Zac Taylor explains why he didn’t pull Joe Burrow from 36-10 loss to Steelers
Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor came under fire after his team’s 36-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 10 for a variety of reasons.
Chief among them was his handling of Joe Burrow.
Burrow, who had limped around and seemingly suffered an ankle injury early in the game, was still in there taking hits while the score was 36-7. He was also in there at the very end dishing handoffs to kill the clock with the game well out of reach.
After the game, reporters asked Taylor why he wouldn’t pull Burrow and put in backup Ryan Finley and he explained, according to ESPN’s Ben Baby:
Zac Taylor said he left Joe Burrow in at the end of the game to get some momentum and points at the end of the game.
— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) November 16, 2020
It’s a very strange answer for many, many reasons, as momentum established in a 36-10 whipping isn’t really going to translate to the next week. Burrow was playing with Hakeem Adeniji and Quinton Spain at the offensive tackle spots and had already been hurt.
After Burrow limped off on a drive that ended in a field goal to make it 36-10, he returned to perform the handoffs, so conversations about momentum just register as odd.
Without Burrow throwing it in the pursuit of said momentum, for now, the answer doesn’t seem to hold up and the Bengals are simply lucky he didn’t further aggravate an issue.
