Postgame Press Conference: Zac Taylor Reacts After Bengals Fall Short to Packers

Zac Taylor (0:00)

All right, you know, just sick after that loss, because each half, you know, I thought the defense in the first half gave us a chance. The offense had those four possessions that didn't generate any offense, and give us a chance there to take a lead, take a tie into half time. And then second half offense came out, I thought played well, and you know, defense just couldn't quite get off the field. So when we talk about complimentary football, that's what we're talking about. And it wasn't overall good enough.

You see pieces that we can lean into and continue to grow. But losing this game on the road, there's no consolation there. We expected to win. I thought we should have won the game. Credit to them, they did all the things that they needed to do to get this win, and we just came up short. And that's just a cumulative team effort over the course of the game.

SPEAKER_2 (0:48)

How much of the early struggles offense league football is just getting Joe getting used to being out there for his first time playing, do you account some of that to that?

Zac Taylor (0:57)

I don't want to put it there. I thought he was definitely ready as he came in the game.

And just part of it is, you hear me say a lot, getting that first first down and getting the flow there and we went three, four, three, three and outs. And those first four drafts and I think before the half that certainly gave us some confidence even though we came up with no points. We got into a rhythm, we found some things in the past game, we were able to complement it with a run game. So we fell coming in half time, the defense had done enough to keep us in that game, we knew getting the ball to start the half, we were gonna have a shot there. And so I definitely think we walked into half time with some confidence, as lousy it is to say that with zero points on the board. But that was the truth and you definitely saw that coming on the second half there.

SPEAKER_3 (1:36)

What was the key to rhythm from the start of that second half?

Zac Taylor (1:39)

Well, just again, getting the first down and felt like we had a good plan coming out, good flow, we were able to get some of the stuff we wanted to get to early in the game. We just didn't have any place. We had really no normal down plays, it felt like maybe four or five.

So you don't get a chance, all this stuff you game plan, you're ready for, you just can't access it until you get that first down and get into a flow. In the second half, we were able to do that a little bit more and the guys were feeling it. They came off the ball and they played well for us.

SPEAKER_4 (2:03)

What enabled you to get that first down in the second half?

Zac Taylor (2:06)

What's that?

SPEAKER_5 (2:06)

What enabled you guys to get that first down?

Zac Taylor (2:08)

I don't even remember what the first play was that got us there, but we felt like coming out, we had a good plan that we'd worked on all week and the guys executed it.

SPEAKER_4 (2:14)

Similar to last week, do you feel like on defense the tackling stuff in space will show?

Zac Taylor (2:18)

I think that will show. When we watched the tape, to my eye, I noticed, I don't know how many, but you know some. And they got a good offense, they attack in a lot of different ways. They got physical runners. And certainly as we watch the tape, we'll see if that's something we got to do a much better job of. What went into going with Barrett this week? I think that says more about Barrett than anything else. Barrett has just been an ascending player, and it's time to see what he can do in a full-time role. And we've given him bits and pieces over time, and it's just time to throw him in the fire, let him go. And Okun still got his role he'll play. I got a lot of confidence in Logan as well. This was just more about giving Barrett an opportunity to see how much potential we can get out of him as the season gets going.

SPEAKER_5 (3:07)

He was ready for it?

Zac Taylor (3:08)

He was definitely ready for it, yeah. I mean, obviously I can't assess the player right now without seeing it, but his mindset has always been one that I believed in. And I thought he had a great mentality all week. And then obviously we'll assess the tape and see how it went.