Zac Taylor of the Bengals is the only returning head coach in the AFC North, and he aims to take advantage of that. In Pittsburgh, Mike Tomlin resigned from the Steelers. The Browns and the Ravens fire Kevin Stefanski and John Harbaugh, respectively. The fired coaches have already found new head coaching jobs, while Tomlin could have had just about any opening he wanted if he were so inclined.
With new head coaches, though, come new staffs, new ideas about scheme and personnel—in general, change and adjustment. This offseason, despite the Bengals’ failure to make the playoffs, they opted for stability. Zac Taylor is back, and it’s not lost on him that he is suddenly in an unusual position.
“It’s strange”, Taylor said at the Combine, via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk, to be the only returning head coach in the AFC North. “I’ve got a lot of respect for those three guys I’ve been competing against the last few years, and obviously great coaches and [they] have had a lot of success. So, it’s a little strange, but I’m sure that I’ll get used to it very quickly”.
It wasn’t so long ago that the Bengals made Zac Taylor the hot new coach in the division. While they struggled horrendously early in his tenure, they nearly won the Super Bowl in Year 3. After making a playoff run the following season, things have looked less encouraging, missing the playoffs three years in a row.
The Steelers replaced Mike Tomlin with Mike McCarthy, who, despite never coaching here, has great familiarity with the organization. Now leading the Browns is Todd Monken, who did coach there previously. New Ravens HC Jesse Minter coached there for four years and also worked under John Harbaugh’s brother at multiple stops. None of those ties, however, compare to the Bengals having the same head coach going into an eighth season with Taylor. And he hopes that gives them an edge.
“Maybe those teams will evolve in different ways than they have over the last couple years”, Taylor said about the changing of the guard in the AFC North. “Kind of impossible for me to say but exciting for us. We’ve got continuity. We’ve got to capitalize on that and continue to build and move forward”.
The Bengals won the AFC North twice under Zac Taylor, but have finished third or worse the other five years. They made the playoffs under him in 2021 and 2022, but not other seasons. In those years, however, they reached at least the conference finals, taking the Rams to the final minutes of the Super Bowl in 2021.
Taylor’s legacy is tied to QB Joe Burrow, who has struggled to stay healthy, last year no exception. He was healthy, however, in 2024, and they still finished barely 9-8 with no playoff appearance. After starting that season 1-4, they ended the year on a 5-0 run, but it was not enough. They aimed to enter 2025 on a hot streak, and they did, winning the first two games. But then Burrow went down.
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