Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said the starters will play a quarter on Aug. 18 Monday Night Football when the team squares off against the Washington Commanders. This will likely be the last time quarterback Joe Burrow and Co. see the playing field before the regular season begins.
The Bengals’ third and final preseason game is at home against the Indianapolis Colts on Aug. 23 (1 p.m.).
Cornerback Dax Hill and tight end Noah Fant will make their preseason debuts. The following players won’t play on Monday night due to injuries: Myles Murphy, Cordell Volson, Geno Stone and Mike Gesicki. DJ Turner and Jermaine Burton are questionable to play.
Rookie first-round pick Shemar Stewart is expected to get reps with the starting defensive line. Stewart has impressed during training camp and if he shows well in the final two preseason games, he could move up the depth chart and win a starting job by Sept. 7.
“The power, the disruptiveness, there’s a lot of words you can use,” Taylor said. “You feel his impact, and I stand back there and call all the plays so you get an evaluation of people very quickly when you’re trying to have success as an offense and drive the ball down the field in practice. You form opinions and evaluations of guys very quickly, and he’s a guy that’s made an impact on me, I know that.”
Taylor wants to see a much cleaner game from his entire team this time around. Preseason results don’t matter, but Taylor wasn’t happy with some of the pre-snap penalties and mental mistakes he saw from his group in Philadelphia. If the Bengals’ starters can get out of the game with a sharp performance and no injuries, the preseason will be a success.
“Better attention to detail,” Taylor said of what he’s looking for on Monday night. “There’s so many foolish things we did. Pre-snap primarily, a little bit of post snap, that had nothing to do with Philadelphia. It felt like we did not give ourselves the best chance to win that game. Who cares, preseason game, regular season game, it should all feel the same for us, postgame locker room and all that stuff. That part was really disappointing that there we’re overall so much better at, we’ve done a good job at practice of that did not carry over to the game. And I expect to see us much clearner in this game operationally. “
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Zac Taylor explains how much Joe Burrow, starters will play against Washington on MNF
Reporting by Kelsey Conway, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
