being on board with it.  There's being aggressive, then there's being reckless.  

its okay when your team is out of contention and your just trying to get a win...

Not so much when you are winning the game already and have a 0-0 record.

I'm all about going for it on 4th and 1 with Mixon in the game, because it is a high percentage play to get 1 yd. out of him or on a sneak. I'm not a fan of doing it on the 30, where if you fail it's automatically giving them at least 3 points. Hopefully Zac saves that stuff for the other side of the field. It atually would have been nice to have Patrick to run that play.

(09-13-2021, 09:46 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Zac Taylor has a 1-0 record which is his first winning record since becoming head coach.

Then in my mind I though after reading your sentence, "What if we finish 1-16?" 

(09-14-2021, 11:50 AM)Bengalitis Wrote: Then in my mind I though after reading your sentence, "What if we finish 1-16?" 

If we are down 3-0 to the Bears within the first quarter you're going to have people predicting that.

This team has a 85 to 90% turnover since ZT took over, we have been in a total rebuild, most teams struggle in during a rebuild, yes we won less than we wanted but I was not surprised that we would have losing records as we transitioned with so many positions and coaches changes. Now that we are in the 3rd season especially with the expected success Burrow can bring to the team we need to see improvement and wins, but with the power of our division it will be difficult to get to a winning record but if we double our win total to 8, this year that would show ZT transformation of our team is on the right track.

(09-13-2021, 09:44 PM)Rubekahn29 Wrote: If we go into Chicago and win, ZT would be 4-1 in his last 5 games going back to last year. Super cherry picking, I know. But hey, gotta look at the bright side.

I like it. I like it. This defense looks like a winner*. I think the OL is the only thing holding us back at this point. And that should get better throughout the season, barring injury.


*after week 1

(09-13-2021, 09:54 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: I honestly feel Zac walked into a pretty poorly assembled roster when he got here. I think there have also been moves made to purposefully tank at moments throughout his tenure as well (Andy benching, Joe Mixon sitting last year after being cleared, etc.)

Say what you will about his lackluster coaching, but he has assembled a good maybe even great core group of players here through the draft and free agency. He does well there IMO. He put himself behind the 8-ball with the 6-26 record, but all will be cleansed with a winning season this year. I hope he does it, I like him for the most part and I think he doesn’t get enough credit for how he’s acquired his roster.

That said, he can make massive improvements in certain areas of his coaching. Decisions line yesterday’s 4th down call are unforgivable and he needs to cut that crap out ASAP without losing that aggressive edge.

IDK I feel like stars align for the guy this year… maybe luck, maybe as planned. I just hope the Bengals have struck gold by pure chance.

For real though, I like his thinking in the post game presser....

If we get that 1st down, we can put the game away.  I have not watched the replay. But either the guard or tackle on the right side got pushed back and Mixon tried to cut outside and slipped.  Maybe an audible needed to be called there. We will never know.

Going for it is not something most want. But I can forgive him this time around.

(However, everything looks better after a win, haha)

(09-13-2021, 11:59 PM)Whatever Wrote: Taylor goes for it on 4th down a lot.  This is the only time I can remember not being on board with it.  There's being aggressive, then there's being reckless.  

It's easy to be on board with goin' for it on 4th down when they're 0- whatever to start the season as has been typical the past few years.

(09-13-2021, 11:02 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: I really like the roster we have right now. I'm a little worried we're trying to go all in this year as it seems alot of the free agents are on 1 year deals. Also concerned about the oline and we need to clean up some of the miscues we had pass protecting also worried about Hopkins and hope we made the right decision relying on him so soon after injury.

I also hated that 4th and 1 call and disliked hearing Taylor told Bates after the failed attempt and ensuing touchdown that "we are gonna have to play like that this year". I hope he realizes that was a stupid call and really should've cost us a game that our team clearly outplayed the opponent.

You misquoted Taylor. Here is what he said....https://www.bengals.com/video/


""It's fourth-and-one, I felt like we could go steal a victory right there. We're up 21-7 and if we can just bang home the momentum right there with a fourth-and-one. I should have had a better play call. They loaded up that front pretty good, made some substitutions. Not our best call there. Our players tried to execute it, we were out-manned pretty good at the point of attack. Tough call. Really, if we could do it backwards, I would have called what we called later in the game there. I was kicking myself. They got some momentum there, obviously. We zero blitzed them on fourth down, which I loved, and they made the play. (Adam) Thielen ran a great choice route, and that's going to be tough to defend if you give it that extra tick of a second and they scored. Great players do that, that's going to happen. I just told our team we're going to be aggressive, man. We're going to go for it on fourth-and-one and try to take the game and we're going to be aggressive on defense and try and send a message and end it right there too. I take don't back any decisions, maybe my play calls specifically."

"We believe in all three of our phases. That's just the message we send our team. We're going to be aggressive. We're not going to sit back and just hope the other team gives it to us. Sometimes it's not really pretty. Sometimes people are not going to be happy with the call, and each game is different. But today we just wanted to be aggressive and go take a win in the first game and send a message for the rest of the season. I feel that we did that."




Nowhere did he say that the team HAS TO do that.

If we get that 4th down and go on a long drive for a TD or FG... game is effectively over at lets just say 24-7 with a quarter to go.

Still this is a Madden play all day you can't do that the way the defense was playing.

I will say though for those clamoring over Marvin being too conservative which costs us some games... Zac being aggressive may cost us some games. It's hard to find that balance when your just an average team

(09-14-2021, 01:50 PM)PAjwPhilly Wrote: You misquoted Taylor. Here is what he said....https://www.bengals.com/video/


""It's fourth-and-one, I felt like we could go steal a victory right there. We're up 21-7 and if we can just bang home the momentum right there with a fourth-and-one. I should have had a better play call. They loaded up that front pretty good, made some substitutions. Not our best call there. Our players tried to execute it, we were out-manned pretty good at the point of attack. Tough call. Really, if we could do it backwards, I would have called what we called later in the game there. I was kicking myself. They got some momentum there, obviously. We zero blitzed them on fourth down, which I loved, and they made the play. (Adam) Thielen ran a great choice route, and that's going to be tough to defend if you give it that extra tick of a second and they scored. Great players do that, that's going to happen. I just told our team we're going to be aggressive, man. We're going to go for it on fourth-and-one and try to take the game and we're going to be aggressive on defense and try and send a message and end it right there too. I take don't back any decisions, maybe my play calls specifically."

"We believe in all three of our phases. That's just the message we send our team. We're going to be aggressive. We're not going to sit back and just hope the other team gives it to us. Sometimes it's not really pretty. Sometimes people are not going to be happy with the call, and each game is different. But today we just wanted to be aggressive and go take a win in the first game and send a message for the rest of the season. I feel that we did that."




Nowhere did he say that the team HAS TO do that.

I was actually quoting Jessie Bates but I went back and looked and Bates said the Taylor told them "This is just who were gonna be this year". But regardless it doesn't change the point of it being a bad call and not being sure if he realizes that it was a bad call. The other thing he said that I didn't like that I didn't bring up before but is in the above quote you posted was that " felt like we could go steal a victory right there". We didn't need to steal a victory we were clearly playing better than the Vikings. Also as someone else pointed out we were on our own 30 even if we pick that up we could be punting 3 plays later.