Issue: Cincinnati Bengals look bad for retaining Zac Taylor amid NFL layoffs
Message: John Harbaugh won a Super Bowl in Baltimore. He won eight playoff games on the road during 18 seasons there, something no other coach has done. They still fired him.
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Sean McDermott turned Buffalo into a regular contender in the AFC, at one point winning at least one playoff game six straight seasons. They still fired him.
And yet, Zac Taylor is still the head coach of the Bengals after missing the playoffs three straight years. Don’t you think all these firings of top coaches make the Bengals look even worse for keeping Zac?
Reply: I guess it depends on the audience. It looks bad to the national media, who can’t accept that the Bengals aren’t like everyone else in the way they operate. Here at home, we’re conditioned to accept the Bengals’ mediocrity and that’s why most people don’t think they look that bad.
Overall, the moves in Baltimore and Buffalo highlight that the Bengals’ standards are not congruent with those of the AFC’s elite franchises. You already knew that, but it’s just another reminder that some teams have a completely different level of expectations, a level that’s hard to understand around here.
John Harbaugh won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens and routinely made the playoffs, but the franchise decided to make a head coaching change anyway.
Baltimore and Buffalo are legitimately trying to win a Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Bengals owners are happy if the team is competitive and finishes with a winning record. Did you notice that Bengals owner Mike Brown pointed out the “four consecutive winning seasons” in the first sentence of his statement earlier this month? Well, two of them ended up without a playoff spot.
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That being said, I’m glad Taylor wasn’t fired. The team’s failures are not their fault. Taylor can’t do much with the inadequate players that ownership and management keep giving him.
And there’s something to be said about being patient with a coach. It’s a tough balancing act, but Taylor oversaw the best two-year stretch in team history, and it wasn’t that long ago.
The idea of firing a coach after a bad season is crazy, like the Ravens did with Harbaugh. On the one hand, you like the message that mediocrity is not enough. On the other hand, however, it is a warning that you have to be careful what you wish for. It will be incredibly difficult for new Baltimore coach Jesse Minter to match Harbaugh’s success, much less surpass it.
This article originally appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer: Baltimore and Buffalo seek Super Bowl excellence as Bengals stay the same