04-06-2021, 01:31 PM
(03-30-2021, 12:46 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Taylor gets 3 (possibly more) years to try to finally get the team back to a winning record, but the fans have had to be the ones to suffer through the growing pains.
I think people were cautiously optimistic with the Taylor hire because they thought 1) he learned under McVay, and 2) would bring in an established DC (and possibly OC).
Things started going south when he brought in a no-name guy to be DC and a controversial OL coach. Then, he showed through his first season that he isn't nearly the offensive playcaller that McVay is.
The reality is that even though this new regime has been bottom-third in the league in both offense and defense during Taylor's tenure. If both of those don't get into the Top 20 this year, it will be another seasons of falling below expectations.
I was cautiously optimistic on Zac not because I thought he'd bring in experienced co-ordinators (although in his position I would have) but because he was a young up and coming guy who could help modernize the Bengals. Marv had done a good job making the Bengals relevant again but the game had moved on again and had left him and the Bengals behind. We've seen big improvements in that regards (the aggressiveness on 4th down would be one such example of analytics being better used) and there have been flashes of what could be when the offense has hummed before Burrow went down but not the overall consistency required to convert that into regular wins.
The thinking with Zac was always that they got him a year (or two years) early. I think the ownership even said that when they appointed him. There's a longer leash on a young guy learning in his first job than a retread who should know better. He's going to make rookie mistakes - it's more useful to judge him on how he learns from them.
He's been hamstrung by inheriting an ageing roster (at least when it came to players that mattered, after poor drafting for a number of years) with a conservative ownership unwilling to move on. The reason this is taking 3 years - if not longer - and not 2 years is because ownership was unwilling to move on from the likes of AJ, Carlos and Geno sooner. If the Bengals had traded them away plus Dalton, Eifert, WJIII, Lawson, Billings etc we'd have had the draft capital to plug all the holes not to mention more money to spend in free agency.
I'm not expecting a top 20 D. The D has been neglected for far too long. The only first round pick spent on D since 2014 has just left; the Bengals made no attempt to re-sign him. The first round pick this year is going on O again. That's one first round pick in 7 years on D. There's only been one second round pick on D in the last 7 drafts as well. They may have focused on D in free agency but Hendrickson and Awuzie were cheaper than the guys they are replacing. Ogunjobi and Hilton were nice pick-ups but are more complementary pieces than headliners. They invested a little more last year on D when they overpaid Waynes and added Reader but whilst Reader's good he's not prime Geno (another departure). They haven't even attempted to replace Dunlap yet.
Where I am expecting improvement is O. This needs to be a top 15 unit minimum for Zac to have a future in Cincy. If Zac can show that he can put together an above average O (and there will likely be a slow start with Joe coming back from injury) then he can have time to fix the D.
