CINCINNATI — And so it begins.
The Bengals began their most critical offseason of the Zac Taylor era on Monday and a transformation of both the roster and the coaching staff Monday when Taylor relieved the only defensive coordinator he’s known as an NFL head coach, dismissing Lou Anarumo after six seasons in Cincinnati.
Also dismissed were offensive line coach Frank Pollack, defensive line coach Marion Hobby and linebackers coach James Bettcher.
The moves with regard to Pollack and Hobby don’t come as a huge surprise as the Bengals will have to improve their consistency and performance in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
“Just as I evaluate everything within the organization I just felt like we needed to make a change there,” Taylor said. “It’s as simple as that. We’ll start that process immediately evaluating where we need to go and who we want to bring in to take us to the next level. I can’t tell you much I appreciate what those guys did and they worked hard every single day and they’re great football coaches and will land on their feet very quickly.
“I thought look and hard about it. Lou’s been doing this for six years here and the success that we’ve had he’s been a big reason why we’ve had a lot of the success. I don’t take this lightly; put a lot of thought into it. It’s a not an easy day for any of us. Just felt like we need to perform better as a football team. It’s not in any specific one area. I think we’ve got to be better in all three phases of our team and these are the decisions I made today and we’ll work to be better.”
What exactly is the “next level” for the Bengals in 2025? For a team with an elite quarterback in Joe Burrow, it should be returning to the Super Bowl and winning it. Will the ownership and front office see it that way in offseason negotiations with Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins? Will the next level mean adding to a scouting department to scour the country for the best available pass rush and offensive line talent? Will it mean getting creative with Trey Hendrickson to restructure the deal of one of the best pass rushers in the game?
Taylor says the Monday moves highlight urgency, not pressure, on him to get back to the playoffs in 2025 and make a run at the elusive first Super Bowl title in franchise history.
“I feel urgency every single day. I’m not lying to you,” Taylor said in a Zoom call Monday. “Pressure’s not the word. You can’t do this job if you’re going to succumb to pressure, I just make the decisions I feel like I need to make. Not because of any pressure I feel. These are the decisions I feel l have to make because I’m the head coach of this football team and the expectations we have. There’s always a level of urgency to improve everything I’m doing and everything this team is doing. Pressure’s not the word I would use.”
The coaching staff feels the urgency every day of the season and offseason. What about the urgency from ownership from the front office and ownership? Since ownership and front office have declined media requests to address their perspective on the offseason, it’s up to Taylor to address the need to extend Ja’Marr Chase, re-sign Tee Higgins, rebuild the defensive line, fortify the pass rush, solidify the interior offensive line.
Is there an urgency from ownership?
“I think we’re all on the same page,” Taylor told me. “We want to win.”
But what about lobbying ownership to extend Chase and re-sign Tee Higgins?
“I think lobby is not the right word. We are in lockstep in how we communicate every week of the season, every week of the off season, and so those are conversations we’ll have,” Taylor said. “We’ve got a lot of great players, and Tee is one of them, certainly, and I’m very hopeful that it’ll work out to where we are able to get him back.
“But there’s certainly a process we’re going to have to undergo with with a lot of players on our team. And I can promise you, we’ll be in unison with whatever those decisions are, and that’s a process we’ll start now, through the month of January and February, and talking through every player on a roster and how it all fits.”
Taylor has taken every step to express his support of ownership and their commitment to a Chase extension and bringing back Higgins.
“The understanding that we need to be better, in his own way of doing it,” Taylor said of his regular conversations with Mike Brown and daughter Katie. “And again, this isn’t something – there’s not this end-of-the-season big wrap up. This is a weekly conversation that he and I have. That’s the best way to do it because every two months you’re getting together and talking. It’s a daily basis thing. That allows you to have the best communication possible, make sound decisions where everybody has all the information. And so, he’s understanding of the moves I felt like we needed to make and I certainly understand where we need to be moving forward.”
Other takeaways from Taylor’s Monday wrap up:
“I’ll certainly look back over those games that we lost and some of the moments where I need to do a better job of taking control of the game and making sure our team took control of the game in those late moments where you lost games that you were a play or two away. That’s one of the things that I’ve got to do better. Those aren’t things you can run from when you’re in my shoes. Those are things you’ve got to address head on and I’ve never had an issue doing that.”
“I think it speaks wholeheartedly to how we finished with five wins in a row. To go on the road and win a divisional game in the final game and keep our hopes alive, I think that speaks a lot to the leadership. I think it speaks a lot to the growth of a lot of the young players that we had over the course of the season that allowed us to do that. I think it speaks to the coaching staff and the messaging to the players as the season progresses to keep those guys in it and to be able to get the most out of them. So there are positives to draw from, but I don’t want that to lead anyone to believe that we think it was good enough this year on what we just did.”
“We’re all disappointed with the overall reality of the season and the position that we put ourselves in, and I know it’s not acceptable to start the way that we started. We have a lot of talent on this team. We have great coaches. And so again, I’m not just going to say what I want to say, that we’re going to be better to start the season. We’re going to work like hell to make sure that we start the season the right way to put ourselves in a great position to finish like we did. There’s a lot of positives there with the way we finished, and it’s sickening that we’re not in the playoffs with an opportunity to keep this thing going, because we finally found a lot of momentum. And so it’s just on us as a whole to finish games off earlier in the season, and it’s on me as head coach to make sure we come out of the offseason, we come out of training camp and we’re ready to hit the ground running from Game 1.”
