Twenty-one weeks, twenty-one game plans: The traits and priorities that DC Al Golden brings back to Cincinnati

Al Golden called me around 9 p.m, having just wrapped up a long day of game planning, practice and preparation for the Bengals’ playoff game against the Titans during the 2021 season.

I was working on a feature story on the Bengals’ vital 2020 draft class and wanted to interview Golden about his experiences scouting Logan Wilson, Akeem Davis-Gaither and Markus Bailey during the early days of the pandemic. I scheduled the interview with Golden, the Bengals’ linebackers coach at the time. When we spoke, he had his day’s work fresh on his mind.

The Bengals were coming up with a game plan for Derrick Henry that included concepts that this defense had never run before. Golden had spent his Tuesday teaching that plan to the linebackers, getting them ready to stack the box and stuff the run more aggressively than they ever had before.

Wilson, Germaine Pratt and the rest of the linebackers picked it up quickly.

“Football intelligence in the NFL is such a vital component here, and it can’t be overlooked,” Golden told me that night (January of 2022). “This is Week 21 for these men, and it’s 21 different game plans. Not only do they have to be smart, but they have to be able to think on their feet.”

Golden explained that teams add players who have high football IQ and can communicate specifically for days like the one he was in the middle of. He already knew that if the Bengals’ linebackers didn’t have those qualities, then they wouldn’t have a chance against the Titans.

“You have to be able to adjust a front, make a stunt call or correct a pressure call,” Golden told me. “We place such a high value on football intelligence, character and leadership. If you have all those elements, we’re mitigating risk.”

This is how Golden believes you build a defense.

Get smart players, play to their strengths with your game plans and have the flexibility to make adjustments on the fly.

“He expects a lot from us as linebackers, which in turn, I think has produced very good results,” Logan Wilson said at the end of the 2021 season. “He expects a lot from us film-wise, he expects a lot from us to run the defense, getting the D-line set. Guys have bought into his coaching and we played hard for him.”

This is how he’ll build the Bengals’ defense now that he’s back in Cincinnati. Today, he officially returned as the team’s defensive coordinator following three seasons as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame.

Golden isn’t the type of coach who plops down a system and a playbook in front of the players the day that he walks in the door. Marcus Freeman hired him at Notre Dame in 2022 because Golden takes the opposite approach.

“(Golden) said, ‘Let me evaluate what you’re doing. Let me evaluate your players, and then let’s put together the best scheme,’” Freeman said in 2022. “The ability to come in and adapt to what our players know is a huge benefit. Let me learn what they know, and let’s enhance it from there.”

Freeman added, “It’s not a scheme. It’s not, 'Hey you better run this coverage and these pressures.' It’s the ability to: One, can our guys play fast so there’s not so much on their brain that they can’t play fast. Two, it still comes down to fundamentals.”

Golden will take the same approach in Cincinnati. His charge is to give a young defense a new identity, develop confidence in players like Myles Murphy, Cam Taylor-Britt and Jordan Battle and empower this young defense to play fast and physically.

In his first stint in Cincinnati, Golden showed his ability to accomplish that.

“He simplified the game for me in many ways,” Vonn Bell said in 2022. “The pass game. The run game. Giving me tips when I go up to the line of scrimmage with the backers. Hats off to him.”

At Notre Dame this past season, Golden’s defense played more single-high man coverage than any team in the country. That worked because he had star free safety Xavier Watts, who has been Golden’s version of former Bengals safety Jessie Bates.

From his first day on the job at Notre Dame, Golden promised that he’d adjust his scheme to his personnel. He says that there’s “only so much defense” out there, and he has run just about everything over the course of his journey from Temple to Miami to the Lions to the Bengals to Notre Dame.

“It can be four-down or it can be three-down,” Golden said in 2022 after taking the Notre Dame job. “It’s like moving into a new neighborhood. Don’t just take the fence down because you don’t like the fence. You’ve got to find out why the fence is there.”

Golden continued, “That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re not going to do this if there’s no meaningful purpose for that. There’s obviously great things the system has executed previously. Let’s build on that.”

What Golden did promise was that the defense would be flexible. He said that his biggest takeaways from his time with the Bengals were the lessons that he learned regarding in-game adjustments.

He prioritizes having a defense that can pivot based on the opposing team’s game plan and what they’re emphasizing, or pivot following a slew of injuries that wipe out your depth at a specific position.

It all goes back to having and empowering smart players.

“He shows us what an offense might be looking for versus a certain play, or what they’re trying to (identify) or who their combo blocks are going to be up to,” Logan Wilson said in 2022.

“The NFL is about problem solving,” Golden said in 2022. “That’s one thing the NFL has taught me.”

To make that happen, you need smart players. Golden will seamlessly fall back into the scouting process that he was a part of in 2020.

When he was coaching the Senior Bowl, he gave a test to the linebackers on his team. Akeem Davis-Gaither’s results were so good that Golden kept the physical test. The Bengals drafted Davis-Gaither a few months later. Wilson made a similar impression.

Golden worked closely with the linebackers in the pre-draft process with the Bengals, and he strongly believes in the Bengals’ scouting process and the “checks and balances” between Zac Taylor, the front office and the position coaches.

“In Cincinnati, it’s a collaborative approach,” Golden told me in 2022. “The position coach truly has a real, real voice in terms of what you’re looking for in your room.”

Collaboration was a theme on Golden’s side of the ball at Notre Dame.

“The biggest thing for me with our staff is empowering them,” Golden said at Notre Dame in 2022. “If you want the best out of them, give them an area that they can spearhead.”

Collaboration will also be a part of the game planning process. When Golden was with the Bengals, he praised the way that Taylor gave him a chance to spearhead different aspects of the early down game plan as well as the red zone game plan.

With position coaches very invested and fluent in the game plan, the entire coaching staff can make in-game adjustments more seamlessly.

There’s clearly a lot of trust and shared philosophy between Taylor and Golden. Taylor leads the offense while delegating different aspects of the game plan to different coaches. Taylor keeps the offense flexible, setting up the chance for massive adjustments like the Bengals reconfiguring their run game on the fly in 2022 or changing the way they used their tight ends in 2024 as Erick All Jr. emerged.

Golden also brings a lot of energy, which came across every time I interviewed him. He provided one of my favorite quotes I’ve ever gathered as we discussed the Bengals’ scouting process during the pandemic lockdown.

“You had to try to find a way to win the virtual war,” Golden told me. “If you didn’t adapt, you were going to die.”

In 2022, Sam Hubbard called Golden one of the hardest workers on the coaching staff.

DJ Reader called Wilson and Pratt’s success a reflection of Golden’s coaching.

“They’ve got energy just like him,” DJ Reader said. “His plan and how he breaks down defense for us, it’s amazing.”

Zac Taylor said in 2022, “If you really look at how that linebacker room has been built over the last three years, we drafted and developed those guys. That’s an enormous credit to Al and the job that he has done. He has been there, done that. I’m sure when the time is right, he’s ready for every opportunity that comes at him.”

Golden has spent his entire career recruiting, connecting with and coaching up young players. From a Bengals’ perspective, he has a unique resume in this defensive coordinator cycle as a coach with a connection to Taylor, who puts a lot of value in people he knows well, experience, a track record with multiple schemes and also a lot of reps developing players in their early 20s.

The combination of traits has brought Golden back to Cincinnati.