Cincinnati Bengals Head Coach Zac Taylor leads his team into Super Bowl LVI with the lowest winning percentage of any head mentor in league history. In his first two years at the helm of the Bengals, Taylor’s team was 6-25-1. This year, their AFC North Division title was won with a 10-7 regular season mark, and even adding the 3-0 postseason record that has led this unlikely squad to the Super Bowl, Taylor’s career winning percentage of .373 ranks at the bottom.
The Bengals are also the first team to advance to the final leg in the quest for the Vince Lombardi Trophy that won as few as six games in their previous two campaigns combined.
Yet, I invite you to go outside early tomorrow morning and look east. If your gaze finds the sun rising from that direction, go bet on the Bengals.
Why?
Because, like the sun always rising in the east, no team has ever won a Super Bowl that lost both sides of their bye week. The National Football League initiated a season with more weeks than games in 1990, and since they did that only four Super Bowl winners have lost the game headed into their open date, 27 have won it. Four Super Bowl Champions have also lost the game following their bye week, but those four teams were never the same squads that were downed headed into their off week.
Why is this important?