Postgame Press Conference: Zac Taylor Reacts to Bengals' Brutal Week 3 Loss to Vikings

Zac Taylor (0:00)

All five, N plus territory. When we're going in to put points on the board, two of them obviously directly led to touchdowns. They all, to the best of my recall, led to points. And so you're not going to go on the road in a tough environment and give yourself any sort of chance. When the turnover is five to nothing, you put a six to one on the ground that we recovered and expect to win. So a lot of things came off of that, which make things look pretty ugly. I thought, to be truth be told, defensively, the first drive, they had two penalties that gave them 25 yards right out the gate. We gave up a touchdown. I thought they did a nice job in the first half. The score was not indicative of how this whole thing was played. The turnovers in the first half are indicative of why the score was the way it was. And in the second half, the dam broke a little bit at times there. But again, we got to buckle up. This is a loss. That first half was ugly. We're going to have to make a lot of corrections from it. But we're going to have to be ready to move on. We're on a big stage next week. And we're going to get a chance to redeem ourselves if we can handle things the right way.

17-3, you drive with us in two minutes.

SPEAKER_2 (1:01)

The Golem have any chance to double up?

Zac Taylor (1:04)

Yeah, I mean, it's 17-3. We've been in some of these games over the past several years that I'm thinking of us. We're going through that moment. And we just want points on the board. Love the touchdown. Feel good will be great. And then use all the clock. Get the ball to start the second half. Obviously, we had two turnovers there in quick moments that gave them a bunch of points. So that was a tough one that set us back there.

SPEAKER_3 (1:27)

What do you think is going wrong with the running game right now?

Zac Taylor (1:30)

And how much does the lack of that force? You guys know a lot of tough spots. I mean, when we're playing from behind, they're just chomping at the bit to tee off on us. In the pass rush and in the run game, there's a lot we have to prove in the run game. It's not pretty right now. We're not going to run from that. We've got to really identify where we're going to be in the run game, what we're going to hang our hat on, who we're going to run behind. I mean, there's a lot of that going on that we are really sort out and identify our problems and be able to correct them on the run and during the course of the week.

SPEAKER_3 (1:59)

What are you seeing from the offensive line right now?

Zac Taylor (2:01)

Well, this is a collective effort. I didn't see the line have one turnover today. OK, I saw a bunch of other guys have five. So I didn't see one of those from the linemen. So very clearly, this is on the entire team. That first half, the offense really struggled. We did not put our team in a great spot. And it's as simple as that.

SPEAKER_3 (2:24)

You said one of those games where they still have to have it or we lose?

Zac Taylor (2:28)

Well, we lose. I mean, I saw some first and foremost, we weren't great with all the things we talk about. And so if you're not going to do that, they're a team that hunts the ball. They do a great job. They had one last 55, had one last week, Eric Wilson, punched one out in a very similar situation with Atlanta. Atlanta had a big player. They're going to score. He punches it out. And so for us, there was a lot of those today where we put four of them on the ground, they got three of them. And it's good from that sense. It's not a good thing. It's a little bit of a wake up call that the turnovers are going to get us beat at this stage, obviously in the season. We've done a good job avoiding that in the past in terms of the fumbles today got us. And again, we got a lot to work on, a lot to improve on. What did you see on the pick six, the first turnover?

Harrison got underneath. I mean, he's trying to throw it to Chase and Harrison got underneath it and tipped it and it was picked off. So he's in scramble mode, trying to make a play.