Taylor said players will continue to be monitored as the team begins preparations for this week’s game against the visiting Las Vegas Raiders.
“It’s gonna be similar as it was last week for Orlando, to see where the week takes us,” Taylor said. “No worse off than it was going in. Just as the game went, kind of got hit on it and felt some discomfort to where it was not in his best interest to keep playing. So, we’ll see where that goes during the week. Same with Tee. We’ll just take it day-to-day with him. There were some things he was trying to do Sunday morning, at the end of the day it was just smart to limit that and see where he’s at this week. So, we’ll see where he’s at as the week goes.”
The Bengals fell to 3-5 overall and 0-4 at home, and according to ESPN Research, their chances of making the playoffs is now at 27.6 percent.
Sunday was supposed to be a chance to measure improvement from the beginning of the season, following two wins against opponents with losing records.
The game was tied at 17 with less than five minutes left in the third quarter and the Eagles led by seven going into the fourth quarter before a failed conversion on fourth-and-1 and then turnovers on back-to-back drives prevented Cincinnati from keeping pace.
“I think on fourth-and-1 for the primary read to be drawn behind the line of scrimmage, that’s where the ball should have gone with the play call, but that’s not the best answer we can give our guys,” Taylor said. “And so that’s 100 percent on me. Gotta give us a better answer. I like the decision to go for it. I think in that point in the game, we needed to go for it and be aggressive in the moment. There’s got to be a better call there that I can get us to. So, yeah, 100 percent on me.”
Taylor felt like the Bengals still should have been able to do more offensively even without Higgins, noting “other players stepped up,” like tight end Mike Gesicki, although no wide receiver besides Ja’Marr Chase had more than one catch.
Andrei Iosivas, a regular starter this year, had no catches, and Trenton Irwin, who started in Higgins’ place, had one catch for four yards. Jermaine Burton had one big catch for 41 yards but dropped a ball in the endzone.
More concerning is that Cincinnati’s defense was no better in Week 8 than Week 5 when the Ravens racked up 442 yards of offense in a 41-38 overtime win at Paycor Stadium. Asked if he would like to see the organization make any moves ahead of next week’s trade deadline to try to improve the roster, Taylor said he still has faith in his players.
“The team that we’ve got is the team that we’re going to continue to coach and believe in these guys,” Taylor said. “Always let Duke and the front office deal with that stuff.”
One consistent theme throughout the losses has been the lack of a pass rush outside of Trey Hendrickson. Per TruMedia, the Bengals had three pressures against the Eagles, which is the second fewest in the league in any game this year, trailing the Colts’ one-pressure performance against the Jaguars in Week 5.
Taylor said there have been conversations with defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo about different ways to get pressure on opposing quarterbacks, but the challenge is the risk that puts on the back end of the defense if you increase the rush and guys don’t get home. That will continue to be something the staff evaluates.
Cincinnati averages 1.5 sacks (ranked 29th of 32 teams) and didn’t even get one sack on Jalen Hurts.
“He never got out of rhythm,” Anarumo said. “He never felt uncomfortable, just in terms of the pocket was pretty clean for him all day. And again, that’s their game. If you let them do it, they’ll do it. The previous game they were 15 throws, 40-something runs. (Sunday) they were 20 throws, 39 runs. So, you’ve got to get them out of that type of game.”
The Eagles had it all Sunday with a dominant running game, explosives through the air and on the ground and plenty of time for Hurts to make throws. Taylor still thinks the defense is fixable.
“I think we’ve got the right guys in there that understand we’ve gotta play better,” Taylor said. “We’ve gotta find a way to get off the field and get stops. I think we’re committed to that. There are other guys that will continue to find roles that we’ll find different ways to utilize them to see if they can create sparks as well. But I think we’ve seen that the last two weeks against Cleveland and New York. They gave us winning performances and allowed us to win the game. This week wasn’t good enough by any group on our team. This week against the Raiders, big challenge and an opportunity to show us what we’ve been seeing from them in these last weeks.”
SUNDAY’S GAME
Raiders at Bengals, 1 p.m., FOX, 700, 1530, 102.7, 104.7
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