Another rare occasion will occur for the Cincinnati Bengals this upcoming preseason — the Bengals will be working with another team for joint practices.
We previously noted that the Bengals will be holding joint practices with the reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams leading up to their preseason finale on Saturday, August 27.
As noted by Bengals.com writer Geoff Hobson, this will be the first set of joint practices for the Bengals under head coach Zac Taylor. Taylor wanted to focus on his own team in 2019, his first season as head coach, then COVID prevented him from such practices in 2020 and 2021.
Joint practices have become more popular in recent years as teams look for extra help and preparation for the regular season. They may only continue to rise in popularity with the preseason now just three games instead of four (Hall of Fame Game participants play four preseason games).
“It’s a controlled environment,” said Taylor. “And with your starters playing less and less in the preseason than probably ten years ago, it’s good to get good work against an opponent in practice.”
The stars seemed to align perfectly for this set of joint practices with the Rams.
“They were open to coming out here. Probably wouldn’t have done it the other way around,” Taylor said. “It’s a coach I trust and two teams I think will work well together. A lot of these teams get paired up as the season comes to a conclusion. We were two teams left without a dance partner. We just jumped on the opportunity … We know how they practice, they know how we practice. There are a lot of similarities.”
Just about everyone knows by now the history between Taylor and Rams head coach Sean McVay, but for those new to the game, before Taylor became head coach of the Bengals, he was McVay’s wide receivers coach in 2017 in L.A., then his quarterbacks coach in 2018.
To also give an idea how rare joint practices have been for Cincinnati, this will be just the fifth set of joint practices for the Bengals since the beginning of the Marvin Lewis era, as the Bengals held just four such practices under his watch, though they became a little more common in the back half of Lewis’ run. Lewis’ Bengals worked with the Saints in 2007, the Falcons in 2013, the Giants in 2015 and the Vikings in 2016.
