New Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Al Golden held his introductory press conference on Monday and revealed much about his immediate plans for the spring and into summer.
A single point, though, sticks out above all else.
One of the unsaid things Golden will be tasked with fixing is Cincinnati’s horrific early-season starts. He explained that energy and attention to details, plus more challenging spring sessions, are the key.
Those things, plus making sure a diverse playbook and set of tools that will last an entire season gets installed: “If you want the guys to play fast, just be highly organized, be able to pull things that can help you.”
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Before Monday, Golden sat down with Dan Hoard and also relayed plans to fix the issue.
“That’s kind of an in-house thing, like, what do we need to do in-house wise to solve that problem?” Golden said. “Because obviously, that’s a sensitive subject in terms of we all know that that’s something that will be on the docket this offseason in terms of starting faster. But in terms of giving you ideas. I think it’s best to keep that in-house and work through Zac on that.”
Under Zac Taylor, the Bengals defense has routinely struggled to start seasons, particularly when it comes to fundamentals such as tackling.
Taylor himself has changed up the offseason plan in recent years in an attempt to fix this, with injury mitigation balanced against real-game performance still a riddle he’s attempting to solve.
Golden, though, clearly leans one direction over the other, so expect to see it play out on the field soon this spring.
