Zac Taylor Deserves Praise For Being a Modern NFL Head Coach

Zooming in on the failed fourth down that flipped "momentum" back to the Vikings. Taylor made the correct decision. Adding a 2% win probability by not punting was a clear choice for Bengals football data analyst Sam Francis or whoever gave Taylor the scenarios.

"We've got to be aggressive. We can't let them fall in our lap and come to us. You've got to go take it," Taylor said on Monday. "If you specifically look at that play in our minus territory, we scored three touchdowns on three consecutive possessions. Let's go get a fourth touchdown and make this thing 28-7. Let's go win this thing 42-7 and blow it wide open."

Coaching scared is coaching to fail, and Taylor is making sure he pulls out all the stops. According to Ben Baldwin, the Bengals ranked in the top ten of "Go-Rate" under Marvin Lewis dating back to 2014. Most fans considered Lewis conservative over his 17 seasons in Cincinnati, and that's an understatement compared to Taylor.

Lewis went for it 30% (24-80 plays) of the time in recommended situations by Baldwin's model. Over his first two years, Taylor has gone for it 53% (9-17 plays) of the time on recommended plays. Imagine what that aggressive decision-making from Taylor could reap with more than 11 games of competent quarterback play?

"In that moment, it's kind of a tossup," Taylor told Bengals.com. "Fourth-and-1 is considered go-for-it even if you're all the way back there. It's just whether or not you feel you need to do it or not. A lot of times when you're doing something like that, you have to be consistent over the course of time. So we went for it on fourth-and-1 going in (earlier in the game), and we scored a touchdown a couple of plays later, where if you decided to kick a field goal, there's a four-point swing right there. But we're going to get it. Fourth and-1. Score a touchdown, and you know what? We didn't get it when we were backed up, and they go and scored a touchdown."

The best part about Sunday's decision-making was Taylor not falling for recency bias. Football plays are like roulette tables; never try to base your next decision on what just happened. Trust the process, and Taylor did just that when he gave the fourth down reigns to Burrow in overtime.

The second-year franchise icon switched into Y-leak, found the player who caught his first career passing touchdown in C.J. Uzomah, and Evan McPherson tied the ribbon on his banner debut with a game-winning field goal.

"There are some lonely moments sometimes when it doesn't work out," Taylor said. "You have to stick by your guns and continue to be aggressive, and that's the way we want to play football."

The moral here is to evaluate the process, not the result, as this team continues its aggressive mindset. Taylor made it clear to his locker room that they aren't sitting on their hands when facing tough decisions. The Bengals are trying to shock the world by making the playoffs in 2021; to do it, they'll have to keep bucking conventional wisdom.