Boyd content with role he plays in Bengals’ offense

Boyd said he’s still hungry, and the Bengals have all the pieces in place to complete their “unfinished business.”

“Every year I played (before) I haven’t made the playoffs, and that was one of my goals to help this organization get to where they haven’t been in long time, and us just getting it my first (time) and taking advantage of it and going all the way to the Super Bowl means a lot,” Boyd said in his first interview of training camp this week. “It just shows how much work me individually had to do to get to that point, you know. Now we’ve got a great group of guys around me that I don’t gotta keep worrying about putting all the weight on my shoulders, every guy just does their part, and we’re all gonna rally up each other.”

Boyd, who has two more years left on his contract, doesn’t see his role changing much this year. He’s still a leader and the most tenured skill position player among the starters on offense, and he plans to continue to make sure the younger players around him are on the same page and feeling comfortable in the system so they can perform to their best ability.

As a receiver, he’s still a reliable target for Joe Burrow, while playing alongside Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

All three starting receivers have recorded 1,000-yard seasons. Chase and Higgins both accomplished that feat last season, while Boyd was just under at 828 yards, but he hit that milestone in back-to-back seasons in 2018 and 2019. Last year, he was best known for his third-down consistency, but he says he’s not worried about when or how often he’s getting the ball.

“You’ve got the perfect group of people around,” Boyd said. “I think this is the most connected team I’ve ever been part of. Everybody understands their role. Nobody complains when things aren’t going their way. And there was some times where maybe I might have a catch, 10 yards, but at the end the day, it’s other guys around helping us win, and we get the win. I mean, it’s what you planning for because at the end of the day, it’s a team game.”

The Bengals “big three” have been talked about as possibly the best wide receiver trio in the league, but Boyd isn’t worried about how they will handle that hype.

“Every team, every defense and every coaching staff is talking about us,” Boyd said. “That’s probably one of the key factors to beating us is trying to eliminate our weapons, and we take that very pridefully, and I think every DB that we face is going to mark us on the calendar to try to stop us, all three of us you know, and we feel like we can’t be stopped, so I mean at the end of the day you got to still prove it. You still got to work, you can’t get complacent. We’ve got a great receiver coach in Troy (Walters), who’s always on us, still coming in early, still running through plays, still keeping us up to par.”

Boyd said having a quarterback like Burrow makes his job easier because he is intelligent with his reads and doesn’t force bad throws that the receivers have to try to get to. His goal this year is to make things even easier for Burrow.

Burrow watched practice again Thursday from a golf cart and there is no timetable yet on his return as he continues his recovery from an appendectomy, but Boyd has looked smooth working with Brandon Allen in the meantime.

“Just always being there when my number is called and just continue to work, continue to get better,” Boyd said. “Staying open, just knowing the little things, getting the blocking assignments right, knowing where to line up in certain formations, just little things I think I need to just tighten up. I think my game is at a high level of knowing where I’m supposed to be. And just playing up the little thing, the craft and the way I run and just finding open windows for Joe to throw me more easier passes.”

Bengals coach Zac Taylor said he doesn’t take having a reliable receiver like Boyd for granted, even when he has Chase and Higgins performing well. Those two have been getting a lot of the attention as young breakout players, but they wouldn’t be as successful as they are without Boyd.

Boyd went all of the 2021 regular season without a drop on 94 targets. He had one in the postseason.

“He’s really consistent,” Taylor said. “I really appreciate that. He’s got great, intimate knowledge of our systems and why we’re doing a lot of different things. I think he and Joe (Burrow) have a really good rapport and relationship and chemistry, just from a routes perspective. He does a good job in the run game and understand why that’s so valuable. Again, I like to think we don’t take him for granted but he’s just been so consistent day to day. That’s exactly what we’re looking for from all of our guys, and Tyler is a great example of that.”