Coming out of his team’s 27-17 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars to fall to 0-7, head coach Zac Taylor isn’t ready to address a quarterback change.
Taylor told the media after the loss he isn’t ready to talk about yanking Andy Dalton from the lineup in favor of rookie Ryan Finley, per ESPN’s Ben Baby. Interestingly, according to Fox 19’s Joe Danneman, Taylor was adamant it was too early after the game to address the idea.
Sunday provided more reasoning for the barrage of quarterback questions. A week removed from completing just 21 of 39 passes with 235 yards and an interception in a loss to Baltimore, Dalton completed just 22 of 43 attempts with 276 yards with one score and three picks against Jacksonville.
The killer came in the fourth quarter when Dalton threw three interceptions on five attempts, including a pick-six to seal the game.
Said pick-six was of the cringe-inducing variety:
The Bengals have plenty of non-Dalton problems and benching him isn’t likely to solve much. But the above can’t necessarily go unanswered either.
At 0-7, Cincinnati’s gears need to shift to evaluation mode for the future, which could end up meaning benching Dalton for fourth-round rookie Ryan Finley.
