Bengals’ Taylor becoming an expert on dealing with the unexpected

Coach giving Browning, Siemian equal opportunities with Burrow out; team works out 2 former XFL QBs.

CINCINNATI – Zac Taylor’s first training camp practice as Cincinnati Bengals head coach back in 2019 taught him an early lesson on crisis management.

Practicing at Dayton’s Welcome Stadium, the Bengals were nearing the end of the session when A.J. Green went down on the turf with an ankle injury that ended up sidelining him the entire season.

Now, it seems Taylor has become an expert dealing with the unexpected. Joe Burrow’s strained calf now has Taylor tweaking practice plans to give Jake Browning and Trevor Siemian equal opportunity with the first-team offense, throwing to receivers neither of them have played with before.

That was on display Saturday for the fans to see at the “Back Together Weekend” event inside Paycor Stadium. Siemian, a free agent pickup who has 30 career starts in the NFL, took his first turn with the 1s after Browning ran the first-team offense in practice Friday.

Burrow went down Thursday and is expected to be out several weeks, but Taylor said his experience dealing with adversity has prepared him for yet another key player being out of camp.

“Obviously, we’d rather him be here at practice all the time and us continuing to make that progress on offense,” Taylor said. “We’ve been through this before. I don’t think anyone hesitates to move on. When he comes back, he’ll be back to help us. In the meantime, you make the best of the situation for those two quarterbacks that are competing. It would have been their only time to work with the ones, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity. Those are some positive things to make of the situation. And that’s where we are at now.”

One of Siemian’s first passes in 11-on-11 drills Saturday was a completion to Ja’Marr Chase down the left sideline, over rookie cornerback DJ Turner II. He had a chance to utilize all of the “Big Three” receivers, as Tee Higgins was back in team drills after he only did individual work Friday.

The other veterans who didn’t practice Friday – as planned days off – were back as well, including D.J. Reader, Irv Smith Jr., Jonah Williams and Chidobe Awuzie. Awuzie still hasn’t begun team drills as the team eases him in from his November knee surgery, and Taylor said there is no timeline on when he will be back in full.

With Awuzie still out, Turner has stepped up and made some big plays. He almost had a pick on Siemian, but the only interception Siemian threw was when Cam Taylor-Britt undercut a route mid-practice. Browning also threw two interceptions against the second-team defense, both picked off by rookie cornerback DJ Ivey — one in an 11-on-11 and another in a red zone drill.

Siemian said Friday the chance to work with the first-team offense would be valuable, and he felt prepared because he’s “always running through the full script of plays on air” even when not involved in that rep. Chase, Higgins and Tyler Boyd make his job a bit easier.

“Takes a little stress, takes a little off your plate,” Siemian said. “There’s a lot of continuity here that you don’t have in a lot of places, so that part’s nice. Guys really know what to do, they know what to do pre-snap so it’s nice for the quarterback.”

As for Taylor, he’s just trying not to “make a mountain out of a molehill” out of not having Burrow — something that Mark Duffner taught him his first year. Taylor wasn’t as thorough in his notetaking then, so there wasn’t as much to draw from in his experience with Green’s injury, but he does recall that quote with ease.

The past two years he’s been better making daily notes of his training camp reflections, which he looks back on to remember different experiences he can draw from in situations that might be helpful.

“It has really helped me because there are situations that pop up on a daily basis that feel like they are enormous and they are stressful and how are we going to overcome this?” Taylor said. “You have to put everything in perspective, which do you put a lot of time on, which do you spend a little time on. Again, empowering other people to help you as well. We have a tremendous staff to let us do that. Experience has been the best teacher for me over the years. I’ve seen a lot. How does that compare with another coach that has been in the league five years? I have no idea. But I know what it means to me. It’s been helpful to me and our staff.”

Losing the starting quarterback is a big blow to the continuity of the offense, but Taylor said he thought the two backups have been handling things well so far.

“These guys obviously are vulnerable, but they stepped in and it was yeah, they threw on time, they threw with good accuracy, they kept us going so that was good to see,” Taylor said.

The Bengals did work out two former XFL quarterbacks Saturday morning, including Loveland High School graduate Drew Plitt, who was in camp last year, and Reid Sinnett.

Taylor didn’t want to comment on how the process is going, but it remains the plan to add another quarterback.

“We worked some guys out, you know, and so that’ll be a process over the next couple days,” Taylor said. “I try not to comment on that, because I never know the details of how those transactions are gonna unfold shortly. But (we) worked some guys out and something will probably happen the next couple days.”

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