Bengals’ Zac Taylor hits NFL for AFC playoff seeding solution

To say the Cincinnati Bengals and head coach Zac Taylor are not thrilled with the NFL would be an understatement.

Under the league’s proposed AFC playoff seeding rules this year, the Bengals could lose out on a chance to host a playoff game in the wild card round despite winning the AFC North — via coin flip.

That strange quirk is the NFL’s attempt to make things fair for the Ravens, who with a win on Sunday would sweep the Bengals and have the same number of wins, yet still be locked out of the divisional crown.

But the idea — a Bengals-Ravens matchup in the playoffs after a Ravens win in Week 18 would have home field decided by a coin flip — goes directly against the established rule book.

Friday, Zac Taylor hit the NFL multiple times in a presser over it, as captured by the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Charlie Goldsmith:

Zac Taylor said he “doesn’t want to hear about fair and equitable” when rules are being changed on the fly.

Was he surprised?

No.

“It’s opportunities lost for us. We had control and now we don’t. There are positives for a lot of teams and negatives for us.”

— Charlie Goldsmith (@CharlieG__) January 6, 2023

Zac Taylor said any conversations about rule changes, regarding home field advantage and coin flips.

“Let us play 7 home games and 9 road games and then try to take a home playoff game away… that’s what this team is built for.”

— Charlie Goldsmith (@CharlieG__) January 6, 2023

Mike Petraglia of CLNS Media captured Taylor’s reaction to the Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn pushing back hard on the proposal:

“It was awesome. They’ve got this team’s back. Someone’s got to fight for you. Clearly not the league.” Zac Taylor on Katie Blackburn’s memo to league opposing the playoff scenario proposal. #Bengals

— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 6, 2023

Full remarks:

Zac Taylor makes is very clear that the NFL did the Bengals no favors by not following their own rules for playoff scheduling. pic.twitter.com/eHJ63IQOTy

— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 6, 2023

The short of it? The Bengals have every right to protest an extremely rare in-season rule change, especially when voting parties have a vested competitive interest in it.

But as Taylor and players stressed on Friday, beating the Ravens on Sunday takes away the random factor the NFL has attempted to add to the equation.