Zac Taylor is like a lot of NFL coaches in the way his calendar works. And normally, for him and pretty much everyone else in his profession, that means once the end of June hits, he and his family are taking trips, seeing people and checking every box they need to before camp kicks off and the grind of the season gets started.
Taylor, his wife, Sarah, and their four kids will stay in Cincinnati for the league’s unofficial summer break. They’ll unwind, hang with friends and enjoy their adopted hometown.
It’s just one more change made by the Bengals’ coach to adjust for coming off a Super Bowl loss. Last year was a whirlwind for everyone in the franchise. Inexplicably, Cincinnati went from a team coming off a 4-11-1 season, that hadn’t been to the playoffs in half a decade, with a quarterback on a freshly reconstructed ACL, to one that would win 10 games, finish atop the rugged AFC North and take down the AFC’s top two seeds on the road en route to a conference title—before falling just shy of a Lombardi Trophy against the Rams.
Add all of it up and, for Taylor, there’ll be real value in getting a shot to catch his breath. He’s giving his players that shot, too, in delaying the start of their offseason program as an acknowledgment of what they’re coming off of, to give them the best shot to get to where they want to go next. And no, there’s no previously sketched-out roadmap the staff is following—even if some coaches in the group have actually been through this before.
“We got guys on staff that have been a part of that, myself included, [offensive coordinator] Brian Callahan and other guys who’ve been there, won and lost,” said Taylor. “But it is different now if you were talking to someone who had experience 15 years ago. The offseason program has changed now, the length of the season has changed now and we’re dealing with our own set of challenges that we’ve gotta figure out what’s best for us.
“That’s what matters most, and I like how our guys have handled everything so far.
So Monday, the 2022 Bengals hit the field for the first time with their coaches, a full two weeks after the rest of the league did the same. And there’s a trust that Taylor has that, as a result of this and based on the sort of locker room he’s bringing back, the gesture will pay off in a group that’s locked in and ready to go.
Which, he thinks, will give the Bengals the best chance to get the one thing they couldn’t last year.
