CINCINNATI — After the two-week grind of Training Camp- that began on July 27 at Dayton’s Welcome Stadium- which included competing against only themselves, the Bengals will finally take the field tomorrow night for an actual game against an opponent different than themselves: the Kansas City Chiefs. And while that opponent may bring back memories of their offense carving up the Bengals defense with as much ease as Gordon Ramsay makes it look when breaking down a chicken during a demonstration on Master Chef, that is actually not so much on my mind as other headlines are going into Saturday night. As Zac Taylor gets set to make his head coaching debut with the Bengals, here are five things to watch for in the Bengals preseason opener.
1. I am really impressed with the transparency and the very minimal gray area Zac Taylor has created in his tenure so far as the head coach of the Bengals. It’s nice to know as a fan and as a member of the media everything of what we need to know about the team. My hope, now, is that the communication between Taylor and the media will be the same between Taylor and the other 23 members of the coaching staff, and the emphasis Taylor is putting on communication has me hopeful that he and the coaching staff will excel at it on game day.
“We’ve talked a lot about how the communication is going to unfold,” Taylor said Thursday at his press conference. “We’ve all done it in very similar ways, just on different staffs, so it’s something we talk about in great detail.”
That’s refreshing to hear after multiple communication malfunctions within Marvin Lewis and his staff last year, most notably the lack of calling a timeout before giving up a game-winning touchdown against Pittsburgh and attempting a game-tying two-point conversion against the Los Angeles Chargers. And, in addition to the players learning what they can do better following Saturday’s game, Taylor said the coaching staff is going to talk Sunday among themselves at what they can do to improve upon from the first preseason game. After all, the performance of the players can all be traced back to the coaching staff.
2. There is good depth at the running back position, which makes it better that Joe Mixon and Giovani Bernard are not suiting up to play Saturday night. That’s a good thing, and it continues to make me think that the Bengals are starting to operate like the Los Angeles Rams, who aren’t playing their starters at all during the preseason. With Mixon and Bernard out, I’ll have a close eye on sixth-round draft pick Trayveon Williams, who has a prime opportunity to show what he can do and give himself a chance to redeem himself from a rough practice on Monday.
“We need to see these young guys pass protect and see what they can do to step up, so they’re going to get to play the whole game,” Taylor said.
The Chiefs have overhauled their defense on all levels, including switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 under new coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. How Williams and fellow young running backs Quinton Flowers, a former quarterback at USF, and Jordan Ellis pass protect against them could go a long way in determining how much playing time they get once the regular-season starts.
3. One player who will be on the field Saturday is Andy Dalton. Why? I don’t know. Should he be? No. If the Bengals really want to start to operate like the Rams, then Dalton should definitely not be playing in the first preseason game, especially given that he is coming off a thumb injury suffered in the later stages of the 2018 season.
In addition, Green is out with an ankle injury and Tyler Eifert also will not play, per Taylor. That leaves wide receivers Josh Malone and Tyler Boyd and tight end C.J. Uzomah, which makes me further question why Dalton is playing. Typically the big-name players are only on the field for less than a quarter of the first preseason game, if that at all. If this were the second or third preseason game, by all means have Dalton out there to work with the play-makers he currently has at his disposal. But with so many key skill players out for the first preseason game, does it really make sense to have Dalton out there and risk something happening? I don’t think so.
4. Speaking of something happening to Dalton, the new-look offensive line will try and prevent that. With an, at best, shaky performance through Training Camp, I definitely have cause for concern going into the first preseason game on all levels of the depth chart.
5. It’s well-known around Cincinnati how awful the defense looked against the Chiefs lethal offense last year in a nationally-televised game. From the first defensive play, where Shawn Williams zagged the wrong way against Tyreek Hill and Vontaze Burfict stumbled clumsily while missing a tackle, to allowing the Chiefs to drive 87 yards in 12 plays while already trailing 45-10 in the fourth quarter, it was just a disaster of epic proportions. Andy Reid has said that Mahomes will play the first quarter, so something good that will hopefully come out of this game is a solid first-team defense showing that is better than giving up 143 yards in the first quarter last year on national television.
Let me be Frank and Cut to the Chase 