NFL
Fans can hold a grudge against the Kansas City Chiefs for tanking against the Denver Broncos all they want, but the Cincinnati Bengals should hold more than the Chiefs responsible. It might be wild to think that the Bengals should’ve looked to their head coach when contemplating someone to fire. Hard to fire a guy who took them to the Super Bowl not too long ago and a conference championship the year before.
Yes, the obvious choice is to fire the defensive coordinator who can’t stop opponents from putting up points and wasting the season of brilliance by your star QB Joe Burrow. Burrow led the league in passing yards, attempts, completions, and touchdowns. The offense featured a pass-heavy attack and didn’t have a 1,000-yard rusher. Yet the offense did their job. Clearly the blame should fall on the DC, Lou Anarumo but it’s not as if the Bengals finished dead last statistically on defense. They might’ve been in the bottom 10, but there’s more to it that the Bengals should consider.
The real question fans have to ask is why are the Bengals letting Zac Taylor off the hook? If not for his playoff success with a 5-2 record, any other team would be looking at the head coach right now and so should Cincinnati. Two seasons in a row the Bengals have finished just barely over .500. They finished 3rd in the division this season and last in the division just a year ago. Despite two seasons where he won 10 or more games, Taylor still has a losing record as a head coach for the Bengals.
Blame the rebuild seasons if you want, but the Bengals aren’t keeping up with the moves that the rest of the division has made and he has the star power. Anarumo is the scapegoat, but someone has to start looking to Taylor. At the end of the day, your head coach is the guy who should have the team prepared to win the close games and so far these Taylor-led Bengals can’t,
Go back to his playoff losses. In the conference championship, they lost to the Chiefs 23-20. The year before, they lost the Super Bowl to the Los Angeles Rams with the same score, 23-20. Yes, the defense failed the Bengals late in the season which may have kept them out of the playoffs, but what about the rest of the games?
In week 1 they lost to the Patriots 16-10. Week 2 was another loss to the Chiefs 26-25. Week 3 to the Commanders 38-33 for their third straight. Week 5 to the Ravens 41-38 can be on the defense and again in week 10. They were blown out by Philly. They lost to the Chargers and the Steelers. Every single team that the Cincinnati Bengals lost to this year, was a playoff-caliber team. Like it or not, that’s not just the defensive coordinator’s responsibility to win those games.
They lost 3 straight games to start the season and went 9-5 from that point out. Maybe that makes the case for Taylor to keep his job over Aranumo but why were these games so close? A win is a win but this high-powered offense only put up 17 on the struggling Giants. Barely got by the Cleveland Browns but took care of business the second time around and squeaked by other opponents.
There’s no defending the fact that Lou Aranumo had to go for the Cincinnati Bengals but how much more can they ignore looking to Zac Taylor past his few seasons of success? Finger-pointing to the defense is fine, but with how talented the Bengals are you have to start questioning whether the guy at the top can get it done as well. Taylor might not be on the hot seat yet, but maybe it’s time to warm it up a little
