Zac Taylor on Bengals' Win Over Titans
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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.