Will Zac Taylor Finally Maximize His TE Room?
Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the absolute best week of America is upon us! The one week where all 32 fanbases think “THIS IS OUR YEAR!” Amirite, Buffalo Bills fans?
As part of the Cincinnati Bengals faithful, I recently partook in my yearly routine of looking over the official 53-man roster and scratching my head. This year, the highlight of this tradition was finding the team has (in my LeBron voice) “not two, not three..” but four — count them, FOUR! — tight ends. I guess when you spend years struggling to find an answer, then just throw as many options as possible on the table, sometimes things can work out.
The new starting option, Mike Gesicki, is the headliner. But then there’s Erick All, the hometown kid from Fairfield. We also see two familiar faces in Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson, who are back for the 2024 season.
I’m high on Gesicki and truly think he could be an under-the-radar signing that pays off big-time. It wasn’t too long ago that he had back-to-back 700-yard seasons in Miami. We all know that Joe Burrow can make anybody into a weapon. When you have Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins lined up on each side, then a plethora of talented young receivers vying for the No. 3 role, the 6-foot-6 Gesicki is free to slide into favorable coverages and stack stats. It looks like the perfect landing spot.
Or is it?
Where have we heard this kind of hype for a tight end before? Oh, that’s right! We were all saying the same thing about Irv Smith Jr. last season, and Hayden Hurst the year before. Maybe Gesicki has the secret sauce, but we’ve been hurt before. And the biggest culprit is Zac Taylor, who is about as good at utilizing tight ends as Gesicki is at the Griddy.
Yes, I know Taylor can seemingly do no wrong for most of Bengals Nation, but it seems more than fair to question his ability to scheme for tight ends, especially in the red zone.
But what about C.J. Uzomah? Wasn’t he a key part of the offense in their Super Bowl season? OK, let’s slow down a bit. Uzomah had a solid-but-not-great 493 receiving yards and 5 TDs that year. Those stats sound more productive than they were in practice. About 38% of those yards and 80% of the touchdowns came in two games (Week 4 vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars and Week 7 vs. the Baltimore Ravens). In his other 14 contests, he logged just 307 yards and one score. This was, again, with Burrow throwing to him, and with Chase and Higgins on either side.
And this was somehow, sadly, the best season a Bengals tight end has had under Taylor.
In 2020, Burrow’s rookie season, the tight ends combined for a whopping two touchdowns, with Sample and Uzomah each finding the end zone once. We covered Uzomah’s 2021, but let’s not forget Sample’s 11 catches for 81 yards. Whoo, things are heating up! The following year saw Hurst, who like Gesicki, seemed like a perfect fit for the offense as a big (6-foot-4) end zone target. Instead of filling that red zone role, Hurst was beyond disappointing. Despite hauling in 52 catches, he got just 414 yards and two touchdowns.
You’d think it could only go up in 2023. Unfortunately, the athletic Smith proved everyone wrong, in a bad way. Seriously, one touchdown? One?! And just 18 receptions for 115 yards? OK, so Burrow was hurt, but Jake Browning was no slouch, either. How do you perform this poorly in the Bengals offense? And looking at it from Taylor’s perspective, how can we see so many supposedly talented tight ends fizzle out in this high-octane scheme?
So while I spent this past draft with my fingers crossed, hoping for Brock Bowers to fall, there was a part of me that wondered what the point was. What good is having talent at tight end if the guy calling the plays can’t use it?
Maybe you think this is unfair to Taylor, and you’re not concerned about the tight ends routinely underperforming. Perhaps you think since the wide receivers on this team have all been big scoring options, it’s wasted energy to worry about how the coach uses Gesicki, All, and company.
Counterpoint: Balance is everything in football. The more things defensive coordinators have to prepare for, the harder it is to stop your offense. Yes, Cincinnati is a team with outrageously elite weapons. But the last time the Bengals were in the playoffs, the Kansas City Chiefs had few problems holding both Chase and Higgins to under 100 yards. It’s hard as hell to do, but championship teams can limit the damage from the wideouts when there isn’t anyone to worry about in the middle of the field.
Entering an all-in season for Taylor, Burrow, Chase, Higgins, and the rest of the team, having a real threat at tight end would meaningfully raise the ceiling for Cincinnati. Having that safety valve for Burrow, that big body in the red zone, is going to be critical for those games where teams can slow down the receivers. This has been necessary for a long time, and arguably, a big reason why the team has fallen short thus far. Now, in the final year before Burrow’s mega-extension kicks in and Higgins leaves, they need a legitimate tight end — and for their coach to use him properly — more than ever.
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