Here’s what Zac Taylor had to say following Bengals’ blowout Week 11 win

There was a lot of heat on Zac Taylor after the Cincinnati Bengals lost two games in a row entering their Week 10 BYE. Coming out of the BYE, Taylor had to have known that a loss to the Raiders in Week 11 would have dropped them to 5-5 after a 5-2 start and that’d have re-started the “Fire Zac Taylor” chants that we’ve all grown accustomed to since he was hired.

Fortunately, the Bengals beat the Raiders 32-13 and are 6-4. The “Fire Taylor” chants will have to wait another week (though hopefully we don’t hear them anymore because the team keeps winning).

Zac Taylor spoke to the media after the win on Sunday night. Here’s what he had to say.

Taylor started by mentioning how proud he was of his guys and the way they responded. It’d have been easy for this group to have gone into Las Vegas and continued to struggle, much as they did entering the BYE week. They did anything but.

Taylor also discussed that he was happy to see the team didn’t let up off the gas in the fourth quarter. This has been something we’ve seen them do throughout the season but it didn’t happen this time. In fact, the fourth quarter was when both the offense and the defense truly came into their own.

After some rough games this year, Eli Apple shocked all of Bengals Nation by picking off Derek Carr in the fourth quarter to essentially ice the game. Taylor was happy to see that from his guy and praised him for his efforts.

A big storyline entering this game was how the Bengals offense was ignoring Tyler Boyd. Taylor had taken the blame for that following the loss to Cleveland but we saw Boyd get more involved this week, finishing the game with 6 catches for 49 yards, leading the team in receiving yards. Taylor once again accepted the blame for not involving Boyd, but said “He’s so dependable”. 

Cincinnati has won six games this season and five of those six wins have been on the road. Taylor was asked about the team’s road success and discussed their road-losing streak and how far the team has come since then.

So, there you have it. That’s what Bengals head coach Zac Taylor had to say after the good guys took it to the Las Vegas Raiders.

It’s good to see Taylor and this team still competing for a division title. If they continue to play as they did on Sunday, they could very well win win the first AFC North title of the Zac Taylor-Joe Burrow era.