The Cincinnati Bengals found themselves as the laughingstock of the NFL in Week 8, as Zac Taylor oversaw a pitiful performance that involved the 0-7 New York Jets putting up 39 points in three quarters and getting their first win of the season at the expense of the embattled coach.
Taylor tried to shake up the defense by benching veteran captain Logan Wilson to roll with a pair of rookies in second-rounder Demetrius Knight Jr. and fourth-rounder Barrett Carter. Jets quarterback Justin Fields and running back Breece Hall welcomed the change, as they thoroughly dominated the neophyte men in the middle.
Hall only carried the ball 18 times in this game, but he managed to turn those touches into 133 yards and two touchdowns, all while throwing a go-ahead touchdown to Mason Taylor to put New York in front. Hall thought so little of the Bengals' defensive effort that he couldn't contain his laughter at them.
Hall reposted a clip of him juking Knight out of his shoes on social media, accompanying it with a crying laughing emoji. Hall welcomed Knight to the NFL, and he doesn't seem to have a ton of newfound admiration for a terrible Bengals unit.
Breece Hall laughing at Bengals defense is tough for Zac Taylor
The Jets have only topped 500 yards of total offense twice in the last 25 years, and both of those games came against the Bengals. Between this and the infamous "Mike White Game," Taylor has made a habit of embarrassing himself against below-average Gang Green quarterbacks.
The Jets ran the ball at will against Cincinnati, tallying 254 rushing yards and just under seven yards per carry. Different metrics give the Bengals as many as three and as little as one pressure in the entire game, which are both pitiful marks. The Jets' offensive line, in the truest sense of the word, bullied the Bengals.
While this defense is lacking in talent, Taylor made a bad situation worse by benching Wilson to roll with two rookies in Knight and Carter. Firing Lou Anarumo, who is killing it with the Indianapolis Colts, and replacing him with an overmatched Al Golden appears to have been a huge mistake.
Even though the Bengals are still very much alive in the postseason picture, getting the brakes beaten off their defense at home by a previously winless Jets team is the type of loss that can often lead to a major coaching change.