Cincinnati's 6-11 finish and third straight season without a playoff berth is not prompting any change for 2026.
The Bengals are retaining head coach Zac Taylor and player personnel chief Duke Tobin, owner Mike Brown announced on Monday.
"Our focus is on building a team that can consistently compete at the highest level, with the goal of winning championships," Brown said in the statement. "After thoughtful consideration, I am confident that Duke Tobin and Zac Taylor are the right leaders to guide us forward
"They have proven they can build and lead teams that compete for championships. We trust their plans and expect to return to our desired level of success."
Brown's announcement came shortly after the other team in Ohio, the Cleveland Browns, fired coach Kevin Stefanski, a move that happened less than 24 hours after Stefanski's squad defeated Taylor's team in the teams' season finale in Cincinnati. While a thrilling contest, Sunday's in-state battle punctuated disappointing campaigns for both clubs, yet they're taking different approaches to how they proceed into 2026.
Taylor's greatest accomplishment as Bengals coach remains the 2021 season, a year in which Taylor guided the Bengals to their first Super Bowl appearance since the 1988 season and nearly took home the Lombardi Trophy before falling to the Los Angeles Rams in heart-breaking fashion. Since then, the Bengals have fallen short of expectations, losing in similarly painful fashion in the AFC Championship Game to close the 2022 season before embarking on a three-year stretch in which they've flirted with postseason berths, but repeatedly failed to return to the playoffs
Much of that span has been defined by injuries suffered by their franchise quarterback, Joe Burrow. The 2020 No. 1 overall pick encountered more health-related challenges in 2025, suffering a turf toe injury in Week 2 that kept him out until Thanksgiving. In Burrow's absence, Cincinnati won just one game while attempting to keep the ship afloat with 40-year-old signal-caller in Joe Flacco, whom the Bengals acquired via trade with the Browns after Jake Browning proved ineffective in place of Burrow.
Defenders of Taylor can pin Cincinnati's 2025 struggles on Burrow's absence, but the club's inadequacies have reached beyond quarterback. Despite boasting an explosive offense, the Bengals lost four games in which they scored 30-plus points in 2024. Taylor attempted to remedy the situation by firing defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo and replacing him with former Notre Dame DC Al Golden, a change that didn't produce tangible results until later in the 2025 season.
Speaking with reporters on Monday, Taylor said he doesn't anticipate any changes to his coaching staff in 2026, which means Golden will be returning for a second season despite the Bengals finished 31st in yards allowed and 30th in points.
Burrow's return -- which occurred ahead of schedule -- represented the Bengals' last lingering hope in 2025, but losses to Buffalo and Baltimore in December ended their chances of completing an unlikely run to the postseason, increasing the temperature of Taylor's seat while his quarterback spent the remaining few weeks speaking openly about his motivation to continue playing in the NFL. Burrow finished 2025 in strong fashion, seemingly quelling fears of an uncertain future by leading an offensive attack that scored 45 points on Miami and 37 on Arizona in Weeks 16 and 17 before falling to Cleveland on Sunday.
Cincinnati won't have to spend the next few weeks searching for a coach, but the Bengals have plenty of questions to answer and issues to address, including how they'll improve their defense when a significant portion of their salary cap is dedicated to Burrow and his top two receivers: Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. They'll do so with the same regime that led them to this point.
