BENGALS HEAD COACH ZAC TAYLOR
How would you explain that whole game went from the turnovers to the penalties, that whole game?
Yeah, penalties are unacceptable on offense. Way too many of them. Way below our standard. We're generally first in the league, typically, as a team on offense and so just to have as many false starts as we had, there were some procedural penalties that we'll get into behind the scenes, but the false starts set us back and led to two drives where we didn't score points. I think we didn't score on three drives or four drives and those are crucial. So, unacceptable. But really happy with the way the defense got the turnovers, five turnovers, three of them in the second half was huge for us and kept them on the field for a long time. Our defense had to play a lot of snaps in the second half. It was a strange game that way but I think they'll gladly take that when we're taking the ball away and having to play because of that.
At left tackle you had to go with (Devin) Cochran because of Cody (Ford). It looked like line gave him time...
I thought he settled in there. There's some tough matchups in there sometime, but I thought he settled in there and did a good job in his first career start. Really proud of the way—that's an example of a guy who just practices. Devin Cochran has practiced the right way. He's proven to his teammates all season long that he'll be ready if his number is called because of his approach to that. So, really, you want your top players to play Orlando (Brown Jr.), and Cody (Ford) and all of those guys, so this isn't even any knock on them, but to hear Devin's going to play in the game, wasn't a gut punch because you just trusted him. He was ready for the moment, and we knew that we'd be able to go out there and produce with him.
When did Sam (Hubbard) get hurt exactly?
On the touchdown.
What was that moment like? The whole thing? He's hurt but to call that play for him, to have him have his first receiving touchdown in the NFL?
Really happy for him because just what he does for this team. He's willing to do anything. Willing to go in there. He's played fullback in the goal line in 2018. We put him back in there and he's typically on the backside of the run game and the goal line just to work on the backside. So, you have to pick your moment at some point this season to release him and give it a shot. Usually that's going to come pretty wide open; they had two backers leave the game, so they had back up linebackers in there, so we thought it was a good time to call it, catch them sleeping and they covered it really well, and Sam made a heck of a catch. Really happy for him. Obviously disappointed the way the play turned out physically for him. But just happy for him to be able to go in there and help the team by any means necessary.
How did you address the Jordan Battle fumble?
It's something we address weekly. We show these clips and it's not something we can ever have happen. It's within our control. You go two yards across the goal line, letters and logos, it's very simple. And then you can do whatever you want to do. We preach oftentimes that it's going to happen to guys that aren't used to carrying the ball and used to being in that situation. It's not normally a Ja'Marr (Chase) or Tee (Higgins). So, again, I appreciate that the energy he plays with and a lot of the plays he made, that's a situation obviously we can't have, and we expect our team to do better with that going forward.
Any thought of sitting him (Battle) down after that?
He knows, a guy knows when he makes a mistake. So, again, there were moments where we're pulling guys in and out there because they were getting tired, quite frankly. They played three straight possessions because we had the pick-six and then we had that one that resulted in a fresh set of downs for them. So, our guys were pretty worn out. So we were kind of rolling through because of all that stuff.
Do you know the extent of Sam's (Hubbard) knee?
I don't yet. No, I don't. We'll get more information on that tomorrow.
The first touchdown (Joe) Burrow held the ball for nine seconds. Is that just kind of an example of what he can do in the red zone? The poise to hold onto that. Most quarterbacks would probably throw that away or just give up.
I'm trying to think of what the play was to be honest with you. It hit Chase Brown, but I don't know what the play call was. Trust me, I've learned it over five years to just shut up. Your brain is thinking to throw it away and get us to the next play and way more times than not that I've thought that something great has happened for the Bengals and that's just part of the Joe Burrow experience. He extends plays as good as anybody in the world and makes team's pay for it. I know they lose a lot of sleep probably in the red zone presentations explaining that this is going to happen, he's going to scramble, you've got to cover forever and it's just impossible to do. So, it's something he knows it's a weapon and uses it the right way.
Zac, I know you said that you've faced friends on the other sideline many times throughout your career, but is it a relief to get through this one and maybe go back to a normal cadence of texting with Brian (Callahan)?
Yeah, I enjoyed pulling for Cally (Brian Callahan). So, when you're playing against somebody like that, I think that's really the only thing is you're trying to do everything you can to bury the other team and win the game and feel good on Sunday. And then once you put it behind you, you're able to go back and pull for people that you appreciate in the business.
Because of all the turnovers and the penalties, was this one of those games that felt like it never settled down?
Yeah, the rhythm of it was difficult. And just speaking offensively, they got the ball to start the second half, we got the one possession and then it didn't feel like offensively we were out there until the fourth quarter, I don't think. I could be wrong. So, just a strange—and then defensively, these guys are tired. I don't know how many snaps they played in a row, but it was a lot of snaps. So, there's a balance there where you're trying to sort through should I use a timeout to get them a break, to make sure they can get a stop on a third possession. But ultimately, we made enough plays to find a way to win. At this point in the year, it's December, you've got to come off the field with a victory. And there's a lot to sort out for us. There was a lot that wasn't good enough that we've got to correct, really in all three phases, quite frankly, but happy to get the win and sort it out from there.
What happened with the delay of game at the one?
The headset went out a couple times on that same drive. So, I'm not sure what he's getting through there because helmets make mistakes too. I should have been aware of it and called a time out to keep it on the one-yard line. Sometimes you're focused on getting a play in and on that one I lost track of the play clock.
It looked like you and Joe (Burrow) were having a conversation after that drive that the broadcast caught. It looked like it was a pretty serious back and forth. What was going on there? What prompted that?
It was just a conversation back and forth.
Looked like Chase Brown kind of settled things down for you. It was a little chaotic there in the fourth quarter, but he had some key runs.
Ultimately, I think that was the key. It was a chaotic second half if you're just speaking about the offense. We had the turnover on the first possession, punted on the second possession and then our third possession, last possession we had, we were able to bleed over five minutes, I believe, and score a touchdown. So that was a really good way to finish the game for our guys. It wasn't perfect but to bleed a bunch of clock, to keep getting first downs, we did it a lot of different ways. We did it on the ground, we did it in the pass game, we did it baiting them into penalties on defense and to be able to finish it off with a run, I thought it was an appropriate way to finish it off.
