Zac Taylor Used 49ers as Example When Building Bengals' Foundation

The Bengals play the 49ers on Sunday afternoon.

CINCINNATI — The Bengals travel to Santa Clara to play the 49ers on Sunday. Both teams have qualified for back-to-back conference championship games. 

That wasn't always the case. In fact, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor looked at the 49ers' path to success when leading the team through their struggles in his first two seasons.  

"I remember showing our guys in 2020, kinda the evolution of San Francisco. Their first year they were learning the system," Taylor said. "You could tell at times they were learning, some of the crispness wasn’t there. The second year they ramped up and then I showed clips of their Super Bowl game against Kansas City. Of just why they were in the Super Bowl—the attention to detail, everything was so good.

"Our first year we weren’t very good. Our attention to detail wasn’t great. Our level of coaching a lot of times wasn't great. In 2020 we made some progress and here is the step we got to make in 2021. There is a path here. There is a path San Francisco has kind of shown people how it can occur. Sure enough, maybe people are now people are showing clips of our Super Bowl game in year three. I’ve always looked at San Francisco as a good template of how you can build and continue to evolve and get to where you want to be and then maintain that level of consistency."

Shanahan is 47-26 over the past five seasons, including a 5-2 mark this year. Taylor is 25-14 over the past two years. 

Neither coach has won a Super Bowl, which is obviously the ultimate goal. Sustaining the success is also important. It's something Taylor admires about what San Francisco has done over the past half decade. 

"They’ve really been the standard in that. They have maintained that level of consistency from 2019 all the way through," Taylor said. "They have played in Super Bowls and championship games and really done a really good job there with John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan."

Taylor hopes to get the best of Shanahan and the 49ers on Sunday. He's 0-2 against San Francisco since becoming head coach in 2019. 

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