Cincinnati’s 17-16 win over Cleveland on Sunday tied Zac Taylor’s fifth career one-score game to a win, ending a 0-3-1 skid in such margins. The article maps how close games shape coaching reputations, highlighting historically close margins since 1970 and the rarity of ties in this span. It also situates Taylor among a broader coaching lineage with abundant near-misses, while extending the lens to franchise-level data, including top and bottom records in one-point decisions and even a local note tying Bengals and Reds in a rare shared win by one.

Across the long arc, Andy Reid leads one-point games (21) since 2019, with Mike Shanahan second (17) and a five-way cluster at 16 for Bud Grant, Don Shula, Bill Parcells, John Harbaugh, and Tom Coughlin. Kansas City, Philadelphia, Oakland/LA’s Chargers, and Denver stand among the top teams in close-game volume, while Texans, Panthers, Jaguars, and Ravens anchor the bottom. The Seahawks and Colts emerge as the best franchises in this narrow-margin era, while the Panthers and Giants sit near the bottom. The Bengals themselves rank sixth-worst by winning percentage in one-point games. Finally, the season opener note—Bengals and Reds both winning by one—adds a local closer to the broader historical narrative.