Cincinnati Bengals Coach Zac Taylor Says Chase Brown Shouldn't Have Scored Fourth Quarter Touchdown

Jay Morrison | Oct 14, 2024

Oct 13, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown (30) after scoring a touchdown against the New York Giants inside of two minutes left in the game at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images / Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

CINCINNATI – Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown was a polarizing figure in fantasy and betting circles Sunday night when he elected to finish off a 30-yard touchdown run with 1:52 remaining rather than sliding down short of the goal line.

By scoring, Brown gave the Bengals a 10-point lead to cover the point spread with a 17-7 victory – and probably won more than a few of his fantasy owners their games in the process.

But more importantly as it relates to the Bengals, Brown also gave the New York Giants a sliver of hope that they could go down and score, get an onside kick and score again to tie – or win – the game.

Had Chase gone down short of the goal line, the Bengals would have had quarterback Joe Burrow kneel three times to guarantee a 10-7 victory.

“When there's a lot of space like that, I'm just wired to finish the play,” Brown said. “But obviously I've got to be more situationally aware that I could slide down and end the game right there.”

Bengals head coach Zac Taylor took exception to that.

Yes, Brown should have slid down, he said.

No, he shouldn’t have been responsible for calculating timeouts remaining and the 40-second play clock to make that decision on his own.

“That's on me. One hundred percent on me,” Taylor said. “I'm very focused on finding the plays to get us that first down there and didn't do a great job – I didn't do any job – communicating that, to be quite frank with you.

“There's (1:58) on the clock. They have a timeout. I don't expect our guys to do math in the huddle.”

30 for 30

Chase Brown breaks one to all but ice this one

— Jay Morrison (@ByJayMorrison) October 14, 2024

While everything worked out when Greg Joseph missed a 45-yard field goal with 55 seconds left to set the stage for Burrow to kneel out the win, NFL head coaches never miss a chance to deliver coaching points.

During Monday’s team meeting, Taylor showed the players the 2022 Browns-Jets game, when Nick Chubb scored a 12-yard touchdown with 1:55 remaining and New York out of timeouts rather than just going down.

The Jets answered with a 66-yard touchdown pass to get within 30-24, recovered an onside kick and won the game on a 15-yard touchdown pass with 22 seconds remaining.

“You don't want to leave it to chance,” Taylor said. “There's been examples around the league the last 10 years where that's backfired. Yeah, you’d like to win 17-7. You feel better. But I'll take a 10-7 win where you don't leave anything to chance there at the end of the game. So again, that's something I've got to be better at.”

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