Bengals head coach Zac Taylor wasn’t thrilled with the referees after they stopped the game for roughly 30 seconds during Sunday’s 20-18 loss to the Browns after Myles Garrett broke the NFL sack record in the fourth quarter.
Taylor was seen “unloading” on the officials for not calling a penalty on the Browns as players came off the sideline to celebrate the historic moment for Garrett, who picked up his 23rd sack of the season to set the new league record.
The Bengals’ head coach told reporters after the game that he “was never informed” that the refs would halt the game in order to allow the Browns to celebrate the moment, which came on a fourth-quarter play with 5:04 left in the game.
“There’s five minutes left in our season. We’re playing for our lives here,” Taylor said. “And I was never told that we’re going to stop the game, and in a critical moment like that. And the refs just said that they made a decision that they were going to stop the game. And they said they tried to do it as quickly as possible. I didn’t feel that. We didn’t sub. We’re trying to be on the ball and go and play with tempo. And the umpire just held the ball so that we couldn’t do anything.
“And I’m yelling at (quarterback) Joe (Burrow), ‘Get on the ball.’ We didn’t sub, we’re going and then we couldn’t play. And so again, trying to get an answer was not easy.”
#Bengals HC Zac Taylor was not happy that the refs stopped the game after Myles Garrett’s record-breaking sack. He said he was never told they would do that beforehand.
“We’re playing for our lives here. … In a critical moment like that… we were trying to be on the ball and… https://t.co/6FsTBHZu3u pic.twitter.com/xbc8r7tHJG
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) January 4, 2026
The Bengals ended up having to punt three plays later after Garrett picked up the history-making sack.
And Taylor added that it seemed that the refs had planned to pause the action whenever the moment occurred.
“They just said that they made a decision as a crew to stop the game when that happened. I guess it didn’t matter when it happened. They were going to stop the game and let it happen,” he said.
The Bengals coach wasn’t the only member of the team who was upset that the officials had stopped the game.
Star receiver Ja’Marr Chase also expressed frustration over the decision when he spoke with reporters after the loss.
“Yeah, I didn’t think they could do that,” Chase said. “I never knew you could let the whole team get on your field. That’s like me catching my 10th pass, and the whole team run on the field. We’re gonna get flagged. But congrats to him and everything. But you know, they got to call a flag on that play. … We’re trying to hurry up too. We couldn’t even hurry up. The refs was looking at us like we did something wrong the whole time.”
Outside of the sack record, Sunday’s game was largely inconsequential to both the Browns and Bengals, who were already eliminated from postseason contention prior to the matchup.
The Bengals do have a lot of questions to answer heading into this offseason after an underwhelming year in Cincinnati.
