Bengals need accountability for Joe Burrow injury
By Aaron Burd
How did the front office and coaching staff respond? By signing career-backup
and drafting
in the sixth round. Not only did they refuse to bring in talent on the line, but they spent the entire summer praising that same line.
An injured Joe Burrow and 36 sacks later, it’s clear that Taylor, Turner and Tobin had no idea what they were doing.
Perhaps the most disgusting part of all is that after the game on Sunday, Taylor spent his postgame press conference arrogantly defending the line that he had so stubbornly trotted out.
"“In these last couple weeks, our guys have done a great job of keeping people off Joe, he’s had a great pocket. He did not have a sack in the first half, in the hit as I saw it, wasn’t when he had the ball in his hand. And people keep talking about the offensive line without it seemingly watching the film from last four weeks. And so, again, those guys have done a good job. It’s been a revolving door of players; we’re doing a great job. Joe’s done a good job moving us down the field, and we felt like we’re making a lot of progress over the last five weeks, and we’re not going to apologize for any of that."
Let’s get the facts straight for Coach Taylor. Going into the game on Sunday, Burrow was the second-most sacked quarterback in the NFL. Coming into the game having taken 72 hits, Burrow was tied with Daniel Jones of the New York Giants for most by a rookie QB in his first nine games since 2000.
#Bengals QB Joe Burrow came into the game having taken 72 hits. That was tied with Daniel Jones for the most by a rookie QB in his first nine games since 2000.
— Joe Reedy (@joereedy) November 22, 2020
Sure, the line had been playing slightly better for a few weeks, but that was never going to hold up. This has been an issue stemming from before this season and everyone but Taylor and those around him could see it.
One issue that has been problematic about Taylor from the start has been his allegiance to Turner. When he was hired by the Bengals, Taylor got rid of a good offensive line coach in Frank Pollack in order to replace him with Turner, a coach notorious for his bad locker room culture and poorly-coached offensive lines.