I'd like a hard-nosed, defensive minded HC. One who has the ability to surround himself with Pro able coordinators and assistants. One who is young enough to have new, fresh ideas--that actually work.

My choice: Luke Fickle...

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(12-08-2020, 10:00 PM)Devils Advocate Wrote: This is true. Doesn’t mean what I said isn’t.

Did they want JDR as a HC?

IIRC, he said no to being doogie's DC...

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(12-09-2020, 05:27 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: If Zac had a better record right now - like say Brian Flores who has pretty much all the same excuses and has won 13 games - would you still be saying we can't judge him?

I'm saying I won't judge Zac on COVID thrown into NEW DEY Rebuild.   I'm not saying you can't judge him, Mister Mod. 

If Zac would be fired, I could see Eric Bieniemy, IF Bengals can get him.

(12-09-2020, 06:33 PM)kevin Wrote: I'm saying I won't judge Zac on COVID thrown into NEW DEY Rebuild.   I'm not saying you can't judge him, Mister Mod. 

If Zac would be fired, I could see Eric Bieniemy, IF Bengals can get him.

Not sure I understand why Zac should get a pass for something that EVERY head coach has had to deal with?

As for Bieniemy, I'd be all for it.

Zimmer or Jay Gruden

because that's all I really know, and I think they make fine head coaches

Zacs arrogance is why this team is in the state it is.
His know it all arrogance got Burrow sidelined and the league
Taking note how he is not HC material

(12-09-2020, 06:36 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Not sure I understand why Zac should get a pass for something that EVERY head coach has had to deal with?

You mean Covid...Not every coach took over a Bengals team that fired Marvin and all coaches after very awful 2017 and 2018 seasons.  This put Bengals in complete rebuild like an expansion team.  Most NFL teams were not starting a NEW DEY TOTAL REBUILD when COVID took away normal scouting, practices and preseason.  Bengals needed preseason more than Super Bowl Chiefs or most teams, being the Worst Team in NFL.   The O Line and Defense were Worst in NFL in Marvins last years.  To Rebuild this awful team we knew would take a few off seasons of Free Agents and Draft Picks.  Yes, Bengals were worse than Miami.  Zac has been dealt all the cards from the bottom of the deck.  Zac and Rebuilding Bengals in need of a less Covid 2021.  2020 has not been a normal football season. 

Again, if they fire Zac,  Eric Bieniemy would be my choice. 

(12-09-2020, 07:03 PM)kevin Wrote: You mean Covid...Not every coach took over a Bengals team that fired Marvin and all coaches after very awful 2017 and 2018 seasons.  This put Bengals in complete rebuild like an expansion team.  Most NFL teams were not starting a NEW DEY TOTAL REBUILD when COVID took away normal scouting, practices and preseason.  Bengals needed preseason more than Super Bowl Chiefs or most teams, being the Worst Team in NFL.   The O Line and Defense were Worst in NFL in Marvins last years.  To Rebuild this awful team we knew would take a few off seasons of Free Agents and Draft Picks.  Yes, Bengals were worse than Miami.  Zac has been dealt all the cards from the bottom of the deck.  Zac and Rebuilding Bengals in need of a less Covid 2021.  2020 has not been a normal football season. 

Again, if they fire Zac,  Eric Bieniemy would be my choice. 

(12-09-2020, 07:03 PM)kevin Wrote:   This put Bengals in complete rebuild like an expansion team. 

We need a "Fire the coach" subforum

(12-09-2020, 06:17 PM)JSR18 Wrote: My choice: Luke Fickle...

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Keep your dirty hands off Luke Fickell!

(12-09-2020, 07:03 PM)kevin Wrote: You mean Covid...Not every coach took over a Bengals team that fired Marvin and all coaches after very awful 2017 and 2018 seasons.  This put Bengals in complete rebuild like an expansion team.  Most NFL teams were not starting a NEW DEY TOTAL REBUILD when COVID took away normal scouting, practices and preseason.  Bengals needed preseason more than Super Bowl Chiefs or most teams, being the Worst Team in NFL.   The O Line and Defense were Worst in NFL in Marvins last years.  To Rebuild this awful team we knew would take a few off seasons of Free Agents and Draft Picks.  Yes, Bengals were worse than Miami.  Zac has been dealt all the cards from the bottom of the deck.  Zac and Rebuilding Bengals in need of a less Covid 2021.  2020 has not been a normal football season. 

Again, if they fire Zac,  Eric Bieniemy would be my choice. 

Zac took over a team coming off of 6 wins. He has produced 4 wins in the 2 years since.

Let's look at the other 5 first time head coaches hired in 2019: 

Like Zac, 4 of them took over teams with 6/7 wins. Kingsbury took over a 3 win team. Four of them have produced at least 11 wins thus far, the only guy who hasn't because he got canned (Freddie Kitchens) still racked up more wins in his one year than Zac. 

Hell, the 3 first time head coaches hired this year (who all had to deal with Covid/no preseason as rookie HC's) all have as many, or more, wins than Zac has in 2 years...and they haven't even completed a full season yet. 

No matter how you slice it, every coach hired with and since Zac has been better than him, far better in most cases. 


2019 First time head coaches / record the previous year

• Freddie Kitchens, Cleveland : 6-10 (7-8-1)
• Matt LaFleur, Green Bay : 22- 6 (6-9-1)
• Brian Flores, Miami : 13-15 (7-9)
• Vic Fangio, Denver : 11-17 : (6-10)
• Zac Taylor, Cincinnati : 4-23-1 (6-10)
• Kliff Kingsbury : 11-16-1 (3-13)
  

2020 First time head coaches / record the previous year

• Matt Rhule : 4-8 (5-11)
• Joe Judge: 5-7 (4-12)
• Kevin Stefanski : 9-3 (6-10)
  

(12-09-2020, 04:06 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: That's the whole point i was making. EB as an NFL HC is unknown (as an aside, Bobby Hart is well known so the comparison is a bit off).

If it's unknown, i would expect Fred to trust professionals over...regular people (including himself). At least that's the way he's gone in the past, iirc (trusting players and coaches over fans on a message board/analysts).

Anybody who's regarded highly enough to score NFL HC interviews is going to have a bunch of players and coaches speaking positively about them, though.  That's more of a prerequisite than an indicator of job performance.

My big rub with him is that even though everyone in KC talks him up, when push came to shove, he was passed over for the promotion to OC for Matt Nagy, indicating that Reid saw Nagy as the better coach.  I don't know that anybody would be thrilled with hiring a poor man's Matt Nagy.  

Bring Mike Pettine back to tha AFCN!

Matt Campbell- HC at Iowa State




But I wouldn’t expect any real changes around here until Mike Effing Brown kicks the bucket. We have been, are, and always will be a dumpster fire until him and possibly the rest of the Brown family gives it up.

(12-09-2020, 07:35 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Zac took over a team coming off of 6 wins. He has produced 4 wins in the 2 years since.

Let's look at the other 5 first time head coaches hired in 2019: 

Like Zac, 4 of them took over teams with 6/7 wins. Kingsbury took over a 3 win team. Four of them have produced at least 11 wins thus far, the only guy who hasn't because he got canned (Freddie Kitchens) still racked up more wins in his one year than Zac. 

Hell, the 3 first time head coaches hired this year (who all had to deal with Covid/no preseason as rookie HC's) all have as many, or more, wins than Zac has in 2 years...and they haven't even completed a full season yet. 

No matter how you slice it, every coach hired with and since Zac has been better than him, far better in most cases. 


2019 First time head coaches / record the previous year

• Freddie Kitchens, Cleveland : 6-10 (7-8-1)
• Matt LaFleur, Green Bay : 22- 6 (6-9-1)
• Brian Flores, Miami : 13-15 (7-9)
• Vic Fangio, Denver : 11-17 : (6-10)
• Zac Taylor, Cincinnati : 4-23-1 (6-10)
• Kliff Kingsbury : 11-16-1 (3-13)
  

2020 First time head coaches / record the previous year

• Matt Rhule : 4-8 (5-11)
• Joe Judge: 5-7 (4-12)
• Kevin Stefanski : 9-3 (6-10)
  

Honestly just can't fight these stats.  I agree that Zac got dealt a challenging hand, coming in when he did and things surrounding the two seasons he's been here.  But that doesn't explain the gap between him and the other coaches who dealt with the same things.  And it doesn't explain any lack of improvement at all.  We're not talking about starting the season slow and gaining momentum.  I'd say COVID, or no pre-season, or getting hired just before the draft or any other excuse might hold a few ounces of water if the team started slow while it got its legs under it.  But it's inexcusable and defies what every other team has managed to accomplish under the same circumstances.  

(12-09-2020, 07:03 PM)kevin Wrote: You mean Covid...Not every coach took over a Bengals team that fired Marvin and all coaches after very awful 2017 and 2018 seasons.  This put Bengals in complete rebuild like an expansion team.  Most NFL teams were not starting a NEW DEY TOTAL REBUILD when COVID took away normal scouting, practices and preseason.  Bengals needed preseason more than Super Bowl Chiefs or most teams, being the Worst Team in NFL.   The O Line and Defense were Worst in NFL in Marvins last years.  To Rebuild this awful team we knew would take a few off seasons of Free Agents and Draft Picks.  Yes, Bengals were worse than Miami.  Zac has been dealt all the cards from the bottom of the deck.  Zac and Rebuilding Bengals in need of a less Covid 2021.  2020 has not been a normal football season. 

Again, if they fire Zac,  Eric Bieniemy would be my choice. 

Bengals record last two years of Marvin's tenure:

2017: 7-9
2018: 6-10

Bengals record under Taylor:
2019: 2-14
2020: 2-9-1

Taylor also didn't inherit the worst OL and DL, his staff made them worse.
Cordy Glenn and Clint Boling were rated in the 70s in pass blocking in 2018, Marvin's last year.
Bobby Hart and Billy Price had a pass blocking grade in the 60s.
John Miller, who was added in the 2019 offseason, had a pass blocking grade in the 70's in 2018 with MIA.

What happened in 2019?
Clint Boling and Christian Westerman retired. Rumors were that it was because of Jim Turner.
Newly drafted OT Jonah Williams had surgery to repair a torn labrum he played through with Alabama, out for the whole year.
Cordy Glenn became disgruntled.
Bengals played Michael Jordan, a 4th round rookie, at LG. Michael Jordan was the worst starter on the whole team.
John Miller declined in performance from his previous year in BUF.

Now in 2020, Taylor's crew still felt to put Jordan out there at LG most of the year even though he continued to be abysmal.
They cut their best guard in Miller to sign a cheaper replacement in XSF, who has only played 1 game and 6 snaps of another.
They then had to resort to an array of terrible options: Fred Johnson, Billy Price, and Alex Redmond for most of the year.

The DL averaged 2.9 sacks per game in 2017, 2.1 sacks per game in 2018.
Under Zac Taylor, the DL has averaged 1.9 sacks per game in 2019 and a whopping 1.1 sacks per game this year.

The bigger thing that was the issue with defense was the drop off from Guenther to Austin.
In 2017, Guenther's defense was 16th in Points Allowed and 18th in Yards Allowed.
Then Austin came in and they went to 30th and 32nd, respectively.
Anarumo has been better than better than Austin in terms of Points Allowed and Yards Allowed, but he has not been better than Guenther.

While you may want to say the team was terrible when Taylor came over, I don't really see a positive thing he's done.
He's driven away once-good veterans and just barely improved the team's ranking on offense and defense.
At the rate he's going, the offense and defense won't get into the Top 15 for another 3+ years. Same for winning if he only increases the win total by 2 every year.

The fans (or at least this fan) doesn't want to wait another 3+ years for this team to get good again. It needs to be 2022 at the latest. But the only way to do that is to acknowledge bad coaches and players and replace them with better ones. They won't get it all this offseason, but they should be able to get very close.

If Taylor is retained, my minimum accepted record is 8-8. I'm willing to drop minimum expected wins to 6 if a new coaching staff comes in because it will be a new scheme that will need to be learned. The reason I'm harder on Taylor is he'll be going into Year 3 with his offensive gameplan, so he gets no pass. Same with Turner and Anarumo if they are kept.

(12-09-2020, 03:27 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: A lot of great names on that list but I think my faves would be Brian Daboll (who you have twice on the list here BTW Holic), Wink Martindale, Del Rio, Dan Quinn, Harbaugh, Arthur Smith, Saleh, Eberflus or Beiniemy.

If we go with an older coach I still would love Wade Phillips if he isn't picked up somewhere else.

Daboll makes me nervous.
He was terrible when he was in CLE in the early 2010's.
But he's been good in BUF.
When looking at the QBs he's had in his stops, he has a good QB now who can execute his scheme. Perhaps it was the QB who was holding back his offense when in CLE.

Ultimately, would the Bengals get the BUF version of Daboll or would they get the CLE version?

(12-08-2020, 04:10 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Gary Patterson HC at TCU.  He has had more success with less resources than almost any college coach I know of.  But I doubt he will ever leave.

James franklin is 2-5 at Penn Sate this year, but I doubt that he leaves.  That guy is a great coach.  He won 9 games in back-to-back seasons at freaking VANDERBILT in the SEC. That is the closest thing there is to coaching under Mike Brown in the NFL.

Fitzgerald also deserves a lot of credit for winning at Northwestern, but he loves that job.  He will never leave.

Franklin is a terrible X&O game calling coach. He personally costs PSU at least 1 game a year. This year it was Indiana.

Hard no. 

Now, I'd have a look at the guy from Indiana. But am wary of rah, rah college coaches. That does not work in the NFL.

(12-09-2020, 09:04 PM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: Franklin is a terrible X&O game calling coach. He personally costs PSU at least 1 game a year. This year it was Indiana.

Hard no. 

Now, I'd have a look at the guy from Indiana. But am wary of rah, rah college coaches. That does not work in the NFL.

Rah, rah coaches as in guys who are in with the team?  Like Pete Carroll?  I don't like USC and didn't want him to succeed in SEA as a result, but results are that he's been successful with that approach.  When people tell me a coach has to be a hard-nosed, in-your-face, yelling and screaming guy and not a coach the players like, I look at Carroll.  He's as passionate as they come, and his players rally around him.