06-29-2022, 12:09 PM
NFL top under 40 stars per their NFL peers
Zac Taylor, Bengals | Age: 39
Taylor’s job status seemed somewhat shaky heading into the 2021 season. Then he led one of the most impressive worst-to-first turnarounds in NFL history, as the Bengals won two AFC road playoff games to reach the Super Bowl, where they nearly held off the Rams.
Taylor inherited a mess when he was hired by the Bengals in 2019, and while landing a franchise quarterback in Joe Burrow certainly helped accelerate the rebuild, Taylor has created a winning culture in Cincinnati. Now his challenge is sustaining the success from 2021 and building on it.
Assistant coaches
Brian Callahan, Bengals offensive coordinator | Age: 38
Callahan was a 27-year-old entry-level offensive assistant coach with the Broncos when Peyton Manning became Denver’s new quarterback. The subsequent four years they spent together was the equivalent to earning “beyond a Ph.D. in football,” Callahan said.
Now that Callahan is working with Burrow, he finds himself frequently leaning on what he learned with Manning.
“(Manning) forced you to be so thorough. It taught me how to teach quarterbacks and how to give them the right information,” Callahan told The Athletic recently. “My job as a coach in that quarterback room, if you have a quarterback of Joe’s caliber, you want to empower him to have command over the whole thing. Seeing the way Peyton had control over the whole offense, that was valuable to me, and I can impart that to Joe.”
Callahan, whose father is longtime NFL offensive coach Bill Callahan, said he has head-coach aspirations. For now, though, he is fulfilled being one of three offensive coaches in Burrow’s ear, along with Taylor and 35-year-old quarterbacks coach Dan Pitcher. The trio has been together since Taylor’s arrival in Cincinnati in 2019.
“We all grew up together in a sense. We took our lumps, had a lot of failures and learned a lot professionally and personally. That really galvanized our staff. Everybody’s on the same page on how we want to do things,” Callahan said. “There’s an excitement here, and moments where we’re young enough, we don’t know better, we just do the things we feel are right. Hopefully we’ll look back on this staff in 10 years and say, ‘That’s a really dynamic staff, everyone’s gone on to do great things.’”
Zac Taylor, Bengals | Age: 39
Taylor’s job status seemed somewhat shaky heading into the 2021 season. Then he led one of the most impressive worst-to-first turnarounds in NFL history, as the Bengals won two AFC road playoff games to reach the Super Bowl, where they nearly held off the Rams.
Taylor inherited a mess when he was hired by the Bengals in 2019, and while landing a franchise quarterback in Joe Burrow certainly helped accelerate the rebuild, Taylor has created a winning culture in Cincinnati. Now his challenge is sustaining the success from 2021 and building on it.
Assistant coaches
Brian Callahan, Bengals offensive coordinator | Age: 38
Callahan was a 27-year-old entry-level offensive assistant coach with the Broncos when Peyton Manning became Denver’s new quarterback. The subsequent four years they spent together was the equivalent to earning “beyond a Ph.D. in football,” Callahan said.
Now that Callahan is working with Burrow, he finds himself frequently leaning on what he learned with Manning.
“(Manning) forced you to be so thorough. It taught me how to teach quarterbacks and how to give them the right information,” Callahan told The Athletic recently. “My job as a coach in that quarterback room, if you have a quarterback of Joe’s caliber, you want to empower him to have command over the whole thing. Seeing the way Peyton had control over the whole offense, that was valuable to me, and I can impart that to Joe.”
Callahan, whose father is longtime NFL offensive coach Bill Callahan, said he has head-coach aspirations. For now, though, he is fulfilled being one of three offensive coaches in Burrow’s ear, along with Taylor and 35-year-old quarterbacks coach Dan Pitcher. The trio has been together since Taylor’s arrival in Cincinnati in 2019.
“We all grew up together in a sense. We took our lumps, had a lot of failures and learned a lot professionally and personally. That really galvanized our staff. Everybody’s on the same page on how we want to do things,” Callahan said. “There’s an excitement here, and moments where we’re young enough, we don’t know better, we just do the things we feel are right. Hopefully we’ll look back on this staff in 10 years and say, ‘That’s a really dynamic staff, everyone’s gone on to do great things.’”
Romo “ so impressed with Zac ...1 of the best in the NFL… they are just fundamentally sound. Taylor the best winning % in the Playoffs of current coaches. Joe Burrow” Zac is the best head coach in the NFL & that gives me a lot of confidence." Taylor led the Bengals to their first playoff win since 1990, ending the longest active drought in the four major North American sports, en and appeared in Super Bowl LVI, the first since 1988.
