Zac Taylor is taking his Bengals somewhere he hasn’t been before.
At 6-2, Cincinnati is sitting in a spot it hasn’t reached since 2015, and that alone tells you how different this stretch feels for Taylor’s team. The Bengals backed it up Sunday with a 34-17 win over the Falcons in Madrid, Spain, and now the challenge shifts from celebration to recovery.
The trip home matters almost as much as the game itself. Cincinnati has to get back from Spain, reset quickly and prepare for a division matchup against Pittsburgh, a team that will be coming off a bye. Both clubs are tied at 6-2, which gives Sunday night’s game real weight as the season moves deeper into November.
“Big game coming our way against Pittsburgh,” Taylor told the media. “They’ve already gotten us once this year, so we got to handle this flight back the right way.
We got to get our bodies recovered. We got to have a great week and be ready for our home fans on Sunday night.”
The Bengals came through the international week without any obvious injury issues, and the way they handled the schedule in Spain seemed to pay off. Taylor said the team wanted to prove it could manage the same setup better than anyone else.
“Two teams are going to handle the same schedule, and we just wanted to come out and make sure we show that we’ve handled it better than anybody. And so, again, proud of the way all three phases played,” Taylor said. “There might have been a lull here and there in each phase, but the other side picked us up, and we were able to finish the game the right way.”
The offense is rolling, too. Cincinnati has been the most efficient unit in the NFL, and it has put up 31 points through three quarters 12 times during Taylor’s tenure. This season, the Bengals have already scored 30 or more points in six of eight games.
Taylor also pointed to the bigger picture, with the team now entering a crucial stretch for the front office as well as the locker room. The Bengals have won four straight, and Taylor said the group is starting to settle into its best form.
“I just think we’re starting to kind of hit our stride a little bit, and it’s not perfect, and it rarely is at this point in the season,” Taylor said about his team’s run over the last four games. “We’re just focusing on not making the same mistakes we made in previous weeks, really playing together.
And so I think that four-game winning streak matters to us. And again, we just got to keep going from there because this next one’s a big one.”
Cincinnati is on its way back home now, with a major AFC North test waiting at the end of the week.
In Other News...
Shemar Stewart Suddenly Has A Bigger Bengals Opportunity In Madrid
As the Bengals get ready for their trip to Madrid to face the Falcons, Shemar Stewart is suddenly in line for a larger role than the one he has had so far. The rookie defensive lineman has been working through limited playing time, but the path to more snaps has opened up as Cincinnati deals with injuries up front and tries to keep its rotation intact for an overseas game that carries plenty of attention.
Zac Taylor pointed to the absences around Stewart as a reason his workload should grow, and the timing matters for a player who missed much of training camp before settling into the season. Even with that slow start, Stewart has kept a positive approach, and the Bengals now need him to turn that into production when the opportunities start coming more regularly. [Read more 🡒]
Joe Burrows Game Day Choice Could Start A New Bengals Debate
Joe Burrows game-day wardrobe drew a little extra attention during the Bengals Week 9 meeting with the Falcons, when he stepped out in custom orange-and-black Caddix cleats. The brand has been making noise around the league lately, helped along by interest from players and even endorsements from figures like Tom Brady, and Burrows choice fit neatly into the kind of style-conscious image he has built in Cincinnati.
The wrinkle is that Caddix is not an NFL-approved brand, which is where the conversation gets interesting for a player with Burrows visibility. Other players have already run into trouble for wearing the same cleats, and with Joe Flacco also connected to the brand, Burrows choice could easily spark a fresh Bengals-side debate about where fashion ends and league rules begin. [Read more 🡒]
Bengals Get A Huge AFC North Test After Steelers Bye Week
Pittsburgh heads into its bye week with plenty of momentum after rolling past Cleveland, a result that kept the Steelers atop the AFC North and underscored how well they are playing on both sides of the ball. Jaylen Warren gave the offense a burst on the ground, while the defense kept the Browns under pressure all afternoon with a pass rush that consistently disrupted the pocket and helped create extra possessions.
For Cincinnati, the timing only raises the stakes for what comes next. The Bengals will get the division leader in prime time at Paycor Stadium on Nov. 15, with NBC carrying the matchup and streaming available on Fubo, and it arrives as one of the clearest measuring-stick games left on the schedule. If the Bengals want to make up ground in the AFC North, this is the kind of test that can shape the rest of the race. [Read more 🡒]