There’s no sugarcoating it. What happened in Cincinnati today was a flat-out embarrassment. The Bengals’ 39-38 loss to the winless, 0-7 New York Jets is the single worst loss of Zac Taylor’s coaching career — and quite possibly the worst loss in franchise history.
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Let that sink in: the Bengals, fresh off a massive Thursday Night Football win over the rival Pittsburgh Steelers in front of a national audience, came home and lost to a team without Sauce Gardner or Garrett Wilson — a team led by Justin Fields, who was publicly blasted by his own ownership just days ago.
And somehow, Fields and the Jets’ offense rolled up 502 total yards against this so-called defense. Five hundred and two. Against a team that couldn’t buy a touchdown the last two months.
This defense isn’t just bad — it’s the worst in football. The tackling is awful. The coverage is non-existent. The communication is broken. But the root of all of it? Horrible drafting and a head coach who’s simply not good enough.
I’ve said it time and time again — the defensive problems go back to roster construction. The personnel just isn’t there, and that falls on Zac Taylor and the people he’s put in place. I sound like a broken record, but I’ll keep saying it until someone in that building listens: this team needs a full house cleaning. And it starts with getting Zac Taylor out of town.
You can try to defend him by saying, “Hey, the offense scored 38 points today.” Sure, they did. But when the game was on the line, when it mattered most — 2nd and 10, under a minute left — Zac Taylor called a run. That’s the moment that defines him as a head coach: scared, conservative, and overmatched.
It’s beyond unacceptable. You cannot waste another year of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase’s primes on this kind of incompetence. Every week like this one is another nail in the coffin of what could’ve been a Super Bowl window.
An 0-7 Jets team without its best players walked into Paycor Stadium and scored 23 points in the fourth quarter. That’s not just losing — that’s collapsing. That’s quitting. That’s a team that’s lost faith in its coach.
At this point, there’s no more defending Zac Taylor. He’s had time. He’s had talent. He’s had a franchise quarterback. And yet here we are — talking about one of the most humiliating losses in Bengals history.
If ownership cares at all about winning, about Burrow, about this city — they’ll make a change.
Because today was rock bottom.
