There has been a lot of talk about Zac Taylor’s future with the Cincinnati Bengals heading into the 2026 season. While their return was almost a given, we should expect the head coach to have a better-than-even chance of returning in 2027, unless something catastrophic occurs.
At the crux of the dialogue is whether the team can win with Taylor as the head coach. While some of us would relish seeing Taylor and this coaching staff free of Duke Tobin, that is not going to happen anytime soon.
But history suggests the C-suite does not respond to external pressure when making coaching decisions. And with one more year than anyone was expecting on Taylor’s contract, we should expect him to see it play out.
That talk is coming from national media and local fans alike.
Bengals let us know how patient they’d be not firing Taylor after 2020 litmus test
If you think the Bengals are being too patient with Taylor now, you were not around for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
Taylor’s team went 2-14 in his inaugural season. We should suppose that he did an excellent job because the team landed the first overall pick and selected Joe Burrow. However, Taylor backed that up with an awful season, with another going 4-11-1 in his second year as head coach.
Not only did the Bengals go 4-11, but they also almost ruined Burrow’s career before it got started when he blew out his knee in Week 11 of his rookie season against the Washington Football Team.
In just the 10 games he played, opposing teams sacked Burrow 32 times. However, he was hit unconscionably more than that because of poor offensive line play and a bewildering insistence on blocking defensive ends one-on-one with tight ends and John Ross. Yes, that happened. Or, to put it more accurately, that plan was in place, but the execution went as well as one would expect.
If the Brown family was going to dismiss Taylor, there was no better time to do so than after the 2020 season.
But of course, they were not going to. That is because they never do.
Taylor was worse than Dave Shula, and got more time
In his first two seasons, Taylor had a worse winning percentage than the worst head coach in the franchise’s history, Dave Shula.
Shula went 8-24 in his first two seasons as the Bengals’ head coach. Taylor went 6-25-1. They both got chances after that.
Shula would go on to coach the team for another 3.5 seasons, posting records of 3-13, 7-9, and 1-6 before being unceremoniously dismissed.
However, Shula’s Cincinnati Bengals Starter jacket was one of the best in the game.
Meanwhile, Taylor not only did not suffer a catastrophic third year, but he also led the team to the Super Bowl in the 2021 season.
Bengals’ patience outlasts outrage, always
The Bengals are not the Tennessee Titans. They are more like the Pittsburgh Steelers, with their loyalty to their head coaches and their ability to tune out external pressure to change.
The Brown family’s patience for mediocrity is a lot longer than what Bengals fans want to admit, or newer fans are accustomed to when looking around the league.
Bruce Coslet went 14-34 in his first three seasons as the non-interim head coach. That was enough for the family to bring him back for a fourth season. The team began that season 0-3 under Coslet.
Dick LeBeau went 4-9 as interim head coach, which was good enough to land him the permanent gig in 2001. He went 6-10 and 2-14 in the next two seasons.
And while the Bengals eventually moved on from Marvin Lewis, it took three losing seasons and a broken quarterback for it to happen.
The pattern here is that Taylor would need two more losing seasons after this one to reach that point. At which point, the calendar would turn to 2028. It just so happens that it coincides with the reported last year of Taylor’s contract.
Taylor almost certainly safe for next 2 seasons
Cincinnati’s notorious patience paid off with Taylor. After an inauspicious start to his head coaching career, he took his team to the Super Bowl in the 2021 season and a second consecutive AFC Championship game in the 2022 campaign.
Despite missing the playoffs in 2023, 2024, and now 2025, the Bengals went 9-8, 9-8, and 6-TBA. This season will be his first losing season in five years.
The Bengals would have to go 2-15 for the team to move on from Taylor before the 2027 season. If they were to repeat this year’s record of what we expect to be 7-10, while showing life at the end of the year, Taylor would return in 2027.
But the truth of the matter is that having players like Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Chase Brown, and DJ Turner makes it unlikely that the Bengals will have such a horrible 2026 season that they will change course before the 2027 campaign.
The fans and the national media can kick, scream, and cry all they want about whether Taylor and Tobin should be here next year or in 2027. But it is more likely than not.
Don’t believe it? We present to you the recent poor drafting by Duke Tobin, who has been on the job since 1999, and the head coaches Shula, Coslet, LeBeau, Lewis, and Taylor (2019-2020).