Ja'Marr Chase and Joe Burrow put Zac Taylor on the hot seat after Bengals loss

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is under fire from his own locker room, even if star players like Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase won't name his directly. Cincinnati fell to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night by a touchdown, and are now 4-7 on the season.

The Bengals made the Super Bowl in 2021 to much fanfare, only to lose to the Los Angeles Rams. Still, the Burrow vs Patrick Mahomes rivalry was meant to catapult the league into a new age of quarterback-driven play. While Burrow has kept up his end of that bargain, the Bengals as a team have not. Some of that is due to injuries, but much of it has to do with subpar play, coaching and roster management.

Following Sunday's loss, it was easy to tell the Bengals had enough. When asked by reporters if this was the most frustrating year of his Bengals tenure, Burrow had a tense exchange with the media before admitting the obvious.

Burrow wasn't alone. Ja'Marr Chase had more to say when asked about the Bengals late-game failures specifically. Chase didn't directly incriminate the coaching staff, but he said as much in so many words.

Should Zac Taylor be on the hot seat after another Cincinnati Bengals loss?

When asked why the Bengals have lost so many close games in painful fashion this year, Taylor didn't mince words. He also didn't blame himself.

“I wish I could. It’s a team we believe in, a team that believes in each other,” Taylor said. “It’s sick the way these games are ending and the way we feel coming off the field every week — the feeling I’ve got when I’ve got to talk to the team in the locker room after these endings this year."

Taylor did say he doesn't think the Bengals need to make any major changes given how close they have been in so many games this season. Close, of course, isn't good enough when Cincinnati has so much money invested in Burrow and (eventually) Chase, among others.

“What I just keep telling the team is, at some point, this has got to help us. At some point, we’ve got to find some momentum, and we’ve got to get on a run, and we’ve got to find ourselves in a position where we’re going to reflect back … We’ve just got to find a way to finish. I keep saying that and, obviously, we’re a play away every time I say it. But I’ve still got the confidence that we can get this thing done," Taylor said.

While I can appreciate Taylor trying to spin another defeat into a positive, the Bengals are running out of time. He's very clearly the fall guy.