Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor and director of player personnel Duke Tobin faced a gauntlet of questions over the past week at the Senior Bowl.
And most seemed to focus on the quarterback position.
Understandable, with it seeming like the Bengals will use the first pick in the draft on LSU’s Joe Burrow, even as Oregon’s Justin Herbert won an MVP award during the Senior Bowl game for the Bengals.
One of the more interesting questions took a deep dive into what trumps everything else for Taylor, per Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer:
“He’s gotta be able to elevate his teammates around him. Everybody’s gotta have a great confidence level that this guy knows exactly what to do, he’s gonna help me get better, he’s gonna raise my level of play. That’s what championship teams have. That’s what we’ll always look for in our quarterback position.”
That certainly sounds like Burrow, both based on film and what many various interviews and quotes over the years have said about him.
But it also speaks to the simple fact that while Cincinnati’s on-film evaluation might be over at this point, the in-person aspect of it is just getting started. They’ve seen firsthand how Herbert and Jalen Hurts can do this — Burrow and others are next as the draft process continues in the coming months.
