Bengals Beat: ‘Brick Wall’ Going Up Around Paycor As Bengals Say Quiet Part Out Loud About The Bleak Future

CINCINNATI — Sometimes the Bengals say the quiet part out loud, in clear simple words.

Zac Taylor did as much for Bengals fans Monday, the day after one of the most abysmal days in franchise history. They were eliminated with a 24-0 no-show against the Ravens at frigid Paycor Stadium.

The fans that didn’t bother to show up were the only winners. They didn’t have to wait out in the cold for faulty gates to open or for Bengals to clean the snow and ice off their seats (lol). They didn’t have to watch franchise stud Joe Burrow get held scoreless for the first time in his career.

The Bengals response to all of this?

A report from the esteemed Paul Dehner Jr. in The Athletic suggests the Bengals are going to simply run it back with the same people in charge, Taylor (with two years left on his contract) and director of player personnel Duke Tobin. If indeed that is the case, it’s just the latest example that Bengals ownership simply doesn’t care about fan opinion or doing what’s in the best interest of winning football games. It only cares about maintaining control of their operation. Season-ticket holder opinion and player sentiment be damned. This is our team and we know what’s best.

Taylor has been the ultimate pro through all the turmoil, at least in terms of answering for his failures. And that’s one of the biggest reasons the Blackburns love having him in the job. He’ll answer all the questions that ownership and the front office avoids.

He’s been criticized at length for the way he comes off in press conferences, for his lack of anger and rage at incompetent play. Many fans have had it with his “ownership” and “frustration” with losses. Still, he’s handled the knives and arrows slung in his direction with nothing but grace. How does he he handle external criticism?

“That has no bearing on me whatsoever,” Taylor said Monday. “When I tell you there’s a brick wall surrounding me and isolating me from any feelings people have about me or their views on me, I can’t allow that to dictate how I operate. And so truthfully, that doesn’t affect me in any way, shape or form, and I just keep doing my job to the best of my abilities. And this year certainly hasn’t been good enough with the record we’re at right now. I get that, but I’m just going to keep doing everything I can to get this team ready to play on Sunday.

“I just look at anything I can control to make this team better. That’s all I can try to analyze. How you put that into words is difficult. I’ve certainly go through a myriad of things I try to follow to make sure every facet of this program is functioning as high as it needs to, but it is difficult for me to sit up here and put into words and how I do all that.”

Taylor was 6-25-1 to start his career in 2019 and ’20. He knows failure and how to handle it. He was rewarded with a remarkable turnaround in ’21 and ’22. But those first two seasons taught him how to handle the critics who don’t want him running the team.

“Certainly. I think from a personality standpoint, a lot of people when things aren’t great, they want you to change who you are and your personality, and that’s one thing I refuse to do,” Taylor told me. “That’s kind of why I’m here today is because of all the challenges I face in my life and I’m fortunate I learned from the best in the world, I’ve learned from my dad, and that’s somebody I know everybody that looks up to and my life looks up to him. And so I’ve learned because you play for other coaches and you’re on other teams where maybe the personalities can change depending on the situation, and I’ve never felt that’s a great way for me to lead. So 2019, 2020 I did everything I could to stay true to who I was so that the players know what they’re going to get every single day and what the expectation’s going to be.”

The failure this season feels much different. This team wasn’t supposed to be 4-10 through 14 games but because the personnel was sorely lacking and the front office foolishly thought rookies could lead the defense and there was no need to upgrade the safety room, you had a train wreck on defense. That’s squarely on the football incompetence of ownership and the front office.

“It doesn’t mean they’re all going to be easy conversations or lack of hard conversations, but they know what they’re going to get when they get face to face with me every day,” Taylor said. “And so that’s not going to change for me in 2025 or going into 2026, but again, it’s I am disappointed where we are in the season right now. I feel everyone’s frustration. I feel the same frustration and we want to finish this season on a really strong note that’s important to me. That should be important to everybody and we’re in this business to win football games and we haven’t won enough football games and it’s very important we go out and win starting this week, forget about the last two, but going down to Miami and putting our best foot forward.”

Taylor is not the real problem. A symptom perhaps, but not the root cause of the organizational dysfunction. Would a different, louder, sterner voice help? Maybe. But – as Bill Parcells once famously said – until you change the person in charge of the groceries, the meal will disappoint.

The Bengals have the money to invest in a real general manager and a real scouting department. They just refuse because they think they know better. 50 years of results would suggest otherwise.

Joe Burrow was limping through the Bengals locker room after meetings on Monday. But that didn’t keep Taylor from announcing that Burrow will be the starting quarterback for the final three games. Perhaps Burrow doesn’t want to go out on the incredibly sour note from Sunday and his performance. But if he re-injures himself, the doomsday clock for Bengals annihilation for years to come gets thrown into warp drive.

Maybe Burrow knew something when he suggested the team is not that far off from competing for a Super Bowl. The last three seasons would certainly suggest otherwise. Maybe the reason Burrow was downtrodden last week was that he was given the bad news by the Bad News Bears front office and ownership that nothing in terms of management and coaching will change this offseason.

“A lot of confidence… because I know how hard people work at it, and we have the right people. It starts with players playing better, and today it was me,” Burrow said.

Maybe it’s why Burrow keeps repeating the same mantra that he believes in the coaches and front office and he sees how hard they work behind the scenes. That may very well be the case, but they don’t hand out Lombardi trophies for effort. They are awarded for results. And the Bengals are nowhere near the standard of producing those results. Everyone with a pair of eyes knows that.

Could a change in the offseason of the way you do business change that? Sure. But if we’ve learned anything over the last 50 years of watching the Bengals, they care more about doing business their way than changing and adding staff that might help them compete with the franchises that are trying win for an extended period of time, like the Steelers, Patriots, Chiefs and Bills.

No, the Bengals answer is to put up walls and put on ear muff and shout “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.” That’s the Bengal Way. We know better than what your cryin eyes are telling you.

The Jaguars, Colts, Patriots, Broncos. They all took a close hard look at the way they do business and who was running their football operations and made changes over the last several years. They have all blown by the semi-pro Bengals, who stand in traction.

With Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins locked up to multi-year contracts, the future should be incredibly bright, with the prospects of multiple Super Bowl appearances on the horizon. Everyone in Cincinnati and every Bengal fan would love – and deserve – that storyline to follow. Instead, thanks to the stubborn and unrelenting nature of Bengals ownership, the only thing on the horizon is a Category-5 tornado that threatens to rip apart the Super Bowl hopes of every Bengal fan.