Zac Taylor Highlights Positives Following Fourth Consecutive Bengals Loss

 The Bengals fell to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, 27-18, in the team's fourth consecutive loss following Joe Burrow's season-wrecking injury. Cincinnati has to find some wins soon, sitting on the outside looking intothe AFC playoff race.

Zac Taylor discussed the ups and downs of the loss, which included an offensive spark in the second half after Joe Flacco got settled in. Cincinnati finished with just 268 total yards.

"The offense had those four possessions that generate offense and give us a chance there to take a lead, take a tie to halftime, and then second half offense came out, I thought played well," Taylor said about the game. "Defense just couldn't quite get off the field. So when we talk about complementary football, that's what we're talking about, and it wasn't overall good enough. Good to see pieces that we can lean into and continue to grow. But losing this game on the road, there's no consolation there. We expected to win. 

"I thought we should have won the game. Credit to them. They did all the things that they needed to do to get this win, and we just came up short, and that's just a cumulative team effort over the course of the game."

Cincinnati didn't commit any turnovers and had just three penalties, but a stagnant offensive first half kept them trailing for basically the whole game.

Flacco did look better than Jake Browning has in recent weeks, finishing with a 90.9 passer rating and two touchdowns.

"I think before the half, that certainly gave us some confidence," Taylor said about the offense. "Even though we came up with no points, we got into a rhythm. We found some things in the pass game. We were able to complement it with the run game. So we felt coming into halftime the defense had done enough to keep us in that game. When you get the ball to start the half, we're gonna have a shot there. And so I definitely think we walked into halftime with some confidence."

The Bengals have a fast turnaround as they return home and start preparing for the AFC North-leading Steelers in a Thursday night battle at home.

It's a massively important AFC game for any outside hope of an eventual Bengals playoff push.

"They believe in each other," Taylor said about his team. "We are going to break through, and we are going to be in the thick of this thing, and we are going to find some wins, and we're going to hang tight together, and it's going to come sooner rather than later, I can promise you that."