It only took one game for Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor to change his tune on quarterback Jake Browning.
Last week, Taylor was steadfast in his support of Browning after he had thrown up two-plus stinkers in his relief appearances of Joe Burrow, who figures to be out until at least until December with a Grade 3 turf toe.
However, Taylor's view on the quarterback situation switched up on Sunday after the backup signal-caller struggled mightily yet again with three picks in a 37-24 loss to the Detroit Lions.
Taylor now appears open to making a change.
"After a game like that, we're going to look at all personnel to make sure we're doing the right thing," Taylor said about Browning moving forward, per ESPN's Ben Baby. "I won't shy away from that because it's a very fair question after the amount of turnovers that we had."
Now, compare that to what Taylor said last week:
“I’ve got a ton of confidence in Jake,” Taylor said. “I’m unwavering in that. I’ve seen the best of Jake. I know that we can do a great job supporting him to where he can go win games for us. So, I feel extremely confident in Jake Browning.”
Yikes.
There is nobody on the roster coming to save the Bengals.
Brett Rypien is on the 53-man roster and Sean Clifford is on the practice squad, but both signal-callers are unlikely to be any better than Browning.
That's not to say the Bengals shouldn't give one or both a shot considering what we've seen from Browning, but Cincinnati's best hope for righting the ship is probably with outside options.
Those three options include Joe Flacco and Russell Wilson, who were both benched by their teams for rookie signal-callers recently, and Kirk Cousins, who lost his job last season to a rookie quarterback.
The problem with those three is that all of them looked terrible the last time they started and appear to be on the decline.
Wilson and Flacco would be the easiest ones to trade for, as Cousins has a no-trade clause and a sizeable chunk of money to absorb. Cousins would almost certainly waive that no-trade clause, but the money will likely be an issue for Cincy.
Whatever the case may be, any one of the three would be welcomed by a Bengals fan base that sees the ship sinking right before its very eyes.
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