Zac Taylor explains questionable play call that nearly cost the Bengals a win over Jaguars
Jake Browning's stellar outing resulted in him throwing 37 passes against the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he wasn't the only one to sling the pigskin for the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football. The Bengals attempted not one, but two wide receiver passes against the Jags, each of them resulting in worse outcomes than the last. Ja'Marr […]
Jake Browning's stellar outing resulted in him throwing 37 passes against the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he wasn't the only one to sling the pigskin for the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night Football.
The Bengals attempted not one, but two wide receiver passes against the Jags, each of them resulting in worse outcomes than the last.
Ja'Marr Chase completed his pass to Browning for -7 yards, and it ended up being the most positive of the two with Tyler Boyd's attempt being intercepted. Boyd's nightmare play gave Jacksonville terrific field position, and the home team tied the game up at 28-28 just a few plays later.
Clearly, head coach Zac Taylor had other outcomes in mind calling it a second time.
Taylor didn't have to face the music in a close loss with that play call hanging over his head, but he did answer why it was called a second time after the first time didn't work.
"It's a play we've had explosive plays on several times over the years," Taylor said of the call. "We had one at the Jets a couple years ago, we had one against the Browns at home a couple years ago, so we've executed that play well. We practice it all season."
Taylor's memory is correct (he is the head coach after all). Boyd completed a wide receiver throw-back pass to Joe Mixon for 46 yards against the Jets back on Halloween Day in 2021. Boyd also completed one to Giovani Bernard a year earlier against the Browns that went for 16 yards.
Boyd has not only executed this play multiple times as a Bengal, he completed three of four passes back in his college days at Pitt. So how did it end up so disastrous in Duval County?
"It's tough when a receiver's not used to throwing the ball, it took a little longer than we normally anticipate," Taylor said. "That's just part of making a call like that, you got to live with that. He doesn't practice quarterback, he doesn't go through every situation. Usually when we call that play in practice we give a pretty vanilla look, pretty easy look to get the rep and it was a little tougher than anticipated, and Josh [Allen] made a good play."
Taylor did his best to give Boyd the benefit of the doubt, but no matter how the defense ends up playing it after the snap, the last thing Boyd can do there is risk throwing an interception on a broken play. Allen did make a great play, but he should've never had the chance to make it. Boyd has to eat that as soon as the throwing window disappears with timing.
When it works, Taylor gets all the credit for catching the defense off guard. When it fails miserably, critiques will pour in screaming why he would call such a play when the offense was in rhythm with its actual quarterback, even when the entire game plan was focused on being as creative as possible to help out the offense with Browning at QB.
Hindsight will look at the decision poorly, but the actual execution deserves much more criticism.
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