Bengals Fall to 1-10 in Weeks 1-2 Under Zac Taylor and Have No Answers For Why That Is

CINCINNATI – Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is annoyed by it, even if he didn’t come out and say it.

Quarterback Joe Burrow didn’t want any part of it either?

“We’ll just have to watch the tape and learn from it,” Burrow said.

But some of his teammates said exactly what they were thinking.

“I’m tired of having that conversation,” Logan Wilson said.

“We should be better at that by now,” said Ja’Marr Chase.

Bengals Seeking Answers For Slow Starts After Yet Another One

The Bengals have been among the league’s best teams in December and January for the last three years.

But they’ve been among the worst in the first couple of weeks of the season.

No, strike that — they are the unabashed cellar dwellers in Weeks 1 and 2 under Zac Taylor.

Sunday’s 16-10 loss to the New England Patriots dropped the Bengals to 1-10 in the first two games of the season since Taylor arrived in 2019.

Only two other teams have fewer than three wins in Weeks 1-2 in that span, the Carolina Panthers (2-9) and the New York Jets (2-8, with their opener still to come Monday night).

It’s not just the Bengals’ early losses; they’ve been stunning and sloppy. The Bengals have lost five consecutive Week 1-2 games, and they were favored in all five of them.

In three of them, they were favored by at least 7 points—8.5 today vs. the Patriots, 7 in the 2022 Week 2 game at Dallas, and 7 in the 2022 opener at home vs. the Steelers.

They also were favored by 1.5 in last year’s opener at Cleveland and by 3.5 in last year’s Week 2 home game against Baltimore.

In 2022 and 2023, the Bengals had Burrow’s health as an excuse. He missed most of training camp in 2022 after undergoing an emergency appendectomy and lost 20 pounds.

In 2023, he only had one practice after injuring his calf on Day 2. And he wasn’t right physically until Week 5.

But this year has been different. Burrow only missed one practice, despite Taylor saying there would be some built-in off days while he recovered from November wrist surgery.

By his own account and those of his teammates and coaches, Burrow had an excellent camp.

But Chase missed all of camp in a contract dispute, and Tee Higgins missed Sunday’s game after injuring his hamstring in practice Thursday.

The end result was “an offensive quagmire,” team captain Ted Karras said.

Burrow was 21 of 29 for 164 yards, and the Bengals started the game with three consecutive three-and-outs and ended it with another one when they had a chance to drive for a game-winning touchdown.

“I felt comfortable,” Burrow said. “You get more and more comfortable as the game goes and as the season goes. I was comfortable, but I’ll be more comfortable as we go.”

When asked about the frustration of losing yet another season opener, Taylor pivoted away from past failures and focused on today.

“It’s just frustrating that we didn’t play well enough to win,” he said. “That’s the biggest frustration, looking at the turnover battle and looking at the missed tackles. It’s as simple as that.”

Wilson said he doesn’t know what the answer is for the slow starts, but he knows what the answer isn’t for today’s clunker.

It had nothing to do with the team’s approach in training camp, he said.

“I thought this camp was one of the harder camps we’ve had in terms of doing ‘move the ball’ stuff to make sure we were conditioned and ready to go,” Wilson said. “Obviously, we weren’t ready to go enough.”

Karras said whatever the issue is, the Bengals better get it figured out this week.

“Obviously, that sucks that we lost the third consecutive opener,” he said. “We’ve got to watch this and learn from it. We have the defending champs in their home stadium. Everyone is going to have to get over this pretty quick.”