Zac Taylor Press Conference – October 6

Zac Taylor Press Conference – October 6

[Music] Fire away. Just start off. Injury updates come out of yesterday. Relatively clean. Pretty clean. Yeah, guys are dinged up. Um maybe we’ll have some guys limited on Wednesday, but for the most part I feel like we came out of it um relatively clean. I think DJ went out for a little bit. Was he okay? Yeah, ankle came back and played. So again, some guys are going to deal with some soreness this week and things like that, but um nothing from this game that should prevent anybody from the next game. Has a shot to come back this week. We’ll see. Yeah, we we’ll see where that’s at right now. You go back and look at how Jake played, what kind of stood out the day after? Well, we have to take care of the football. That that’s the number one thing is um eliminating the turnovers, giving them a short field for our defense. You know, our defense first drive of the game gave up a touchdown after starting on the minus 41 and they gave up touchdown after starting on the plus 19. Those are the 14 points they gave up. And so we got to give them better opportunities um to be able to keep points off the board because those are two tough field positions that one started with the special teams error, one started with an offensive error. And in order to play winning football, we’ve obviously got to score more points on offense and and keep our defense out of harm’s way in terms of the field position. And then and then they’ve got to do a great job of creating some turnovers. You know, they got the one, but we’re going to need more than that. Do you see Jake starting on Sunday? We we’ll see where it goes. You know, it’s I think like all personnel decisions. Um we got to evaluate it. Jake’s been very accountable uh for how the game went for him. I’ve got to be accountable for how the game went for me as well. And so we will continue to progress here through the days. When would Go ahead. when would you want that to be finalized going for a game week? When do you got when do you need to have a guy? Obviously, these are things that we talk about every single Monday, Tuesday. So, um we we’ll evaluate a lot of positions. Can you expand on that process when you’re evaluating players that might not have played games recently like some of the guys that you have on the practice squad and with like what’s that process like? Yeah. Um it’s it’s not always perfect, but we are always paying attention to these guys on the practice squad, what the reps are getting. we do try to create some opportunities to isolate them and let them get kind of give them a stage during practice to perform um which we’ve done over the years. And so again, we we try to look for assistant position coaches a lot of times to work with those guys as well to try to elevate their game so that it’s we’re making progress with them from a developmental standpoint as the season goes on. So that that’s a critical part of of um I hate to say the bottom part of your roster, but it’s it’s those 16 guys in the practice squad. You’re going to be counting on them at some point. And so we don’t want them to go by the wayside. We do pay a lot of attention to that as they’re running our scout teams. We try our best to use our terminology so they can picture that and they can apply it and we can evaluate them as they rep some of the things that we would rep. Um so there’s a lot of a lot that goes into that and trying to make sure that we can fully evaluate for when a situation occurs where we want to call somebody up that maybe we have acquired from somewhere else that wasn’t in our training camp or offseason program. you feel like you got information that could give you your best guess on how they’re going to perform. In many specific ways can you improve your play calling? Is it opening the playbook more? Is it refining it more for Jake or whoever the quarterback? I think finding more opportunities for our our playmakers to get the ball, you know, and and finding ways to get them easy touches that they can lead to productivity on our offense. We haven’t been productive enough. Um I I don’t worry about statistics right now. I carry wins. That’s that’s all I worry about. But at the same time, I know that we’ve got to get more productivity and that’s more opportunity from a lot of our key guys on offense to be able to get the ball in the end zone. And that’s that’s me finding the the cleanest ways to get them the ball so they can impact the game. I think you acknowledged in the past that you are very reliant on explosive plays. A lot of teams in the NFL are, but you specifically want to see a good number of explosive plays when you’re struggling so much. Yeah. How much harder is it to find opportunity for those? It’s hard. I mean, we’re we’re trying to do everything we can, you know, and and uh you saw we called a flea flicker in the game. That was a almost a catastrophic play for us. And so, you’re you’re ready to do whatever it takes and and sometimes it doesn’t work out. We’re fortunate we scored on the next play or two plays later. Um but there’s there’s pros and cons to the creativity sometimes that you apply to it. Um it’s just overall being better. You look at the field position battle yesterday, that’s that’s all three phases take into account. It was it was horrible in terms of how it was tilted. You know, we had I think three possessions starting inside our 10. They had three possessions that started on our side of the field, you know, and so um there’s a lot of areas that we just weren’t good enough that to be a team that plays winning football right now, we got to clean up some of that stuff. Given your comments yesterday, did you I just want to ask, were there any considerations about play calling duties? Is that still something that you’re going to retain move forward? I’m still going to retain that move forward. Is there was that even a conversation at this? Did you how much did you think about that at all or was that I mean I’ve kind of always gotten into that. you know, I I rely on our guys on offense as well. There’s a ton of input there, and those guys do an outstanding job. Um, adjusting as the game goes, giving me the information I need. Um, I rely on them as much as I think any play caller in the league replies on anybody else. So, um, I feel very comfortable. I, it’s a fair question. We score three points in three games in the first half. I totally understand that. Um, but right now, that’s it’s going to remain the same. Could you let these quarterbacks all get kind of their turn, their chance on Wednesday and Thursday in practice and see how that goes? you have so few reps. It’s just every rep is critical. It might be um I mean if you get two reps on a play during the course of the week, a pass play, that’s that’s quite a bit, you know, two full speed reps. So, it’s difficult to to balance quarter. You’re you’re in on one quarterback and you need to get them move on and you got to find ways to evaluate the other guys that are on the team in different ways, whether that’s on practice squad, whether that’s um in group install period. Um, you have to use every resource because it is very challenging during the season to get multiple guys reps to evaluate how they’re going to look in your offense with your receivers and the alignment and all that stuff. It’s it’s just a real challenge. After the game, Jamar said that it’s difficult to move the ball when the defenses know exactly what you guys are trying to do. Does it seem like this offense has become a little too predictable? I don’t believe so. How how does Orlando look physically and we’re seeing plays we’re not used to seeing from Orlando. What are you seeing there from him? Well, some of the plays you’re probably seeing were were snap count. You know, we’ve um there were some issues there yesterday where where he was a little his guy was getting a jump a little later. So, we have to work through that to make sure we’re giving everybody an advantage. Um and it’s a different reason for each one really to be truthful. So, I don’t know if that’s exactly what you’re pinpointing there because that was that was a couple of them. One of them might have been flee flicker. The flea flicker is a is a re-engage play, right? Where your guy starts to let up because he thinks it’s run and then re-engages and beat him around the edge. So, that’s one we got to be better at. You’re looking at traits that for a quarterback who can run the offense effectively right now. What are the traits that you probably value the most and what y’all need right now? I’m not that that’s not in my wheelhouse right now. So, I’ll ask somebody else answer that question. Couple weeks ago, Al was talking about uh the importance of improving third down defense. It feels like that’s adjustment that is being made positively. Um, what do you like kind of about the improvements you’ve seen from the third down defense and the blitzes especially? Yeah, I I thought they did a great job, man. They you know, for for Denver to I mean Detroit to walk away with three points something a carry, you know, they’re they’re a um they’re not a onedimensional football team. They can beat you a lot of different ways. And so I thought our our our scheme did a great job with our coaching staff led by Al and his crew uh to create a plan that that tried to minimize the run game and put pressure on the pass game, which even still with with Jared and their skilled players, it’s a difficult task, but I thought our guys in a back on the back end did a great job. A lot of times we have fiveman fronts and so you’re engaging five in there and that’s why you see some of those Dlinemen dropping because we got five D linemen on the field and so everyone did their part. It wasn’t always perfect. They got some plays there, but I thought for the most part they they did their best down the field. Matching routes and some of the underneath stuff is what got us. There was some missed tackles there that got us that if we can just get the guy on the ground, we’re in position to kind of minimize a lot of the explosive plays they had. It was it was more of that. It was more underneath matching of the coverage and getting the guy on the ground that led to some of the explosives. And um so again, that that’s area we can improve, but you do you’re right. Point out the third down. I thought we were much much improved on third down and that was going to be there’s not many times that that Detroit has lived in third and five plus over the course of the season. We were able to get him in that position and you saw our defense make some plays there. There’s um you know you have three guys behind Jake who have been here for a month or less. What are the limiting factors in terms of what you can do in terms of their knowledge of the system if you were trying to use those and how how much do they know compared to what trying to do everything we can to help speed up the process for them? Um whether that’s been me meeting with them, pitch talking to them, Brad meeting with them, some of our QC’s meeting with them. Um because we’re in game plan mode, so we have to spend our time getting our team ready to go at the same time getting a quarterback a lot of information. It’s not just, hey, you’re blocking this guy or you’re running this route. You need to know what everybody’s running, what all the protections are, what the run plays are, what the checks are, what cadences we utilize. So, there there’s a lot there. Um, so we’ve we’ve tried to be creative in a lot of different ways to um get those guys the information to where they can accelerate their learning process as fast as possible. Is that part of the overall challenge of trying to if you were to bring in somebody from the outside at this point of the season, have no institutional knowledge of what you just said. Is that part of the problem? Yeah, that that’s a challenge. Anytime you bring in scout, team player, any anybody over the course of the season, that’s a challenge. So, you have to have the decision by Wednesday. What’s that? For the quarterback, you have to have decision by Wednesday. Jason both ended up with the same amount of rushing yards, but it seemed like was able to give you a little bit more per carry. What’s the biggest you’re sensing between those two when they are running? Well, I think both of them um sometimes it’s opportunity. You know, it’s it’s Sam made the most of two opportunities. One, we did a great job up front creating a a big lane that got Sam on the safety. Sama then got five additional yards, whether you want to call it breaking a tackle or dragging a guy for five more yards. So, that that’s a full head of steam. um Chase, there was an opportunity there that we we didn’t fully take advantage of where he might have had that same opportunity, you know, and and um the play just went elsewhere, but we got to find ways to maximize both of their strengths and and find a way to get more out of our run game opportunity from a play calling standpoint to get those guys the opportunity. Um because there were some positives there. I mean, it’s it’s not we’re not at the yards per carry we want. We’re not at the yards per game we want, the rushing game. A lot of that has to do with the score sometimes. Um but but there’s some opportunity there and I got to I got to find ways to lean into that and give those guys more opportunity. What have you learned from watching more kind of how he’s operated over these last couple weeks as he’s kind of dealt with adversity as a team? What have you learned from from Nothing that I’ve learned from him? Just things that maybe reconfirm what I thought about Jamar. And um you know I I don’t think I was aware of the interaction on the sideline, what was being made of it. Um, so I don’t pay much attention to that because I know where we are and that’s all I care about with me and him. Um, people brought to my attention that it was it was conceived as a it was perceived as a bad interaction and that’s just not the case with he and I. And um, again, I it’s I I’ve said everything I need to say about him. It’s he’s carrying us through um some difficult things on offense right now. And for him to find two I mean he ran a choice route out of the backfield and scored a touchdown on the other side of the field. So, he became one in the progression and then he became five in the progression and he made it work, you know, and Jake gave him a great throw. Um, Amarius did a great job trying to finish his block over there on the edge that gave Jake an extra second to get on the edge and Jamar ends up on a choice route on the left and catches a ball on a toe tap on the right sideline. um works a double move that really uh Brad Craig Dorp suggested during the game with some of the coverages they were giving us uh to work a double move and scored a touchdown there and Jamar was able to we hadn’t had a rep of that all all week. Um and Jamar was able to stick the guy and get wide open and track an over the shoulder catch for touchdowns. So some of the things that he’s able to adjust to during the game, understand what we’re asking him to do on the move during a game, he can adapt to anything and um he’s a big reason why we’re going to find some success moving forward on offense and score some points just because of Jamar’s leadership. When to that point when your best players are also some of your most vocal players? Yeah. In times like this, what kind of impact does that have? It’s huge. It’s huge because the guys at all levels see as a guy that works hard. He performs on the field. He’s trustworthy. Um, and so his voice carries a lot of weight. Jamar’s not always a super vocal guy. I don’t think if if his default is he wants to talk all the time, but he felt the need that he needed to talk. And I appreciate that he did that because um some guys that’s just not they don’t they don’t do it. They don’t major in it. Um and so when they do it, it sometimes it carries a lot more weight because guys know he’s not vocal. He brings a ton of energy. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t speak. He brings a lot of energy at practice. Um which you need. Uh but in terms of addressing the team as a whole, um I was proud of the way that he approached that and it was very significant for our guys. Your secondary targets not well it’s that’s a that’s a matter of opportunity and so we we have not given ourselves a lot of opportunity with getting first downs. So you can always look at the end of the game and the targets and when you’re scoring three points you’re not you’re not creating a lot of opportunities for yourself and plays are be drives are being stunted by turnovers um some three and outs and so yeah I wish we were having more 12play drives where we could get everybody covered and create more opportunity for people and we just um starting with me that I haven’t done a good enough job getting us in a position where we can utilize all those weapons. Andre did have his best statistical game this year. Are there opportunities there for him? Yep. Again, that’s that’s that’s us. That’s not that’s not an Andre thing. Andre has done everything he can to create that opportunity for himself. Um whether it’s run blocking, whether it’s blocking down the field on scrambles for other guys, whether that’s winning a one-on-one, you know, as we were getting both guys doubled yesterday. And so, you put him on the same side of the field and you let Andre work one-on-one and he comes up big for us down the field. And so, um he just he made some big plays for us yesterday and he’s a guy that we can always count on and it’s hard. We have a lot of weapons and so it’s it’s there’s always going to be questions on why did this guy not get this? Well, it’s it’s difficult. It’s challenging when um I’ve got to figure out a way to to get more production out of our offense because we have a lot of playmakers. Okay. Thank you. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Zac Taylor speaks to the media.

Subscribe to the Bengals YT Channel: https://bit.ly/3jbqOLG
#RuletheJungle #WhoDey #Bengals

For more Bengals action: https://www.bengals.com/
Download the Bengals app: http://apps.yinzcam.com/nfl/cin
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bengals/
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Bengals/
Follow us on Twitter: https://X.com/Bengals