SI Report - Bengals planning "major shake up" to Taylor's staff

[Shake n Blake]

(01-03-2021, 10:04 PM)samhain Wrote: I'm probably in the minority, but I see changes in the behavior of the FO in the last couple of years.  

It seems likely that for better or worse, Katie and Troy are running things to a much larger extent.  They also seem far more willing to break with how they've customarily operated over the Mike Brown years.  They cut guys with time left on deals.  They give a new coach free reign to build a staff practically from scratch.  They spend serious money on free agents, and are active all year long.  

I think the family genuinely wants to get the team back on a winning track, and get fans spending money on tickets.  They might even want to make the team more attractive to the city for a new stadium deal or perhaps a new city for a potential money-grab move.  It's getting into lost decade territory at this point.  

I wouldn't bet a large amount of money on Zac being gone, but I think it's possible that the family gets pretty drastic this offseason.  Do they want to waste another year on Zac if they feel A: he's not up to it, or B: a better candidate for the job is available now?  If they keep Zac and he comes out of the gate and loses 5 or 6 games, that's a wasted season after 2 where he's shown to be awful.  They have a lot to think about.  If they waste Burrow's affordable years on seasons like this and continue to get him killed on the field, then all of the things that were said about them in th draft process of 2020 will be proven in real time for all to see.  I'd like to think they might want to avoid that scenario.

I don't think you're alone on that at all. We have seen some uncharacteristic things over the last year or two. That said, I'm always weary about whether or not the changes are really a permanent shift in power/attitude or if they're just trying to get the fans back on board. We'll see, but I'm (somewhat) cautiously optimistic in that regard.

I think the best case realistic scenario for this off-season, is that we get a slew of changes to the staff, they part with some well paid familiar names (like AJ Green, Geno, maybe Bernard, etc) and they splurge on an o-linemen with a DJ Reader caliber signing at that position. I'd be ok with all that, but I really do think we should just scrap the whole staff and start over without Zac Taylor.

We'll see. Should be a very interesting off-season.