There's an argument to be made that there's no more important duo in football than head coach and starting quarterback. Those two guys need to be on exactly the same page in order for an offense to thrive. Luckily, the Cincinnati Bengals have a pretty great quarterback-and-coach duo in Joe Burrow and Zac Taylor.
A dynamic duo in Cincinnati
Taylor has coached Burrow for four seasons, and the Bengals made it to the AFC Championship in two of those four seasons. That's not too shabby. As a result, Burrow and Taylor were recently ranked as the fifth-best quarterback/coach duo in the entire NFL by Bleacher Report.
Cincinnati's duo came in behind Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy in San Francisco, John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford in Las Angeles and Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City.
Here's what B/R had to say about the duo in Cincinnati:
"While you can make the case that Burrow has significantly boosted Taylor's head coaching resume, the Bengals' lead skipper has proved to be a solid play-caller.
"Under Taylor's tutelage, Cincinnati fielded a top-seven passing attack in 2021 and 2022. Last year, Jake Browning, an undrafted quarterback out of Washington in his fifth season, threw for 12 touchdowns and seven interceptions with a league-leading 70.4 percent completion rate. . . With a winning playoff record together, Taylor and Burrow surpassed McDermott and Allen for the No. 5 spot."
The 2024 season will be a very important one for Cincinnati's duo. If the Bengals struggle, the public perception of both Burrow and Taylor will likely cool a bit, but if they can manage to lead the Bengals on another deep playoff run, they'll probably appear higher on the list of top QB/coach duos in the NFL next year.