The Cincinnati Bengals have a top-12 coach in the NFL with Zac Taylor, at least according to new head coach rankings from The 33rd Team’s Ross Tucker.
Those rankings don’t go by mere coaching record, but instead, try to account for things like how coaches have performed given their current situations.
Taylor lands 12th behind the following names:
- Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs
- Bill Belichick, New England Patriots
- Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers
- Sean Payton, Denver Broncos
- Nick Sirianni, Philadelphia Eagles
- Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers
- Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams
- Brain Daboll, New York Giants
- Pete Caroll, Seattle Seahawks
- Doug Pederson, Jacksonville Jaguars
- John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens
What’s interesting about Taylor’s “situation” is that the flexibility of the front office has allowed him to succeed. Duke Tobin and Co. have done an excellent job marrying Taylor’s vision to player personnel fittings and the front office has matched that energy by opening up the checkbooks as necessary.
That’s not meant to discredit Taylor by any means — he’s spearheaded the rebuilding of the program from the very bottom to something that has names like Orlando Brown Jr. reaching out in an effort to join.
There is still plenty of time for Taylor to climb higher on lists like this one, but it’s pretty hard to complain about the results so far.
