Bengals Fire Ken Zampese, Promote Bill Lazor To Offensive Coordinator

Update:

The Cincinnati Bengals announced that Bill Lazor will assume offensive coordinator duties now that Ken Zampese has been fired.

Bengals HC Marvin Lewis said of the move: “Ken Zampese has done a tremendous job for us for my 15 yards here, and I have the utmost respect for Ken as a person and as a coach. But I feel it best for the football team to breathe new life into the offensive, and that’s why I am making the change. Bill Lazor has great experience in the league and as a coordinator, and I feel Bill can progress our offense the way we need. We have a lot of talent on offense, and we need to keep working to take full advantage of the personnel we have.”

Lazor released the following statement: “I am grateful for this opportunity to serve the Bengals organization as offensive coordinator. There is a lot of football ahead of us this season and we are excited to make this a productive year.”

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Ian Rapoport of NFL Media is reporting that the Bengals are expected to fire OC Ken Zampese after the team failed to score a touchdown over the first two weeks of the season.

• According to Rapoport, QBs coach Bill Lazor is a potential replacement to Zampese, as he’s highly regarded in the building.
• Albert Breer mentions that many within the team felt that they should have promoted WRs coach James Urban to offensive coordinator, but they ultimately went with Zampese due in part to his seniority.

Zampese, 50, began his NFL coaching career with the Eagles as an offensive assistant back in 1998. Since then, he’s worked for the Packers and Rams before the Bengals hired him as their quarterbacks coach in 2003.

Zampese was promoted to offensive coordinator for the 2016 season.

Last year, the Bengals’ offensive was No. 19 in points scored, No. 13 in total offense, No. 15 in passing yards and No. 13 in rushing yards.

We’ll have more regarding changes to the Bengals’ offense as the news is available.