Zac Taylor/Coaching staff Pros and Cons

[NUGDUKWE]

(09-06-2021, 06:42 PM)BengalChris Wrote: I believe you are giving way too much credit to Taylor in the Pro's column.

Mike Brown and Family determine free agency spending, not the coaches. If you want to credit Taylor with the choices in free agency, then I'd like to point out that Waynes has yet to play in a game isn't as good as the guy they didn't pay, who was Willie Jackson.

Additionally, in free agency, do not forget the following deals signed since Taylor was hired: Bobby Hart 3 years, CB Webb 3 years, Miller 3 years, Preston Brown 3 years. All of which are long gone and were wasted millions. If you want to give Taylor credit for a good signing, like Reader, then you also have to hold him accountable for the horrible signings.

Drafting. It's hard to miss when you have the top pick in the draft, though many teams have. Still, Taylor had to suck horribly to bring that top pick to the team. That's something Marvin never did, bring the top pick by being the worst team.

Playing rookies. I'm not sure that this counts for anything at all. Marvin played rookies and even got the playoffs with a rookie QB and top WR. I think this one is more fake than reality.

Game and Clock Management. How do you know he's any good at these? Don't you have to win as a result? I mean if you are down 20 points with 3 minutes to go, what's the point of having 3 time outs?

Wins or lack there of. Well, since that's the whole point of even having a team to begin with you'd think this would be at the top of the list as to whether the guy should have his job or if he should be managing a carwash in Alaska during the winter.

Your right. I made an original thread but I think it was a little too much after I wrote everything out. So I edited it down. But in the other one I did say that I didn't know if he gets credit for all of free agency but we have been more active since he arrived. But you did bring up a good point on some of the misses in free agency which I think you'll have but I did over look myself.

I also brought up in that other one that Taylor could've had a couple more wins his 1st season if he left Dalton as the starter. But it would've cost us the 1st pick and most likely Burrow. But then I had a mind exploding moment that it could've gotten us Herbert. Not that I'm not happy with Burrow.

Outside of the 1st 2nd rd I don't think Marvin played rookies much or atleast not as much as Taylor.

Again good point on clock management. That one was probably also comparing him to Lewis again and the terrible challenges he used to do. Although Lewis would also have some bone headed time management moments as well.

Also not sure how much credit the coaching staff gets for drafts but I think it has been better. I think the drafts under Lewis were good but the just had a few at the end that were poor.

[XenoMorph]

(09-05-2021, 01:38 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: Okay I decided to edit this thread because I think it was a bit much before. I just wanted to post some pros and cons of the coaching staff and which pros and cons might affect us this year. Then see what other people think are some pros and cons.

Pros:
Game/clock management
Playing rookies
Drafts
Free agency
Players belief in the staff

Cons: 
Game/season adjustments
Neglected the oline
Drafts
Wins or lack there of

I think free agency is the one of the positive areas of this coaching staff that will really pay off this year. We seam to have really built a defensive unit that looks the part we will see if that is truly the case.

Unfortunately I think for this year to turn out good Zac and Co. are really going to have to turn some of the negatives of they're tenure into positves. Game/season adjustment is most certainly going to have to be better. We are going to find out week 1 how we pass pro and how we run the ball. We need to attack these areas urgently and adjust our playcalling if need be to protect Burrow and/or find ways to get Mixon the ball in space.

As I said in the other thread the depth of this Oline is extremely concerning. We can't afford one injury let alone multiple and almost the entire unit has had recent injury history/issues. Our Oline and Defense have been terrible and we've completely rebuilt the defense while putting in minimal work on the oline. We traded away Price (which I get for multiple reasons) for more Dline help but leaving us even more thin on depth. 

I really think wins and losses aren't going to be what decides if Zac's time here is done as I think our ceiling for the season is 9 wins and it only takes a rough start to turn that into 5 wins. But if they fail to adjust or if injuries start to stack up and the Oline gets exposed he needs to go.

lost me at game management...  

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(09-07-2021, 09:06 AM)XenoMorph Wrote: lost me at game management...  

"They will NEVER expect a delayed QB run out of the shotgun on 4th and inches."

[NUGDUKWE]

(09-07-2021, 09:13 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: "They will NEVER expect a delayed QB run out of the shotgun on 4th and inches."

With Andy Dalton no less. I forgot about that probably the worst play call ever.

[NUGDUKWE]

(09-07-2021, 09:06 AM)XenoMorph Wrote: lost me at game management...  

Yeah I probably got more into that in the other thread. I don't know how good Taylor is with game management. That was probably more a comparison to Lewis who had some terrible challenges/clock management at times.

[*jason*]

(09-07-2021, 09:13 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: "They will NEVER expect a delayed QB run out of the shotgun on 4th and inches."

Wait til we drop Andrew Billings back into coverage...

[fredtoast]

Marvin had very good challenge success rate (.474) and never lost a single game due to poor clock management.

[CJD]

(09-05-2021, 01:38 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: Okay I decided to edit this thread because I think it was a bit much before. I just wanted to post some pros and cons of the coaching staff and which pros and cons might affect us this year. Then see what other people think are some pros and cons.

Pros:
Game/clock management
Playing rookies
Drafts
Free agency
Players belief in the staff

Cons: 
Game/season adjustments
Neglected the oline
Drafts
Wins or lack there of

I think free agency is the one of the positive areas of this coaching staff that will really pay off this year. We seam to have really built a defensive unit that looks the part we will see if that is truly the case.

Unfortunately I think for this year to turn out good Zac and Co. are really going to have to turn some of the negatives of they're tenure into positves. Game/season adjustment is most certainly going to have to be better. We are going to find out week 1 how we pass pro and how we run the ball. We need to attack these areas urgently and adjust our playcalling if need be to protect Burrow and/or find ways to get Mixon the ball in space.

As I said in the other thread the depth of this Oline is extremely concerning. We can't afford one injury let alone multiple and almost the entire unit has had recent injury history/issues. Our Oline and Defense have been terrible and we've completely rebuilt the defense while putting in minimal work on the oline. We traded away Price (which I get for multiple reasons) for more Dline help but leaving us even more thin on depth. 

I really think wins and losses aren't going to be what decides if Zac's time here is done as I think our ceiling for the season is 9 wins and it only takes a rough start to turn that into 5 wins. But if they fail to adjust or if injuries start to stack up and the Oline gets exposed he needs to go.

I generally agree with your assessment. I'd add "suspect play calling" to the cons. I know the play calling hasn't been bad necessarily, but Zac was brought in as this offensive guru Sean McVay type. We all suspected it was bullshit from the very beginning, but you couldn't help but feel like a guy doesn't get promoted from QB coach to head coach without having a very impressive interview and insight.

We haven't really seen anything of the sort so far. Granted, his first two years he has not had good QB play, but even with Burrow in, he threw way too much, he didn't seem to consider Joe's health all that much and while his passing was generally effective, it didn't blow you away either.

Plus, shouldn't an offensive genius be able to squeak wins out even with bad QB play?

I expect a lot more from a coach who was supposedly a genius at play calling, so much so that he has an OC that effectively does no play calling, as Zac has taken that role from him on gamedays.

[fredtoast]

(09-07-2021, 09:13 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: "They will NEVER expect a delayed QB run out of the shotgun on 4th and inches."

(09-07-2021, 10:17 AM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: With Andy Dalton no less. I forgot about that probably the worst play call ever.

This is a perfect example of how many fans obsess over one play and neglect to see the big picture.

Since Zac became our head coach only 5 other teams have converted a higher percentage of fourth downs than the Bengals 58.8.  OVERALL fourth down plays are one of Zac's strong points.

This happens a lot with players also.  A guy can make one really bad play that gets posted on social media and veryone assumes he is the wort every play.

[XenoMorph]

(09-07-2021, 10:20 AM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: Yeah I probably got more into that in the other thread. I don't know how good Taylor is with game management. That was probably more a comparison to Lewis who had some terrible challenges/clock management at times.

look at his challenge record and win loss record.

[XenoMorph]

(09-07-2021, 10:47 AM)fredtoast Wrote: This is a perfect example of how many fans obsess over one play and neglect to see the big picture.

Since Zac became our head coach only 5 other teams have converted a higher percentage of fourth downs than the Bengals 58.8.  OVERALL fourth down plays are one of Zac's strong points.

This happens a lot with players also.  A guy can make one really bad play that gets posted on social media and veryone assumes he is the wort every play.

having to convert 4th downs when your out of a game and season doesnt mean much    

[NUGDUKWE]

(09-07-2021, 10:35 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Marvin had  very good challenge success rate (.474) and never lost a single game due to poor clock management.

Okay I didn't look up his win loss on challenges. I just remember several I knew from the 1st replay we shouldn't challenge then we do anyway. It was like we didn't have someone watch and calling down but maybe that's Marvin's fault. 

On the clock management Marvin has definitely lost games. I know that's a hard one to look back and tell what caused the loss. But I'm thinking of the Steelers game a few years back where we scored too early. Maybe you say that you can't help that but I remember we did several stupid things before we scored like snapping the ball with 18 secs left.

[fredtoast]

(09-07-2021, 01:01 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: Okay I didn't look up his win loss on challenges. I just remember several I knew from the 1st replay we shouldn't challenge then we do anyway. It was like we didn't have someone watch and calling down but maybe that's Marvin's fault. 

I don't know what exactly you saw, but why do you say Marvin's "fault" instead of Marvin's "credit" when the Bengals were better at challenges than most other teams?

Maybe you just need to pay more attention to what other teams challenge.  It obviously is not as easy as you imagine it to be.

[fredtoast]

(09-07-2021, 01:01 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: On the clock management Marvin has definitely lost games. I know that's a hard one to look back and tell what caused the loss. But I'm thinking of the Steelers game a few years back where we scored too early. Maybe you say that you can't help that but I remember we did several stupid things before we scored like snapping the ball with 18 secs left.

We had 1:24 left with first down on the Pitt 11 yard line.  If we burn the clock down to 1:00 then we can't run the ball every down with out getting into a hurry up situation where we can't substitute.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(09-07-2021, 11:23 AM)XenoMorph Wrote: having to convert 4th downs when your out of a game and season doesnt mean much    

Yup. If you convert on 3rd down then you don't reach 4th down and the Bengals were 30th in 2020 and 24th in 2019 on 3rd down conversion. They were 20th in 2018 before Taylor.


(Also worth noting that the Bengals were 3rd in Red Zone TD%.... Taylor came and they have been 30th in both 2019 and 2020. Dude is terrible.)

[fredtoast]

(09-07-2021, 11:23 AM)XenoMorph Wrote: having to convert 4th downs when your out of a game and season doesnt mean much    

People who think the opposing team is not trying to win just because we have a losing record don't understand the NFL at all.

I guess you all think the "game is over" in the first quarter when the Bengals have the 11th best 4th down conversion.  Or the first half where they have the 13th best conversion percentage.