Bengals HC Zac Taylor Talks Burrow, Ja’Marr, AFC North & More with Rich

The Cincinnati Bengals are 2-0, their defense is winning games, and their quarterback gets quizzed on the opponent in a homemade game of Jeopardy every Saturday night. Head coach Zac Taylor walked Rich through all of it on The Rich Eisen Show, days before a Week 3 road trip to Pittsburgh.

Taylor was not in the mood to declare victory. "It's only two weeks into the season," he said. "We still have a lot left to prove and to get accomplished, and so going on the road with our first divisional game gives us a lot to get ready for and get excited about."

Rich passed along a question from his 15-year-old son Cooper, who asked during the Monday night game whether Dexter Lawrence was the biggest acquisition by any team this season.

"He's my favorite acquisition of any team this offseason so far," Taylor answered.

The coach spent more time on what Lawrence does away from the box score. "Just the energy he brings every day, the enthusiasm, he loves being here, loves playing with his teammates," Taylor said. "He's made some big time plays for us. Not all of them show up in the stat sheet. A lot of times he's providing opportunity for those around him and they're capitalizing on it."

Rich revisited the price: the Bengals flipped the 10th overall selection in a draft with real talent at the top. Taylor had no second thoughts. "We had an opportunity to go get arguably the best defensive tackle in football and we did it and everybody in this building was on board," he said. "Ownership, personnel, coaches, there was no hesitation." The effect on the locker room, he added, came the second Lawrence walked in and "impacted them in ways that you really can't measure."

That defense is changing how Cincinnati plays everywhere else. Rich noted it has been a while since a Bengals defense could carry the team through rough patches, and Taylor agreed that it shapes the entire operation.

"It absolutely dictates how you call plays on offense," he said. "You don't have to be perfect on every drive. Joe doesn't have to go be a hero all the time." With a defense like this one, he explained, it is okay to punt, pin a team inside the 10 or 15, and trust you will get the ball back quickly in similar field position. He called the win in Houston, with all three phases making plays in a tough environment, "a good recipe for the month of December."

Rich asked if Taylor had a clean look at Ja'Marr Chase's first touchdown in Houston. He did not.

"I probably had the worst seat in the house, Rich," Taylor said. The catch happened in the opposite end zone, so he didn't really see it until he pulled it up on his iPad after the game.

He called it "maybe one of the best catches I've ever seen in my life," then immediately added that it didn't surprise him. "That's just what's in his DNA and that's what he does."

Rich was most impressed that Chase stumbled, regained his balance with his college teammate, one of the best corners in the business, in coverage, and still twisted to make the play. Taylor agreed that Stingley is one of the best, but credited the connection with his quarterback. "Joe just sees Ja'Marr and I don't care who's covering him," he said, channeling Burrow's thinking. "I'm going to give him an opportunity and when I give him an opportunity, he usually makes us look pretty good."

The second touchdown looked like backyard football to Rich. Taylor joked the staff was still trying to figure out what Mike Gesicki did to Burrow, since Gesicki was open on the front pylon. Instead Burrow scrambled through contact, looked backside, and found Chase shaving back for the score that got Cincinnati to 20 points.

The best stretch of the conversation started when Rich asked Taylor to walk through his weekly meetings with Burrow.

Taylor laid out the rhythm. The two recap key points on Monday. He checks in again early Wednesday with game plan thoughts, followed by a deeper quarterback meeting. On Friday, after three days of practice, he asks Burrow what he likes and doesn't like. "Usually there's very little that he doesn't like," Taylor said. "He might have a tweak or two on the back side of a progression."

Then comes Saturday night, when the staff goes through every play on the call sheet. And then they play Jeopardy.

Rich could not let that go. The board, Taylor explained, is built by the third-string quarterback, currently Sean Clifford, from a website. Rich guessed Joe Flacco was the architect. "No, no, no, no, no, no," Taylor laughed. Categories range from the Steelers defense and random questions about Pittsburgh's personnel to "finish the play call," where players have to complete an elaborate third down call from a couple of words. Whoever is trailing has to take the $500 miscellaneous question at the end.

There is no buzzer, and no, the answers do not have to come in the form of a question. The biggest complaint is the scoring. "We're letting him get 400 points for that answer? That wasn't a complete answer," Taylor said, describing the typical gasp from the room.

The session also produced a real result. Everyone in the room picks the play they think will produce the first touchdown, and Burrow picked the play they scored on in Houston: the Chase catch. "I'm not trying to cater to Joe and let him win because he picked it," Taylor said, "but it does lead me down a path of okay, that's a good shot play."

He even took a shot at himself. "I wasn't willing to put my ego in front of everybody and try to pick the one I picked," he said. "Let him win this one. Give him something for once."

Rich's parting advice: be a stickler about the form of the question. Taylor promised to put it on Clifford, "the judge and juror in that one," and Rich suggested that if Burrow asks what gives, Taylor should just say it was the Michigan guy.

Starting 2-0 feels good, and Taylor admitted it builds confidence. But he was clear about what he hasn't seen yet.

"The unknowns are the chemistry and the adversity and we really haven't faced adversity yet," he said. "We've played with leads in two games and been able to control the games that way." He has coached long enough to know it is coming, and that it often shows up in road divisional games like this weekend's trip to Pittsburgh.

Taylor only caught a few plays of Monday night's game, so he didn't see much of Aaron Donald's return with the Rams. He has seen plenty in person, though, "more times than I need to."

From his two years on the Rams staff, Taylor said Donald held out of both training camps he was there for, which was fortunate for the offense, but "he showed up for the first game and he always made an impact." He called Donald "a tremendous player, great person," and noted a family connection: Donald's wife Erica's father coached with Taylor's father-in-law in Green Bay, and their wives have been friends for a long time.

Rich also reminded Taylor that he was in the building the last time the Super Bowl came to town. Does he want another shot at a different result?

"I'm human. Yeah, that's the ultimate goal. Think about it every day," Taylor said. "But I also know that there's no steps that we can skip as a team." The goal is to have your best team stepping on the field in January. For now, that means winning the first divisional game on the road.