Chase, who finished with 264 yards and three touchdowns, had shed his defender to get open on the two-point conversion, but quarterback Joe Burrow went with the first read in his progression and threw to Tanner Hudson only for the pass to fall incomplete. The Bengals suffered their sixth loss of the season, fifth by a touchdown or less.
“Any time it doesn’t work, you’re disappointed, and you want to evaluate and figure out what the best decision is,” Taylor said Friday. “Absolutely would go for it again. That wouldn’t change for me, just it didn’t go our way, and so again, you’ve got to think about the next time we’re in that situation, evaluate what our best options are. Ja’Marr’s having a heck of a game, he’s a big part of that progression. Tanner had some separation there, so we tried to put it on him real quick and it didn’t work out, but certainly when you got a star player like Ja’Marr, you got to find ways to put ‘em in the best position and there was going to be an opportunity if we determined we need to progress. But I don’t question for one second Joe’s decision. There’s a window there right on the goal line and it just came up a little short.”
Taylor said the Bengals were drawing up their two-point conversion play during the Ravens’ final drive in case Cincinnati scored with 30-50 seconds left with a chance to win it. If there was more time than that, he would have kicked the PAT and hoped for a three-and-out to get the ball back for a field goal, but the way the game was going, it was important to give Burrow the chance to win it there.
The Prime TV broadcasters, and various other experts and analysts, pointed out that officials likely missed two penalties on the play — Burrow took a late hit that could have been considered roughing the passer and the Ravens also could have been called for a defensive hold on Mike Gesicki.
Burrow said after the game he doesn’t get many of those calls so he didn’t expect to then. There was at least one other play in the game where Baltimore could have faced a roughing the passer penalty and did not.
Taylor said he would have to look at the data to see if Burrow is in fact not getting those calls as often as other quarterbacks. That’s something that would be “handled behind the scenes” if there are concerns, but Taylor said he could do more in the moment as well.
“I think I’ve got to fight harder for Joe to get some of that,” Taylor said. “He doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t want to disrupt from his flow of the game, but that’s just things I got to talk with him about and they call it like they see it. I respect that. I just got to keep fighting for some of that stuff. Because you don’t want to lose him on a play that’s well after the play’s over.”
Burrow was taking a beating as it was. Baltimore hit him 13 times, and he was sacked three times. He’s only taken more hits twice before in his career, one of those being the first matchup against the Ravens in Week 5.
Taylor said Burrow is bruised and the left arm he seemed to injure was just sore, but the quarterback was “fully on board” with the game plan knowing he might take more hits.
“We get to a point in the second half where we’re going to put the ball in his hands, and part of the issue with that is you’re going to drop back a lot and we were trying to change the protections, play-action protections to change up the looks for the line, but after a while they know the drill and they’re in pass rush mode,” Taylor said. “But the thing with Joe, as well, is he’s going to wait until the last second, like I said last night, to make sure guys can uncover, and so part of that is he knows he’s going to end up taking some hits because he’s waiting until the last second to get the ball off, to give Ja’Marr one more half-second because they were pretty tight in coverage.
“It wasn’t like guys were running wide open and so sometimes he needs to extend the play, and it’s going to lead to a hit, it’s going to lead to criticism of the line. ... We want to minimize that as best we can. That’s not the type of game we’re always trying to play, but that was certainly the type of game we knew we signed up for last night.”
Taylor said there were no overly alarming injury concerns from the game. Orlando Brown Jr. and Tee Higgins, who were both inactive for a second- and third-straight game, respectively, were “really close” to playing and could perhaps be ready next week after the mini-bye with the weekend off.
“You just got to be mindful of these guys,” Taylor said. “They’re going to tell you one thing that they can do it and you got to protect ‘em from themselves.”
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