In all honesty, this is one of the most interesting times in Bengals history. Cincinnati stayed true to a head coach for 16 years, but they have finally shifted to a forward-thinking team looking for their next Sam Wyche.
Dare we say the Cincinnati Bengals are acting like an actual NFL franchise?
The past few episodes of The Orange and Black Insider have been particularly interesting—unfortunately, it has come on the heels of the firing of a good man in Marvin Lewis. Still, there is a lot to cover these days in a normally-predictable franchise.
One of the items on this week’s show was in a possible unknown commodity in the head coaching search. Might the Bengals be looking outside of the eight known candidates to the public? If so, would Steelers offensive line coach, Mike Munchak be one of them?
Co-host John Sheeran... didn’t think too highly of the idea.
do i have to fight you on the air tonight?
— john sheeran (@John__Sheeran) January 9, 2019
So, we chatted about it this week. Look, common sense tells us that the coaching search has been narrowed down to Zac Taylor, Eric Bieniemy, Shane Waldron and Todd Monken, with an outside chance being Vance Joseph. The former three are coaching in the second weekend of the playoffs, and some believe that is why the Bengals haven’t made an announcement on their hire(s) yet.
Munchak’s name hasn’t been kicked around all that much, but Bengals insider and color radio analyst Dave Lapham has mentioned his name a little bit, as folks are largely-enamored with Monken, Bieniemy and all things Sean McVay coaching trees.
Why does a Munchak hire make sense? Call it “the Steelers effect”.
We also played a fun “one word game” this week, in where we used a single descriptor to label the eight known head coaching candidates. John and I then explained our one-word answer after the labeling.
Zac Taylor appears to now be the front-runner for the job, and the words we used were “potential” and “whisperer”. The potential level is high, but there is a possibility of the hiring being a disaster for a number of reasons, including that of inexperience.
However, Taylor is a hot name because of the offense that he, Sean McVay, Shane Waldron and Aaron Kromer have concocted this year. Could he mine even more production from Andy Dalton to get the Bengals to the championship level? Or, is Taylor thinking about molding his own young guy from the draft right away?
For Eric Bieniemy, another guy who seems to have a shot at the job, we used “frenzied” and “charming”. Not only does his offensive system bring about a lot of positivity and creativity, but his personality might be the type to jolt Mike Brown out of his ways to further modernize the team and its organizational practices.
Check out this week’s episode to check out this entire discussion and so much more! Other topics included:
- We’ll be interviewing Bengals receiver Tyler Boyd and running back Mark Walton over the next couple of weeks. Don’t miss our chats with the talented young skill players of the Bengals!
- Are Eric Bieniemy and Todd Monken the front-runners for the Bengals’ head coaching gig at this point?
- What’s one word you would use to describe the potential hire for each of the known candidates for the Bengals’ head coaching spot? We want to hear yours!
- Could Le’Veon Bell bolt to Baltimore and really stick it to the Steelers and the Bengals?
- Now that we know the Bengals will have a new coaching regime in 2019, what position should they draft in the first round this year?
- Could Gregg Williams be a fit of some kind with the Bengals this year after leading the Browns to an exciting finish in 2018?
Our thanks to all of the live listeners and to those who submitted questions! You can join us live on our YouTube channel and/or here on Cincy Jungle every episode!
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