‘Adapt or die’: The urgency that got the Bengals out of their Super Bowl hangover
Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor spends all week thinking about what he’s going to say on Saturday night. The night before every game, Taylor gets a slot to speak to the team. He crafts his message, brainstorms ideas and considers what the team needs to hear. Throughout his professional career, he had visualized what it would be like addressing a football team, and he calls this opportunity one of his favorite parts of being a head coach.
Sometimes he shows a film clip as a final reminder. Sometimes he turns the floor over to a team captain to deliver an important message.
But on Sept. 24, at the team hotel before the Bengals’ Week 3 game against the New York Jets, Taylor used his speech to give the team a kickstart.
“That was a pivotal moment in the season,” Bengals safety Mike Thomas said. “It was a turning point. You take after your head coach. Once he established that, he showed that he had to have that type of aggressiveness and confidence in us.”
At the time, the Bengals were 0-2 with back-to-back losses on walk-off field goals. The Bengals were developing a trend of falling behind by double digits early in games and needing to claw back.
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Taylor responded with a decision that went against analytics. He decided if the Bengals won the coin toss, they'd take the ball first against the Jets.
Taylor revealed that new plan to the team on Saturday night. It was a decision that flipped the page from the Bengals’ AFC title team in 2021. It was a decision that gave the 2022 Bengals their identity. With that, along with a series of heart-to-heart conversations during that week, the Bengals turned around their season.
After that speech, the Bengals went 10-2 over their next 12 games. Now, the Bengals are a Super Bowl contending team that believes it's better than it was last season.
“It was about starting faster as a team, having that mentality of taking the ball,” Taylor said. “It’s been a mentality thing for our guys.”
Fixing what ailed the Bengals' offense
Six days before Taylor addressed the team, the Bengals lost 20-17 to the Dallas Cowboys. The Bengals’ offensive line looked worse than it did in 2021. Quarterback Joe Burrow was trying to do too much, forcing throws and taking six crushing sacks. The defense allowed Cowboys backup quarterback Cooper Rush to march down the field and lead a game-winning drive.
“Clearly, when you’re coming off a Super Bowl appearance, nobody wants that Super Bowl hangover,” said Thomas, a team captain. “Once you go 0-2 and the expectations are so high, there’s going to be urgency.”
There were sloppy mistakes and mental errors. On one play, Bengals right tackle La’el Collins let an All-Pro edge rusher run right past him. On another play, the Bengals had a drive end because everyone wasn’t on the same page with an audible at the line of scrimmage.
“I don’t think you could look at anyone on the offense and say they were doing a good job over the first two games,” Bengals left tackle Jonah Williams said. “A lot of times, (the line) ends up looking the worst out of it.”
“We knew what type of team we were,” Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd said. “In the first two games, we were getting our feet back under us.”
The day after the Dallas game, Taylor and offensive coordinator Brian Callahan had a long meeting together to try to fix the offense. Even though the Bengals were only two games removed from the Super Bowl, the coaches started making big adjustments. They planted the seeds for the structural, schematic changes that have gone on to define Burrow and the 2022 Bengals.
Taylor and Callahan recognized their run game was predictable, and they began shifting the offense away from snaps where Burrow lined up under center. They started to go away from the “wide-zone” run scheme and shifted to a “gap scheme” attack.
The Bengals saw more Cover-2 defenses, designed to take away big plays, than any other team in the NFL early in the season. Taylor and Callahan added new plays designed to beat that structure, and they started working with Burrow to make quicker, sharper decisions against that style of defense.
The coaching staff’s goal was to “maximize Burrow’s ability to control the game.” They put more on his plate and trusted him to make big adjustments to his game.
“Joe just started to understand what it meant to move our offense efficiently, that it didn't have to always be a touchdown,” Callahan said. “We don't always have to have an explosive play. There's an efficiency element involved in playing offensive football. I think a light went on at some point early in the year and he realized that the explosive plays will come."
That week, Bengals offensive line coach Frank Pollack was as honest and “fired up” as he has been all season. The Bengals had four new offensive linemen, but Pollack told them that wasn’t an excuse for Burrow taking 13 sacks in two games.
Pollack told the offensive line it was time for a “wakeup call.” He didn’t sugarcoat it. The Bengals had four veterans who had been starters for Super Bowl contenders, and the line wasn’t playing anywhere near its potential.
“It was definitely, ‘hey, we got to get our (stuff) together,’” Pollack said. “That was completely unacceptable. No matter how much time we had together. We had to figure it out. The answers are in this room. We got to go to work. The guys responded.”
Some of the adjustments on the Bengals’ offensive line were about the scheme. The linemen met with running back Joe Mixon to learn better ways to block for him. They developed a plan to communicate better and to pick up blitzes more consistently.
And some of the adjustments were about the mentality of the offensive line. Pollack told them that if all they were going to do was work harder, then it was too late. They had to be more cohesive, and they had to immediately find ways to get on the same page more consistently.
“We knew what type of group we could be, but it doesn’t come easy,” Collins said. “You have to go out there and earn it. Guys did a good job of taking coaching, applying it and getting better. We took the coaching to the field. That’s what it comes down to.”
Developing an identity for the 2022 Bengals
As Burrow, Mixon and the offensive line were making adjustments, so was Taylor. For the most part, Taylor is an analytical coach. During games, he consults with a data analyst to inform his decision making. He judges the success of the offense with advanced metrics.
This time, Taylor went with his gut. He was convinced what the team needed was to take the ball first. It was a controversial idea. In the NFL, the common practice is to defer to the second half when you win the coin toss. In that case, you can “double up” with a score before halftime and another score to start the third quarter.
Last year, the Bengals’ biggest strength was the way they dominated that part of the game. During the last two minutes of the first half last season, the Bengals outscored their opponent, 80-49. During that 42-minute stretch, Burrow was 53-for-71 for 669 yards.
But that was the identity of the 2021 Bengals. The 2022 Bengals needed to develop a different way to win.
“That’s the best way to describe it, this is a whole different team,” Thomas said. “It’s not the 2021 Bengals. You have to turn the page on that. That was special. It was awesome. But this is a whole different year. For this team and this year, taking the ball first was the format. We took after Joe’s lead and Zac’s lead. We had to forget that mentality of scoring at the end of the half knowing we were going to get the ball back after halftime. It was all about scoring first.”
Taylor said he “kicked the idea around” of taking the ball first throughout the week. He mentioned it during meetings with the coaching staff. He brought it up when he stopped into a quarterbacks’ meeting.
He finalized the decision on Saturday morning during his “situational coaching meeting” with the coordinators. Then, on Saturday night, Taylor made the big reveal to the team.
The players loved it.
“We create more pressure scoring first,” Boyd said. “Any time we score first and jump on teams differently, we win.”
“If we can play loose and free with a lead and have us stacking points, that’s a good formula for us to win,” center Ted Karras said.
“That was what we needed,” Collins said.
'It was either change and adapt or die'
Against the Jets, the Bengals got the ball first. On first and goal from the 4-yard line, Burrow threw a touchdown to Boyd, but it was nullified due to a holding penalty. Then Burrow threw a touchdown to Tee Higgins in the back corner of the end zone, but the score was overturned when a controversial replay review deemed that Higgins was out of bounds.
So the Bengals scored again. On third down, running back Samaje Perine caught a check down from Burrow and powered his way into the end zone. One week later, the Bengals scored on their first possession in a win over the Miami Dolphins.
The Bengals have taken the ball first every game since. They established an identity.
“It was either change and adapt or die,” Pollack said. “Seeing what we could become and what was our best avenue moving forward, we had to utilize all of our pieces and complement it at the same time. We had to move in different directions."
Since Week 3, Burrow has a case as the best quarterback in the NFL. With a different strategy to attack Cover-2 defenses, Burrow started getting rid of the ball more quickly. He saw plays like back shoulder throws and check downs turn into consistent big gains, which set up more deep throws down the sideline.
The Bengals went all-in on switching their run scheme. Now, they run a shotgun offense and a gap scheme rushing attack. It’s been a perfect fit for Mixon’s style as well as the strengths of the Bengals’ offensive linemen. The Bengals ended their habit of rushes for loss, and Mixon has been one of the most statistically efficient running backs in the NFL over the last three months.
“The focus from the players ramped up,” Boyd said. “Every guy in here wants to win.”
After he took 6.5 sacks per game over the first two games, Burrow has only been sacked twice per game since Week 3. The Bengals’ offensive line has shut down some of the best pass rushers in the league, including Chris Jones, Jeffery Simmons, Myles Garrett and T.J. Watt. They’ve gelled into the unit that Pollack believed they could be.
“It shows the type of team we have,” Williams said. “We’re resilient. It’s fun to be a part of.”
Now, the Bengals are shooting for the No. 1 seed in the AFC to set up another run to the Super Bowl. Three months after Taylor thought the team needed a “kickstart,” the Bengals have a case as the best team in the conference.
“We were down and had to fight back,” Thomas said. “We have a great group that will keep fighting. And it doesn’t hurt when you have Joe Burrow.”