With the firing of offensive coordinator Ken Zampese on Friday, there wasn’t much attention paid to wide receiver Tyler Boyd being a healthy scratch for Thursday night’s loss to the Texans.
The 2016 second-round pick had been active for every other game in his brief career and caught 54 passes for 603 yards during his rookie season. The Bengals have seven wideouts on the 53-man roster and Boyd said he didn’t get “a specific answer” from the team about why they chose to sit him down along with Josh Malone, but theorized it was because they needed other players who do more on special teams.
“I don’t feel like what I was doing on offense was bad, because they haven’t really came and said anything negative about my performance or play,” Boyd said, via ESPN.com. “I think it was just a huge part of special teams emphasis and lack of depth there. That’s what I got from them, so I accepted it and there was nothing real made on how I perform.”
Boyd said he isn’t sure how the roles will shake out in the receiving corps now that Bill Lazor has replaced Zampese, who Boyd said was a great coordinator despite occasionally trying to “overwhelm with things to do out there in terms of details and what to do and what not to do.” Boyd and the rest of the Bengals will begin finding out how Lazor differs from Zampese and whether Boyd features in his plans as they get ready to face the Packers this week.