Taylor puts friendship aside vs. Packers
In their one year working together, Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor and Green Bay Packers head coach Matt Lafleur became close friends.
Both Taylor and Lafleur were members of Sean Mcvay’s staff in Los Angeles in 2017.
Lafleur was the offensive coordinator and Taylor was the quarterbacks coach, and they square off leading their own teams for the first time this Sunday when the Bengals host the Packers.
The Bengals and Packers are 3-1 and sit atop their respective divisions. Lafleur is 31-9 since taking over as head coach of his team while Taylor is 9-26-1.
“Zac Taylor, first and foremost, he’s a great person,” Lafleur said. “He’s a guy I’ll always root for except this week. I have a lot of respect for him in terms of how he sees the game, his work ethic, his ability to communicate not only with the coaches but with the players. I thought he did an outstanding job for us in the one year I was with him in Los Angeles.”
After the 2017 season, Lafleur went on to become the Tennessee Titans’ offensive coordinator before being named head coach of the Packers in 2019.
“It wasn’t a shock to me that he got a head coaching job, and I think he’s done a really nice job with his football team,” Taylor said. “You can see the growth watching them this year. This is a really good group; I think probably one of the more under-the-radar teams out there. Watching them in every phase, man. They bring it in every phase, every play. That’s the one thing that stands out to me is just how physical and relentless they are.” There are a lot of similarities between Lafleur and Taylor’s offenses. They both utilize the West Coast, wide-zone scheme centered on play-action and stretching a defense horizontally with passing. The run game is all based on a zone-block approach.
Taylor and Lafleur are also both known for their work with quarterbacks. Lafleur was the quarterbacks coach when the Atlanta Falcons went to Super Bowl LI and Matt Ryan was named NFL MVP in 2016. Taylor, a former signal-caller himself, mentored Ryan Tannehill as an assistant with the Miami Dolphins.