OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR PRESS TAYLOR
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2023
(On if play calling changes with confidence in field goal range with K Brandon McManus) “Yeah,
obviously our kick line is probably a little further than most people, just because he has a big leg. We’re
always continuing to try to score, but it certainly helps influence some things. You’ve probably seen on
third-and-15, we’re in that fringe range, where we know a six-yard gain or you have an 18 percent
chance of converting third-and-11-plus. All the sudden, if we can get ourselves six yards, he has a 60
percent chance of making a field goal. That’s huge for us and the way we play and the way we operate.
There’s certainly things that influences how we do certain things or where we’re trying to get, where our
kick line is, but it’s a good weapon to have.”
(On being more conservative in certain times when in field goal range) “I think everything is case by case,
but there’s certainly instances where we’re always trying to play the odds. The odds of us converting, I
think there’s been a couple of times where we have, I think back to Pittsburgh at least, I know there’s
one where we ended up in like a third-and-16 kind of situation where you just want eight yards. If we get
eight yards, we get a chance to kick a field goal. Maybe it’s a catch-and-run, we get the first [down], but
if we’re trying to hold the ball, get everybody past the sticks, the odds of us converting are less than 15
percent. But, eight yards gives us three points. Now, yes it affects that and we’re trying to call things that
give us catch-and-run opportunities, but we’re more willing to settle for just checkdown completions.”
(On what the Taylor Bro Bowl Trophy means to him) “Nothing. It used to be something that was cool, we
were both quality controls or assistant position coaches, whatever it was. It was kind of a fun way for our
family to be involved, for us to talk a little trash. Now, it’s just kind of something that only gets brought
up this time of year. We may randomly think about it every so often and see if my dad updated it, but
that’s really all it is. It’s just a fun thing for our family.”
(On if he was in charge of family tickets this week) “I’m never in charge of tickets. My wife is. I couldn’t
necessarily tell you who is coming, when they get here, anything like that. My wife is a saint and handles
all of that for me in season.”
(On if any of his children will attend the game) “No, too late. All of them aren’t. There’s no way, you don’t
want that, nobody wants them here past nine o’clock at night.”
(On how often he and Bengals Head Coach Zac Taylor talk throughout the season) “Sometimes it’ll be
twice a week, sometimes we won’t talk for three weeks. We’re pretty much on a very similar schedule,
so we try to talk on the drive home is where we reach each other. I’m not going to answer my phone
when I’m at home, because I’m at home. If I’m in a meeting, I’m not going to answer here. He’s the same
way. There may be times it just didn’t work out, we didn’t talk. Maybe we will text here and there, but if
we get a chance on Fridays as I’m driving home until we get to the house, we’ll catch up or something
like that.”
(On if he’s talked to his brother this week) “No, no talking this week.”
(On what he remembers from his time as a Graduate Assistant at Tulsa) “Oh man. I remember meeting
my wife, that was probably my most significant thing. I remember I was in a house, I lived in a three-
bedroom house with three other GA’s, so there was four of us. One guy just lived on the couch, he paid
less. He probably paid 100 bucks, we paid 400 bucks. We would take the golf cart from work to our
house and eat lunch there because nobody had money to eat lunch, so we would just go home to eat
there. I remember working for Bill Blankenship was the head coach at the time. The way he treated
people, I knew I wanted to get into coaching, I loved football, but being around him and the way he
treated his staff and the way he built this staff really stirred everything I thought or I hoped would
happen for me of wanting to get into a career in coaching. I remember that and we won a lot of games.
We had some really good teams when we were there.”
(On Bill Blankenship being an influential person to him) “I would say so. Early on, obviously I’ve worked
for four head coaches. If any one of those four ever called me today, I’d go work for them. Because
they’re all great people. Not everybody can say that in their career with their boss. All four bosses I’ve
had, I would go work for in a heartbeat. I loved every single one of them.”
(On what was different last week that allowed for better success on third downs) “Yeah, I think again, it’s
always case-by-case. There’s plenty of times where this season, more so than last season where we’re in
four-minute mode and we’re willing to run the ball. We’re in 13-personnel running the ball on third and
eight, we know we’re not converting. I think we’ve had three or four of those. We’ve had some drops,
we had a drop the other day on third and 15. It’s been a number of issues here and there, but we look at
everything case-by-case. Did we have the right call? Did we practice this look? What happened? Why did
things go wrong? That’s something we continue to address everything. If there was one glaring thing,
we’ll fix it, we’ll get it corrected. We’ll make sure it’s scheme, whatever it may be. There’s also times
where like I’ve mentioned with the Pittsburgh game, it’s third and 16. If we get eight yards, we have a 72
percent chance of making a field goal. If we throw incomplete, we’ll have a 12 percent chance. We’re
more willing to just put the ball in play, maybe not be as aggressive to not get any chance of points. Now
we have the ability to get three. There’s certain times where you play it based on the situation of the
game, the weather, whatever it may be, where your decision making changes at times.”
(On what makes an offense look good to him) “Honestly, it’s our scoreboard. Did we do enough to win
the game? Did we help our team win the game? Were we the reason we lost the game? It’s always that.
That’s honestly where we start. There’s some games where I could explain to you why we were one for
three in the red zone. There are games where you could explain why you’re four for 13, you had a bunch
of four-minute runs in third down. Certain things happen. There are certain barriers, I think there’s some
combination of explosive plays, negative plays, turnover margin, that are always going to be factors in
wins and losses. You just win the turnover margin; you have a 70 percent chance to win the football
game. That’s a big thing. Then, we go into how do we control the football? What is it just giveaways,
takeaways? We present this number to our players every single week of as it changes week-by-week
across the season what those numbers reflect. Score, turnover margin, explosive plays, inefficient plays
or negative plays. That combination is always the key we start with.”
(On delicacy of RB Travis Etienne Jr.’s number of touches per game) “I think it’s like any player, you want
to use him the right amount where they’re still affective without hindering the long-term process
throughout the course of the season. As guys accumulate some bumps and bruises as this thing goes,
you may see their uses get toned down a little bit. But at the same time, we’ve got to do whatever we’ve
got to do to win the game. Guys understand that, sometimes it is impossible to pull these guys off the
field at times knowing them at 80 percent is not as good as so-and-so at 90 percent, whatever it may be.
We’re constantly working with the training staff to evaluate where those guys are, but we’re constantly
working with the players to get them to be honest with us, and for us to communicate with them. That’s
one of the biggest things I’ve found with these players, you’re able to communicate throughout the
course of the week what the plan is, then you stick with your word, they’re all on board. It may be, “Hey,
we’ve noticed you’re banged up a little bit based on what the run game looks like and pass game looks
like. We’re thinking it’s going to be more this type of stuff or that type of player, or here’s your rotation.’
If we can stick to that, you get buy-in and you continue to gain trust throughout the course of the
season.”
(On if he would ever want to coach with his brother Zac Taylor) “I don’t know. There would obviously be
a lot of fun. That’s my older brother, that’s somebody I look up to. It would be awesome to spend a lot of
time with him, sit in a room and just talk football with that person all the time. But, there’s also some
dynamics that would make it challenging. Honestly, it’s never come up with us. We were never in a
position where we felt like that was best for either of us at the time, but yeah, it would be a fun thing to
happen if it ever happened. I don’t think we’d ever force it to happen.”
(On what he sees in the short-yardage offense to improve the rest of the year) “It’s been hit and miss,
honestly. There’s things we could do better. Whether it’s scheme, execution, play call, personnel usage,
there’s a lot of things that could continue to be better and that’s something we need to work on. We
spend a lot of time on our game planning process of making sure we’re trying to put the best people in
the best position to do what they do really well. It’s something I think we’ll continue to try to improve on
as we go, no matter where you are, until you’re 100 percent, you want to continue to make that number
as good as it could be. I do think over the course of the last couple of years, I think short yardage
conversion percentages continue to go down across the league as teams get better at understanding
when teams quarterback sneak and different looks, presenting different fronts and compliments to the
fronts. That’s the fun part of this game, is it used to be if there’s an open A-gap, you’re going to sneak it.
That was the patriot way. Oh, they’re 92 percent, well they wouldn’t sneak it if it wasn’t the right look.
They snuck it versus primary looks, then everybody started getting the double tight look, they started
running off tackle. Now you’re getting the double tight look to prevent quarterback sneaks but they’re
getting out charged. They’re really getting B-gaps from an A-gap position. It’s the cat and mouse game
that continues to go into every single snap that’s the fun part of this.”
(On what was seen from QB Trevor Lawrence getting the first down in short yardage by quarterback
sneak) “Yeah, I think the front was different, I think on both of them. Obviously, the front that he snuck
the first one, I think it was a jammed front, he went over the top of the center right there. We were
gapped out on the other one, they were in a goal line personnel because we were in a goal line
personnel. They had us gapped out, we tried to run a play that we’ve been pretty successful with here
for two years that they made a tackle on the goal line and got us stopped.”
(On if he has any second thoughts on the play where QB Trevor Lawrence got stopped from last game)
“No, I think our process of what caused us to call that play was a good process. I understand we’re
always going to be judged off the result of every single play. If you run it and it doesn’t work, you
should’ve run it. If you threw it to that guy and he didn’t catch it, you should’ve thrown it to that guy. We
want to be process-oriented in a results-oriented business, understanding the results matter. But I think
we can get back here and justify how we got to this call and what we thought, and if we faced a certain
look, is there something we can do better in the future. Continuing to learn and grow as we go.”
(On if he wanted a better block on the edge that failed last game) “We’ve seen it different ways. We ran
it at Pittsburgh, we had one last year at Vegas, so I think where he cut inside it’s played out different
times over the course of having run that play. We kind of let Travis [RB Travis Etienne Jr.] be ball carrier
and go as he goes, ultimately we probably liked to finish it a little bit better and him be able to work the
one guy a little bit cleaner. I think we could put everybody in better positions as play callers.”
DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MIKE CALDWELL
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2023
(On if he’s attending Bolles high school this week for the game) “No, I just had my son send me the link
and I’ll be watching it tonight on the phone.”
(On if he feels like ‘gritty not pretty’ describes the defense well) “As a defensive coach, you always want
to be gritty, you never want to be pretty. That’s for the offense. I think especially Foye [LB Foyesade
Oluokun] and his foundation says a lot about our team and our defense.”
(On what stands out about Bengals QB Jake Browning) “It’s difficult, but you can find tape. You can go
back and make sure you find a bunch of reps. The thing about him is that he’s mobile, we just faced one
last week and another guy that can move around in the pocket and buy time. He has a bunch of
weapons and it’s unknown for him, and it’s unknown for us. It’ll be a good challenge for us.”
(On if he remembers his first Monday Night Football game as a player) “It was actually a preseason
game. I think it was, I want to say the 49ers at Cleveland Stadium. I had a pick six. I think it got called
back. I did run to the camera in the back of the endzone, so at least the people back in Tennessee got a
chance to see me.”
(On what type of player Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase is) “He’s a guy that you just call him a guy. He’s a guy
that is a dude on that team. He’s a dude in the league. He’s a guy that you have to know where he’s at all
times, you have to make sure you have a bunch of people around him because he’s going to make
incredible catches, he’s good with the ball in his hand after the catch. He’s a guy that’s a guy.”
(On potential without CB Tyson Campbell against strong offensive Bengals players) “It’s a big challenge.
They do have a bunch of weapons. We’d love to get Tyson back, he’s working his way back. Again, you
look at the guys that have had opportunities to step up, Buster [CB Montaric Brown] and [CB] Greg
Junior, who have done a nice job for us. If they get another chance, we’d be excited to see them go out
there and play. We know and have a bunch of confidence in those guys.”
(On impact of play by OLB Travon Walker) “I think it goes together. We always talk about pass rush and
coverage go together. But when you’re rushing, you have to have someone on the other side that’s
collapsing the pocket. The two guys that are inside also, with those guys it all goes together. When you
rush by yourself, there’s too many lanes for the quarterback to get out. I think the guys are doing a good
job of rushing as a unit and it’s paying off.”
