Bengals Beat: Why Joe Burrow Made Dan Pitcher The Perfect Choice To Succeed Brian Callahan As Offensive Coordinator

CINCINNATI — It pays to have powerful references.

There was really never a doubt who was going to be the next offensive coordinator of the Bengals once Brian Callahan was offered and accepted the head gig in Tennessee.

Dan Pitcher was always going to have the inside track, and deservedly so. He also clearly made the most sense.

Why? Well, when your best player and franchise figure throws complete and enthusiastic support behind the candidate, the hard part was taken out of Zac Taylor’s hands.

“Our relationship is as good as it gets,” said Joe Burrow in a team statement. “I wouldn’t be the player I am today without him. He’s been preparing for this for years. He takes his job very seriously and does it with a lot of passion.”

Pitcher has served as Taylor’s quarterbacks coach for the last five years. For the last four years, he’s had the privilege of coaching a generational talent who has been named AFC Offensive Player of the Week six times, earning his first career Pro Bowl selection in 2022 with Pitcher as his position coach.

What did those words mean to Pitcher to see them in print in the team statement before Thursday’s press conference?

“Nice to see,” Pitcher said. “I knew he felt that way, but it’s always good when people express those things. Listen, I love Joe. We’ve been tied at the hip from the moment he came into this building. I was hired into that role two months before that. I couldn’t have asked for a more ideal situation, and I love the fact I get to keep working with him.”

There’s of course the continuity factor, going from Callahan to Pitcher is like promoting the grad student after the professor leaves. The class is already comfortable with their teacher.

“When it’s available I think it is critical,” Taylor said. “It’s not always the case everywhere. Dan’s role has really evolved. Yeah, he’s been the quarterback coach, but that role has really evolved and given him more. He’s been a bigger voice as the years have gone by, and so it was natural progression to make him the coordinator once Brian left. I know that our staff feels the same way.”

What kind of influence has Burrow had on Pitcher, the new OC?

“It’s huge,” Pitcher told me. “There are a lot of people in this profession that I respect who have great perspective who have reached out to me and almost to a person their advice is, ‘When you have an elite quarterback you hang on as long as you can,’ and we have that here. Not only is he an elite player, but I’ve gotten to know him so well as a person. He’s a special person. He’s different. They don’t make many like him, and to get to continue working with him day in and day out, knowing that we have a guy that can win us a World Championship it’s hard to put a price in that.”

There’s obviously much more that Pitcher brings to the job than just serving as Joe Burrow’s Jeopardy mentor on Saturday nights.

In Pitcher’s four seasons as quarterbacks coach, Burrow set single-season team records for completions (414; 2022), passing yards (4611; ’21), TD passes (35; ’22) and passer rating (108.3; ’21). From the start of the 2021 regular season through Week 10 of the 2023 campaign, Burrow led the NFL in completion percentage (68.7; minimum 250 attempts), while ranking third in passing yards (11,294), third in TD passes (83) and third in passer rating (101.0).

Pitcher spent the final seven games of the 2023 season working with QB Jake Browning as he stepped into the starting role for the first time in his career. From Week 12 through Week 18, Browning ranked second in the NFL in completion percentage (71.5), second in passing yards (1868), third in completions (163) and third in yards per attempt (8.19). He became the third quarterback since 1950 to record at least 1500 passing yards and 10 TD passes with a completion percentage of 70 or higher in his first seven career starts.

“I’m excited for Dan and his opportunity to increase his role on our staff,” said Taylor. “He has excelled in his job of helping develop our quarterbacks over the past five years. He has been a top contributor to our scheme and that role will now increase. I look forward to seeing him continue to grow in this new position.”

Pitcher, 37, concluded his eighth season on the Bengals’ coaching staff in 2023. He spent the past four seasons as the team’s quarterbacks coach, after previously serving as assistant quarterbacks coach (2019) and offensive assistant (’16-18). Prior to joining the Bengals, he spent four seasons in player personnel roles with the Indianapolis Colts.

“I couldn’t be more excited and energized by this opportunity,” said Pitcher. “I love this organization and am so grateful to Mike Brown, the Brown and Blackburn families, Duke Tobin and Zac Taylor. That they see me fit for this responsibility means the world to me, and I will work tirelessly to provide every ounce of value I can to this team. My wife Marissa, son Oliver and I love that we get to continue our journey in this great city. Who Dey!”

Pitcher played quarterback at the SUNY Cortland (Division III) from 2008-11. He began his coaching career at his alma mater, serving as wide receivers coach, before being hired by the Colts as a scouting assistant in 2012.

While Brian Callahan was getting ready for his 40-minute press conference in Nashville, Pitcher was effusive in his praise of the departing OC and the impact he had on him in Cincinnati.

“Brian has been huge in my development,” Pitcher said. “Brian just has a wealth of knowledge, really, from an entire life in football. Being around great coaches and great quarterbacks and great players and great offenses. I’ve just taken so much from him philosophically, particularly in the areas of protection and the dropback pass game and what that all looks like and how that ties together. The biggest thing I have probably taken from Brian is just how he treated people in the building in that role. I think when you value people you get the best out of them. When they feel valued they give you their best. That’s how I have felt as a position coach on this staff. It’s not my job to continue that and make sure all the position coaches feel that way.

“With regard to my vision for the offense I mention the word adaptability before. It’s something I believe in completely. You need to have the ability to pivot in a moment’s notice given different constraints that might be placed on you. I can’t sit here and say I see the offense moving in this specific direction. We have had a very good offense. We have dealt with some issues, particularly this past season, that made life a little bit harder on us than we are used to. But I fully believe in the foundation that we have and that we have the people in place to be one of the top offenses in football.”

Pitcher on Running the ball:

Listen, being able to run the ball is critical to offensive success. And what that looks like is different for every team. That’s something we’ll look at over the course of the next couple of months when we get back together as a staff and we figure out how to put our players in the best position to be successful. We’ll work on improving in that area as we will in every other one.

One of the big responsibilities Pitcher has had in the last three years is coming up with a third down approach. Will that continue?

“Well, you believe in what he’s presenting to you,” Taylor said in complimenting Pitcher. “So that’s really an evolution over several years of him doing that. I’d love to go back and look at Year One of us having third-down meetings together to where we ended up last year. But a great trust that he owns the scheme in that area and he’s going to present a great plan. Really, just got to the point where we were just tweaking a couple of things as we finalized it. But even on gameday, his role really evolved over the course of the game when it came to third down. His voice got bigger and bigger as the years went. So there’s a lot of trust there. So that’s why this is a natural progression.”

This and that:

Zac Taylor said Thursday there’s been no rush to find Pitcher’s replacement as quarterbacks coach. Certainly assistant quarterbacks coach Brad Kragthorpe is in the conversation. Taylor said that Pitcher will have the “loudest voice” in contributing to the decision-making process.

Taylor also indicated that “everything has been positive” with regard to Burrow’s rehab on his surgically repaired right wrist. Burrow was in the building Thursday and has been a frequent visitor to the facility in the weeks since the season ended on Jan. 7.