There’s been something of a hex on the first two games of the regular season during Zac Taylor’s tenure as Cincinnati Bengals head coach. Since taking the job in 2019, Taylor has just one single victory in Weeks 1 and 2, which has his team playing catch-up in perpetuity.
Taylor’s decision to play starters more in the preseason — and the resulting response from Joe Burrow and the offense on two touchdown-scoring drives against the Eagles — suggests this year might finally be different. Maybe the Bengals will come out of the gates firing on all cylinders at long last.
Well, if the latest predictions from one prominent outlet are any indication, Who Dey Nation had better buckle up for more early-season suffering.
The MMQB predicts awful start for Bengals — but with a catch
Conor Orr of Sports Illustrated‘s The MMQB went through the entire NFL schedule, predicting every single game. Like, all 272 in the regular season.
Seems like a futile exercise. I’ve done it before. The odds of being bang-on right about any given two weeks out of 18 are like a quadrillion removed from the chances of a perfect March Madness bracket. OK maybe that’s a tad hyperbolic. But I digress.
While Orr predicts the Bengals will get at Week 2 win in the home opener against the Jaguars to improve to 1-1, he has them going on a three-game slide after that to lose four of their first five. WHAT!?
Talk about a pressure cooker for Taylor. Fans would be calling for his neck to be thrust into a guillotine. Sorry. Not to be too graphic. Gallows humor if you will.
Zac Taylor is one of the most underrated, over-hated coaches I can remember. When you bear in mind the organizational nonsense he often puts up with and the limited resources of the Bengals’ scouting department and other areas, Taylor takes way too much blame.
Having said that, you can bet every single top-flight head coaching candidate would be lining up for the opportunity to lift Burrow and the Bengals to Super Bowl glory. There’s a real chance Cincinnati could upgrade over Taylor. I’m not ruling that out. What I am sort of ruling out is Mike Brown cutting Taylor’s current contract short, since it runs through 2026.
You can’t tell me the franchise that won’t pay Trey Hendrickson the money he deserves is going to pay Taylor not to coach next season, and turn around and pay for another head coach. Just ain’t gonna happen.
That’s where we get to the next phase of Orr’s prediction. Plot twist! The Bengals come storming back to finish 10-7 and second in the AFC North — just like another sports media giant predicted.
Allow Orr to explain himself. Big ups to him for admitting a soft spot for the team, too.
“This is now the most consistently heartbreaking team in the exercise. The defense is incredibly worrisome, and the Bengals are realistically one wide receiver injury away from competing with the Browns for last place in the division. However, I think I make up for that by having this team follow a familiar arc: losing four of its first five games before coming together for a frantic post-bye scramble. I am painfully in the bag for this team. I have picked Joe Burrow—much to the chagrin of our magazine editors—to be the MVP in each of the past three preseasons. The Bengals’ Super Bowl run left a mark on me, but not enough to proceed without extreme caution. Finishing the season with the Cardinals and Browns at home is a massive help.”
Don’t worry, Conor. I too am in the bag for this Bengals team, as is much of the readership reading this article.
You can tell that Conor knows ball since he picked Joe Brrr to be the league MVP for three years running. After all, the most renowned survey of front office personnel and coaches across the NFL concluded Joe Burrow is the only other unanimous Tier 1 QB alongside Patrick Mahomes.
My body isn’t ready for a 1-4 start. Nor do I think Zac Taylor’s job would survive it, and that disruption of continuity could prove disastrous. Orr doesn’t seem to imply Taylor will be fired, but my goodness, I can’t even imagine how out-of-our-skin most of us Bengals fans would be if that’s how things went in the early going of the 2025 season.
What I actually believe is going to happen, though? We’re going to absolutely body the Browns in Week 1, the Jags in Week 2, and the JJ McCarthy-led, Jordan Addison-less Vikings in Week 3 before embarrassing the bad-team-beating-up-on Denver Broncos during Week 4’s edition of Monday Night Football.
Dread it. Run from it. Destiny, aka Joe Burrow, will arrive all the same.
