Robert Livingston promoted to Bengals’ secondary coach

Robert Livingston is the latest coach being retained by the Cincinnati Bengals.

Livingston is expected to remain with the Bengals and be promoted to the team’s primary secondary coach, according to the team’s official website. He was previously the assistant secondary coach.

Livingston is filling the role that Kevin Coyle was serving before being let go this week. Livingston helped Coyle in the development of Darqueze Dennard and William Jackson into quality starting cornerbacks in the 2017 season. He also aided in the development of Shawn Williams, George Iloka, Adam Jones and Dre Kirkpatrick.

It’s interesting the team is keeping Livingston and letting Coyle go, but as much improvement as we saw in Jackson and Dennard, one of them deserved to stay.

Livingston’s work has been on display in numerous ways for the Bengals in the past two seasons. In 2016, Cincinnati finished just one interception short of the NFL lead, with 17, and his defensive backs had 13 of the team’s 17 picks.

Bengals opponents managed an aggregate passer rating of just 83.1, fifth-lowest in the NFL, and Cincinnati yielded the league’s fourth-lowest average gain per completion (10.7).

Opponents completed just 22 touchdown passes, the seventh-lowest total allowed by a defense, and the Bengals allowed only six scoring passes in the second half of the season.

In 2017, the Bengals finished 12th in opponent completion percentage (59.9), yards per attempt (6.5), eighth in passing yards per game allowed (211), and tied with Pittsburgh the the eighth-fewest passing scores allowed (20).

Livingston originally came to the Bengals in 2012 from Vanderbilt University, where he served in 2011 as defensive quality control coach. He served as a Bengals scout from 2012-14 before being promoted to assistant secondary coach.

The Bengals now have a vacancy to fill as the assistant secondary coach, who will work with Livingston to help ensure the Bengals’ secondary remains a strength in 2018.