It's been a long time coming for the Cincinnati Bengals, but it finally happened. They're out of playoff contention after only 11 weeks of football.
Pro Football Talk's Darin Gantt talked about how the team has now mathematically eliminated themselves from playoff contention after suffering a 17-10 loss to the Oakland Raiders. According to him, this has been the first time since 2002 that a team has been knocked out of playoff contention in Week 11.
However, it seems like Zac Taylor knew about this all along coming into the game. He was interviewed days before their fated elimination, and the things he said were very pessimistic for a head coach.
Here's a transcript of what he said, via Bengals Wire:
“This league is hard. It’s very unforgiving sometimes, and we’re facing that right now. What we do know is that this is the toughest stretch we’re going to go through in our next 20 years here. This is going to be the toughest one. We find out a lot about the character of the people in this building and what the approach is going to be so we can look back on this and say that it made us stronger, because we faced the hardest it was ever going to be — the most adversity we ever face. These people stuck through it and did it the right way, and we’ll build on that. There’ll be a time — I can’t wait to look back on it — and say, ‘Remember when all that stuff happened?’ You guys will laugh with me, I promise (laughter). We’ll get there.”
He may be looking forward to the future, but he hasn't done anything to help them get there. He hasn't traded assets like AJ Green or Andy Dalton for picks, and there's no sense of choesion as to where the team is going tactically.
It's going to be a rough couple of seasons for the Bengals, and they hope all of this will be worth it in the long run.
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