The Bengals didn’t have a ton of reason for hope last month after Joe Burrow went down for the year. Even more doubt should’ve crept in when D.J. Reader and Ja’Marr Chase got hurt Saturday afternoon. But sometimes a coach has a feeling about these things. And at this point, Zac Taylor has built a pretty deep reservoir of good vibes to draw on.
So it was that as the Vikings lined up for a fourth-and-1 at the Cincinnati 42-yard line Saturday, Taylor thought back to a time—Week 1 of 2021—when there were fewer reasons to believe.
“I don’t know if you care about this or not, but we beat Minnesota in overtime, Week 1 of that Super Bowl year,” Taylor said, on his ride home Saturday night. “In overtime, we created a turnover on the same spot and hit a big play to C.J. Uzomah, and then Evan McPherson kicked his first-ever game-winning field goal. The defense got another turnover, turnover on downs, same spot, same direction. Then we hit a big play to TB [Tyler Boyd], and Evan McPherson hits another walk-off field goal. It felt very familiar to me, playing them.”
