1/21/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show

Reaction to last night's national championship game between Ohio St and Notre Dame. Plus a very interesting tweet made moments after the game. Plus Paul Dehner Jr on the Bengals DC search and it's one of my favorite nights in sports.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chance to win a thousand dollars enter this nationwide keyword
on our website.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Green, that's greed.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Answer it.

Speaker 4 (00:07):
Now you've found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 5 (00:12):
Sure have what's up? It's three three. This is ESPN
fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I'm Oleger. Thank you for listening.

Speaker 5 (00:20):
Hopefully you are staying warm and having an awesome Tuesday afternoon.
Maybe you had a three day weekend and you're back
at work today. I don't know, but we are glad
that you are here. Congratulations to the Ohio State Buckeyes
and Ohio State fans. Not the weirdos that last November earlier,
two months ago, whenever it was or yelling and screaming

(00:43):
that they got a fire Ryan Day and don't want
to play in the playoff and who cares if they
win a national championship. Not those goobers, But to folks
like my guy Tarren, who's a hardcore Ohio State fan,
and our guy Austin Elmore. Congratulations. We'll get to last
night's game. I'm really happy for Ryan Day. Al Golden

(01:03):
was a participant in that game last night, which I
guess we have to talk about. But man, more than anything,
we have to talk about this shocking announcement made after
the game last night from the the Ohio State football program,
which I thought was interesting and I don't think is
getting nearly enough coverage. We'll get set for UC versus
Texas Tech tonight, a big, big, big opportunity for the Bearcats,
and it's one of my favorite nights on the sports calendar.

(01:25):
This evening, Baseball Hall of Fame ballot gets revealed, the
class of twenty twenty five gets rounded out, and I'm
already excited to watch people go in a witch hunt
to find the one person who doesn't vote for each
e row. More on that a little bit later on
Paul Danner Junior's here from the Athletic.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
How you doing.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I think you really do love the Baseball Hall of
Fame vote. I mean I do always provide spodder for you.
I loveday. I love every single year.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
The lack of transparency, the questioning of the process, the
bringing up of the steroid era, like it's just love
it all, it's just copy paste, rinse, repeat over, no again,
it's joyful.

Speaker 5 (02:01):
I have the list I have on my little rundown here.
Here are the nine players that I think every writer
should have checked off on his or her ballant and
uh no not. Most of these guys aren't going to
get in, but they all should.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, well, I look forward to hearing all about that.
I'll be listening.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Well, you absolutely, that is if we're not still talking
about Cam Grant obviously, because you know you and I
have an hour.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
You're here till four.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
Paul Danner Junior covers the Bengals for The Athletic and
the Growler podcast, and I I thought we would do
three to four on Cam Grandy and then a few
other miscellaneous Bengals items after four, and sure, yeah, the
first domino of the off season fall.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
What should we play? Should we play? What was your
favorite Cam Grandy penalty?

Speaker 6 (02:46):
No?

Speaker 5 (02:46):
Like, here's what we could do is play what was
the look on your face when you read the following?
He played in eight games with six starts. That dude
started six games. Yeah, Cam Grandy started six games.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
And they love to come out there in a weird
formation on the first play, you know, just to see
what it is, and then you see him run off
and then you don't see him again in TOI like
the fourth quarter on like a critical fourth down or something. Yeah,
it's always it's always great. Well, congratulations for Cam.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
Yeah, college free agent made the team gets another deal.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Good for him. I am that's that's that's good. That's awesome.
It is.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I don't really, I really wish I had more to
say about Cam Grandy need other than this is. You know,
you start going through the roster and I've sort of
done this process where you're going through. Okay, here's all
the decisions they have to make. Okay, clearly we're starting
from the bottom and we're working our way up one
at a time. It's maybe every day it'll get a
little more relevant. Yeah, this is this is one of

(03:41):
those items.

Speaker 5 (03:42):
It's like when you you know, my wife and I
we we bought the house that we're in right now,
and we had a lot of work to do. But
the very first thing I did is I put a
new door handle on the closet door. Hey, right, gotta
have not the most important thing's gotta get done, but
it's got to get done.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Gotta get done.

Speaker 5 (03:57):
I mean like I didn't exactly charge downstairs. I go, honey,
work good, just put our feet up when our furniture
gets here. Nothing else to do but it did need.
It was a box that needed to be checked, and
I checked it off. And that's what we're gonna call
Cam Grandy door knob.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Don't call him that.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
I don't think you should do that. All right, Well,
we'll see. What do you think Thursday Friday for the
Al Golden press conference?

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Probably Thursday.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, I feel like Thursday, Thursday actual press conference.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
That feels right.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
Okay, So he's gonna talk to He's gonna interview formally
with Zach Taylor.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, what does that sound like? I think, Hey, good
to see you. Yeah, what's going on? You still want
the job? Right?

Speaker 1 (04:34):
The paper's there if you want to sign it, I
think is kind of where that probably goes.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
I just you know, it's it's it's it's kind of been.
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I think Al Golden and I and I respect and
appreciate this wanted you can you can do two things.
You can understand what can be great for your next
career step and also want to kind of solely focused
on this massive in front of you. And I feel
like once knowing once you turn the page, that is

(05:06):
the direction you would you would want to go is
one thing. And the Bengals were recognizing that this is
a great fit for what they're looking for is another thing.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
But yeah, I don't I think that he's.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
I think Al Golden just kind of just feels like
the this is the logical next step, like one. I
mean what we talked about this on on who they
Live on Friday. I mean, I don't know people really
maye people realize this, but like Al Golden never left.
He still has his house here, his family still lives here,

(05:40):
his kids go to school here, did his his oldest
is our name. But like I mean, he's that's a
heck of a commute. Heck of a commute, right, you
know what you do when you drive from Cincinnati to
South Bend, however many times he has to do it
during the year. Think about how you don't want to
do it anymore, right, and like, you know, you love Cincinnati,
like the schools, liked what your family has there so

(06:01):
much to the point that you didn't even move them, right,
Like that makes sense, and but you understand what's good
for your career. But so that all makes senence. That's
why that makes sense for him. And I think the
Bengals are able to punch a little bit. I'm not
going to say above their weight class, because they could
have gotten whoever they wanted to, But as far as
to get familiarity and somebody with the ability who is

(06:23):
you know, has led entire programs before, but also has
all had a lot of success with younger players and
connecting with them and developing them. All of these boxes
are ones that they wanted to check. It makes the
most sense where I don't know how long that that
interview doesn't need to be long. You have had years

(06:44):
of interview. You know the person, you know, the coach,
you know, the fit, you know is the organization. What
else is there to say? So for that fact, I
think that was always there, right and they can go
out and talk to whoever or figure out what else
is out there. But knowing that was there, I think
it's hard to trump when you feel like, man, this
is just the perfect fit for what we need right

(07:06):
now because of the familiarity.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Like I get, it's a good fit for al Golden right,
he gets to come home, he doesn't have to drive
the South Bend all the time. But is it a
good fit for the Bengals just because he's been here before?
What are the other reasons why it's such.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
A good fit.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think somebody with a particular specialty in developing younger players.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
And you know that.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I mean he did that in the NFL as a
linebackers coach in this building, right, did it with Logan
Wilson and help with Jermain Pratt and Keen Davis Gaither
in that whole room there, right, and then went and
proved it again at Notre Dame.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Okay, I mean, let's.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Not I know, everyone's gonna probably wanna yell about they
couldn't stop the bucket whatever. Nobody's stopping the Buckeyes right now.
And they had the number one passing defense in college
football the last two years in a row m period.
And he did it this year basically reinventing on the
you know what they didn't have on that defense a
lot of dudes. Dane had two guys from that defense

(08:06):
projected to go in the first two rounds this draft.
One of them wasn't playing when it was the corner
that got hurt midseason that was not. Meanwhile, going up
against the entire first three or four rounds of future
dis draft and future drafts on the Ohio State offense, right,
like can sit but turned that turned that Notre Dame
defense into one that was really pretty special in how

(08:29):
they were operating and getting themselves to a point it
their dame hasn't been had in forever. So I think
that the familiarity helps because you can hit the ground
running so much faster, rather than the growing pains of
the first half of a season when the coordinator and
what do we talk about, Oh, no, slow start coordinators

(08:49):
learning how they didn't realize this, that or the other.
I think that that helps, and you know how that's
gonna gonna integrate as a teacher and with the whole
way like to do things. I think familiary is obviously
going to be a part of it, but I think
it's so much more of the credentials of what he's done,
the type of coach he's been consistently, and his ability

(09:10):
to help develop all the young players on the on
the defense that they know are going to be important
to them actually turning the thing around.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Refresh my memory.

Speaker 5 (09:16):
Did he did he leave because he wanted to go
coordinate a defense because Notre Dame would pay more if
he loved it here so much and they like him
so much widely, that's.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
A better job, more money, all of it.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I mean, you know, linebacker, he wasn't going to take
Luena Rumo's job, right, he was trying to move up.
I mean, you know what I mean. And I think
that for that reason, Notre Dame. It's funny, the same
thing happened during the super Bowl. During the super Bowl week,
Notre Dame kind of was like, hey, we want you
to be the guy you focus on the super Bowl,

(09:47):
but as soon as that Super Bowl ends, we want
you to be the defensive coordinator here for Markus Freeman
and boom. It happened, you know, And so it's kind
of a little bit of a you know, returning the
favor a little bit on this. But you know, the
last two games he was coaching pros and college would
be the National Championship, came to the super Bowl.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
That's not a bad thing to stand on, right, right.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
And and I just the other part of this is,
and I don't want it to feel like I'm sitting
here like defending it.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
I'm just don't there's anything to defend.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
I'm a little curious at some of the uproar that
I've seen about this.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
I feel like this is a really good hire. All right, so.

Speaker 5 (10:23):
You're getting different feedback than I I see, I see
negativity out. I mean, I think I saw some folks
last night who were having fun with it. I mean,
Pike and I were texting back and forth turned the
game last night, going boy, you know, I hope he
doesn't bring that defense with him. But it was tongue
in cheek, like I haven't detected the same amount of
pushback I get. Like there's you know, when the job

(10:46):
first came open, there's a lot of people who their
brains danced with visions of Robert Sala, Right, Okay, like,
so that's splashy, that's a big name.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Like I understand that.

Speaker 5 (10:55):
But okay, once you kind of got beyond that and
you looked at Al Golden's credentials, and you know, my
take was, Hey, if I'm looking for a guy who
can work with and communicate with and get the most
out of younger players, a dude who's coaching college football
is a pretty good place to start, right. And there's familiarity,
which you may roll your eyes at that. But the
Bengals aren't the only team that likes familiar No, NFL

(11:18):
teams aren't the only companies that like familiar. So I
don't gather that people feel like, oh my god, the
trajectory of the franchise has been changed because of Al Golden.
The response that I have gathered has been kind of
a yeah, okay, fine, now draft better players.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah right, and and develop them better, yeah right. And
that's and that's part of what he's he's tasked with too.
There's a couple of things also, you know, he's obviously
some of his the biggest moments in his career have
come on the collegiate level, notably, but also if you
take just the last you know, eight years or whatever
of his career, there's a couple other examples that I

(11:56):
that I want to kind of point out and take
this as just I don't want people to over exaggerate
that I'm saying it's going to be this person. But
I think you see this the college to pro thing.
Mike o' donald right now, he was a linebackers coach
and in this working his way up in Baltimore, goes
to Michigan to coordinate their defense for a year, comes back,

(12:21):
does such a great job at Baltimore. He's the head
coach to the Seahawks, right translating college to pro making
that thing work halflely. Jeff Haffley goes from Boston College
right four years leading Boston College, but previously was you know,
on lower levels in the NFL as well. Goes takes
the college the things he did in college brings it

(12:43):
to the NFL. They go from twenty second in points
per drive to six. You know, the I don't. I
think there's a lot of times there's a like, can
you can you really pull from the college game and
what's that what's that going to be like? What's that
change going to be like? I think as much as
those two games have merged, both financially in the issues

(13:04):
you deal with off the field with players, yeah, and
also on the field and the way that the schemes
I think are much more similar. I think the transitions
of coaches in major roles from the college to the
NFL is much more similar. And you've seen some of
these success stories play out in recent years, and some
that are pretty close to the Bengals there, I mean,

(13:25):
Lafleur was, Zach Taylor obviously very very close and with
the Ravens, you know, seeing everything that they've been able
to do, and I just think for that fact, I
think it's really easy to see the success that he
had at Notre Dame translating to the NFL, even though yes,
it's different in different ways, in so many ways, it's

(13:46):
much more similar than it ever has.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
I think what hurts Al Golden from a perception perspective
is when he was coaching at Miami and a temple,
he dressed on the sideline like a drafting teacher.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Look, I mean I am voiced, need more, bring back, Yeah,
bring back ties. Let's go bring it. Bring anybody up,
have the tie hanging down? I think, bring it back.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
And I think like his name sounds like I'm trying
to figure out, like Al Golden sounds like a place
where you get dent's taken out of your car, Like
I'll just take it to Al Golden's. Or like a
meat store like one of those like old school meat
stores from the sixties that's in a strip mall, and
it's like, now we don't get our meat at Kroger.
We got to Al gold right, And I think I
think that's kind of what's what hurts I'll hear a

(14:30):
little bit is people don't think football coach, right.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Here's the thing he is, you know, from an old
school newspaper guy and me a little bit. He's just
a headline writer's dream, all right, right, Golden or golden
you know, Golden boy, golden whatever. There's so many there's
so many different places you can go with that. That
from a headline writer's perspective, Like, Hey, I'm just curious.

(14:57):
My friends at the Cincinnati Inquirer are sitting there right now, right,
I think they've been working on this one for weeks, like, oh,
what are we gonna go with?

Speaker 3 (15:05):
What are we gonna go with? You know, so many options.

Speaker 5 (15:07):
Yeah, it's not unlike when you see had a point
guard named Michael Horton, and I thought, man, this guy's
not very good.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Crowds booing. Inquire the next day has to have Horton.
Here's a boob in college.

Speaker 5 (15:19):
I was so happy. Oh, I was so fired up.
All right, well, a lot more on al Golden coming up.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Last week.

Speaker 5 (15:26):
I went through your list of free agents. Yeah, and
then and then the next day you had this I printed,
you know, I print stuff. Now. Printer's working again. Printer
is back to working again. Yeah. How many veterans will
Cincinnati cut loose? And I have a grand takeaway from
this piece that I'll share with you when we come back.
It is nineteen minutes after three o'clock. He's Paul Danner
Junior covering the Bengals for at the Athletic dot com.

(15:47):
And here the Growler podcast as well. It's the Growler Podcast.
Listen to it here the Growler Podcast.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Thank you, I'm confused people. Well done.

Speaker 5 (15:58):
It is nineteen minutes after three o'clock on Oegor. This
is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.

Speaker 6 (16:11):
UC Health Traffic Center at u See Health. You'll find
comprehensive care that's so personal it makes your best tomorrow possible.
That's foundless care for better outcomes expect war at ucehealth
dot com. On eastbound US fifty two, you'll find an
accident that is before eight mile road. Traffic's moving slow

(16:31):
southbound on seventy five from Ezra Charles Drive down to
Fort Washington Way. It's about a two minute delay at
this time. I'm at Eazallac with traffic.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
This report is sponsored by Rapid Radios.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
Rapid radios are instant push to talk walkie talkies offering
national LTE coverage and no subscriptions after three.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Oegor.

Speaker 5 (16:52):
Paul Tanner Junior is here because it's Tuesday, and he
joins me in studio to talk about a whole u
ohole group of Bengals issues, including it we've launched into
a vague tweet season.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Oh isn't it great?

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, where everything that t Higgins tweets or Jamar Chase
tweets from this point forward will get like, you know,
thousands of responses from Bengals fans.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Does this mean you're signing yes, yeah?

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Or he's just saying, hey, I'm just using prayer hands
because I'm happy to be That's what he did today, right, Yeah,
it was like thank God or something like that, or
with prayer hands, like he could just be, you know,
coming out maybe he went to church, professional or something.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
Vague tweets speculation. Yeah, he tweeted thank you God. I
don't follow a lot of athletes on social media, and
I think this is why.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, and like eighty two percent of the time it's
about video games.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
That is where it is.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
I always love because I always love when we actually
get to talk to them after vague tweets season to
be like, hey, what was that about, And they'll be like, oh, yeah,
you know, I was playing whatever. It's playing Halo.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
What. I don't even know that. I'm so old. I
don't know the game.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, not a big video game, but it is usually
where it ends up.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
Okay, So he could be tweeting about playing RBI Baseball
or something.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Thank god, I just won the championship in RBI Baseball
thousand and four.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
Yeah, all right, you did last week. This came out
on Wednesday. Bengals cap cuts veterans who could be cut
in an effort to save money and then use that
money elsewhere on the team.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Correct.

Speaker 5 (18:26):
And you did, as you always do, a great job
of looking at the pros and cons of each one
of these guys and talking about the financial impact of
keeping them or letting them go, and some of the
things that go into the decision making, and it's really
well done and really nuanced.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
You're setting it up to say something, but what any
you got, I don't want any of these guys.

Speaker 5 (18:47):
Honest with you, I hate to do that because you
you did a lot of work into this and you
put a lot of time and effort, and I printed it,
and I like, there was even one thing that I highlighted.
I think, yeah, right, I get it. Like I'm going through.
I was like midway through reading about Jermaine Pratt. Yeah,
and then I'm like, all right, well, Sam's gonna be next.

(19:09):
You know what, I don't want any of these dudes,
so far as I'm concerned, When does the mock off
season start? When do we have the spreadsheet? It's I finished.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
All of these guys are getting cut on my spreadsheet. Yeah,
there's a lot of uh, there's a lot of those options.
It's interesting. I thought this year specifically, it's the most
interesting that has ever been because there was, as you said,
you don't want any of these guys. There's a lot
of money tied up in those guys that they're about
to free up. I mean, they're more than they have

(19:38):
ever made off of cap cuts.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
I think that you're gonna see that type of thing
happening this year. Some of them are obvious, you know,
Sheldon Ray, Allens, Alex Kapa. I mean, some of those
are our obvious, uh, in terms of the ability to
move on and because there's so much money that they
will save and can put in elsewhere. Some of them
are a little more challenging, whether you're talking about Geno Stone

(20:03):
or Mike Hilton some of the other guys, and that's
going to get a little more philosophical there and what
they want to do. But at the end of the day,
I mean, you're talking about thirty to forty five million
dollars they can add to their cap this year. Yes,
just by going through this and depending on how aggressive
they choose to be or not to be, can really

(20:24):
can add a lot. And so it's you know, it's
it's it's a lot of guys that fit the mold
that we have seen them move on from in recent years,
older guys. Once once you see the three up there,
the Bengals have made it pretty clear that they're not
really interested anymore, and so if they stick with that,
that can mean most of those guys going.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
So the one who did give me some pause is
Geno Stone.

Speaker 5 (20:46):
Yeah, because he's still just twenty six, and because he
did play well at the end of the year, and
I was really bullish on them signing him. At the
same time, he was a terrible tackler took some of
the worst angles I've ever seen, And if we go
back to the like the teeth of the season, when
this defense was just atrocious, he was the guy that
I talked about the most. And so I'm trying to

(21:07):
balance thinking this guy's an ascending player coming off of
what he did in Baltimore, watching what I did at
the watching what I saw at the end of the season,
his age, he's not shouldn't be washed up with how
poorly he played for such a long stretch of time,
and also not knowing what's next at that position. I'm
not nuts about keeping Geno stone. But of all these guys,

(21:30):
I did the exercise of like, all right, you have
to have one, who would you take?

Speaker 1 (21:34):
I settled on Genostone. Yeah, I find myself. I think
you can talk yourself into Gino soon pretty easily. Yeah,
you know, I think you can look at like you
mentioned what happened the end of the year, who he
was in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
You're kind of recent.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
How much was he a victim of things going sideways
with Luenna Romeau there where the things we heard about
how they needed to simplify things, and so many of
the players and defensive backfield, we're doing the wrong thing
all the time. Well a lot of times that falls
back on the safeties to be the ones that have
to deal with that, and that's part of his job.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
But maybe maybe.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
He was not being He's one of those examples of
guys that were not being used properly. You know, he
needs to just be playing deep safety more often and
less of the like next thing you know, he's coming
up having to make tackles and being asked to do
those things like that. I think that's a decision. To me,
he is the ultimate Hey, new DC al Golden whatever.

(22:31):
What do you think about this one? I think that
it's it he that probably was where you land with
a tiebreaker type where it's like because you could go
either way, and maybe he looks at him.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
And says, not not my system, like.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
All these mistackles, these issues that we saw that does
not fit me, or says, look, I'm gonna do some
of the same exact things that he was shining with
in Baltimore that we saw him doing so well at
the end of the season.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Let's really get a real evaluation.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think you can you can hit the start over button,
which you know Stone and get what you thought you
were getting. You can talk yourself into that. If I
think you know that that's the direction of the new defense.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Quarter thinks it can go.

Speaker 5 (23:06):
Yeah, I'm not gonna shed a tear if he's gone. No,
but I'm not gonna be mad if he's back.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, I think you know.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
And that's gonna be part of this when we start
talking about Okay, you have to make your priority list
and because there's a lot of things on there, and
if you're gonna do t Higgins and you're gonna do
things like maybe you have to give maybe you want
to give Trey Hendrickson a raise, or maybe you want
to spend a little bit more on the guard play
on the offense.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
You gotta fix that.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
You need another defensive tackle, and you need an edge wresher,
and and well before long you're sitting here like, ah,
I just keep you know, Stone right, like I let's
not go having to pay for a safety and go
down that same route where we're gonna do. You're gonna
do this again, Nick Scott Gino Stone, like we're gonna
go down this road again of asking the new safety

(23:53):
to come in. Uh, that is learning everything on the fly.
And you've just it's failed multiple times.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
All Uh.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
That doesn't mean that you should should stick with it,
but I think you're more willing to give that a
chance if you feel like the people that are in
charge of that guy, whether it's Jordan Kovac's the safety
room or Al Golden.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Or on up the things that they can find the
role for now.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
Geno Stone's most recent tweet came, uh, yesterday, sixteen hours ago.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Did he have prayer hands involved?

Speaker 6 (24:20):
No?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
He wrote you all that mad? Lol? Yeah? Why are
people again? This was at eleven oh seven last night.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
I mean, I'm sure in reaction to the championship game.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Yeah? Sure, all right? And it could be could be anything.
Is there?

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Isn't there a new grand theft auto out? Maybe that's
it that I seople people get really mad on there.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
That I've never played. I don't know. You should? You should?
You can do all kinds of crazy. Geno Stone played
at Iowa, Iowa State? Yeah, Iowa? Yeah? Is he a
big uh? Is he like back in the Big tenwa? Yeah?
He was back in the Big ten? Yeah? That must
be all that Matt lol, so big tweet. Let's figure
it out, all right?

Speaker 5 (25:05):
I want to tell you about the business that I
might get into, the side hustle that I might engage
in this spring.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Okay, And then.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
I've got I've got to get your thoughts on the
offensive line, coach.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yes, it's not what I'm laughing about.

Speaker 5 (25:19):
And then I'm trying to think of a good way
to gently ask you when your coverage of the spat
between the Bengals and the county is going to start. Oh,
it is a twenty seven away from four o'clock. He's
Paul Danner Junior. Follow him on x at Paul Danner Junior.
Sports Headlines coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
SINCY three sixty with Tony Pike.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Do we want to move on?

Speaker 2 (25:44):
We have to keep going and Boston Elmore.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I think you should continue to let me keep going.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
There Sincy three sixty Tomorrow Which twelve News on ESPN
fifteen thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.

Speaker 6 (26:00):
You see Health Traffic Center. At you see Health, You'll
find comprehensive care that's so personal it makes your best
tomorrow possible. That's boundless care for better outcomes. Expect war
at ucehealth dot com East found two seventy five at
I seventy five. It's an accident that off onto the
right shoulder southbound seventy five at Ezra Charles Drive. Another

(26:23):
accident on the left shoulder northbound seventy one seventy five.
It's an accident before twelfth Street. I'm at Ezeleik with traffic.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
This reporting sponsored by RAPS Service.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
Off Kelsey Chevrolet Home of lifetime powertrain protection and guarantee
credit approval from their family to yours for life kelseyshev
dot Com. The Bengals have tightened up their chances of
winning the AFC North next season by ensuring that Cam
Grandy can't go anywhere. The tight end signs a contract
extension for the twenty twenty five season, hoping to build

(26:54):
upon his five catch production in twenty twenty four. Meanwhile,
T Higgins has tweet the following I'm just giving praise
to the most High at T Higgins five boom.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Care to interpret? I think he's saying praising his Lord.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
According to Paul Danner, junior Alic Golden's gonna interview with
the Bengals to be their defensive coordinator on Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
Yeah, not a very long interview. I don't think there's
a whole not.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
Like putting al on the whiteboard. Hey, draw some stuff up, right, Yeah,
I don't think that's very good. College basketball tonight you
see host Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are thirteen and four,
four and two in the league. They've lost four games
by combined eleven points. Tip off tonight at seven on
seven hundred WLW, Miami Radhawks unbeaten and mac play at
five and oh. Travis Steele's team is hosting Terrence Bowling,

(27:43):
Green Falcons and the Dayton Flyers on the road tonight
against Duke Caine Paul Danner Juniors here from the Athletic
and the Growler podcast. Will you be covering the ongoing
back and forth between the stadium and the county with
the Bengals in the county on the stadium that is
just getting started.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
No, the ongoing back and forth, that's my point. Yeah,
that's the part that I will not be covered. Okay,
the yelling and complaining each other and the sending of
meanly you know, certainly worded emails. You know, like we
all know people that like love to send us sternly ye, right,

(28:22):
and this is like, yeah, person, you've ever met who
it's like their favorite thing to do. You read that
and you're like, Oh, I can't. I can't go to
this dark place. There's enough darkness out there. I don't
need to go to the deepen the emails. But yes,
eventually it will rise up above the bickering at each
other levels.

Speaker 5 (28:42):
I'm not going to pay attention to any of this.
I'm not going to talk about any of this. I'm
not going to care about any of this. But I
need you to do me a favor. If we do
get to somebody who covers the team, You'll be in
on this if it happens, because I will start to
care if we find out they're flirting with moving. Yeah,
last time we did the stadium thing, I remember finding out,
wait a minute, the Bengals might go to Baltimore. Okay,

(29:04):
now I care, And that's a thing. As much as
a lot of folks try to pretend that didn't happen,
that is a thing that happened. And then me, as
a high school kid, suddenly I cared. So now I
care even more because I'm on the station that carries
the Bengals games.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
And so now will you start, well, what happened. If
if they moved, what is moving me?

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Does that mean outside of the greater Cincinnati area or
would you count moving out of downtown?

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (29:29):
They count as long as they are still the Cincinnati Bengals.
That's fine, Okay, So they can move to they can
move to Covington, they can move to Taylor Mill whatever
if they're this. But if they're the Mexico City Bengals
or the Toronto Bengals, or or if such a threat
exists or now like you're reporting that the ownership is

(29:52):
is touring London and looking for then then I care. Yes,
until we get to that point. I do not care,
and we're not going to talk about it.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
You're good. I think you're gonna be good for a while.

Speaker 5 (30:01):
But can you tell us about the new offensive line coach?
I bet he's intense, of course, of course, No. I
think there's one key thing. I mean, he was kind
of Bill Callahan's number one right handed man assistant for
three years. And you know if if the Maiwlezland in Cleveland, correct, yes,

(30:23):
And then when Bill Callahan left and went to Tennessee,
Alex van Pelt went to New England, and then you
saw Scott Peters go to New England as well, so
he has the year in New England. They were bad.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
It was maybe the most devoid of talent unit on
any level in the entire NFL. So nobody's holding what
happened in New England against anybody. But if the Bengals
hadn't moved decided they wanted to move on from Frank Pollock,
say a year ago, I think he would have been
the higher, you know, but I think he would have
been certainly the top of a list that they would

(30:56):
have been looking at. And he goes to New England
and all of a sudden it opens up where he's
now available again a year later, and it was sort
of right on time. It's just I think it that
that Bill Callahan's stamp of approval is big. And also,
you know, there's one thing that I tweeted about this
the other day, but like you know, when you look
at things that Zach Taylor has said a lot and

(31:18):
you hear a lot throughout the building, is that playing
in the AFC North it takes adjustment, just it takes
a while to.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Get used to.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Like it's it's just different in a lot of ways.
And so I think the history inside of the division,
understanding of how this division operates in the trenches specifically,
is a major selling point. Uh there, And so yeah,
I mean, I don't know, it's it's an offensive line coach.
I have a hard time, like I do a lot

(31:46):
of throwing my hands up, like there's like there's like
four guys that.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Everybody knows that are really really good.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
The rest you're hoping maybe they'll be a guy right
like you just you don't know what's gonna match and
how it's gonna go. So I I think there this
is as good to background as you could want or
ask for. They seem really comfortable with them, He's comfortable
with the division. You're obviously comfortable with the Bill Callahan
stamp of approval on him. So I think that's, you know,

(32:13):
all you can ask for, and you hope that it works.
Do you know anything about bootlegging jerseys?

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Do I know about bootlegging jerseys? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (32:21):
Like you acquire NFL jerseys and embroidered numbers and names
on them and sell them.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Do you know anything about that? Do you do you
do this?

Speaker 5 (32:30):
I'm thinking about doing that with Jack Sawyer Bengals jerseys. Yeah,
and get out in front of this in case they
draft him, because that will be the most popular jersey
among Bengals fans in twenty twenty five if they take
him with the seventeenth overall pick. Yeah, and so I'm
thinking maybe I'll get in front of this is college
number thirty three. You could wear whatever number you want now, right,

(32:52):
it doesn't matter. I thought you were gonna say, is
he gonna wear ninety four?

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Take away? Oh, since he's the Sam.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Hubbard replica coming out of college, that would be fun
on his number.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
You could have Sam at the press conference where they
announce him and say, Sam, you're being cut.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
But it's cool.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
We got passing, an actual passing the torch where they
can have a torch.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
It's kind of like the inauguration, right like and look
on the old guys there and then so it.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Could be ninety four. That's fine.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Yeah, but like you know, you're gonna get a lot
of this in the coming months. How they should draft. Yeah,
And and by the way, one thousand percent on board
with it. But there's gonna be a lot of that,
and when they do, there's gonna be a lot of
Jack Sawyer jerseys.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
I'm sure there would be thinking about getting in front
of this. Yeah, I mean like in the Jerseys myself,
and I'm not, by the way, I don't want to.
I'm not kicking Sam Hubbard out the door. I know
you did because he was on the list and you
said you didn't want any of those guys.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
You had of him leaving.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Well, hang on again, right now, there were a couple
of different percentages with Sam.

Speaker 5 (33:47):
There was nine that there's a cut, pay cut or restructure. Yes,
and then believe it's of a return thirty five percent.
That's that's not zero. I'm not kicking him out the door.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
I think there's there's a potential some value that said, though, yes,
I could, I think you could. You would see him
being in that role. I don't think he's gonna go seventeen.
I guess too high.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
It feels like if I don't think he would be
a it feels like if you like look at the
very early evaluations of the class and mock drafts and stuff,
I don't have I don't see anybody having him that.
But after the heat did what he did against Texas, Yeah,
maybe that's Bengals fans sure.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
To go nuts or like, well, he would.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
He would look great in stripes, sure, and not in
the second round either. And I'm just telling you that
would be he'd he'd sell a lot of shirts.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
We would get ahead of it. Now, So may you,
may you, I mean you do it. That's good for you,
good business model. This is your side hustle.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
No, not really.

Speaker 5 (34:34):
Do you have a big takeaway on the divisional round
of the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
I can't believe Baltimore lost that game. I you know,
I just you know.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
I think you start to wonder if they're ever gonna
get one because the last two years, you don't. We talked,
we talked about this in twenty one and twenty two.
You only get so many chances where it all comes together,
and man, it all it felt like even after last year,
it all came together and they had the home game
against the struggling the year where the Chiefs were down

(35:07):
a little bit, it seemed like, and then they had
a team that they knew they could beat and that
ended up being the other team with Super Bowl Like
it seemed like it was all setting up for them,
and they didn't win it, and Lamar didn't play, you know,
and he becomes a point of conversation, but as a whole,
they blew it right. But they recentered. They came back
with everybody that they were the best team in football.
I think they're the best team in football. But yet

(35:29):
they went there and they turned it over three times stupidly.
I mean just dropping the ball twice.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Dropping then the wrong way.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
I mean yeah, I mean all of it, all of it,
and then they still had the chance to just catch
a two point conversion to tie it there in the end.
I just I felt like it had really set up
that and Ingred would be a tough road having to
go to Buffalo to Kansas City. But I just I
just felt like the way they were playing, the role
they were on, they were outside of a Flowers relatively healthy,

(36:00):
and I just am I'm just surprised. You know that,
you know we were gonna sit in here again, and
now it's just the scar tissue gets thicker.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Man, when you go to the playoffs, you.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
And you don't you played below the level that you
are expected to play out or that you typically play
out over and over and over again. It's like we
used to talk about with the Marvin Bengals. It's not
that these teams are incapable of putting the past behind them.
It just it gets heavier every year if you've been
a part of it. And the advantage that twenty one

(36:30):
Bengals had was they weren't a part of it. It
was like totally separated from the past, and they we
went out there and played free. These Ravens are gonna
have a hard time doing that because it is it
just feels like.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
It hangs on them in these big spots.

Speaker 5 (36:43):
So Pittsburgh lost, and for forty eight hours, everybody talked
about Mike Tomlin, who has a similar resume to John Harball.
John Harball's not been there nearly as long, but they've
both won a Super Bowl. There's been a lot of
distance between now and those last Harbass had more success
Harball's had in the postseason, got to a championship game
last year.

Speaker 6 (37:03):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
But I have seen folks wonder why isn't Harball being
talked about the way Tomlin was.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
I think the playoffs. He has had some playoffs.

Speaker 5 (37:10):
He's also got a better quarterback than Tomlin's had and
any point over the last five or six years. I mean,
it's gotta guys likely to be three time MVP. John
Harball is a great coach, but it is interesting to
me that Tomlin, understandably so, was put in the crosshairs
pretty squarely after Pittsburgh lost to Baltimore. Baltimore loses. I
think they have won playoff games. They did win one

(37:31):
this year.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
You gotta give moments, you gotta win some playoff games,
you gotta be and Toalins won. They haven't been competitive
in playoff games, you know, they haven't.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
So there's a difference. I mean, it matters what it
looks like, right sure.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
I mean I just feel like Harbass teams have been
close now they have have they fallen short and not
been as good in some of these moments. Like we
just talked, Yeah, but like me, still, it's not like
they're out there. They're they're to the wire with these teams.
They're winning some of these games. They're you know, they're
they're in the championship game last year. They're they're they're
playing their best at the end of the season. They
dismantled Pittsburgh in the first round. Like that's a dip.

(38:06):
I mean, that's why. Yeah, And you can't. I can't,
I don't. I don't view them in the same the
same boat. I get it, he's got the quarterback. But
you know that's part of your job as a head
coach if you've been around for a decade and a
half to get the quarterback.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
Get that right? They did?

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Who did Baltimore? Baltimore did Pittsburgh and he's not devoided
responsibility on that.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Well.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
It's interesting because I said last week, I really hope
Pittsburgh stays with what they're doing, right, Like I I
don't want Baltimore to stay with what they're doing. I
want them to move. Yeah, if like Steve Tomlin can
be hired, if Mike as a brother.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
I'm sorry, I think I just think Baltimore is really
well run. No, that they are.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
I don't think anybody Costa who follows the league would
doubt that.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Acosta on down, they do such a good job of replenishing.
They draft.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
Well, that's the most like passionate I've heard you was
the defending John Harbaugh.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
It's good. Sorry, I think.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Harball it's the most passionate. Gods, I gotta some look
in the mirror stuff right there. Really, I swear I'll
find passion about other things.

Speaker 5 (39:10):
I are So we had more officiating issues in the NFL.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
It's so good. Can we talk about those guys? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (39:16):
And because I do, you think there's a legitimate fix,
not the league being fixed, that's not that guy, yeah,
but folks who like throw their hands up and go, well,
the league has a problem with the officiating. It's all
we talk about anymore. And there's I think there's validity
to that. We spend way too much time talking about it.
Is there a realistic fix to make officiating less of
a talking point than it seems to be at the

(39:37):
end of every NFL weekend?

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, I think they have to lean into the like
sky Judge thing a little bit more as much as
you can. Where Now there there's another side of this,
because you know what I can't stand and it just
gets the end of college.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Basketball games nothing worse the last two minutes.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
They have ruined the sport almost with the way these
games end, where every single play ends up with these guys.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
I at the.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Monitor, working the wheel, looking at a million replays on
every single detail, and it's like the game I don't
even want the game to get the last two minutes.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
That's when I want to turn it off now, So
you can't go that far.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
But there's a way with sky Judge and with quick
you know, buzzing down or whatever it is, that you
can be like alter this one fight, just open it
up to a little bit more, whether it is challengeable
penalties within the current challenge system not so you're not
adding more challenges, but it's more things that can be challenged,
so there's less discrepancy over some of these really critical

(40:39):
things and even even bad calls. I think at some
point you've got to get away from the referees feelings
and egos over having their calls overturned and judgment calls
not being subject to review. If you're gonnap. It's just
there's too many there's too much ability to sit there
and watch it and be like, but I just I
see it with my own eyes.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
This is like the catch argument.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
I see it with my own eyes, like that's not
a penalty, or that is a penalty. I can see
it like that on the replay. Why can't you have
somebody who's just sitting there like everyone in America and
saying that's not a penalty, buzz like and fixing that
or having it be challengeable quit you know, and open
to open to fit. I think that's the only way
you can go. You gotta fight fire with fire in

(41:20):
this one. If America is seeing it this way, yes,
you as a referee contingent need to also be able
to see it that way. That's the only way I
think that you can really fix it, because it's otherwise.
It's you're always gonna have the slow, super slow motion
replays and all that stuff. It's it's a hard job.
They put too much on those guys plates as it is.
It's passionate enough.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
It's good. It's you're fired enough. I like it.

Speaker 5 (41:43):
My favorite part of the college basketball thing they do
with the replay monitor is they'll have two of the
officials go to the monitor and then the one will
stand like five feet behind them with his arms crossed,
sometimes just staring into the crowd and he's like, I
don't have to check this out.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
I'm not a part of it.

Speaker 5 (42:00):
And invariably the two guys at the monitor, hey man,
why don't you take a look at this? And if
I was that guy, I would say, no, you can't
figure it out.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
You can't figure it.

Speaker 5 (42:10):
You can't. Then you guys decided you wanted to take
a look I'm standing here. Once you decide that.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Do not ask for my assistance.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
No, no, If you can't figure it out over there
in ten seconds by looking quickly at a replay, then
stands as called right, let's go move on. Please, I
don't need another five minute break while we look at it.
Whose fingertip it hit first? You ever send a vague
tweet yourself?

Speaker 5 (42:33):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (42:34):
I might do one.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Now, I'll do one right after the show, just to
make people wonder what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Great, I'll do that. I'll do that for you. Thanks. Yeah,
it's not gonna be aimed at me, is it.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
I mean, you won't know. It'll be vague. That's the
whole point, all right. Read Paul's work the Athletic dot Com.
Hear the podcast. It's the Growler. When's the When am
I on again tomorrow?

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Tomorrow? Great? Very good?

Speaker 5 (42:56):
All right, well we look forward to that. Balls don't lie.
Check out Paul's work again in The Athletic. Let's talk
about last night's National Championship game and the big announcement
afterward next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.

Speaker 6 (43:13):
UC Health Traffic Center. At UC Health, you'll find comprehensive
care that's so personal it makes your best tomorrow possible.
That's foundless care for better outcomes. Expect more at UCHealth
dot com East found two seventy five at I seventy five.
It's an accident that off onto the right shoulder southbound

(43:33):
seventy five at Ezra Charles Drive. Another accident on the
left shoulder northbound seventy one seventy five. It's an accident
before twelfth Street. I'm at Ezalik with traffic. It's to
win one thousand dollars. Enter this nationwide keyword on our website. Bonus.
That's bonus. Enter it now.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 5 (43:54):
All right, thanks five minutes out for four. This is
ESPN fifteen thirty onm Oeger Thanks, thank you for listening.
I hope you're having an awesome Tuesday afternoon.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
We are guests free the rest of the way.

Speaker 5 (44:07):
MKU coach a show at six o'clock tonight on ESPN
fifteen thirty. I have not mentioned our show preview video,
which is up on x or Twitter or whatever you
want to call it at Moegar. Thanks to Emory Federal
Credit Union, your credit union with hard since nineteen thirty nine.
Go to EMORYFCU dot org and become a member just

(44:30):
like me. Congratulations to Ohio State, to Buckeye fans, and
to Ryan Day.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
And I you know, I'm a uc fan.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
I don't necessarily think that means you have to hate
Ohio State. If you do, that's fine. I'm I'm emotionally detached.
I rooted for them last night for purely financial reasons,
and so I was happy the Buckeyes won last night.
I'm genuinely happy for fans of that program, like my

(44:59):
guy Tarren Austin Elmore, huge Buckeye fans.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
And the way they did it has never been done before.

Speaker 5 (45:06):
It's the first ever twelve team college football playoff. The
way they did it, I think says a lot about
the quality of the talent they have. They were simply
better in every phase than Notre Dame last night. It
says something about the depth of their coaching staff. There's
a great piece on Chip Kelly today, the Ohio State
offensive coordinator, at The Ringer dot Com by one of
my favorite writers, Brian Curtis, and it says a lot

(45:28):
about Ryan Day I'm really happy for Ryan Day. I'm
happy for him that he can be judged more by
a body of work that now includes a national championship,
because his body of work is really, really good. Now,
you might argue he walked into a situation where he
was set up for immediate success, and there's some validity

(45:49):
to that, but that's okay. He's also had a lot
of success. And yes, the Michigan thing is there and
it's inescapable, and you can't talk about Ryan Day. You
can't talk about any Ohio State coach without mentioning how
they do in arguably the sports biggest rivalry in a
game that means a lot.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
To a lot of people.

Speaker 5 (46:09):
But I was talking with Austin and I heard him
say this on the air today and he credited Joe Daniman.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
And Joe's a smart guy.

Speaker 5 (46:18):
But Joe tried to hammer home the point that I
tried to make that nobody wanted to hear. Buckeye fans
didn't want to hear because they were still really pissed off.
And like I get it, man, when emotions are high,
sometimes you don't want the dude swooping in who doesn't
have the same emotional baggage who doesn't care nearly as much.
Trying to be logical, like, I understand that we've all

(46:38):
been there as sports fans. Right your team has just
suffered this awful loss. You don't need some rando guy
coming in telling you will actually here's how you should feel.
But my take after the Michigan game was, Look, I
understand what it's like to watch your team lose to
Arrival every year. I am a hardcore UC basketball fan

(46:59):
prior to the year they had lost is Xavier five
consecutive years. Any fan of any team that's gonna get tired,
that's gonna get it's gonna beat you down, It's gonna
wear it you mentally and emotionally.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Like, I get that.

Speaker 5 (47:11):
But the reality is in college football, we have, more
than ever before, minimized the impact of individual.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
Regular season games.

Speaker 5 (47:22):
Regular season games in college football still mean a lot,
and rivalry games still mean a lot. But what has
often made Ohio State versus Michigan so special was that
it's it's often determined who's gonna play for and before
the Big Ten Championship game who wins the Big Ten title. Well,
Ohio State didn't win the Big ten title this year?

(47:44):
Did they didn't even play in the conference championship game?

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Did they?

Speaker 5 (47:47):
It matters, but it doesn't matter as much. The game
itself doesn't matter as much. And so it's it's always
been odd to me, as we have talked about Ryan
Day versus Michigan, that in an era where regular season
games mean less than they ever have, we've placed an
ordint amount of importance on this one regular season game.

(48:08):
Those two things, to me, at least, don't necessarily mesh.
And I kind of feel like, now that the emotion
has subsided from what happened on that day in November,
that a lot of people look at it the way
I do. Okay, yes, it sucks to lose to your arrival,
and it really sucks to lose to your arrival at
home when your rivals team that year isn't that good.

(48:32):
But did it keep the Buck guys from the playoff?
Did it keep the Buck guys from having an opportunity
to win a national championship? No, the impact of the
game is not what it used to be, So let's
not inflate its importance to a point that it's never been.
And I feel like more Ohio State fans look at

(48:53):
it my way, and that's I think it's easy to
do that now because they have won the title. But
that was my take back in November, and nobody wanted
to hear it then. Maybe more want to hear it now,
and so I'm really happy for Ryan Day. I think
it says a lot about how his team coalesced around him.
I think it says a lot about him listening to
a lot of the players talk about him in the

(49:14):
aftermath of the Tennessee game, in the aftermath of the
Oregon game, and certainly in the aftermath of these two
games that they've won in the semi and winning last night.
You know, I thought he handled all the public criticism
very very well, and yet he still got his team
to play together, to look focused, to stay together.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
I think that's harder than ever.

Speaker 5 (49:36):
People are going to talk about the abundance of talent
that Ohio State had and well, the championship was bought
and paid for, which is I think a really silly
thing to say. But I think in this day and age,
it's never been more difficult to keep a team together.
And Ryan Day did that. And whatever amount of blame
or anger you want to throw his way for losing
to Michigan every year, You've got to credit him for

(49:59):
the way his team played in the four games subsequent
to the Michigan game.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
So we get to judge Ryan Day.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
We always have been able to do this, but it's
a little bit easier to judge him by the body
of work that now includes a national title. Ryan Day's
body of work prior to last night was terrific. Ryan
Day's body of work right now is awesome. And I
don't know who the consensus best coach in college football

(50:26):
is right now. It feels like since Nick Saban's retirement that.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
That job, that title is up in the air.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
But you can't have the conversation without including Ryan Day's name,
and so good for him, good for the buck Eys,
and I mean this, I'm sincerely happy for Ohio State
fans who got their their moment last night. But late
last night something happened that I don't think a lot
of people are talking about. In fact, I saw this

(50:57):
at eleven twelve last night, which I guess was shortly
after the.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Game ended.

Speaker 5 (51:04):
At Ohio State FB on Twitter, which is I guess.
The Ohio State Football Twitter account tweeted this anytime, anywhere,
any place, Ohio against the world. Anytime, anywhere, any place,

(51:36):
Ohio against the world. It's an interesting thing to tweet
right after you've won a national championship. And it got
my attention because for years I've heard about how Ohio
State doesn't play other Ohio schools unless the game is

(51:58):
at Ohio Stadium. There was the the one off at
what used to be called Paul Brown Stadium twenty three
years ago. But they're not going to example, play at
Nippert Stadium, and they're not going to go to play it,
for example, Jaeger Stadium, and they're not going to go
play it at BG or at OU. There's a lot

(52:19):
of reasons for this, and so that's you know, you
think of how many different programs would have loved a
chance to have the Ohio State Buckeyes come into their
stadium and the game might turn might might not turn
out the way that those folks want, but you at
least would get your crack at Ohio State on your field,

(52:42):
in your stadium, maybe with more of your supporters in
the stands. But Ohio State has, and again perhaps understandably so,
for a century, said nope, We're not doing it. We're
only going to play you in a one off or
in a multi game series where it's essentially a by game.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
If you play in our building.

Speaker 5 (53:06):
Anywhere any place, would suggest that they actually will play
games in the state of Ohio outside the confines of
Ohio Stadium. That's not me saying That's what the tweet says, anytime, anywhere,

(53:29):
any place. Now it doesn't say anybody, so if you
really want to nitpick, but it does.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Say anywhere any place.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
It also says Ohio against the world, so the world's
a big place. I am kind of curious to see
if these scheduling philosophy moving forward, and I know college
football schedules are set years in advance. The Buckeyes are
going to open up against Texas next seas in a
rematch of a semi final game.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Which will be awesome.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
But if we're really going to do anywhere any place,
would suggest to me the Buckeyes are going to be
open to playing games, perhaps in their cherished state of
Ohio outside the confines of Ohio Stadium. I thought that
was a really big announcement last night. Really happy to
hear it. I think it's overdue now where in which

(54:25):
Ohio schools they play.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
I have no idea.

Speaker 5 (54:30):
They've obviously played home games against UC and you know,
let's face it, UC fans have always clamored to play
Ohio State and the Buckeyes usually win that game pretty resoundingly.
And so I haven't had much of an appetite to
see the Bearcats go to Columbus again, because again, those
games don't turn out well, most of them are not
very competitive. But perhaps it would be awesome to entertain

(54:52):
the Buck guys at Neppert Stadium, for example, or maybe
the other team in Ohio that won a bowl game
this year. I mean RedHawks would get a crack at
hosting the Ohio State Buckeyes at Jager Stadium, or the
the ou Bobcats, now with a coaching change coming off
their ball victory, get a chance to host the anywhere, anytime,

(55:14):
any place, OSU Buck Eyes, and in their stadium in Athens.
We'll see big announcement last night, so awesome, even bigger
Ryan Dave fan now that he is embraced.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
You know what, Yeah, well we'll go play.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
People play any anywhere, anywhere, any place, anywhere in any
place means outside of Columbus in your own state.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Be cool.

Speaker 5 (55:36):
I mean they play those schools. Maybe go play a
road game against Toledo Rockets, the Kent State Golden Flashes.
I love this well, thank you for you.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
You see Bearcastle line my Bowling Green Falcons to come
to Nippert next year.

Speaker 5 (55:51):
You know, anytime any play Bowling Green probably win. I
should say that, Uh, you know, it'd be cool to
have beg there. I don't know if you sees mantra
is any time any place I think the mantra should
be can we can we find six games we can
win next season? Hopefully they can, But you know, anywhere

(56:12):
any place would suggest maybe they'll go to like a
Knippert Stadium.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
We will. We will see.

Speaker 5 (56:19):
Seventeen minutes after four o'clock. I do want to ask
what the problem with buying a title is, because I've
seen now they bought a title. Sports fans are weird
in this one regard. We'll get to what it is
next on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteenth.

Speaker 5 (56:36):
Try darn new features, new functions, easier to use, there's presets.
It's actually really really good, and you can still send
talkbacks to Tony and Austin and it's free. It's free,
I said twenty three after four o'clock. By the way,
tomorrow in the show, Chris Vilaka is going to be on.
He's the new Reds hitting coach and a guy who's

(56:58):
a first big league homer. Iye, I'm using air quotes here.
I caught, I caught. I picked up his first big
league homer. And I want to know what he did
with the ball, because I gave it back to him.
More than anything, I want to know what he's gonna
do with some of these hitters. He is gonna join
us at three twenty. Reds released just a few minutes
ago their list of players they are inviting to big

(57:19):
league camp. Jose Kunner, Edwin a War, I cannot talk
Edwin Arroyo, Will Banfield, Chase Burns, Cam Collier, who has
a chance to be awesome, Ivan Johnson, or maybe it's
a Vaughn. I don't know, Maybe chrispha Lakan knows, Zach Maxwell,
Chase Petty, Hector Rodriguez, Brian Shaw, Sal Stewart, Lenny Torres,

(57:43):
Michael Trautwine, Austin Wins and Alex Young.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Best of luck.

Speaker 5 (57:50):
The Baseball Hall of Fame comes out with their where
the Baseball Hall of Fame, I guess doesn't come out
with their class. We find out who has been elected
into the Hall by the writers, in which we'll be
joining the great Dave Parker and Dick Allen in Cooperstown
in the summer of twenty five. That comes up at
six o'clock tonight. A few thoughts on that a little

(58:12):
bit later on. Quickly, I think we as sports fans
are weird for a lot of different reasons, most of
which I fully embrace. But this is one of the
weirder ones for me. We hate a team that doesn't spend.
I hear this about the Reds all the time, what
they don't spend, what the player payroll is. And by
the way, and I had this conversation with somebody who

(58:35):
works for the Reds about a month ago. You have
never heard me once complain about what the Reds spend.
Never because I don't care. I care about the results
they achieve. Now, you're certainly being reasonable. If you connect
a lack of spending to lack of winning, that's fine.
But spend what you gotta spend, save what you gotta save.

(58:57):
Just achieve better results. You've I promise you this. You
know we save every show. You've never heard me complain
about what they spend or don't spend. But we as
sports fans, we love to hammer away at cheap ownership.
In Pittsburgh, they're all mad right now, and understandably so,
because the owner there has said I'm not going to

(59:17):
sell the team, even though they won't spend on the
team and they haven't won in Pittsburgh in forever, and
fans were hopeful that the owner, Bob Nutting, would sell
the team, I guess, and he has said that he
is not. So they're all up in arms there in Pittsburgh,
which is understandable. We love to weil away at teams
that don't use their resources, at teams that don't spend money.

(59:41):
But when a team does spend money, we get mad
at them too. The La Dodgers in Baseball right now,
you may hate, but they, after winning the World Series,
have spent and deferred a lot of money this offseason
to make the team even better. I don't like it
as a Reds fan because I wish some of those
guys were on the Reds, and I wish the Reds

(01:00:02):
had a you might say, a realistic chance to get
some of those guys, whether or not they can or
don't or won't or should and is a different conversation.
But we get mad at the teams that don't spend,
but we get mad at the teams that do. That
doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So last night,
Ohio State wins with what has been touted as a.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Twenty million dollar roster.

Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
Whether the players on Ohio State's team this year collectively
made twenty million dollars, I have no idea, but I'm
willing to bet given the amount of high end transfers
they brought in and very good players that they've managed
to hang on to, that a lot of money has
been spent to build that Ohio State roster, and it's
being done legally, it's being done within the rules, and

(01:00:46):
it's being done for the most part, with a degree
of transparency that a lot of us, I think a
lot of us really like so OSU wins and like
we do this as sports fans. Team accomplishes something and
because we're jealous, we try to knock them down a peg.
And so last night it was out there on social
media what they bought a title. Okay, cool, what's wrong

(01:01:10):
with doing that? I will and I'll make this about
the Dodgers. I'll make it about Ohio State football. I'll
make it about Kentucky basketball. Whatever big spending behemoth is
out there using the rules to their benefit. I'll never

(01:01:31):
get mad at them for doing that, and I'll never
try to knock them down or wrong if they achieve
what they desire to achieve. The bigger story to me
would be if Ohio State football, a school with a
massive alumni base, a program that is the game in Columbus.
The bigger story to me would be if they didn't

(01:01:54):
have a twenty million dollar roster. Ohio State should and
does that ross and it's what's spent on it dwarf
other schools in the Big Ten and other schools in
the area. Sure, but they have resources, and they have
resources that a lot of other schools do not. You
mean to tell me they shouldn't use those resources. Look, man,

(01:02:17):
I'm a Bearcat fan. I certainly hope you see can
figure out a way to keep up financially in terms
of what they can do with revenue sharing and nil
to legitimately compete in the Big twelve. I understand they're
probably never gonna be able to spend on players what
Ohio State can spend. That's kind of been the case

(01:02:38):
now for a while in terms of what they can
spend on coaches, facilities, recruiting. Like there's always been in
college sports. We've never had a level playing field. It's
a great misnomer. So I hear critics of the nil
and the portal say, well, you know we've widened the gap.
We're gonna have more haves and have nots. We already
have them. We don't have an equal playing field. I

(01:03:00):
might be in the minority here. You could tell me
should you ever fault anyone for using the resources they
have at their disposal, whether it's in sports, business or
in life. It's like getting mad at rich people for
owning nice houses. What do you expect them to do
with their money? Not spend it? Ohio states have. Ohio

(01:03:23):
State has resources. They're not the only one. They might
not have the most. They may, but they've got more
than most. Bigger story to me, and what would get
more criticism would be, Dude, you'r Ohio State. You can't
find twenty million dollars to put together a pseudo NFL
roster Like if that was the case, then I think
he should roll. Then I think you have a thorough

(01:03:44):
examination of the program. It's not buying a championship. It's
using what's available to you and using those resources within
the parameters of the rules.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
There's nothing wrong with doing that.

Speaker 5 (01:03:58):
There's nothing wrong with doing that if you're the LA
Dodgers or the New York Yankees or Ohio State. It
is so interesting to me that we do this all
the time. We criticize the cheap teams, and then we
criticize the ones that spend lavishly. If you're doing so
within the rules, why should I criticize you for spending lavishly.

(01:04:22):
It's not buying a title, it's playing a game by
the rules. By the way, next year, probably somebody, it
might be Ohio State, will spend more than twenty million
dollars on their roster. Now you might argue, well, there
should be a cap and we have to regulate this better,
and I'm here for those conversations. It's you still have
to coach the players. You still have to manage egos,
you have to manage all the stuff the coaches have

(01:04:43):
to deal with. Now in this era that we're in,
you still have to put the players on the right spots,
still have to develop them.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
That's not easy to do.

Speaker 5 (01:04:52):
In fact, I would argue it's more difficult to do now.
There's not if you want to call it buying a title,
it's buying a title.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
But that's fine.

Speaker 5 (01:05:00):
There's nothing wrong with using the resources that are available
to you. Ohio State did that. By the way, other
schools spent lavishly on their rosters. Blame them for not winning.
Wonder why they couldn't achieve what Ohio State did. Wonder
why some of those teams couldn't get to the playoff
or advance when they got there. Why criticize anybody for

(01:05:24):
operating within the rules and using what's available to them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
I'm all leaders.

Speaker 5 (01:05:30):
Sports headlines are coming up and tonight is huge. Tonight
is enormous for the Bearcats. We'll get to their tilt
against Texas Tech next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
Station, Cincinnati's Espncinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 5 (01:05:45):
Sports Headlines or a service of Kelsey Chevrolet Home of
Lifetime powertrain protection and guarantee credit approval from their family
to yours for life, kelseyschev Dot com. According to our
friend Paul and junior Al Golden is expected to interview
formerly with Zach Taylor for the Bengals defensive coordinator Vacancy

(01:06:07):
Golden's Notre Dame team falling in last night's national title
tilt to Ohio State. Meanwhile, Bengals have a given Titan
Cam Grandy a one year contract extension. Camp played in
eight games for the Bengals last year, had five catches
for twenty eight yards. Tonight's we find out who will
make up the rest of the Baseball Hall of Fame
class of twenty twenty five the writers. The result of

(01:06:30):
the writers vote will be revealed tonight shortly after six o'clock.
I got nine names that those folks who had ballots
should have checked off. Will give you those in just
a few minutes tonight. College basketball. You see, this is
a big game for the Bearcats, and I know I've
harped on this a lot. Cincinnati has won their last
two games. They went on the road against Colorado, didn't

(01:06:51):
play great, bought some time because they could not start
zero to five in the league, bought some time to
get a win against Arizona State. I think that Sun
Devil's team should be better than it is, but they're
not a very good team. Bearcats beat them. I thought
UC's offense executed better now. They didn't make shots, and

(01:07:14):
he might be going, well, who cares if you don't
make shots. I thought the offense looked less clunky, less stagnants,
and I thought the offense resulted in better looks you
see right now. Is just not a very good shooting team,
and they might not be a good shooting team all
season long. They took care of the basketball, they ran

(01:07:36):
a little bit more. I think having CJ. Frederick on
the floor is important because he's a high basketball IQ
guy who can make shots. And so I liked a
lot of what I saw and they defended well. They're
gonna have to be even better tonight. Texas Tech is
thirteen and four. Their four losses have come by a
combined eleven points. They are four and two in the league.

(01:07:56):
This is a quad one win opportunity. The Red Raiders
fourteenth in the net rankings. There is I think fair
to say a massive difference between by nine to fifteen. Tonight,
you see sitting at thirteen and five and three and
four in the league with a Q one win under

(01:08:17):
their belt versus being twelve and six, two and five
in the league, one in three at home and no
Q one wins on the resume. The difference between the
two is massive, at least in my opinion. At some point,
you've got to start building a resume. And you could say, well,

(01:08:38):
you see, he's got plenty of Q one opportunities in
front of them, plenty of resume building opportunities in front
of them.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
That is true.

Speaker 5 (01:08:45):
You got to start taking advantage of those opportunities, especially
when you have them at home. They have them at
home tonight, and again, I know I've beaten this to death.
They were bad at home last year four and five.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
That's not good.

Speaker 5 (01:08:57):
Enough so far at home this season in the twelve
they lost their first two games, beat Arizona State.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
You've got to get tonight now.

Speaker 5 (01:09:06):
The next two road games are winnable, but I think
we're gonna talk about them in a little bit different light.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
BYU in Utah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:13):
If you see wins tonight and goes on the road
for consecutive games on the strength of a three game
winning streak, lose this one, you're sitting there at two
and five in the league. You've blown an opportunity for
a Q one win, and you start to put a
little bit more pressure on having to win road games,
which is really hard in the Big twelve. You see
last year four and five they went seven and eleven

(01:09:34):
in the league. So what do they do on the road?
They win three and six. Obviously they're playing ten league
road games this year. Can they get to four? They
get to four road wins in the league, I'll take
that if they're good at home. If you're not good
at home, it puts more pressure on having to win
on the road. And I don't think that's what Wes
Miller and his team won seven o'clock tonight on seven

(01:09:56):
hundred WLW. I think tonight ignites the season or it
throws a lot of cold water on the season, hopefully
the former and not the latter. Also, tonight, Miami is
taking on Bowling Green. Good for Travis Steele. His team
is off to a five and zero start in the league.
They are thirteen and four overall. That game tips off

(01:10:17):
at seven o'clock tonight and the Dayton Flyers are in
Pittsburgh to take on Ducaine UD coming off there dramatic
overtime last second victory over Loyola of Chicago. That game
tonight also tips off at seven o'clock. I do wonder
we got a lot of phone calls last week about
Wes Miller, and it comes with the territory, it comes
with losing, and West has taken some, I think, for

(01:10:39):
the most part, pretty fair criticism. I think he'd be
the first to say that a lot of the criticism
that he has been getting has been fair.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
The goal this season was to make the NCAA Tournament.

Speaker 5 (01:10:50):
I think we all looked at this team this year
and said, all right, the program's tournament drought ends this season.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
Here's my question. If we are.

Speaker 5 (01:11:00):
Among those who's out on Wes, skeptical of Wes, not
sure about Wes.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
You were in but now you're out.

Speaker 5 (01:11:08):
If they simply qualify for the NCAA tournament, is that enough?

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
Is making the tournament?

Speaker 5 (01:11:19):
Let's say they get in as a ten seed and
loseing round one is for this year? Is that enough?
And I don't know that I have an answer either way,
because you know, if there is something so unfulfilling about
seeing your team make it and lose their first game,
be won and done, not even get to the weekend,

(01:11:40):
but I get the sense, and I think you could
have applied this to Scott Saderfield this year as well.
Everybody said, well, they got to get to a bowl game.
Have they been six and six and got into a
bowl game? Would a critic of Scott's Sadderfield thought, you
know what, they're good, they achieved their goal. They're fine.
I'm in I don't think the answer is yes. I'm
not sure it's to be yes. If UCE just makes

(01:12:02):
the NCAA tournament, we'll see matchups have something to do
with it, how they play, that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
It's also still the goal this year. And again, like I've.

Speaker 5 (01:12:12):
Talked about this with Tony and Austin, I've not paid
any bit of attention to stuff like bracketology. I look
at net rankings and Ken Palm and Warren Nolan and Bartrovic.
I haven't looked at fake brackets that really don't matter
all that much. I'll start to care about such things
if they win tonight, like I'll take a glance and see,

(01:12:34):
all right, where does some of the better bracketologists have
them in or out? And you could use that maybe
as the gauge for what they have to do. This
team is not going to be a lock to make
the NCAA Tournament if they are included in fake brackets tomorrow,
and they're not a lock to miss it if they're not.
But I've been more interested in the basketball part of it.

(01:12:54):
The basketball part of it. I thought took a step
in the right direction against Arizona State needs to take
an even bigger step tonight. Quote to five on ESPN
fifteen thirty, we are We're getting ready for something tonight
that I really really enjoy.

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
It's the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's the reveal of
who made it.

Speaker 5 (01:13:17):
But I think tonight we're gonna get something I really enjoy,
really enjoy.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Above and beyond that, we'll get to that.

Speaker 5 (01:13:23):
And uh, I was talking about Paul Danner Junior about
an interesting list, an interesting list not because of who's
on it. I'll explain coming up at five oh five
on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic from.

Speaker 6 (01:13:44):
The UC Health Traffic Center at U see healthy. You'll
find comprehensive care that's so personal it makes your best
tomorrow possible. That's found less care for better outcomes. Expect
more at ucehealth dot com. South Fountain seventy five the
low lane blocked from an accident between Western Hills Viaduct
and Ezra Charles Drive. It's a six minute delay eastbound

(01:14:08):
on two seventy five from Reed Hartman Highway over toward
Montgomery Road. That he's that like with traffic lock.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Moegger.

Speaker 5 (01:14:20):
One thing I forgot to mention in sports headlines because
I continue to be an unmitigated disorganized mess. FC Cincinnati
is finalizing an agreement to sin al Varro Burial on
loan two Santo's sc through the end of the twenty
twenty five year with a purchase option. This according to
the Queen City Press, which if you're an FC Cincinnati fan,

(01:14:41):
even a casual one like me, you should subscribe to. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
There you go.

Speaker 5 (01:14:47):
We're gonna find out who who's gonna be in the
Hall of Fame tonight, the Baseball Hall of Fame the Writers.
The result of the writer's vote comes out tonight. Obviously
we already knew. We found out about a month and
a half ago that Dave Parker Overdue is going to
ge in, which is awesome as well as Dick Allen,
who again well overdue. I love I love something we

(01:15:09):
get this time of year. You get the not all
of them, but many writers will reveal their ballot publicly,
and along with that you often get a column explaining
their vote, and I I really appreciate that as a
as a fan, I appreciate the non obligated attempt to transparency.

(01:15:36):
Because you can turn in your ballot, you can do
it anonymously, not reveal who you are. You know, I
think we're still trying to figure out who the three
people are who didn't vote for King Griffy Junior or
the one person who didn't vote for Derek Jeter. But
I like the ones that not only maybe on social
media or perhaps just in a column, show you their ballot,

(01:15:58):
show you who they voted for, and then playing their
rationale for who they voted for and in some cases
why they didn't vote for certain players. I don't always agree,
of course, but that's okay. I like the transparency. A
process that for decades could not have been less transparent
has been made more transparent because the willingness of a

(01:16:19):
lot of the people who vote to share with you,
share with us who they voted for and explain why.

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
And I love reading those pieces.

Speaker 5 (01:16:26):
They're thoughtful, and it goes to show like everybody has
different criteria. Everybody has different things that they value. Everybody
has different things that they attach a lot of importance to,
and they have things that they really don't find or
deemed to be that important. Everybody seems to contextualize the
players in the steroid era differently. One thing we're gonna

(01:16:48):
do tonight, though each euro Suzuki is going to get in,
and he is a no brainer and a marvelous hitter
to watch, a guy who, like, I don't think there
are folks and look, he played most of his career
in the Northwest.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
I don't think.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
I think there's a lot of folks who don't realize
he has over three thousand hits in the United States
and realize that he had ten years in a row
with two hundred hits and a gold glove, and really
know how good of a fielder he was, and really
know how good of a just overall offensive player he was.
But he should go in, and maybe he goes in unanimously.

(01:17:29):
We've obviously had one unanimous Hall of Famer. It was
Mariano Rivera each year row will get in, and if
he's unanimous, awesome, and if he's not, that's also awesome.
What we will do, though, is if one person doesn't
vote for him, or if five people don't vote for him,
whatever the number is, we're gonna spend more time, because

(01:17:51):
we do this all the time. We're gonna spend more
time on who didn't vote for him and trying to
find out who they are and pin them down to
explain themselves. Then we do actually celebrating the player who
got in and talking about his accomplishments.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
And now I think it's always interesting.

Speaker 5 (01:18:08):
And I don't think we got this with Jeter, and
I don't think we got this with Ken Griffy Junior.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
Is if the people who didn't.

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
Vote for guys like that, like you know, those are
two players that are are examples, but obviously there are
many Like Ricky Henderson just passed away. When he made
the Hall of Fame in two thousand and nine. It's
two thousand and nine, there were people who didn't vote
for him. I'd love somebody to volunteer themselves to explain why.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
You know what.

Speaker 5 (01:18:36):
I looked at Ricky Henderson and said, uh uh not
this time not doing it like I wish those somebody
who maybe didn't vote for each yier Row and again
he may go in unanimously. Chances are that's not going
to happen. But if you're among those who don't vote
for him, what's the reasoning, what's the explanation, what's the rationale.
I'm probably not going to agree with it, but I

(01:18:57):
will appreciate somebody stepping out in publicly go on, Yeah,
I'm the guy that didn't vote for him. And here's why.
If I had a ballot, which I obviously don't, each
year Row would be on it, Alex Rodriguez would be
on it, and Manny Ramirez would be on it. Alex
Rodriguez is one of the best four players I've ever watched.
I do not care about the steroids. I stopped caring

(01:19:20):
entirely about steroids the moment Bud Seelely got in. When
Bud seeleg and Tony LaRussa got in, two profiteers from
the steroid era, I then dropped any any residual or
left over concern for players who tested positive, players who
blatantly cheated, I do not care, So I put those

(01:19:42):
guys in many Ramirez is the second greatest right handed
hitter I've ever seen and should be in the Hall
of Fame. I'd put in CC Sabathia, that's a no brainer.
I cannot believe Billy Wagner's on his tenth ballot. He's
one of the greatest lefty relievers of all time, historically great.
Carlos Beltran is being unfairly punished for his role in

(01:20:04):
the Astros sign stealing thing. The manager of that team
has a job, The GM of that team has a job.
Nobody else has suffered punishment like having people not vote
for him.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
His body of work is awesome. He should be in.

Speaker 5 (01:20:18):
So should Chase Utley, So should Jimmy Rollins, so should
Andrew Jones. There should not be a character clause, and
so if I had to vote, I would not pay
attention to it. Baseball writers should be voting on who
the best baseball players were, not the best human beings.
Andrew Jones had a very short, short shelf life. Is
a great player, but that shelf life was still really

(01:20:41):
really good, and few players were as entertaining. And he
might be the best defensive centerfielder I've seen. So those
are the nine guys, the smart writers will have the
same ballot, but their ballot will be real in mine's imaginary.

Speaker 3 (01:20:54):
We'll get that a.

Speaker 5 (01:20:55):
Little bit after six o'clock tonight, and then they'll be
like until we find something else on social media to
get mad about, an unending witch hunt to find who
the people are that didn't vote for Ichi Row and
maybe he goes in unanimously, and that'll be awesome. Most importantly,
anybody who does get voted in. And I feel like
Eachi rose a slam dunk. I don't know why Sabbathi

(01:21:17):
is not. Regardless, the most important person who goes in
this summer is the colbrat, Dave Parker, and again, congratulations
to him. Lots to get to over the next hour.
Kirk Kurbstreet took some criticism because he was crying tears
of joy in a postgame interview last night. I have
no issue with him crying tears of joy.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
None.

Speaker 5 (01:21:41):
I've seen folks say, well, he can't be objective, he
should recuse himself. No, he shouldn't. No issue with the
tears of joy. I'll explain why more on the bear
Cats as they get set to take the floor tonight.
And I tell you what man. We're gonna talk a
lot about the Bengals and their finances and what to
do with you Higgins, and what's do in free agency.

(01:22:03):
I read something today that got me excited. I'll tell
you what it is when we come back. I'm oegar.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
I'm Kareem abduo vir bar one.

Speaker 4 (01:22:14):
You found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
That is us.

Speaker 5 (01:22:22):
It helps to know how to hit the microphone button.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty on oegor. Thank you for
joining us. Thrilled that you are here. Thrilled I say, uh.
By the way, we talked about the game last night,
Ohio State beats Notre Dame, and so now it feels
like it's you hate to say done deal, but it's

(01:22:46):
it's it's minus odds without much payoff. If you're going
to put money on Al Golden being the Bengals defensive coordinator,
I I Notre Dame was not great defensively last night.
I don't know that there's anything on the two real
impact plays Jeremiah Smith made. I don't know that there's
anything Al Golden schematically really could have done. I did

(01:23:07):
not watch that game last night through the lens of
I'm gonna make my determination about Al Golden based on
how Notre Dame plays against the Buckeyes in the National
Championship game. I don't think that's the most un I
don't think that's the most fair way to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
I'm I'm on board with Al Golden.

Speaker 5 (01:23:24):
I don't know that I have changed my opinion about
the Bengals based on his hire, but I get a
few thoughts on what it seems they're likely to do.
Paul Daanner Junior joined us in the first hour and
talked about the expected timeline here, which will be Al
kind of putting a bow on the season and taking
care of his obligations in South Bend and then coming

(01:23:44):
here tomorrow for an interview with Zach Taylor, and then
I think the expectation is there's going to be a
formal announcement that he is the team's new defensive coordinator
later this week. By the way, the Colts made official
what we found out yesterday, and that's lu An Aromo
as the new defensive coordinator in Indy. The game last
night kind of played out the way a lot of

(01:24:06):
us expected it, which was Notre Dame got the ball first,
and if they did, you knew that they were going
to put together a drive that would make Frank Lahy proud.
And they did, eating up nearly an entire quarter. Ohio
States just had too much firepower. Will Howard made a
couple of great throws. The game got to be a
little bit uneasy if you're a Buckeye fan in the
fourth quarter, and then Howard does a great pass the

(01:24:30):
Jeremiah Smith. They kicked the field goal, and the game
ends in Ohio State winning a national championship. And I'm
no Buckeye fan, if you will, but I found Ryan
Day in the aftermath of what happened against Michigan to
be a sympathetic figure and not a figure who was
undeserving a lot of a lot of the criticism that
he got because I watched that OSU versus Michigan game,

(01:24:52):
and Ohio State should have blown them out, and the
main reason why they didn't, I thought that Day was coaching,
specifically Ryan Day's coaching, and so the criticism in a
vacuum aimed at the coach was valid.

Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
The folks who talked about there's no way they can
keep them.

Speaker 5 (01:25:10):
And the loons who are out there claiming that it
doesn't matter if he wins a national championship certainly do
not represent the majority of people who care about Ohio
State football. But I think it's often unfair when we
don't judge someone by their entire body of work. Like
in Baltimore, Mark Andrews is I'm sure subject to a

(01:25:35):
lot of criticism and taking some heat because of his
role in Sunday's Baltimore loss to the Buffalo Bills. The
fumble it looked like he was running the wrong way
for a second, and then the drop two point conversion.
Like if I was a Ravens fan, I'd be cursing
Mark Andrew's name deep into Sunday night. But his overall

(01:25:57):
body of work in that city for that team is incredible.
I'm a body of work guy. I talk about this
as it relates to athletes and their legacies all the time.
Brian Kelly UC fans to this day, many of them
still hate him, and I always say, I'm a body
of work guy. I judge the overall body of work.
The body of work does include a real sort of

(01:26:18):
ugly exit, but the overall body of work a lot
more good than bad. Luke Fickle kind of the same thing.
I'm a body of work guy. So Ryan Day's body
of work has been terrific. Terrific. Then you might go
a coach at a program like that has an incomplete
body of work as long as they don't have a
national championship. Well now he does, and he does at

(01:26:41):
the end of the first ever expanded to twelve teams
college football playoff, and more than anything, the way his
team I think rallied around him. And I think rallying
around him was more of a thing in the Tennessee game,
and maybe there was a residual effect in the Oregon
game that it was these last two games. But I mean,
you go back to when the bracket first came out

(01:27:02):
and you had folks who are like, man, Tennessee's gonna
have twenty thousand fans there, the fans are gonna boo
Ryan Day when he comes out. That team's gonna feel
the pressure. And instead they played almost unburdened. I'm sure
they weren't, but they looked like it. They looked like
they were playing for their coach. They looked focused. They

(01:27:23):
didn't look like a team that was coming on the
back end of four weeks of just an unrelenting amount
of heat coming their way and an unrelenting amount of
heat coming their coach's way. I think the way they
played and the way they responded says a lot about
Ryan Day and that staff.

Speaker 3 (01:27:38):
And we talked about this before.

Speaker 5 (01:27:40):
If your immediate takeaway is, well, they bought a championship,
my advice to you is stop being a college football fan,
stop being a college sports fan, because this isn't gonna change.

Speaker 3 (01:27:53):
You might want it to.

Speaker 5 (01:27:54):
You might hope that some of what we're doing right
now in college sports is regulated. This isn't going away
right This is it's professional sports. Like it, dislike it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:07):
I like it.

Speaker 5 (01:28:08):
I like this era that we're in. I would like
some degree of regulation, but I like this. We actually
get a college football offseason that includes content and stuff,
and should the calendar be adjusted shore and we do
the same in college basketball. Rosters are gonna cost a
lot of money, especially until there's some sort of cap

(01:28:29):
on what schools can spend per sport, per player.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
Right now there's none.

Speaker 5 (01:28:34):
It's not like there hasn't already been an arms race
in college sports facilities. Coaches, donor sponsors, etc. The difference
now is the players are getting the coin. If the
takeaway last night was I don't like it because OSU
bought a championship, you might not want to pay attention
to what's next in this sport because that's not changing.

(01:28:56):
So congratulations to Ryan Day. One other thing that took
plays last night. Kirk kurb Street has has become a
kind of a polarizing figure. And I follow Kirk curb
Street on social media and there have been times over
the last couple of months that I've wondered to myself why,

(01:29:20):
And he has shared some opinions that I don't really
agree with in relation to who should have made and
who didn't make the college football playoff field. But his
primary function, his primary function, the reason why he's famous
and the reason why he's well known, and the reason
why he's highly compensated, and the reason why people care

(01:29:41):
about his dog is he is an excellent analyst of football.
He's better, I think, at doing college games than the pros,
but I think he's still a good NFL game analyst
and he is a terrific college football game analyst. He's
also I think, really good on college game day and

(01:30:02):
has always fit exactly the role that that show demands
of him, which has changed because they've added more people
to it. So but he's kind of become a little
bit of a polarizing figure. And I watched him get
into a pissing match with Sea Trent Rosecrans on social
media last summer about the Reds and something that Sea
Trent reported about Jonathan India, and I thought Herbie's in

(01:30:23):
the wrong here. But what he is known for, what
he is paid to do, I think he's great at
I think he is a great college football game analyst,
and I think he's a good NFL game analyst and
getting better maybe because I'm becoming more and more used
to him doing NFL games. So anyway, he calls the
game last night with Chris Fowler, and then he goes
on the Midnight Sports Center with Scott Van Pelt, which

(01:30:44):
is the best show on television, and Scott Van Pelt
asked him a question about seeing his alma mater with
the national title, and Kirk Kerbstreet teared up. He was
obviously emotional and obviously happy for his alma mater, happy
for Ohio State, happy for his son, and I have
seen some folks aim some criticism at Herbie, claiming he

(01:31:08):
can't be objective. He called Ohio State in the game.
He can't be objective, he shouldn't be in the role
that he is in. I think that would be a
fair criticism if in the role that he is in,
his objectivity was compromised. I watched that game last night,
I listened to his call. I watched him call other

(01:31:30):
Ohio State games this year. I've watched him call Ohio
State games throughout the course of his career. I have
never felt like his objectivity, which is required for that job,
has been compromised. I'm sure on some level he's rooting
for Ohio State, and maybe it changes because his other
kid's gonna go to Michigan. But I as long as

(01:31:54):
his objectivity for what he is paid to do and
what he's primarily there for is compromised, then anything else
is irrelevant to me. Now, if he's calling that game
last night, and he's doing it with obvious bias, and
he's rooting for Ohio State, and he's wearing his colors
on his sleeve, and he's he's coloring his commentary with

(01:32:17):
things that would make the viewer know he's rooting for
Ohio State, that would be problematic. There was none of
that on display in that broadcast. You might not think
he's a great game analyst. You might not think he's
very insightful. You might just take issue with the approach
he takes on social media, and that's why you don't

(01:32:39):
like him. I happen to think he's a great game analyst.
And if you sat someone down who didn't know anything
about Kirk Kurbstreet and said, we're going to watch this
game and it's going to be Chris Vawlor and Kirk
Kurbstreet and they had Holly Row and they had Molly
McGrath on the sideline last night. It was good broadcast,

(01:33:00):
a good broadcast, and Foler and Herbstreet are really good together.
But if you took somebody who didn't know about Kirk
Kurbstreet's background and they watched the game with you, if
you asked him after the game, where did Kirk Kurbstreet
go to school? Where did he play college football? They
would say I don't know. And as long as that
is the case, nothing else that he says does no

(01:33:23):
amount of crying, tears or emotion on other outlets matters
at all. He wasn't doing that as part of the
game broadcast. He was doing that as part of a
segment on Sports Center after the game. And so he's
taken a lot of heat for a lot of different things,
a lot of stuff he's put on social media, his
take on Indiana football and the Hoosiers make in the
college football Playoff, and a lot of the criticism that

(01:33:45):
he has taken for his opinions and maybe for his
point of view on social media, I think is fair
and in some cases very very valid, and I agree
with it. But him tearing up last night in a
segment that was apart from the game broadcast didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:34:02):
Bother me in the least. And as long as his.

Speaker 5 (01:34:06):
Primary function, which is to be an objective game analyst,
isn't compromised, then I don't know how anybody could take
any issue with him wearing his emotions on a sleeve
after his alma mater won a national title last night
with Scott Van Pelt eighteen minutes after five o'clock, the

(01:34:28):
list of Bengals possible cap cuts is interesting for one reason.
Next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station, Chapter five,
this is ESPN fifteen thirty. Listen anytime on the iHeartRadio app.
That's also where you get podcasts of this show podcasts.

(01:34:50):
Let's see we mentioned Danner before his list of possible
Bengals cap casualties and veterans that they could cut. You know,
they've got a fair amount of cap space forty four
point two million dollars available according to overthecap dot com.
But if you look at what they could save with

(01:35:11):
cutting Sheldon Rankins, does anybody want Sheldon Rankins back? That'll
save him eight point six? Alex Kappa? Does anybody want
Alex Kappa back? Eight mil? Jermaine Pratt. Jermaine Pratt has
done some good things for the Bengals. One of the
biggest interceptions in franchise history. Watching Jermaine Pratt this year

(01:35:32):
was painful. They could cut him and save six million.
I can find somebody who could do what Jermaine Pratt
does six million bucks.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
I know.

Speaker 5 (01:35:42):
Sam Hubbard's a tough decision. We all love Sam. He's
a popular player. He should be a popular player. One
of the bridges to what the Bengals were pre Joe
Burrow to what they became, which is a team that
played in consecutive AFC title games. They could cut him
and save nine point five mil. They could also agree

(01:36:05):
to a restructure and bring him back. I love Sam,
which Bengals fan does not. Maybe a huge thirst to
see Sam Hubbard on the team next year. That's a
lot of money you could save Gino Stone. I go
back and forth on because when the Bengals defense was
really sinking into the Abyss, Geno Stone's play really stood

(01:36:30):
out the tackling, poor coverage. You know, during that stretch
of time where they gave up consistently huge point totals.
They scored ninety nine points in three games and lost
all of them because the defense couldn't stop anybody. One
of the guys we talked about the most was Geno Stone.
Toward the end of the season, he played better. He's

(01:36:51):
not an old player, he's twenty six. You could save
six point five. I could listen to arguments that, you
know what, light bulb kind of came at the end
of the year, new coordinators, simplified scheme, genostone could play
better this year. That's still a hefty amount of money.
Six point five. I'm willing to move on. Zach Moss

(01:37:13):
three point three, Like, there's this is not something that
the old Bengals used to do. People talk about the
Bengals needing to evolve and change and adapt and adjust.
One thing that used to frustrate a lot of us
was if you had a contract with the Bengals, they
stayed in it. They were loyal to a fault. Now

(01:37:33):
the lack of later on guaranteed money playing a big
part in it. They have hit the eject button on
a lot of different guys. There's a lot of guys
they could hit the eject button on this year. And
if so, add to that forty four point two with
a substantial chunk of money. Like we talk a lot
about what the Bengals are going to do with T
Higgins and financially, you know, how do you make it

(01:37:54):
work in regards to the other areas of need on
the team? They could possibly have a lot of money
to spend this offseason. And by the way, like I
was on a radio station in Indianapolis today this morning
to talk about lou Ana Romo. I do not know
why they called me, And at the end of the interview,
I was asked, well, what are they gonna do with

(01:38:15):
T Higgins? And I said, like, well, nobody knows, and
anybody who tells you they know is line nobody knows.
And you know, right now they're kind of at the
mercy of t Higgins because he's no longer under contract
and the new league year is going to start here soon,
and if he wants to hear what other teams have
to say, then he can go here what other teams
have to say. That certainly doesn't totally preclude him from

(01:38:37):
coming back to Cincinnati, but the inability or unwillingness to
get a deal done with Tea to this point has
now put the ball in t higgins court, and whatever
he does, you have to live with the part of
this we don't know. And I keep coming back to this.
The reason why the T Higgins conversation took a turn
in December wasn't so much that Joe Burrow made the

(01:39:01):
case for t Higgins. It was the made the case
for T Higgins and referenced having a plan to keep
Tea in Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (01:39:10):
So what don't we know?

Speaker 5 (01:39:12):
We don't know what that plan is if the plan offers,
And I don't feel like Joe should have any obligation
or feel any obligation to restructure his contract. But it
feels to me like if we're legitimately talking about t
playing for the Bengals and signing with the team this offseason,
that that doesn't happen without Joe agreeing to a restructure.

(01:39:35):
None of us have any idea what that looks like.
None of us have any idea if that's going to happen.
That's what makes this at time so difficult to talk about,
not in terms of like the subject matter emotionally is hard.
The key piece here is something that's hard for us
to wrap our brains around because if there's a restructure,

(01:39:55):
what does that look like? And is there going to
be a restructure? We don't know, uh five thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
We do know.

Speaker 5 (01:40:04):
There's a big college basketball game tonight you see versus
Texas Tech. I do I place an extraordinary amount of
importance on this game tonight, Like you win this one,
I will feel really good about what's ahead because they
have some winnable games. They will have not totally come
back from down four or starting h to four in
the league, but come mostly back consecutive home wins Q

(01:40:28):
one win, good victory, chance to go get maybe one
on the road, perhaps two we'll see lose this one.
There's a big, big difference between just league record three
and four Q one win, two and five no Q
one win. I cannot wait to talk about it tomorrow.

(01:40:49):
Danner on Al Golden next on ESPN fifteen thirty. Awesome
stuff as always on Tuesdays with our buddy Paul Danner
Junior from The Athletic and the Growler. He is a
very good list, a very good list of possible Bengals
cap casualties. Go read it at the Athletic dot com.

(01:41:09):
We talked extensively about Al Golden and a number of
different topics. We had to start by talking about Camgrandy
getting a contract extension. One might argue the first of
many big dominoes to follow this offseason.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
Should we play what was your favorite Camgrandy penalty? No?

Speaker 5 (01:41:25):
Like, Here's what we could do is play what was
the look on your face when you read the following?
He played in eight games with six starts. That dude
started six games. Yeah, cam Brandy started six games.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
And they love to come out there in a weird
formation on the first play, you know, just to see
what it is, and then you see him run off
and then you don't see him again to the fourth
quarter on like a critical fourth down or something.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):
Yeah, it's always it's always great.

Speaker 5 (01:41:50):
Well, congratulations Cam, Yeah, college free agent made the team,
gets another deal.

Speaker 3 (01:41:55):
Good for him. I am. That's that's that's good. That's awesome.
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:41:59):
I don't really I wish I had more to say
about Cam Grandy other than this is. You know, you
start going through the roster, and I've sort of done
this process where you're going through. Okay, here's all the
decisions they have to make. Okay, clearly we're starting from
the bottom and we're working our way up one at
a time. It's maybe every day it'll get a little
more relevant. Yeah, this is this is one of those items.

Speaker 5 (01:42:21):
It's like when you know, my wife and I we
we bought the house that we're in right now, and
we had a lot of work to do. But the
very first thing I did is I put a new
door handle on the closet door. Hey, right, gotta have
not the most important things got to get done, but
it's got to get done.

Speaker 3 (01:42:36):
Gotta get done.

Speaker 5 (01:42:36):
I mean, like I did, exactly charge downstairs. I go, honey,
we're good. Just put our feet up. When our furniture
gets here, nothing else to do, but it did. It
was a box that need to be checked and I
checked it off. And that's what we're gonna call Cam
Grandy door knob. Don't call him at I don't think
you should do that. All right, Well we'll see. What
do you think Thursday Friday for the Al Golden press conference.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
Probably Thursday.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
Yeah, I feel like Thursday, Thursday actual press conference.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
That feels right.

Speaker 5 (01:43:03):
Okay, So he's gonna talk to he's gonna interview formally
with Zach Taylor.

Speaker 3 (01:43:08):
Yeah, that sound like I think, Hey, good to see it. Yeah,
what's going on? You don't want the job? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
The paper's there if you want to sign it, I
think is kind of where that probably goes.

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
I just you know, it's it's it's it's kind of been.
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:43:25):
I think Al Golden and I and I respect and
appreciate this wanted you can you can do two things.
You can understand what can be great for your next
career step and also want to kind of solely focus
on this massive in front of you. And I feel
like once knowing once you turn the page, that is

(01:43:45):
the direction you would you would want to go. Is
one thing, and the Bengals were recognizing that this is
a great fit for what they're looking for.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
Is another thing. But yeah, I don't I think that he's.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
I think Al Golden just kind of just feels like
the this is the logical next step, like one.

Speaker 3 (01:44:07):
I mean what we talked about this on on who
they live on Friday.

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
I mean, I don't know people really maybe people realize this,
but like Al Golden never left. He still has his
house here, his family still lives here, his kids go
to school here. Did his oldest is said our name.
But like, I mean, he's that's a heck of a commute.
Heck of a commute, right, You know what you do
when you drive from Cincinnati to South Bend, however many
times he has to do it during the year. Think

(01:44:33):
about how you don't want to do it anymore, right,
and like, you know, you love Cincinnati, like the schools,
You liked what your family has there so much to
the point that you didn't even move them, right, Like
that makes sense, and but you understand what's good for
your career. But that's so that all makes sentence. That's
why that makes sense for him. And I think the
Bengals are able to punch a little bit. I'm not

(01:44:53):
going to say above their weight class, because they could
have gotten whoever they wanted to, but as far as
to get familiarity and with the ability, who is you
know has led entire programs before but also has all
had a lot of success with younger players and connecting
with them and developing them. All of these boxes are

(01:45:15):
ones that they wanted to check. It makes the most
sense where I don't know how long that that interview
doesn't need to be long. You have had years of interview.
You know the person, you know, the coach, you know,
the fit, you know is the organization. What else is
there to say? So for that fact, I think that
was always there, right and they can go out and
talk toever or figure out what else is out there.

(01:45:37):
But knowing that was there, I think it's hard to
trump when you feel like, man, this is just the
perfect fit for what we need right now because.

Speaker 3 (01:45:46):
Of the familiarity.

Speaker 5 (01:45:48):
Like I get, it's a good fit for Al Golden, right,
he gets to come home, he doesn't have to drive
this South Bend all the time. But is it a
good fit for the Bengals just because he's been here before?
What are the other reasons why it's such a good fit.

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
I think somebody with a particular specialty in developing younger players.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
And you know that.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
I mean he did that in the NFL as a
linebackers coach in this building, right, did it with Logan
Wilson and help with Jermaine Pratt and the keen Davis
Gaither in that whole room there, right, and then went
and proved it again at Notre Dame. Okay, I mean,
let's not I know, everyone's gonna probably want to yell
about they couldn't stop the bucket whatever. Nobody's stopping the

(01:46:30):
Buckeyes right now. And they had the number one passing
defense in college football the last two years in a
row period. And he did it this year basically reinventing
on the fly. And you know what they didn't have
on that defense a lot of dudes. Dane had two
guys from that defense projected to go in the first
two rounds of this draft. One of them wasn't playing when
it was the corner that got hurt midseason that was not. Meanwhile,

(01:46:55):
going up against the entire first three or four rounds
of dis draft and future draft on the Ohio state
offense right like can, but turned that turned that Notre
Dame defense into one that was really pretty special in
in how they were operating and getting themselves to a
point that Notre Dame hasn't been at in forever.

Speaker 3 (01:47:12):
So I think that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:16):
The familiarity helps because you can hit the ground running
so much faster, rather than the growing pains of the
first half of a season when the coordinator and what
do we talk about, Oh, no, slow start coordinators learning
how they didn't realize this, that or the other. I
think that that helps, and you know how that's gonna

(01:47:36):
gonna integrate as a as a teacher and with the
whole way you like to do things. I think familiarity
is obviously going to be a part of it, but
I think it's so much more of the credentials of
what he's done, the type of coach he's been consistently
uh and his ability to help develop all the young
players on the on the defense that they know are
going to be important to them actually turning the thing around.

Speaker 5 (01:47:54):
Refresh my memory. Did he did he leave because he
wanted to go coordinate a defense? Because Notre Dame would
pay more if you loved it here? So much, and
they like him so much widely.

Speaker 1 (01:48:04):
That's a better job, more money, all of it. I mean,
you know, linebacker, he wasn't going to take Luena Rumo's job, right,
he was trying to move up. I mean, you know
what I mean. And I think that for that reason,
Notre Dame. It's funny, the same thing happened during the
super Bowl. During the Super Bowl week, Notre Dame kind
of was like, hey, we want you to be the

(01:48:24):
guy you focus on the super Bowl, but as soon
as that Super Bowl ends, we want you to be
the defensive coordinator here for Mark Freeman and boom. It happened,
you know, And so it's kind of a little bit
of a you know, returning the favor a little bit
on this. But you know, the last two games he
was coaching pros and college would be the national championship
came in the Super Bowl. That's not a bad thing
to stand on, right, right, And and I just the

(01:48:48):
other part of this is, and I don't want it
to feel like I'm sitting here like defending it. I'm
just defend I'm a little curious at some of the
uproar that I've seen about this.

Speaker 3 (01:48:58):
I feel like this is a really good higher all.

Speaker 5 (01:49:01):
Right, So you're getting different feedback than I I see.

Speaker 3 (01:49:05):
I see negativity out.

Speaker 5 (01:49:07):
I mean, I think I saw some folks last night
who were having fun with it. I mean, Pike and
I were texting back and forth turned the game last night,
going boy. You know, I hope he doesn't bring that
defense with him, but I think it was tongue in cheek,
Like I haven't detected the same amount of pushback I get.
Like there's you know, when the job first came open,
there's a lot of people who their brains danced with

(01:49:29):
visions of Robert Sala, right, Okay, Like, so that's splashy,
that's a big name.

Speaker 3 (01:49:34):
Like I understand that.

Speaker 5 (01:49:35):
But okay, once you kind of got beyond that and
you looked at Al Golden's credentials, and you know, my
take was, Hey, if I'm looking for a guy who
can work with and communicate with and get the most
out of younger players, a dude who's coaching college football
is a pretty good place to start, right. And there's familiarity,
which you may roll your eyes at that, but the
Bengals aren't the only team that likes familiar No. NFL

(01:49:57):
teams aren't the only companies that like familiar. Oh. I
don't gather that people feel like, oh my god, the
trajectory of the franchise has been changed because of Al Golden.
The response that I have gathered has been kind of
a yeah, okay, fine, yeah, now draft better.

Speaker 1 (01:50:12):
Players, yeah right, and and develop them better yeah right.
And that's and that's part of what he's he's tasked
with to There's a couple of things also, you know,
he's obviously some of the biggest moments in his career
have come on the collegiate level, notably, but also if
you take just the last you know, eight years or
whatever of his career, there's a couple other examples that

(01:50:36):
I that I want to kind of point out and
and take this as just I don't want people to
over exaggerate that I'm saying this is going to be
this person. But I think you see this the college
de pro thing. Mike o' donald right now, he was
a linebackers coach and in this working his way up
in Baltimore, goes to Michigan to coordinate their defense for

(01:50:58):
a year, comes back, does such a great job at Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (01:51:02):
He's dead to goa to the Seahawks.

Speaker 1 (01:51:04):
Right, translating college to pro making that thing work halflely.
Jeff Hafley goes from Boston College right four years leading
Boston College, but previously was you know, on lower levels
in the NFL as well. Goes takes the college the
things he did in college brings it to the NFL.

(01:51:24):
They go from twenty second in points per drive to six.
You know, the I don't. I think there's a lot
of times there's a like, can you can you really
pull from the college game and what's that what's that
going to be like? What's that change going to be like?
I think as much as those two games have merged,
both financially and the issues you deal with off the

(01:51:45):
field with players and also on the field and the
way that the schemes I think are much more similar.
I think the transitions of coaches in major roles from
the college to the NFL is much more similar. And
you've seen some of these success stories play out in
recent years, and some that are pretty close to the
Bengals there, I mean La Flora was Zach Taylor obviously

(01:52:05):
very very close and with the Ravens, you know, seeing
everything that they've been able to do. And I just
I just think for that fact, I think it's really
easy to see the success that he had at Notre
Dame translating to the NFL, even though yes, it's different
in different ways, in so many ways, it's much more

(01:52:26):
similar than it ever has.

Speaker 5 (01:52:27):
I think what hurts Al Golden from a perception perspective
is when he was coaching at Miami and a temple,
he dressed on the sideline like a drafting teacher.

Speaker 1 (01:52:36):
Yeah. Look, I mean, I am voiced, we need more.
Bring back, Yeah, bring back ties. Let's go, bring it.
Bring anybody up have the tie hanging down? I think,
bring it back.

Speaker 5 (01:52:48):
And I think like his name sounds like I'm trying
to figure out, like Al Golden sounds like a place
where you get dent's taken out of your car, Like
I'll just take it to Al Golden's. Or like a
meat store, like one of those like old school meat
store or from the sixties that's in a strip mall,
and it's like, now we don't get our meat at Kroger.
We got to Al gold right, And I think I
think that's kind of what's what hurts out here a

(01:53:09):
little bit is people don't think football coach.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
Right, here's the thing he is, you know, from an
old school newspaper guy and me a little bit. He's
just a headline writer's dream, all right, Right, Golden how
or golden you know, golden boy, golden whatever. There's so
many there's so many different places you can go with
that that from a headline writer's perspective, Like, Hey, I'm

(01:53:35):
just curious my friends at the Cincinnati Inquirer sitting there
right now. I think they've been working on this one
for weeks, like, Oh, what are we going to go with?

Speaker 3 (01:53:44):
What are we going to go with? You know, so
many options.

Speaker 5 (01:53:46):
Yeah, it's not unlike when you see had a point
guard named Michael Horton, and I thought, man, this guy's
not very good.

Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
Crowds booing. Inquire the next day has to have Horton.
Here's a boob and.

Speaker 5 (01:53:58):
College. It was so happy. I was so fired up.
You did last week. This came out on Wednesday. Bengals
cap cuts veterans who could be cut in an effort
to save money and then use that money elsewhere on
the team.

Speaker 3 (01:54:13):
Correct.

Speaker 5 (01:54:13):
And you did, as you always do a great job
of looking at the pros and cons of each one
of these guys and talking about the financial impact of
keeping them or letting them go, and some of the
things that go into the decision making.

Speaker 3 (01:54:25):
And it's really well done and really nuanced. You're setting
it up to say something, what you got, I don't
want any of these guys.

Speaker 5 (01:54:37):
I hate to do that because you just you did
a lot of work into this, and you put a
lot of time and effort, and I printed it, and
I like, there was even one thing that I highlighted.

Speaker 3 (01:54:46):
I think, yeah, right, I get it. Like I'm going through.

Speaker 5 (01:54:51):
I was like midway through reading about Jermaine Pratt and
then I'm like, all right, well, Sam's gonna be next.

Speaker 3 (01:54:57):
You know what, I don't want any of these dudes.

Speaker 5 (01:55:00):
As far as I'm concerned, When does the mock off
season start?

Speaker 3 (01:55:03):
When do we have a spreadsheet? It's I finished.

Speaker 5 (01:55:05):
All of these guys are getting cut on my spreadsheet.

Speaker 3 (01:55:08):
Yeah, there's a lot of uh, there's a lot of
those options. It's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:55:11):
I thought this year specifically, it's the most interesting that
has ever been because there was, as you said, you
don't want any of these guys.

Speaker 3 (01:55:21):
There's a lot of money tied up in those guys.
That they're about to free up.

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
I mean, they're more than they have ever made off
of cap cuts. You know, I think that you're gonna
see that type of thing happening this year. Some of
them are obvious, you know, Sheldon Rank, Collens, Alex Kappa.
I mean, some of those are are obvious, uh, in
terms of the ability to move on and because there's
so much money that they will save and can put

(01:55:45):
in elsewhere. Some of them are are a little more challenging,
whether you're talking about Geno Stone or Mike Hilton, uh,
some of the other guys, And that's going to get
a little more philosophical there and what they want to do.
But at the end of the day, I mean, you're
talking about thirty to forty five million dollars they can
add to their cap this year. Yes, just by going

(01:56:06):
through this and depending on how aggressive they choose to
be or not to be, can really can add a lot.
And so it's you know, it's it's it's a lot
of guys that fit the mold that we have seen
them move on from in recent years, older guys. Once
once you see the three up there, the Bengals have
made it pretty clear that they're not really interested anymore,

(01:56:26):
and so if they stick with that, that can mean
most of those guys going.

Speaker 5 (01:56:30):
So the one who did give me some pause is
Geno Stone. Yeah, because he's still just twenty six, and
because he did play well at the end of the year,
and I was really bullish on them signing him. At
the same time, he was a terrible tackler, took some
of the worst angles I've ever seen, and if we
go back to the like the teeth of the season
when this defense was just atrocious, he was the guy

(01:56:52):
that I talked about the most. And so I'm trying
to balance thinking this guy's an ascending player coming off
of what he did, involved more watching what I did
at the watching what I saw at the end of
the season, his age, he's not shouldn't be washed up
with how poorly he played for such a long stretch
of time, and also not knowing what's next at that position.

(01:57:14):
I'm not nuts about keeping Geno Stone. But of all
these guys, I did the exercise of like you have
to have one, who would you take?

Speaker 3 (01:57:22):
I settled on Geno Stone.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
Yeah, I find myself I think you can talk yourself
into Gino soon.

Speaker 3 (01:57:27):
Pretty easily. Yeah, you know, I think you can look.

Speaker 1 (01:57:30):
At like you mentioned what happened the end of the year,
who he was in Baltimore. You're kind of recent. How
much was he a victim of things going sideways with
Luenna Romo there where the things we heard about how
they needed to simplify things and so many of the
players and defensive backfield were doing the wrong thing all
the time. Well a lot of times that falls back

(01:57:51):
on the safeties to be the ones that have to
deal with that.

Speaker 3 (01:57:53):
And that's part of his job.

Speaker 1 (01:57:54):
But maybe maybe he was not being He's one of
those examples of guys that were not being used properly.
You know, he needs to just be playing deep safety
more often and less of the like next thing you know,
he's coming up having to make tackles and being asked
to do those things like that. I think that's a
decision to me. He is the ultimate. Hey, new DC

(01:58:16):
al Golden whatever, what do you think about this one?

Speaker 5 (01:58:20):
Goes Tell Paul Danner Junior to hear the rest of
that conversation. Go get it on the iHeartRadio app podcast
of this show. A service of Long neck Sports Graill.
If you're in northern Kentucky and you want to watch
the bear Cats tonight, go check out Long Neck Sports, Grill, Wilder,
Hebren and rich Wood. We are done. MKU Coaches Show
is coming up. Rick Brooring is a part of that.
He'll be on our show tomorrow. We'll talk XU and

(01:58:44):
MKU basketball. Looking forward to that. Also, New Red's hitting
coach Chris Voleika joins us at three twenty tomorrow afternoon.
We hope you're with us starting at three to ZHO five.
Have an awesome night. Thank you for listening. Thanks to
a Terran Bland for producing. This is ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 6 (01:59:19):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. At u See Health,
you'll find comprehensive care that's so personal it makes your
best tomorrow possible. That's boundless care for better outcomes. Expect
more at ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy five after Town Street,
the right lane blocked from an accident, up to an

(01:59:39):
eight minute delay. Back from Mitchell Avenue. Southbound seventy one
seventy five after Twelfth Street, it's the right two lanes
blocked from a disabled vehicle I'm at Ezelak with traffic.

Speaker 3 (01:59:51):
This report is