UNLIKELY ; Joe Burrow ;Ja’Marr Chase,And Tee Higgins Are Reportedly Facing Penalty For Criticizing Zac Taylor
During the Bengals’ OTAs, we spent a full day following Cincinnati’s new head coach. This involved everything from practice and several meetings to naming the offense’s new plays (of which “Shaggy” is one) and resolving a cut internet connection at his family’s new home (the day after it was installed).
Cincinnati — Zac Taylor is one of the most enigmatic new head coaches in recent memory, according to a lot of NFL fans and the media. It’s about a 12-rung rise in power to go from assistant wide receivers coach for the Rams in 2017 to head coach of the Bengals in 2019. However, Taylor, 36, is not completely inexperienced; he called plays for the Dolphins at the end of 2015 and for the University of Cincinnati in 2016. He has also tutored NFL quarterbacks for five years. Nevertheless, not much is known about the man in charge of changing the Bengals. We spent a day at OTAs following him around to get to know him better
Tucked away in Cincinnati’s mountainous Mount Lookout neighborhood is the ideal house of the Taylor family. Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is playing catch with his eight-year-old son Brooks inside. Zac has only been home for a short while as the Bengals wrap off their offseason practices. He left his office at Paul Brown Stadium just after 7 p.m. Even though it’s a youth-sized football, there are no boundaries and throws are made quickly.
The ball flies over the kitchen island—which is cluttered with dishes and leftovers from tonight’s Mexican meal—across the living room, beneath hanging lights, around cupboards, close to the sink and counters, and multiple times, right in front of mom and family CEO Sarah Taylor.
It appears that Sarah, who alternates between cooking and taking care of the Taylor family’s other three children—Lucy, age six, Emma Claire, age three, and Milly, age three—does not even notice the sailing football. As the daughter of Mike Sherman and the current 14-year partner of the former Nebraska quarterback, to whom she wed in 2008, a football is as commonplace in her existence as sunlight and oxygen. Zac or Brooks are the only ones who come into contact with the ball; tidy catches and throws come naturally to a family whose
