Andy Dalton already feels comfortable in Bengals’ new offense

The story of the Cincinnati Bengals preseason-opening loss to the Kansas City Chiefs Saturday was how poorly the defense performed. Cincinnati gave up 38 points to the Chiefs in Saturday’s loss, including allowing Kansas City to find the end zone on just seven plays with much of the starting defense on the field.

Despite this, there was one very positive takeaway from Saturday’s game. That being quarterback Andy Dalton’s command of Zac Taylor’s offense.

In his first drive in Taylor’s offense, Dalton went 7/9 and threw for 80 yards, despite A.J. Green, Giovani Bernard, John Ross and Joe Mixon all on the bench. The strong drive from Dalton resulted in a one-yard Trayveon Williams touchdown run and at the time gave the Bengals a 7-0 lead.

After the game, Dalton described his comfort level in the new offense.

“I feel really comfortable with everything they’re asking us to do.” Dalton said. “I feel like it fits me really well. When you go out there and get everybody to play fast and be on the same page, it allows you the opportunity to be good on offense.”

Dalton also said he was happy for Taylor, who kicked off his head coaching carer by calling plays on a touchdown drive.

“That’s how you want to start the game,” Dalton said. “We feel like we have talent on this team. We feel like we have depth. Without some of the guys we have starting for us this year, I thought we did a great job… It’s one thing I’ve talked about from the beginning. It’s just not one guy. You spread it around in this offense. You get a bunch of different people involved. That’s a big part of what we do.”

It’s imperative that Dalton adapts to this offense as soon as possible. If he can put together drives like that without most of his playmakers out there with him, it speaks volumes about how effective Taylor’s system can be this year.