Zac Taylor on Bengals' Win Over Titans

Cincinnati Bengals On SI

12/15/2024

Transcript

00:00The way that that game went from the turnovers to penalties just before game.

00:04Yeah, penalties are unacceptable on offense, way too many of them,

00:08way below our standard.

00:09I mean, we're generally first in the league typically as a team and on offense.

00:14And so just to have as many false starts as we had.

00:17There were some procedural penalties that we'll get into behind the scenes.

00:22But I thought the false start set us back and

00:25led to two drives where we didn't score points.

00:27I think we didn't score on three drives.

00:28And four drives and those were two of them.

00:31So unacceptable, but really happy with the way the defensive got the turnovers.

00:35Five turnovers, three of them in the second half was huge for us.

00:39And kept them on the field for a long time.

00:42Our defense had to play a lot of snaps in the second half.

00:43It was a strange game that way.

00:45But I think they'll gladly take that when we're taking the ball away and

00:50having to play because of that.

00:51When did Sam get hurt exactly?

00:54On the touchdown, yeah.

00:56What was that moment like for the whole thing?

00:59I mean, he's hurt, but to call that play for him, to have him have his first.

01:04Yeah, really happy for him because just what he does for

01:07this team is willing to do anything, willing to go in there.

01:09He's played fullback in the goal line in 2018, and we put him back in there.

01:13And he's typically on the backside of the run game and

01:16the goal line just to hold down the backside.

01:18And so you had to pick your moment at some point this season to release him and

01:21give him a shot.

01:21And usually that's gonna come pretty wide open.

01:24And they had two backers leave the game, so

01:26they had backup linebackers in there.

01:27So we really thought it was a good time to call it, to catch him sleeping.

01:30And they covered it really well, and Sam made a heck of a catch.

01:32And really happy for him,

01:34obviously disappointed the way the play turned out physically for him.

01:37But just happy for

01:39him to be able to go out there and help the team by any means necessary.

01:42How did you address the Jordan-Backer problem?

01:46It's something we address weekly.

01:47We show these clips, and it's not something we can ever have happen.

01:51It's within our control.

01:54And you go two yards across the goal line, letters and logos, it's very simple.

01:59And then you can do whatever you wanna do.

02:01And we preach oftentimes, it's gonna happen to guys that aren't used to carrying

02:05the ball and used to being in that situation.

02:07It's not normally a Jamar or T.

02:09And so again, I appreciate that the energy he plays with and

02:13a lot of the plays he made, that's a situation obviously we can't have.

02:17And we expect our team to be better at that going forward.

02:21Any thought of sitting down after that?

02:23Well, you know, a guy knows he makes a mistake.

02:26And so again, there were moments we were pulling guys in and

02:29out there because of guys were getting tired, quite frankly.

02:31They played three straight possessions because we had to pick six.

02:34And then we had that one that resulted in a fresh set of downs for them.

02:37And so our guys were pretty worn out.

02:39So we were kind of rolling the guys through there because of all that stuff.

02:42The first of Sam, do you set up Sam's feet?

02:44I don't yet.

02:45No, I don't.

02:46I don't. We'll get more information on that tomorrow.

02:48The first touchdown for a health ball for nine seconds.

02:51I mean, is that just kind of an example of what he can do in the red zone?

02:56Yeah.

02:57Hold on to that.

02:58Most quarterbacks probably throw that away or just give up.

03:02Yeah, I'm trying to think what the play was, to be honest with you.

03:04I know he hit Chase Brown, but I'm trying to think what the play call was.

03:07But trust me, I've learned it over five years to just shut up.

03:12And in your brain, you're thinking, throw it away, get us the next play.

03:16And way more times than not, when I've thought that,

03:19something great has happened for the Bengals.

03:21And that's just part of the Joe Burrow experience.

03:23And he extends plays as good as anybody in the world and makes teams pay for it.

03:28And I know that they lose a lot of sleep probably doing their red zone

03:31presentations explaining that this is gonna happen.

03:34He's gonna scramble and you gotta cover forever and it's just impossible to do.

03:37And so it's an element that he knows is a weapon and he uses it the right way.

03:41Zach, I know you said that you faced friends on the other sidelines many times

03:46throughout your career, but is it a relief to get through this one and

03:50maybe go back to a normal cadence of protecting with Brian?

03:53Yeah, cuz I enjoy pulling for Cali.

03:55And so when you're playing against somebody like that,

03:57I think that's really the only thing is you're trying to do everything you can to

04:00bury the other team and win the game and feel good on Sunday.

04:04And then once you put it behind you, you're able to go back and

04:06pull for people that you appreciate in the business.

04:10Because of all the turnovers in the company, Zach,

04:13was this one of those games that felt like you never settled down?

04:16Yeah, the rhythm of it was difficult.

04:19And just speaking offensively, they got the ball to start the half,

04:23second half, we got the one possession.

04:26And then it didn't feel like offensively we're out there to the fourth quarter,

04:30I don't think, I could be wrong.

04:32And so just a strange, defensively, these guys are tired.

04:38I don't know how many snaps they played in a row, but it was a lot of snaps.

04:41And so there's a balance there where you're trying to sort through.

04:44So I use a timeout to give them a break,

04:45to make sure they can get a stop on that third possession.

04:48But ultimately, we made enough plays to find a road win.

04:51At this point in the year, December,

04:53you gotta come off the field with a victory and sort it out.

04:56And there's a lot to sort out for us.

04:57There was a lot that wasn't good enough that we've gotta correct.

05:01Really in all three phases, quite frankly, but

05:03I'm happy to get the win and sort it out from there.

05:06What happened with the delay of game at the one?

05:09The headset went out a couple times on that same drive.

05:12And sometimes I'm not sure what he's getting through there,

05:15because mine was making a mistake too.

05:18And I should have been aware of it and called timeout to keep it on the one yard

05:22line, it just, that one as I'm trying to, sometimes you're focused on getting

05:26the play in and on that one I lost track of the play clock and he probably did too.

05:31It looked like you and Joe were having a conversation after that drive,

05:35that the broadcast kind of caught, like a pretty serious back and

05:39forth what was going on that would go into that.

05:41It was just a conversation back and forth.

05:46It looked like Chase Brown kind of settled things down for

05:49him, a little chaotic there in the fourth quarter, but he hit some key runs.

05:53Ultimately, I think that was the key,

05:54is it was a chaotic second half if you're just speaking about the offense.

05:58We had the turnover on the first possession, punted on the second possession.

06:02And then our third possession, last possession of the half,

06:05we were able to bleed almost over five minutes, I believe, and score a touchdown.

06:09So that was a really good way to finish the game for our guys.

06:13It wasn't perfect, but to bleed a bunch of clock, to keep getting first downs.

06:18We did it a lot of different ways.

06:19We did it on the ground, we did it in the pass game,

06:21we did it baiting them into penalties on defense.

06:23And then to finish it off with a run,

06:25I thought was an appropriate way to finish it on offense.

06:28Okay, thank you.

Zac Taylor on Bengals' Win Over Titans

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