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May 9, 2023 28 mins
Mike Potts joins the guys for a two-part interview, starting with the first two days of the draft, what makes Myles Murphy special, how Jordan Battle fits, and giving some behind the curtain insight into how the Bengals put their board together, what it's like in the room on draft day, and more! Find and follow Locked On Bengals on your favorite podcast platforms: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-bengals-daily-podcast-on-the-cincinnati-bengals/id1159723162 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AObc0lh0WmQl5fJVgtajs Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-bengals Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbG9ja2Vkb25iZW5nYWxz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwio_sXtj8nuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg James Rapien and Jake Liscow take you inside the Bengals with the latest news, unique analysis, and insight on your favorite team, every day on Locked On Bengals. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team. Every Day. And follow Jake and James on Twitter, where they'll be sharing the latest news about the Cincinnati Bengals and talking with fans. Jake Liscow: https://twitter.com/JakeLiscow James Rapien: https://twitter.com/JamesRapien Podcast: https://twitter.com/lockedonbengals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! BetterHelp This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self-discovery from wherever you are.  Visit BetterHelp.com/lockedon today to get 10% off your first month. Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. FanDuel Make Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, Yourteam every Day. The Bengals added eight
players in the twenty twenty three NFLDraft. Bengals Director of Scouting Mike Potts
is here to break down every pick, discuss the Bengals strategy and how the
roster shaping up for the twenty twentythree season. You are Locked On Bengals,

(00:27):
your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, partof the Lockdown Podcast Network, Your
Team every Day. Hi gain everyone, and welcome in to the Lockdown Bengals

(00:49):
Podcast. I'm James Urpine. You'regonna hear our interview with Mike Potts just
coming up in one second, andyes, I will be joined by Jake
Lisco. But thank you so muchfor making us your first us in here
on Locked On Bengals. Shout outto the every day or's out there that
have listened throughout the pre draft process, throughout the draft, and certainly today
where we look back at the Bengalseight picks with the director of Scouting Mike

(01:15):
Potts. Today's show is brought toyou by Better Help. It's sponsored by
Better Help. Better Help connect youwith a licensed therapist who can take you
on a journey of self discovery fromwherever you are. Visit Betterhelp dot Com
slash locked on to get ten percentoff your first month. The Bengals,
they got faster, they certainly gotmore athletic. They didn't get a tight

(01:36):
end. They didn't address the offensiveline. Interesting, interesting, interesting stuff.
Let's dive into that and so muchmore with Bengals Director of Scouting Mike
Potts. We're now joined by CincinnatiBengals College scouting director Mike Potts. Second
year in a row that we've talkedwith Mike around the same time last year
about the Cincinnati Bengals draft class,and Mike, we appreciate the time.

(01:59):
Thanks for coming on and walking withus again. Hard to start anywhere.
The size of first round pick MylesMurphy, by every consensus board seen as
a guy that was not likely tobe available to you guys, but you
did your homework. You had himin for the top thirty visit, which,
honestly, it was a bit ofan eye opener to me personally that

(02:19):
you guys were doing the due diligenceon a guy that I expected to be
long gone. That must have beena pretty exciting thing for you guys who
have done the work ahead of timeand to have had that opportunity. It
was we were not necessarily expecting himto be there. To be honest with
you, we part of my jobis putting together the forty five guys that
we decided to do formal interviews withat the Combine, and we Miles didn't

(02:43):
necessarily have any major character issues thatwe needed to dig on or anything like
that, So we actually ended uptrimming him off of our forty five interviews
for the Combine, and that's partof the reason we decided to later bring
him in for a visit. Westill didn't think it was likely he was
going to be there at twenty eight, but just to do our due diligence,
we decided later on in the process, We're like, hey, let's
let's bring bring this guy in.He obviously it maybe a little bit of

(03:07):
a stretch of projecting him to bethere that late in the first round,
but you never know, you couldyou could trade around, you know,
different different scenarios could play out.So just to kind of crossed all our
t's and dot all our eyes,so to speak, we decided to bring
him in and get him in frontof ownership, get in front of in
front of the whole coaching staff andscouting staff and all of that, and
I'm really glad that we did,because it gives you that much more conviction

(03:30):
on a guy when the scenario playsout like it did. And like you
said, we weren't necessarily expecting himto be there, but when he was
there, it was an easy selectionfor us. Mike, it seemed like
the pick. And usually in thefirst round, even for example, the
first pick usually, and maybe it'sTV purposes, but the pick isn't officially
in for multiple minutes. It feltlike the Miles pick was in within like

(03:53):
thirty seconds of you guys going onthe clock on the TV side. Was
it? Was it that quick andas simple as following your board and if
it fell that way, you weregoing with Miles Murphy didn't have to talk
about it at all at that point. The decision was made that quickly.
We already knew before you know wewere officially on the clock, that that's
the direction that it was going togo. But to answer your question,

(04:15):
it was not in that quick becausethe league makes us wait till five minutes
run off the clock in the firstround. The rest of rounds two,
seven, they say, you cansubmit it as quickly as you want to,
so maybe some of those we wereabout as quick as it seemed on
TV. I think for TV purposes, they want us to wait five minutes

(04:36):
in the first round so they canspread it out, spread their coverage out
of the previous pick, show allthe highlights that they need to show.
Obviously did get time in for thecommercial breaks and everything like that, so
there was at least five or sixminutes off of the clock before we submitted
that one. But in later roundswe did submit it relatively quick. It

(04:56):
wouldn't be right, you know,as soon as we get on the clock.
But my job is actually just totype it in and submit it into
the league electronically. And what Ilike to do is wait till Zach gets
the player on the phone, makesure we're good there and we're in touch
with him, and then we mayjust wait another minute or two, make
sure we're not blown away with thelast minute, um, you know,
trade offer from from another team.But that's kind of how it plays out,

(05:19):
and I was alerted to there.There was certain times where it looked
like we came on the clock andthen it was the pick was submitted almost
immediately, but that wasn't Sometimes thatmay have been the case, but it
wasn't necessarily as quick as it seemedin some cases. Have you ever had
a typo submitting a guy or doyou check it like fifty two times before

(05:41):
you hit enter? I check it. I don't. I don't think I've
had a typo. That's not tosay that I haven't had a million typos
in my life. We type scoutingreports into our system. I do that
for a living, and I'm notthe greatest typer in the world, so
I've I've had a ton of typos, but I'm I'm pretty paranoid about getting
everything correct on that. It's justthe round, the pick number, the

(06:01):
player's position, name, school,and yeah, I'll double check it one
hundred times before before we put itin. But that's only then the case.
I think since the COVID year wasso so, the twenty twenty draft
is the first time they did that. Prior to that, it was just
like an old fashioned conference call thatyou actually I don't know if if the
general public would notice it, butwe don't necessarily need to have the person

(06:25):
at our quote unquote Bengals table atthe location of the draft like we used
to like we would, we wouldcall it in. They would write the
name down on the sheet, youknow, pick number one, round number
one, Joe Burrow, quarterback,Louisiana State or whatever. That's not necessarily
the case anymore, but there isa conference call, and there is a

(06:45):
league wide zoom in case for somereason that pick submission forum is not working,
that we tuck it in on orif we need to, we can
pick up our cell phone and callin. So if for some reason one
of those ways aren't working, we'vewe've got backup plans. Well, I
had a few different follow up questionsI was gonna go with. One of
them was about how excited you areabout Texas speech and that technology improving so

(07:05):
that you can cut down on thosetypos. One of them was going to
be about what teams are doing whenthe clock ticks down and why it takes
so long, But you already answeredthat one. So we'll go back to
Miles Murphy here real quick. Aguy that was a very highly tied of
recruit coming out of high school,hyper athletic, very explosive, crazy athlete
for his size. Obviously, thatshows up and the high end flashes on

(07:29):
the tape at Clemson are incredible.What was the biggest selling point for you
guys? What are you most excitedabout with getting Miles Murphy in the building?
I think, really it's just hisoverall talent and upside and where he
can be. He's still still ayoung guy that's really only played for three
years. He's still only twenty oneyears old. And you know, I've
said it before that there's really nottoo many people in the world with it

(07:53):
sounds like I'm joking, but butin the world with his physical traits now
as he put it all together,yet no can he still get better with
his pass rush plan, with hissecondary rush moves, and you know,
just just overall polished to his game. He still has a lot of room
for upside in a lot of thoseareas. And Marion Hobby coaching him is

(08:13):
an excellent D line coach. He'sgot a Clemson connection there as well,
having coached there in the past andhas a relationship with with Miles already already
previous to this pre draft process goingthrough everything. So we think the upsides
through the roof and just the freakyphysical traits that he has and the fact
that he's already in our opinion,a really good player, but where he

(08:35):
could be, you know, maybelet's say year two, three, four
down the line is pretty exciting.How rare is it for a player like
that who albeit maybe needs to adda pass rush mover too, but has
all of those physical traits, Likeyou said, falling to twenty eight because
it felt sort of rare when Iwent back and looked at it. But

(08:56):
it based on your experience, itseems like, at least at my end,
it seems like they go top ten, top fifteen usually. So based
on your experience, is that thecase with a guy like Miles Murphy usually,
I think it is. It isvery rare. Like I said,
there's not too many people with thosephysical traits to begin with at all.
I think just in this draft therewas a lot of teams that had had

(09:16):
different needs yet the quarterbacks going upthere, which we weren't necessarily in that
market obviously, and um, youknow, it's it's just different different teams
boards or play out differently, andthey have different different needs. So m
I can't speak for them. Iknow we do a lot of projections and
and a lot of homework, wethought he would there was Obviously it's not

(09:37):
a hundred percent. We wouldn't havebrought him in for a visit if we
didn't think there was any chance ofhim falling there. But we didn't think
it was. It was likely,and we're we're glad that that it played
out that way. And um,and I don't know. I mean,
I guess, thinking back on it, he had a little bit of a
hamstring injury that he wasn't able totest at the Combine or at his first
pro day. He had his ownpersonal pro day later in April, so

(10:00):
maybe that caused him to fly underthe radar a little bit. But I
mean, there's a lot of goodscouts and a lot of good coaches that
evaluate the players in the draft aroundthe league, so they're doing their work
on these guys just like we are. So I don't have a great answer
for why he felt that far,but we're glad that he did. We'll
get back to our interview with MikePotts in one second, but today's show

(10:22):
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(11:03):
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(11:28):
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Your team every day. Certainly alot of first round surprises to the external

(11:54):
observer, and I'm not going toname any names that would feel rude,
but there's a lot of stuff thatwe don't have access too as the general
public, and even stuff that Iassume you guys don't have access to because
every team is doing it for themselves. They're not necessarily showing information from information
about character evaluations, medical evaluations,your own interviews with the players, intelligence
you're gathering from your network of collegecoaches. What else is they're out there?

(12:18):
Like GPS data versus the combine testing? Are there other important pieces of
the puzzle that we out here inthe world not working in NFL front offices
don't really think about that. Thatcould explain some of the stuff we saw
in the first round. Yeah,GPS data is really big. Um.
Like you said, different teams usedifferent um suppliers of that information. There's

(12:39):
there's a few different companies that supplythat data. Some of it's done from
the film, some of it's doneobviously from information that you get from colleges,
from the chips, in their intheir jerseys that they have both at
practice and at games. So that'ssomething that we've done. I've been going
through Clemson, you know, inthis case a long time. That's something

(13:01):
that we've got information on on guyslike Tee Higgins coming out of their different
GPS UH numbers that that Clempston staffshas provided. And you know, maybe
a hang up on a guy liketeas that he didn't run the fastest forty
in the world. And when youlook at that play speed, it's up
there with you know, the higherend of guys at the at the wide
receiver position. So yeah, there'sa lot of different things. There's there's

(13:24):
um the analytic angle, the PFFstuff that I believe every team has all
of that that data, But thenit's just a matter of what you do
with it and how you analyze it. And like you said, um different
you know, I think a guythat is a high high character risk is
generally that way, um for almostevery team throughout the league. But a

(13:46):
lot of guys fall in the middleof really good character and a high character
risk. So it's a matter ofconnections that you have on the staff and
maybe you know, maybe maybe yougo through a school and talk to ten
people and eight of them are speakinghighly of a guy. Would you talk
to the right person that has theright story, and that would be a
case maybe where we would have somethingnegative or it could be positive on a

(14:09):
guy. Or Team X whatever otherteam that drafted a guy or didn't draft
a guy could potentially have information thateverybody else doesn't have, because, like
you said, it's it's not shareduniversally between all thirty two teams. We've
got to go out and scouting toour own, our own own work and
own research on all of these players. The GPS tracking data, How is

(14:31):
it more important or less important fora guy? And let's look at day
two for a guy like DJ Turnerversus Jordan Battle. On one hand,
you have Turner who runs a fourtwo six and play super fast and in
the concerns at least outside would bemore size not speed. On the other
hand, you have a guy inJordan battles praise for his instincts and how

(14:52):
smart he is in the playbook andjust knowing the system starting as a freshman
for Nick Saban in that defense,but doesn't run a two and isn't necessarily
the fastest guy in the world.How does the GPS How valuable is that
when you're evaluating those two players,which you obviously liked both but for different
reasons. Yeah, it's a goodpoint. It's uh, it's really a

(15:13):
system of checks and balances. We'recomparing the forty time with the GPS numbers
that we get, and then reallyat the end of the day, most
importantly is what we see with oureyes scouting the guy, and and we
we evaluate evaluate all of these guysplay speeds, so we may we may
think a guy plays in the fourfour range, but then he goes to
the combine and he runs four five, five, And then we have GPS

(15:37):
number two numbers to back up maybewhat our I saw um and and you
know he kind of equates to thatfour four range whatever that is in miles
per hour on the GPS. Soit's checks and balances. It's it's obviously
both of those guys being dvs.You got to be able to run in
this league, to to cover andcover ground and you know, to defend
the run game as well. Soit's very im but I think at the

(16:00):
end of the day, if wethought the guy had slow play speed that
would be more of an eliminate,eliminating factor than a slow forty time or
or GPS numbers that didn't add upbecause we were drafting the guy to be
a football player, obviously, andnot the guy who can There's plenty of
guys who can run a fast fortythat don't play fast on the field,

(16:21):
whether that's due to instincts or footballintelligence or a number of different factors.
But DJ Turner in the second round. That's two straight years of second round
corners and some pretty athletic guys there. Last year you had to trade up.
This year in the third round,you're you're able to trade back and
presumably feel pretty comfortable that you're goingto get the guy you're targeting after making
that little, relatively little right,just a couple of picks move back in

(16:45):
the third round. Was there anypressure to move up this year at any
point where like last year you hadto trade up twice to get guys who
are really coveting that that happened thisyear, or how do you just decide
kind of where you can trade backand get a guy and where you might
need to trade up based on whatyou're projecting the other teams around you to

(17:06):
do. I don't think there wasas much pressure as last year because we
ended up having more players available tous that we really liked last year.
I think I talked to you guysabout this. Last year, there was
a number of guys, it seemedlike in every round that were just getting
swept out from under our feet,you know, a handful of picks right

(17:26):
before us, and it really thinnedout. And then in the case of
Cam Taylor Brick comes to mind,we wanted to address the corner position and
he was We felt like we weredropping down a level of player, especially
at the corner position, and reallyjust overall on our board, regardless of
position. So we went up tomake that move. I think it played
out a little bit better for us. This year. We still considered moving

(17:48):
up. You know, if there'sguys that are following that we really like,
We're always going to feel those calls. We're always going to make the
calls. We're always going to stayin constant communication of the teams both in
front of us and behind this itjust didn't up working out. We probably
went into the UM Draft this yearwith the mindset of hopefully trying to add
a pick or two more so thanthan give up picks. But you know,
if you give up a pick,you can always recoup it later on

(18:11):
with a with a trade back lateron in the draft if if you move
up. And part of that wasbecause we liked the depth um as the
round went as the draft went onin some of those mid to later rounds,
and it even would have been niceif we would have added another pick
or two more than we did,but that's just the way that it played
out with adding that extra sixth rounder, and UH ended up with with eight
draft picks, So we're happy withthe way it played out. Where it's

(18:34):
it's always a really bad feeling whenguys that you like it gets cooped up
right in front of you. UM, and we that's that wasn't obviously there's
there's guys that we really liked thatwent before us, but it just didn't
thin out as much as it didmaybe in some of the previous years.
And when you're making those draft moves, there's like five or six charts now
out there that evaluate who won thetrade in terms of draft big compensation.

(18:57):
You guys have your own charts.I assume that that are helping you to
approximate what you should be getting inreturn and how you gut us feel about
you know, quote unquote winning thosedraft pick trades. We do. We
have three charts really that we paythe most attention to, one of them
being the primary that we think ispretty much universal. We communicate with other

(19:18):
teams every year just to make surenothing's nothing major has changed on what they're
using, just so we know we'respeaking the same language when it comes down
to crunch time and uh, youknow, are getting close to being on
the clock there on draft day.So we've tried a little bit to mesh
together those three charts, and youknow, just they're they're a little bit
different points systems a little bit.Some of them maybe value the later picks

(19:42):
a little bit heavier, and someof them maybe value the earlier picks a
little bit more. So we triedto mesh them together and form them into
one. That's kind of an ongoingprocess that we're we're constantly going through.
That's something that we're going to meeton as well this offseason and continue to
tweak it and um, you know, just just make sure that we're getting
appropriate value for these picks. Butreally at the end of the day,

(20:03):
it comes down to a gut decisionlike, Hey, how bad do we
want to add this pick or howbad do we want to go up and
get this player? And is itworth giving up this compensation to make the
deal happen? When you trade downand make that decision, or make the
decision to trade up for that matter, do teams if you trade up,
say hey, who are you tradingup for? And vice versa. When

(20:25):
the chiefs call and it it feelslike you're going to work out a deal
to go from ninety two to ninetyfive, do you say, hey,
who are you taking? Because obviouslyif they were taking Jordan Battle, you
might not want to make that makethat deal. It depends how close to
a relationship you have with teams.We've got good relationships with a lot of
guys around the league, and ifit's a guy that you do have a

(20:45):
good relationship with, they will tellyou. They usually won't tell you until
after they've already made that final determination. They're not gonna tell you hypothetically like,
hey, we're leaning towards this guy. But I have heard that happening.
Um. I think there was astory that came out in this draft
between I think it was the Billsand the and the Jaguars they were talking
about that. Um at least Isaw some quotes or something on that,

(21:10):
or if they didn't come out andtell them who they were taking, they
at least hinted heavily at who itwas going to be. So I think
they said he's big, Yeah,he's big or something yeah, big,
medium, medium whatever medium yeah mediumfor Kincaid or something like that. Yeah
yeah. So um yeah, we'rereading the same the same thing. But
um it, it does happen.Um, you try, You're gonna make

(21:33):
the movie either way. So um, at least, at least in our
case, we're not gonna We're notgonna ask them. And then they say,
hell, we're taking this guy becausethey can end up we can make
the trade and then they could turnaround and trade it, or they could
not take the guy that they're saying. But again it comes down to that
trust factor and guys they have strongrelationship with, and then usually they'll they'll
tell you who they're gonna take,if you know, if they've made that

(21:55):
final determination. Talking about these dbsthat are the new addition for your team
in twenty twenty three. Can youtalk about picking a guy at safety where
we covering the team did not thinkwe were going to see a Day one,
Day two pick on safety so farto the point that, like in
the draft board that we put togetherevery year, we didn't even really watch

(22:19):
safeties this year because we were prettyconfident that, oh, you know,
maybe later. But Jordan Battle obviouslyscreaming value to you. There's a pretty
easy way to imagine his path ontothe field really early in his career in
Cincinnati, especially given that he gotonto the field really early in Alabama.
But he talked about that pick andhow you see that fit working out with

(22:42):
the position that there isn't a screamingneed and really that's many positions, but
especially at safety. Yeah, atthe end of the day, taking Jordan
Battle was just sticking to our board. We love the player, we love
the person, his character and everythinghe's about. I'm sure you guys have
heard all this stories on that youknow, on him as a person.

(23:03):
In our regard for him as aplayer as well, I think at the
end of the day, you can'tyou can't go wrong adding good players.
Obviously, we lost both of ourstarting safeties to free agency. UM.
Obviously we drafted Das last year.UM, and then we signed Nick Scott
this year. But UM, thatbeing said, Ay, you don't know
how UM injuries are going to playout throughout the year. Knock on wood.
Hopefully we don't. We don't haveto deal with that type of situation.

(23:26):
But even taking injuries out of it, it just gives your defense that
much more versatility. UM. Weall know, we all know Dax as
a very versatile player. That's partof what attracted us to him and to
take him at the bottom of thefirst round last year. So he's kind
of a chess piece that you potentiallycould move around. It can give our
coaches some more flexibility that way,UM and Nick Scott and Jordan Battle and
versatile players as well. So itjust gives you that much more flexibility.

(23:49):
There's a lot of offenses that wehave to match up with. UM.
Obviously safeties UH kind of our mainmain contributors, and stopping some of these
weapons at the tight end position acrossthe league. So we're always looking for
ways to stop those guys, andthen also covering running backs and receivers and
stopping the run as well. Wejust we think all three of those guys

(24:10):
are very versatile, well rounded safeties. Potentially, could we get all three
of them on the field at thesame time. I'm sure that'd be a
better question for lu to answer,but I think we definitely have that available
to us as a possibility. Thismay be a dumb question, but how
hard is it to stick to yourboard given that you have a certain ranking

(24:30):
in all of those things and there'sbeen months and years of work that goes
into it. At the same time, I know, at least in some
organizations, public consensus could get ina way. There could be a player
that isn't supposed to fall, thatsupposed to be a top fifty pick that's
there in the seventies and some yearsor nineties or whatever the case as falls

(24:51):
to Day three? Is that challengingat all? Does that matter? And
have you ever been in any roomwhere public consensus or outside voices do impact
the draft board and sticking with theplan? It is hard, um.
I think at the end of theday, like you said, you hit
it on the head. There there'sbeen years that that have went into putting
that board together. So at theend of the day, you have to

(25:12):
trust your evaluations UM and stay disciplined. I don't. I don't think it's
public pressure as much as sometimes youwant to. You want to fill in
the holes on the roster in termsof kind of positions of need and um,
you know, even taking the positionsout of it, just just look
at the side of the ball.I mean, how many how many picks
in the road did we did wego or how many out of the previous

(25:33):
ten picks were defense. So you'relike, at some point, you know,
it'd be nice to draft an offensiveplayer, but at the same time,
you don't want to jump down alevel of player and uh, you
know, just to take an offensiveplayer. And Jordan Battle is our highest
rated player obviously through the roof characterevaluations on top of um our high regard
for him as a player. Soreally it was just saying disciplined. There

(25:56):
is temptation, you know, thereto to go a different direct and every
you know, as scouts, weget paid to give our opinion and we
don't always agree on everything, sothere's different points of view on every different
scenario, it seems like. Butat the end of the day, we've
had good luck with sticking to ourboard and that's what we did. In
this case, here were battled.That's Bengals director of scouting Mike Potts.

(26:21):
We thank him, We thank EmilyParker as well for getting that interview scheduled,
and it's something we try to doannually where we sit down. We
talked with Steve Ordisovitch after the mainpart of free agency was in the books
and Cincinnati had a couple of playerssince then. But then we also try
to talk with Mike Potts after thedraft process and get his thoughts on how

(26:41):
things played out, because especially whenyou're drafting as late as as you are
in recent years for the Bengals,you never know what's going to happen.
And whether it was Jamire Gibbs attwelve or the fact that they didn't take
an offensive player until day three ofthe draft, I think there were some
things that they didn't necessarily plan ondoing, but they stuck to their board

(27:03):
and they certainly deserve credit for that. Jake and I are back on Wednesday
for Thursday's show Wednesday evening, somake sure you had that subscribe button on
YouTube and follow wherever you get yourpodcasts. And for Jake, let's go.
I'm James Rapine, thank you somuch for listening to the Locked On
Bengals podcast. Reds Fans, I'mJeff Carr and I'm Stephen Offenbaker. We

(27:26):
are the hosts of your daily Redspodcast, Locked On Reds, part of
the lockd on podcast network. Yourteam every day. Locked on Reds brings
you the latest Reds news and analysis, and breaks down all of the action.
Locked On Reds is everything a Redsfan could want, all in a
thirty minute daily podcast. Subscribe nowto Locked On Reds. Wherever you get
your podcasts, search Lockdown Reds andget your daily dose of Reds analysis and

(27:48):
optimism. We are part of theLocked On podcast network, your team every
day eight prime members. You canlisten to this lockdown podcast at free on
Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Musicapp today
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