Getty Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor will face his former team in Super Bowl LVI.
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incinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor will have to average nearly 10 wins per season over the next 12 years to become the all-time leader in coaching wins for the franchise.
But if Taylor and the Bengals beat the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI, Taylor’s four playoff wins will rank him first in team history. More importantly, he’d be the first Bengals coach to win the Super Bowl.
To accomplish those feats, Taylor will have to beat the organization and coach that gave him his second chance in the NFL.
“Working with Sean [McVay] was two of the best years of my life,” Taylor told Ben Baby of ESPN. “It was fun. You loved coming into the building every single day. That’s a lot of our messaging to our building and our staff and our players.
“We want guys who are willing to come in here and work, but they enjoy the process of walking into this building with a smile on their face every day.”
Zac Taylor Joined Sean McVay’s First Rams Coaching Staff in 2017
Taylor began his NFL coaching career at 29 with the Miami Dolphins in 2012. The Dolphins never lost more than nine games in any season during Taylor’s first three years with the team, but they also failed to post a winning record.
Then after a 1-3 start in 2015, the Dolphins fired head coach Joe Philbin. The firing initially worked in Taylor’s favor, as he received a promotion to offensive coordinator when current Lions head coach Dan Campbell became the Miami interim head coach.
Under Campbell and Taylor’s leadership, the Dolphins finish the season 5-7, and the coaching staff was not retained. Taylor spent the next season in Cincinnati, but in the college ranks with the Cincinnati Bearcats.
The NFL came calling again, though, when McVay assembled his first coaching staff with the Rams in 2017. Taylor served as the team’s assistant wide receiver coach that first year and then as quarterbacks coach in 2018.
In the two seasons Taylor was on the Rams staff, Los Angeles finished first and second in points scored.
The Rams didn’t have a 1,000-yard receiver in 2017, but Taylor played a role in developing rookie Cooper Kupp along with Robert Woods and Sammy Watkins. All three were 25 or younger at the time.
In 2018, the Rams finished fifth in passing yards with quarterback Jared Goff throwing for a career-high 4,688 passing yards and 32 touchdowns.
Zac Taylor Gave Bengals Introductory Press Conference Hours After Losing Super Bowl LIII
With a Super Bowl matchup against his former team looming, Taylor took some time to reflect on his departure to Cincinnati from Los Angeles. That transition occurred a day following the Rams’ 13-3 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever really processed the game in its entirety because you woke up the next morning, and it was an exciting time for myself and my family,” Taylor told Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “So that’s a hard question to ask. It’s a good question. I don’t even honestly have a great answer for you because it was such a wild conflict over, really, a 12-hour period for me. To get to where we were at — I still remember Tom Brady and Bill Belichick walking by me in the hallway after they won the game and the excitement on their faces. I’ve never forgotten that. It was crushing to see.
“Then again, to wake up the next morning and be on a plane to come here [to Cincinnati] for a press conference, that was exciting. So I’ve never really properly processed that.”
In just five seasons with McVay in Los Angeles, other NFL teams have hired three Rams assistants as head coaches. With a 16-32-1 mark, Taylor has the worst regular-season record of the three, but he’s the first to earn a trip to the Super Bowl.
Current Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell expects to be the fourth McVay assistant to become an NFL head coach after Super Bowl LVI.