How many games are the Cincinnati Bengals going to lose to the supposed bad play calling from the head coach Zac Taylor? Apparently, the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles is on the head coach’s shoulders because he took “100%” responsibility for the fourth down play that set up the Bengals for failure. Imagine how Joe Burrow would have felt about it.

The Cinci QB was 26 of 37 on his passes over 234 yards and even took an early lead in the game with a 2-yard TD pass to Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals were in lead till the first half of the game, but then the Eagles decided to shift gears in the late third quarter. The game was tied to 17 and then Jalen Hurts took the lead and got the Eagles on top (24-17).

The Bengals went scoreless in the last quarter of the game. The loss angered the former NFL GM Michael Lombardi, who thinks that the team has a coaching and a “toughness” issue where Zac Taylor is not preaching the right things to his players and leaving everything on Joe Burrow to handle. The hosts of GM Shuffle also happen to think that Taylor should apologize to Burrow.

Patrick Meagher, the host of the show, started the conversation by saying, “I feel like Zac Taylor owes Joe Burrow an apology,” and Lombardi chimed in, concurring with Meagher. “Zac at what point don’t you realize that either you change or you don’t,” Lombardi said on GM Shuffle podcast. He then recalled Sean Payton’s gambit with Drew Brees a couple of years ago.

“Sean Payton went through this. ‘It was so easy to run. Why stick with it? It was so easy to run spacing to get first downs and put everything on Drew Brees and you know what he realized? ‘I got to be tougher, and I got to run the ball. I got to make this team win games in November and December,’” Lombardi continued.

He further thrashed Zac Taylor for not calling run plays and relying heavily on Joe Burrow’s passing. The Bengals had an abysmal 58 rushing yards compared to Eagles’ 161. Even the rushing TD that Cinci scored came from Chase Brown’s 4-yard run. So why can’t the Bengals be more like Jared Goff and the Lions? Goff threw for 85 yards. The Lions still scored 52 points against the Titans in their last game.

But let’s come back to what Zac Taylor had to say after the loss to the Eagles and watching his team slip to 3-5.

Zac Taylor takes responsibility for failing his Bengals

Taylor might have known exactly what the media was about to ask him. He thinks he botched the 4 and 1 play and didn’t have the right answer for the guys on his team. He took the decision to “go for it” because per him, the team needed be more “aggressive” in that moment.

“I think on 4th & 1 for the primary read to be thrown behind the line of scrimmage, and that’s where the ball should have gone with the play call, that’s not the best answer we can give our guys,” Taylor said on Monday. “That’s 100% on me. Got to give us a better answer. I like the decision to go for it. I think at that point in the game we needed to go for it and be aggressive in the moment. There’s got to be a better call there that I can get us to and so, yeah, 100% on me.”

Maybe Joe Burrow has too much pressure on him these days. Since the last three games, the Bengals failed to score more than 21 points and it looks embarrassing for a team of that calibre. Something’s got to give for the Bengals and if Taylor keeps botching things up, the Bengals will be out of any sort of contention this season.