Cincinnati Bengals: 3 Vital statistics for 2019 season

For the first time since 2002, the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals is not named Marvin Lewis. Can newcomer Zac Taylor turn this team around?

It’s a much-maligned franchise that has certainly seen its share of disappointing days. But it wasn’t that long ago that the Cincinnati Bengals were an annual participant in the NFL playoffs. From 2011-15, the team made five consecutive postseason appearances.

Unfortunately, none of those resulted in victory. In fact, the longest active playoff victory drought in the league belongs to this franchise.

The last time the team from the Queen City won a postseason contest was back in 1990, when the quarterback was Boomer Esiason, the head coach was Sam Wyche and the opposition in the Wild Card Round was the Houston Oilers. There were only six divisions and 28 teams in the league. The Bengals went onto a 41-14 win before losing to the Los Angeles Raiders one week later.

The new head coach in Cincinnati these days is 36-year old Zac Taylor, most recently the quarterbacks’ coach of the Los Angeles Rams. He inherits a club they got off to a 4-1 start this past season and then proceeded to drop nine of its final 11 contest. It added up to a 6-10 record and the Bengals finished last in the AFC North for the first time since 2010.

So can this team get back on track with a new sideline leader and a slew of young players via April’s draft? It won’t be easy in a very talented division with the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns. What do the numbers say about Taylor and the Bengals in 2019?