“We want to win,” Taylor said.
Burrow energized the Bengals three weeks ago when he came back and led them to a Thanksgiving night win at Baltimore to keep their playoff hopes alive, but those essentially went out the window last week after he threw a pick-six and another interception on the next play from scrimmage to allow Buffalo to rally for a win.
That assured Cincinnati a losing record, and the team was officially eliminated from playoff contention Sunday with a 24-0 loss to the Ravens at home, a game Burrow said was one of the worst of his career.
Still, the Bengals believe Burrow gives them their best chance to win games. Taylor needs as many of those as he can get before the front office makes any decisions about his future, but he said Monday, none of that factors in, despite how fans might view him now in light of results.
“That has no bearing on me whatsoever,” Taylor said. “When I tell you there’s a brick wall surrounding me and isolating me from any feelings people have about me or their views on me, I can’t allow that to dictate how I operate. And so truthfully, that doesn’t affect me in any way, shape or form, and I just keep doing my job to the best of my abilities. And this year certainly hasn’t been good enough with the record we’re at right now. I get that, but I’m just going to keep doing everything I can to get this team ready to play on Sunday.”
Taylor hasn’t shied away from taking responsibility for the team’s shortcomings. He said he can’t ask players to take ownership for something they’re being held accountable for if he is not going to do the same.
Offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said criticism, for everyone, is warranted after games like Sunday’s, but he can’t spend time worrying about any uncertainty that might come in terms of job security amid a 10-loss season so far.
“I think at the end of the day you take solace in the fact that you’ve dedicated every ounce of yourself that you think you can to this cause and to the job, and that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that in hindsight you wouldn’t do differently or that you’re not open to reflection and criticism because obviously performances like yesterday are very much worthy of criticism, but I think you can look yourself in the mirror and lay your head down at night when you know how much it means to you and what you put in and everything else is out of your control,” Pitcher said. “… It allows me to continue to come to work with a positive attitude. And even though we’re far from where we want to be, every day is a chance to prove yourself.”
Defensive coordinator Al Golden said these last three games are still important for building culture and momentum for 2026, especially on his side of the ball, where a lot of young players have been starting to show progress together since the bye week.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Taylor remains confident the team will respond to the adversity of Sunday’s shutout loss and remain invested in winning games.
“I feel the same frustration (as everyone else), and we want to finish this season on a really strong note, that’s important to me,” Taylor said. “That should be important to everybody and we’re in this business to win football games and we haven’t won enough football games and it’s very important we go out and win starting this week, forget about the last two, but going down to Miami and putting our best foot forward.”
Given Burrow’s injury history, it seems to some like a silly risk to let Burrow play. Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL on Sunday in a game in which the Chiefs were officially eliminated from playoff contention, and now he faces a long road to recovery that could impact the 2026 season.
Taylor said being eliminated from the postseason could impact how the team manages injured players, on a case-by-case basis, but Burrow is not one of them. He was deemed healthy enough to play and has been moving around well on the injured toe.
Burrow had two of his first three NFL seasons cut short by injuries, an ACL tear in 2020 and wrist surgery in 2023. He suffered the turf toe injury this season in Week 2 and wasn’t expected to be back until mid-December but returned to practice coming out of the bye in Week 10 and played 17 days later with hopes of helping Cincinnati make the playoffs.
Uncharacteristic mistakes – for a quarterback who usually thrives in high-pressure situations late – the last two games proved costly.
Pitcher just wants to see him get back to himself.
“Just bounce back, be himself, come out and play with confidence and distribute the football, make explosive plays when they present themselves, take care of the ball, all the things that make him the great player that he is,” Pitcher said. “And I think that that’s what we’ll see.”
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