Bengals Beat: An Offseason Checklist For Zac Taylor, ‘Hard to Imagine Life Without Tee’, Finding New Voices In Locker Room

CINCINNATI — Every offseason is important in the NFL. This one is critical for Zac Taylor and the Bengals.

Coming off a 2023 season that was filled with two significant injuries to Joe Burrow, a defense that allowed too many explosive plays, the Bengals head coach has a lot on his plate.

Last spring, the Bengals were focused on extending Burrow, addressing free agents like linebackers Logan Wilson and Germaine Pratt, addressing the offensive line at tackle and filling two vacancies at safety.

This year, it’s all about Tee Higgins, Ja’Marr Chase, defensive line, another pending vacancy at right tackle in Jonah Williams, re-assessing the young secondary and making sure leaders step forward.

“It’s hard to imagine life without Tee Higgins,” Taylor said. “Those are all conversations we’ll continue to have upstairs. Tee and I talked and I have no information on that. Those are things that evolve. That’s what the next two months are for to get a chance to go in depth with the roster and survey the future. I’m not trying to angle this any which way. That’s what we do and that’s Duke and all of them have been working on endlessly while we’re in season. Then I get caught up to speed and have those conversations. Tee is a big part of what we’re doing and it would be hard for him to imagine not being here.”

Leadership is as good as any place in terms of a jumping off point for the Bengals head coach as he gets ready to take a couple of weeks to decompress.

Taylor knows players like Dax Hill and Cam Taylor-Britt will have to raise their voice on and off the field to lead in the back end of the defense. With Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd possibly heading out the door, Ja’Marr Chase will have to step forward with a bigger role in the receiver room, even if a star veteran free agent is brought onboard.

“There’s always an element of that guys trying to find their role and their place in the team,” Taylor said. “It’s my job to help them navigate through that and come to the forefront. I can remember having conversations with Sam Hubbard my first year here. He was what a second year player at that point, and trying to help him navigate that and so, again, we take great pride and leadership can come from any corner of this locker room. It can be a starter, non-starter, a veteran or a young player, and I think we need to continue to take great pride going forward and evaluating the right guys and bringing them to the forefront.”

If Tyler Boyd and DJ Reader don’t return, those are two big leadership voids to be filled.

“I’m certainly not resigning to anybody walking out the door and not being here, but it’s certainly as you look at the evolution of your team and the inlfux you’re going to have a lot of first, second, third year players. There’s new leadership that has to emerge from that group,” Taylor said. “That starts with me helping navigate that leadership. I talked to some of our veterans today about helping me with that and identifying guys. I do think that’s a big part of our future is making sure we have a great plan to develop the leadership and get the most out of those guys that are capable of that. That’s a great question and is big point of emphasis over the next six months.”

Here are some other takeaways from Taylor’s 2023 season wrap-up press conference:

Dax Hill, Cam Taylor-Britt have suggested offseason get-togethers to talk about on-field chemistry:

“Yeah, I think it’s just continuing to make the most out of our communication process, and again, there’s youth in the secondary, those guys and so it’s good for them to take some initiative. And we’re expecting that group to continue to grow and improve and the experience they gained this year is invaluable, and that’s part of playing in this league is sometimes you’re gonna take your lumps a little bit, and you’re gonna learn from that and grow and there’s not a player in our locker room that’s a veteran player that didn’t go through a similar process that some of those guys are going through right now. And now it’s just how you handle that going forward. And again, just us as coaches making sure that we’re helping them improve the right way.”

Players have pointed to the exceptional attitude in the locker room, even in an up-and-down disappointing season:

“Well, you get a lot of a lot of guys that have been elsewhere and again, we got guys that have been tremendous places and so they’re never negatively speaking on other places they’ve been, but it’s just positive that it is a great environment that allows you to grow as a player and as a person, and I think that was one of probably my favorite comments from this morning is one of our free agent players we had in here that just said they think they’ve grown as much as person this year as any other place they’ve been, and that’s important for getting this team where we want to be. It’s not just about the on-field stuff. It’s about what happens in the locker room and in the weight room, and I think we’ve got a good group of guys that way.”

Coaching staff changes?

“That remains to be seen. I think we have a tremendously talented coaching staff, and so I think opportunities are always going to be thrown at us, and I’ve got to get up to speed on the rules of who I would have to lose and who I wouldn’t, but I think that stuff takes shape over the next couple weeks and we’ll evaluate that as we go.”

How did Lou Anarumo handle a difficult year on defense?

“It didn’t change who he was. He maintained himself through that process, and it’s challenging in all three phases. We faced challenges this year not just on defense, and so I think that’s what I appreciate most about Lou and the coaching staff is when we face adversity, it doesn’t change who you are and all sudden you start pointing a finger and becoming somebody that you’re not when times are good, and so that’s what I appreciate about Lou and I think he did a great job of that this year.”

One of the biggest positives from 2023 was ball security. The Bengals committed turned the ball over just 16 times and committed an NFL-low 76 penalties. Those two factors kept the Bengals in nearly every game, except for blowouts at Cleveland, Tennessee, Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

“I think that’s a great starting point. The penalties are something that’s sometimes out of your control, but there are a lot of things you can control and our guys do that. With some of the procedural stuff we take a lot of pride in how we control that. I think yesterday was reflective of that, doing a great job with our cadence and getting some free plays and some free first downs and getting out of a minus-one situation. Defensively staying onsides. The ball security stuff is something we spend a lot of time and effort preaching and working on. It’s significant in terms of wins and losses. It gives you a chance to be in the hunt and do all the things we want to do.”

What about Jonah Williams, the free agent starting right tackle who made every offensive snap in 2023, including the fourth quarter of Sunday’s blowout over the Browns?

“Jonah has competed really hard for us for five years now. There is a lot of appreciation on our end as coaches for the job he’s done moving from left tackle to right tackle. I think he’s served himself well and done an excellent job for us. I look forward to seeing what the future holds. With a lot of those guys that are on expiring contracts it remains to be seen. Those are conversations that we’ll undergo over the next month-and-a-half. That’s what I communicated to him. It’s not my first draft pick, it’s our organization’s draft pick. There is a collection of guys there, that group, if you look at the first three picks, Jonah, Drew (Sample) and Germaine (Pratt), guys that are in some sense on a second deal, that hit the character that we were looking for. Those guys have played significant roles for us over the last couple years.”

What about keeping Joe Burrow more insulated from injury?

“The calf thing happened on a scramble, non contact, so I don’t know that there’s much you’re gonna do there to avoid an injury that happens like that. And then the wrist, feel on the wrist and somebody fell on top of him. That can happen on really anything. You can look at every injury and say they’re vastly different on how they occurred. Part of our process is making sure we protect all of our players and we’re not putting them in difficult positions. And that’s part of our process with Joe. That’s the best answer I can give you there.”

Burrow indicated he might take his foot off the gas in the weeks leading up to camp. How much confidence does Taylor have that Burrow will be full-go when camp comes in July?

“We’ve talked about a whole range of things. I won’t get into everything we talk about, but he’s pretty thorough with his process. Yeah. I have a ton of confidence in him.”

How will the extra time help this offseason?

“You just get a head start on everything. Again, your vacation will come to an end as people are still playing games, which hasn’t been the case for us in the past. There’s an eagerness right now, I think from all of us. Yeah, we need time off. You have to. We’ve been going full throttle for six months. And even though the results are what we want, it wasn’t because we didn’t give our best effort. So now there’s, as my father-in-law says, a re-entry phase with your family, where now you get to go back into the house and change everything that your wife has established for the last six months. So my wife looks forward to that. You get a chance to just refresh the emotional charge of time with your family. And then soon it will be time to come back in and start to work on the scheme evaluation and the talent acquisition. Duke and those guys are already full steam ahead with that part of it, and we look forward to jumping into the fray and they catch us up to speed and we’re more in the background observing. I do have an eagerness to hit the next phase of the offseason and start to get prepared for when these guys come back in the building. Those are things I do look forward to. But in the meantime, I’ll take a chance to take a deep breath and spend some time with family.”

How do you keep it fresh for the staff and not mundane in the offseason?

“It’s a little bit of your process. It does stay fresh because you’re changing topics. There’s really just a rhythm to the NFL offseason that you follow. And there’s not much changing that can take place because you get to February and you’re getting ready for the guys you’re gonna see at the Combine, you’re getting ready for pro free agency. So you’ve got to do all of that evaluation. And then once free agency comes to an end, you really transition full time to your scheme evaluation, getting ready for your players and the draft. So there’s always things to keep it fresh and not stale because you’re transitioning from one area of the offseason to the next. And then the players walk in the door and you get to focus on them for however many weeks we focus on them. Of course there are ways — I’m going into my sixth year here — that you get to look at the program as a whole and keep it fresh and put a different spin on things. Those are all things that I’ll evaluate over the course of the next couple weeks and months. But from the coaching standpoint, it’s kind of the calendar takes care of the freshness part of things. And once you finish with one thing, you get to move on to the next thing naturally.”