Hue Jackson was officially named the new offensive coordinator of the Bengals on Thursday and he met the media for the first time in his new role on Friday.
To the shock of no one, quarterback Andy Dalton was a main topic of conversation coming off his three-turnover mess of a performance against the Chargers. There’s some feeling that the Bengals may have maximized what they can get from Dalton over the last three years while building up the talent around him and that his outing against the Chargers -- a third poor postseason performance in three tries -- confirmed that fact. Jackson disagrees.
“There’s no doubt in my mind about Andy. I think he has tremendous upside. Everyone has to play better and Andy has to continue to grow,” Jackson said, via Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Jackson said he wants the Bengals to be a physical team and that they “have to be able to run the football,” but teams typically don’t win in the current NFL by doing that alone. They’ll need to throw the ball and they’ll need to do it much more effectively in big spots than they’ve been able to do it for the last three years or Dalton (and perhaps Jackson) will run out of chances to show he has an as yet untapped level of play.
The Bengals also announced during the press conference that Kyle Caskey will replace Jackson as the team’s running backs coach. Caskey was an assistant offensive line and offensive quality control coach in 2013.