Zac Taylor opens up following Super Bowl loss

The Rams finished their season just short of hoisting the Lombardi trophy, and Zac Taylor was as disappointed as you’d expect.

Taylor has been linked to the Bengals’ head coaching vacancy for the better part of a month now while helping a team win a Super Bowl, you can only imagine what his mind was like in the last 24 hours.

When asked after the game what the next step was, Taylor wanted to have a night before he really dove into the next step of his career.

“Just going to get through tonight,” Taylor told Paul Dehner Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I’m going to finish everything up with these guys in this locker room that have given us their heart and soul and this coaching staff I have grown to be so close with. Tonight, we focus on us and this team and the relationships we built and we will approach tomorrow when it comes.”

Clearly, the Rams are going through the most emotional part of their season currently. Losing a Super Bowl can be very traumatic to the confidence of a team as we have seen many losing Super Bowl teams fail to make the playoffs the next season. This one has to be especially tough for the Rams as there will be countless second guessing after the offense scored only three points.

“It’s tough,” Taylor said. “That’s a good team. Good defense. Sometimes things just won’t go your way and you try to solve it throughout the game, it just wasn’t our night tonight. This isn’t the first time you face adversity. So you are just waiting on the dam to break and a play to happen to get it rolling. That’s usually what happens with us, unfortunately, it just didn’t work out that way.”

Taylor has handled the loss with grace to this point, but it has already been rumored that he will be finalizing a deal to make him the Bengals next head coach on Monday. This is obviously a big step to take for anyone, but it seems like it was a good idea for Taylor to take a day and come to terms with the disappointing end to his former teams season before he takes his next step.

Some may think the Rams’ performance in the Super Bowl should put a damper on the hiring of Taylor as the head coach. Aside from the obvious facts that he wasn’t calling plays and the team’s success the entire season shouldn’t be thrown out because of one game against New England, it should be noted that the way Taylor is handling this loss is why he is was always a great candidate.

Taylor was at the start of the Sean McVay era just 24 months ago, he watched the team aggressively build its way up to this point, he fully invested himself in the process like every other coach and player. He deserved a night to drain it all out with those he worked day and night with. Taylor understood the moment, and how it didn’t surround him.

But the next moment will be, and he’ll be ready for it.