Bengals Conspiracy Theory: Stealth Tank was ALWAYS the plan

There’s absolutely a  possibility that Taylor and Lou Anarumo are just bad at their jobs. However, Bengals fans have experienced bad coaches even in recent history. Yet, somehow this year feels different. Both players and the media have commented on this coaching staff’s football knowledge and ability to teach and communicate.

So why is it that these knowledgeable coaches seem so slow to learn and correct their own schemes’ weaknesses? Or, why do they seem to call plays with a low-percentage chance for success? For example, calling a QB draw on a critical 4th and 1 against the Cardinals, instead of calling the higher probability QB sneak. Or during that same game calling up plays on critical third-and-long situations where all four receivers run identical curl routes 3 yards short of the line to gain.

These are just a small example of the kind of mind-boggling decisions that have lead to some Bengals fans already breaking out the #FireZacTaylor tags.  These two calls don’t make any sense! Unless of course the coaching staff has been mandated to run a less-than-optimal game plan on a week-to-week basis.

Run the play clock down on every play to minimize the number of snaps your players are on the field. Call plays that are at or near the line of scrimmage, and play a somewhat vanilla game plan so as to not give away too much of the offense that you eventually wish to become next season.

This would explain why even the players that we KNOW are talented, seem to be having record low seasons. What can they do but execute the intentionally sub-par plays that are being called for them?

As I said, it’s whoa crazy…right?

Sure, it might look suspicious if most teams kept both their offensive and defensive coaching staff after one of the worst seasons in the franchise recent history… But the Bengals aren’t most teams.

The BengalsWire.com Chris Roling has even agreed with fan theories that the topic of tanking may have even come up during the coaching interviews. Perhaps Taylor had a hard time finding a defensive coordinator who was willing to look terrible for the first year, even with the knowledge that they wouldn’t be fired.

Just a reminder, I’m not saying that this is what happened, but would you be shocked if it did?
I think the plan is to build the team around Coach Taylor. But if that’s the case then why didn’t they just draft Dwayne Haskins and hit the reset button that way? Well, that leads us to our next slide…