Time for Taylor to surrender Bengals’ play-calling duties?
The list of problems on the Cincinnati Bengals' offense is dwindling. The line is protecting better. Joe Mixon finally showed Sunday night he's still a capable running back.
So why are the Bengals still struggling?
The glaring problem is coach Zac Taylor's play calling. It's obvious after the Bengals' 19-17 loss to Baltimore.
It's time for Taylor to seriously consider giving up play-calling duties after he cost the Bengals opportunity to take over first place in the AFC North. Taylor and the organization's decision makers need to at least discuss it.
Bengals fans want Taylor to give it up now, and it's hard to blame them after he called two failed trick plays from the Ravens' 2-yard line late in the third quarter. Taylor deserves a little grace. The Bengals are only five games removed from their Super Bowl loss.
They are underachieving at 2-3, and need to do something to shake things up on offense to avoid this season getting away from them. The hard part of one of the hardest schedules in the NFL is yet to come.
The margin for error is shrinking. The easiest move to try to jumpstart the offense would be for Taylor to turn over play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Brian Callahan, a rising star in the
NFL coaching ranks. It's hard enough to be an NFL head coach, let alone a young one who's put the added pressure on himself of calling plays.
Every game, Taylor calls a pitchsweep to the running back that never works. He did it in a critical short yardage down against Miami on Sept. 29. He called it again in the first half against Baltimore, and it didn't work.
The up-the-gut running game was starting to work late in the first half Sunday with Mixon, who came in struggling. Then the Bengals went away from it.
NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth summed up the game well in the first half when he said: “The Ravens are always going to be that team to challenge your manhood. They want to see how physical you can be and the Bengals have to respond to that.”
Translation: It's not the type of game to run a double-reverse pass from the 2yard line with your team down by three points late in the third quarter. That resulted in Tyler Boyd being dropped for a 12-yard loss.
Translation: It's not the type of game to run a fourth-down shovel pass from the 2-yard line on the same series. That resulted in Joe Burrow shoveling an incompletion, and the Ravens taking over on downs clinging to a 13-10 lead.
No, you hand the ball the Mixon and let him plow it into the end zone. The Bengals would've gone onto win if they'd scored a TD there.