The Bengals on Monday parted ways with Lou Anarumo, the only defensive coordinator head coach Zac Taylor has had in his six seasons. The Bengals also parted ways with offensive line coach Frank Pollack, defensive line coach Marion Hobby and linebackers coach James Bettcher.
"Those were extremely hard moves for me to make," said Taylor in a Zoom media call Monday confirming they were his decisions "Those were all men that I have a ton of respect for and been through high and exciting times with and do not take those decisions lightly. I appreciate all that those guys brought to the table. They're like brothers to me. They worked hard every single day and those were not easy decisions to make. We'll work to make those hires as soon as possible when that time is appropriate."
Lou Anarumo
Anarumo, 58, was one of the longest-serving and one of the most successful defensive coordinators the Bengals have had. Dick LeBeau had the job for seven years from 1984-91and that included a Super Bowl berth. Like Anarumo, Mike Zimmer had the job for six years from 2008-2013, and he left with four top-10 finishes.
Anarumo molded units that were the backbone of the Bengals' back-to-back AFC title game appearances in 2021 and 2022 while allowing just 18.8 points per seven postseason games. He earned a reputation for flexible defenses that made halftime adjustments shutting down such high-powered quarterbacks as Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers.
They also earned Anarumo interviews for head coaching jobs, as well as nicknames of endearment from his players, such as Vonn Bell's "Mad Scientist." And from Bengals.com, which named his diverse scheme culled from his various stops in college and the pros, "The Staten Island Stew," a nod to the New York City borough of his birth.
But the past two seasons when the Bengals finished 9-8 and a game out of the playoffs, the defense finished next-to-last in 2023 and 27th this past season in the NFL rankings. The Bengals also lost four games this season despite scoring as many as 33 points and failed to hold a fourth-quarter lead in three games.
Despite Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow orchestrating the league's leading passing offense that featured his NFL record eight straight games of 250 yards and three touchdowns to go with NFL Triple Crown receiver Ja'Marr Chase's 1,708-yard season, the Bengals were 4-8 until ending the year with a five-game winning streak.
While the Bengals set a franchise record with 472 points, sixth most in the league, the defense allowed the fifth most with 434. The Bengals are one of seven teams to have more than 40 touchdown passes in a single season over the last decade and the other six each won at least one in the playoffs.
"I just felt like we needed a change," Taylor said. "I thought long and hard about it. Lou's been doing this for six years here and the success that we've had he's been a big reason why we've had a lot of the success. I don't take this lightly; put a lot of thought into it. It's not an easy day for any of us. I just felt like we need to perform better as a football team. It's not in any specific one area. I think we've got to be better in all three phases of our team and these are the decisions I made today and we'll work to be better."
It's going to be a much different coaching search than the one Taylor conducted back in 2019. Since he was an assistant coach for a Rams team that reached the Super Bowl when he took the Bengals job, he couldn't start hiring until after the game. Now he'll be able to dip quickly into the market as it develops in the ensuing days with the lure of a history-making offense. He didn't say if the next coordinator is going to keep elements of Anarumo's scheme or start from scratch.
"That's the process you go through now. I know everyone wants answers on exactly what it's going to look like. I can't provide that today," Taylor said. "I certainly have a vision for what I want it to look like. We'll go through the process of finding the right candidates, and evaluating them, and then finding the right fit. And then from there, how do these players fit with what we're doing?"
Frank Pollack
Pollack served as the offensive line coach consecutively for the Bengals since 2021 after a brief stop in Cincinnati in 2018. The Bengals offensive line posted the fourth-worst pass-blocking and run-blocking PFF grades in 2024.
Marion Hobby
Hobby has also served on the Bengals staff since 2021 after getting his start in Jacksonville in 2017. Trey Hendrickson's 17.5 sacks boosted the Bengals defensive line, but the unit mustered a total of 18.5 takedowns outside of Hendrickson.
James Bettcher
Bettcher has been coaching in the NFL since 2012 and joined the Bengals as linebackers coach in 2022. Cincinnati posted a 42.7 PFF-tackling grade this season, a bottom-10 figure.
