Bengals coach Charles Burks is working to get the best out of cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt

Months before Cincinnati Bengals rookie cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt made his NFL debut, Bengals cornerbacks coach Charles Burks asked Taylor-Britt to make an adjustment.

He asked Taylor-Britt to wake up earlier and meet one-on-one with him every day during the week at 7:30 a.m. Since Taylor-Britt was out for two months with a core muscle injury, they didn’t have any of Taylor-Britt’s game film to go over.

But every morning, Burks found a lesson to share with Taylor-Britt, the Bengals’ second-round pick in this year’s NFL Draft. Sometimes it was about the smallest details of playing man coverage. Sometimes, they studied what Bengals starting cornerback Chidobe Awuzie was doing. Sometimes, they didn’t talk about football.

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“It’s about the game plan, and it’s about life,” Taylor-Britt said. “It’s brought us closer than ever.”

Now, with Awuzie out for the rest of the season, Taylor-Britt is a starter who’s learning on the fly. Taylor-Britt only had six total regular season practices before the coaching staff put him in the game with the first-team defense. Three games into his NFL career, Taylor-Britt has shown his physicality and his athleticism, but he has also given up big plays, including a touchdown in one-on-one coverage against the Carolina Panthers.

After one mistake in coverage, Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo told Taylor-Britt to “never do that again.” Taylor-Britt had a lesson-learned moment.

“(He’s progressing) slowly, but surely,” Anarumo said. “It’s a work in progress. I’m confident in his ability, and he had some up-and-down moments. That’s every corner in the league, never mind what your status is — this guy has only played two games, a game and a half really with no preseason. The more (snaps) he can play, the better he’ll be.”

The Bengals are trying to accelerate Taylor-Britt’s development. He missed nearly all of training camp and the entire preseason, missing out on critical opportunities to make mistakes out of the in-game spotlight.

When Taylor-Britt initially got hurt in July, Burks knew the Bengals were going to need Taylor-Britt to contribute at some point in 2022. So the 35-year-old Burks, who had been the Miami Dolphins cornerbacks coach in 2021 and joined the Bengals’ coaching staff this offseason, went back to something he did when he was the secondary coach at Texas A&M-Commerce in Division II in 2013.

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“(The 7:30 meetings) are something that I’ve done everywhere I’ve been throughout my career,” Burks said. “Whether it’s been Division II or the Miami Dolphins, with my rookies and second-year players, I always try to meet with those guys early to start a routine.”

“I want to see what he sees on the field,” Taylor-Britt said. “But we also talk about the people that you hang around. Maybe not everyone has your best interests. He kept it real with me about everything. I needed it.”

Burks’ advice has helped Taylor-Britt earn the starting spot at outside cornerback over veteran Tre Flowers. They spent hours breaking down game plans, techniques and “route indicators,” and Taylor-Britt showed enough when he returned from the injury to move up the depth chart.

“Cam has really responded to good and bad adversity,” Burks said. “He has gone out there and made mistakes. Then he has come back and fought. When he does good things, he has still come back and fought. Not being too high or too low. He’s staying consistent.”

Without Awuzie, the Bengals have less experience at cornerback than at any other position. They’ll face a rookie quarterback this week in Kenny Pickett of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and Josh Allen are looming on the schedule.

On a defense full of experienced starters, Taylor-Britt is the unit’s wild card for the rest of the season. How he finishes his rookie season will be one of the deciding factors in how the defense performs down the stretch.

“Every day, you’ve got to come to fight,” Taylor-Britt said. “Cornerback is the toughest position in the game.  The guy on the other side of the ball is trying to expose you. I got the equivalent of three preseason games out of the way now. I’m ready.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: The Bengals' are working to the most out of Cam Taylor-Britt