Burrows Probably Had A Better Team Playing For LSU – He Definitely Had Better Coaches
The honeymoon is over. Now the Bengals are on the “ruining Burrow” clock. The same problems as the year prior remain and Taylor is now 0-10-1 in one-score games. He simply doesn’t have what it takes especially if he is going to continuously defend defensive and offensive line coaches (Jim Turner has to be the worst o-line coach in the NFL and maybe all of college – send him back to high school football).
Burrow has already been sacked 14 times with 11 hurries and 30 pressures on a pressure rate of 18.4 percent. In the latest game alone, Burrow was sacked a season-high eight times and was the recipient of 18 hits in the 23-23 tie. The rookie quarterback has now been sacked a league-high 14 times through three weeks. He’s taking hits that go instantly viral and it’s clear to anyone who has watched football in the past that he might not make it through all 16 games.
Taylor’s playcalling has mostly been miserable, especially in Week 3 – he needs to have the offensive coordinator call plays since clearly he is not up to the challenge of doing this on the sideline.
His Lou Anarumo-directed defense still doesn’t want to tackle. His offensive line is still headed up by Jim Turner, he of an iffy pro resume to begin with but oddly defended by Taylor from Day 1, and they’re still trotting out Bobby Hart at right tackle and praying a mediocre-to-terrible cast of guards can somehow come together and make it work inside.
Flick on a random play and you’ll probably see some combination of Hart getting pushed back so hard it looks like he’s a bodyguard escorting the defender to the quarterback, Jonah Williams randomly losing all sense of how to function, and some tandem of Michael Jordan, Fred Johnson, and Billy Price getting plopped on their rear ends like they’re getting bullied on a middle school playground.
It’s bad and something has to change.
At some point, excuses have to fly out the window. Last year was a 2-14 season for Zac Taylor and his handpicked staff and the excuses flowed. They assembled late and were unable to change up the roster they inherited. The injury bug, etc.
This year, the Bengals are 0-2-1 and the excuses could flow again. There wasn’t a preseason. The team overhauled the roster. The list goes on.
Fix it or resign. I, for one, am sick of watching a Bengals team that probably would lose to any of the final 4 NCAA contenders last year. Yes, I am saying that when Burrows left LSU, he went to a worse team – he definitely went to a worse coaching staff.
Many of the ideas in this post originated in this great article.
The header image is not mine and I make no claims to it. It appears to be the property of Bryan Woolston of the Associated Press and I will remove it upon request.
