{"id":698247,"date":"2026-01-23T06:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/698247\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T06:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:20:20","slug":"williams-inbox-bengals-status-quo-looks-worse-amid-nfl-coach-firings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/698247\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams inbox: Bengals’ status quo looks worse amid NFL coach firings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask columnist Jason Williams anything \u2212 sports or non-sports \u2013 and he\u2019ll pick some of your questions and comments from his inbox and respond on\u00a0Cincinnati<\/a>.com. Email:\u00a0jwilliams@enquirer.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Subject: Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> look bad for keeping Zac Taylor amid NFL firings<\/p>\n

Message: John Harbaugh won a Super Bowl in Baltimore. He won eight road playoff games over 18 seasons there, something no other coach has done. He still got fired.<\/p>\n

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Sean McDermott made Buffalo a regular contender in the AFC, at one point going six straight seasons of winning at least one playoff game. He still got fired.<\/p>\n

And yet Zac Taylor<\/a> remains the Bengals\u2019 head coach after missing the playoffs three straight years. Don\u2019t you think all these firings of top coaches makes the Bengals look even worse for keeping Zac?<\/p>\n

Reply: Guess it depends on the audience. It looks bad to the national media, which can\u2019t accept that the Bengals aren\u2019t like everyone else in how they operate. Here at home, we\u2019re conditioned to accept Bengals mediocrity and so most people don\u2019t think it looks all that bad.<\/p>\n

Big picture, the moves in Baltimore and Buffalo highlight that the Bengals\u2019 standards aren\u2019t congruent with the AFC\u2019s elite franchises. You already knew that, but it\u2019s just another reminder that some teams have a whole other level of expectations \u2013 a level that\u2019s hard to comprehend around here.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Harbaugh won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens and routinely made the playoffs, but the franchise decided to make a change at head coach anyway.<\/p>\n

Baltimore and Buffalo are legitimately trying to win a Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Bengals ownership is happy if the team is competitive and finishes with a winning record. Did you notice that Bengals owner Mike Brown pointed out the \u201cfour straight winning seasons\u201d in the first sentence of his statement early this month? Well, two of those ended with no playoff berth.<\/p>\n

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That said, I\u2019m glad Taylor didn\u2019t get fired. The team\u2019s failures aren\u2019t his fault. Taylor can only do so much with the inadequate players that ownership and the front office keep giving him.<\/p>\n

And there is something to be said about being patient with a coach. It\u2019s a tough balancing act, but Taylor did oversee the best two-year stretch in team history \u2013 and it wasn\u2019t that long ago.<\/p>\n

The notion of firing a coach after one bad season is crazy, like the Ravens<\/a> did with Harbaugh. On one hand, you like the message that mediocrity won\u2019t cut it. On the other, though, it\u2019s a cautionary tale to be careful what you wish for. It\u2019ll be incredibly difficult for new Baltimore coach Jesse Minter to match Harbaugh\u2019s success, let alone top it.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Baltimore, Buffalo go for Super Bowl excellence as Bengals stay same<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask columnist Jason Williams anything \u2212 sports or non-sports \u2013 and he\u2019ll pick some of your questions and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[184,214,256,1885,7,6496,2909,6,169,2729],"class_list":{"0":"post-698247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","11":"tag-coach","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-head-coach","14":"tag-john-harbaugh","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-ravens","17":"tag-zac-taylor"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115942971992793815","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}