2/10/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show

Reaction to the Chiefs getting rolled by the Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. Tee Higgins speaks about his future with the Bengals and recap of UC's win over BYU and Xavier's loss at Villanova.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Bank. That's the bank enter it now.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
All right, the day and the week's not off to
a great start because I started to talk before I
turned the microphone on Fundamentals of broadcasting. I took that
class at UD first day, first lesson turn on the microphone.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
I just failed.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hi, my name's Moegar. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank
you for listening. Hopefully, Hopefully you had a great weekend.
Let's be honest, man, if you're a Bengals fan, last
night was awesome.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
It was.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
It would have been one thing for the Chiefs to lose.
And like I looked at this game from a gambler's lens,
I took Philly. I said, last week, I liked the
Eagles by ten. It turns out I was off because
it felt like the Eagles won by one hundred. The
game was not as close as the final score would indicate.

(01:00):
We were, as Bengals fans, though, rooting against Casey. That's
how it works, right, You're root against your rival.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
You know, the Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Everybody's rooting against them because we're tired of them. It
would have been one thing to see them lose like
twenty seven to twenty four, and like a Jake Elliott kick,
it was something deeply satisfying. There was something deeply satisfying
about watching them lose the way they did, blown out
by the Philadelphia Eagles, And perhaps the goat talk gets interrupted.

(01:28):
Let's start there really quick. We got some other stuff
to get to. Pictures and catchers reporting in Goodyear Today
A plot twist in college Basketball. Full show preview is
available on Twitter thanks to Emory Federal Credit Union. Your
credit Union with Heart, your Credit Union with Heart and
mine since nineteen thirty nine go to EMORYFCU dot org. Maybe, maybe,

(01:52):
and I could be guilty of this too. Maybe when
we talk about the NFL and we have these like
hot taky debates where we scream at each other, perhaps
we should do more than talk about the quarterbacks. Because
last week, as people wighed in on the game, and
you know, let's be honest in terms of like Super

(02:12):
Bowl hype, it didn't feel like there was nearly as
much going in. And I think because the discussion got
limited to one thing. It was the acknowledgment that the
Philadelphia Eagles are better, They've got the better team. They're
better across the board, they're better in the trenches, they're better.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
But dot dot dot Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
And I can't tell how many times I either heard
a conversation like this or participated in a conversation like this.
And I was guilty of playing the Patrick Mahomes trump
card right because it felt like you could often outline
all the reasons why Philly might win, Like what they
can do with Sakwon Barkley, and their offense is really
unique with the way they run it around Jalen Hurderson.

(02:58):
If they're forced to throw the got some guys on
the outside and offensively upfront, they're going to be able
to slow down anything Steve Spagnolo throws at them. And
Philly can win up front on defense without having to
reinvent the wheel with a bunch of exotic blitzes. Like
all these different reasons why you could point to Philadelphia
winning and maybe winning the game, perhaps not in a blowout,

(03:20):
but relatively comfortably. And yet and yet the counter to
that was, yeah, but Patrick Mahomes, Yeah, but Patrick Mahomes
might be the goat, and look, one day down the road,
perhaps he will be. Patrick Mahomes has had a marvelous career.
He would be a slam dunk Hall of Famer if
he stopped today. But as it turned out, the better

(03:42):
team won. Now, let's not short change Jalen Hurts a
deserving MVP. He was terrific if you would have said
to most, not even on the night of the draft.
By the way, remember when when Philly took Jalen Hurts
fifty three overall. That was a controversial decision because they
had Carson Wentz. Hert's first season, he wasn't very good.

(04:02):
But if you would have said at any point over
the first two or three years of those guys being
in the NFL Burrow and too at tagab Loo and
Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts, who's going to be the
first one to win a ring? I'm not sure Jalen
Hurts would have been the first name that anybody spit out,
and yet he becomes the.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
First one with a ring.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
He was awesome last night, and we'll spend some time
on him in just a few minutes now. In the
aftermath of the game, the Eagles understandably and deservedly, so
that's all anybody wants to talk about, right, well, how
did they build this roster? How awesome at drafting is
Howie Roseman? How many good financial decisions did they make?

(04:42):
How much did it pay off investing in a running
back to the extent the Eagles did. How perfectly did
they assemble this coaching staff contrasted against the coaching staff
they had last year when they melted it down after
starting ten and one, Like, it's not any one that's
the cool thing about the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
It's not any one thing.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
It's the roster, it's the drafting, it's the free agent acquisitions,
it's the trades. It's the financial decisions. It's hiring and
sticking with the right coach. It's not moving on from
Howie Roseman when he's had some some draft whiffs, like
taking Jalen Rieger instead of Justin Jefferson. It's moving on

(05:23):
from assistant coaches that it was time to move on
from and replacing them with upgrades.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Like it's everything. It's a well run organization.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
They didn't just go to their second super Bowl in
three years and when they're second in seven seasons, because
they're good at drafting, because they have a really good
quarterback because right now they have the right coach.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
It's everything they do. They have done everything right.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
They don't bat a thousand in any one regard, but
it's it's everything. It's the front office, it's the coaching,
it's the execution, it's the decision making. It's the risk taking.
It's financial acumen. It's getting some guys to maybe signed
contracts that are structured in a way that gives them
a little bit more flexibility in the short term. Like,
it's a little bit of everything, and some of those

(06:08):
things we obviously can apply to the Bengals, and we
will today ten minutes after three o'clock. There is the
Jalen Hurts piece. Man, we were talking last week. You know,
there's so much NFL content out there, especially in the
two weeks between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl,

(06:30):
that a part of the content that was out there
was about Joe Burrow and where he ranks in relation
to guys like Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes and even
Jalen Hurts. And the reality is you're going to find
some who believe that Lamar Jackson's on a higher plane
than Joe Burrow because he's won multiple MVPs, or that

(06:51):
believe that Josh Allen is on a higher plane than
Joe Burrow. And you'll find folks like myself who kind
of think that Joe Burrow is the best quarterback in
the NFL. And then all right, well, how do we
fold Jalen Hurts into the conversation. Here's what Jalen Hurts
has done. He has taken himself from the subject of
a subjective debate to something that can't be disputed. He

(07:16):
is a super Bowl winning quarterback. Might not be the
biggest reason why he's the Eagles have won the title,
though again, he was not the best player on the
field last night. He is a super Bowl winning quarterback.
And so we played a clip from god knows what
show it was, but probably some Chris Kanty involved vehicle
where the conversation was about Burrow not being elite to

(07:40):
not being where Lamar is and where Mahomes is and
where Alan is and maybe Jalen Hurts and I disagree
with that sentiment, but the problem is that the debate
exists to begin with, and you're always going to be
able to play the Yeah, but he's won one card.
When he's won one well, Jalen Hurts has won one.

(08:02):
Joe Burrow, through essentially no fault of his own, has not.
There's a few other Bengals related takeaways. I guess one
for me with Kansas City would be this, and I
guess you could look at this either way. So the
Chiefs all season long deserve and got an extraordinary amount

(08:23):
of credit for winning and getting to the super Bowl
when at times this year they didn't look the part.
And if you think back to this past season, you know,
we spend time talking about how maybe the Ravens are
the best team in the AFC, and you know what,
maybe the Bills are the best team in the AFC.

(08:43):
And for about five minutes, it felt like the Steelers
were in that conversation, and early in the season, really
before it got underway, many wondered if the Texans could
be in that conversation, and it never really felt like
the Chiefs were, even though despite the hiccup on the
road against the Buffalo Bills, they were.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
They the best record all year.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Long, right, I mean, but you would watch them and
the word uneven comes to mind, and talking about them
offensively uninspiring. They were winning games in these crazy ways
where kicks were being blocked and balls were being doinked
in by backup kickers, and John Anthony was committing fifty

(09:22):
to fifty pass interference calls late in games that felt
like they were lost by Kansas City, and so all
season long, you had to credit them for continuing to
win despite often not looking the part. At the same time,
many of us, myself included, wondered, all right, when's when's
their fatal flow going to catch up to them? When
are things gonna bottom out? That's a conversation that Pike

(09:44):
and I had often on Mondays during the Tony and
Mo Football Show. And the answer it turned out to
be during the Super Bowl when their flaws came, you know,
to the forefront and and Philadelphia's roster just being better
was a bu clear and it didn't exactly take four
quarters for us to figure that out. And Patrick mahomes

(10:06):
unevenness was something we talked about all season long. I mean,
think about it. As awesome a player as he has been,
the dude wasn't even an MVP finalist for a team
that had the.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
Best record in the sport as a quarterback.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's like not heard of, that doesn't happen, and so
you watched last night, and for me, I did both.
My very first thought and I said this to a
buddy mine at halftime, was god boy, this Chiefs team
was vulnerable all season long. All season long, they weren't great.

(10:38):
They've had teams that were great. This, frankly was not
one of them. And again, at the end of the day,
you are your record. So credit them for winning the
games they won and playing their best football at the
end of the regular season when they started to turn
things on, and winning two playoff games. Good for them,
But they looked vulnerable all season long, and nobody in

(11:00):
the AFC took advantage, and perhaps had one of them
taken advantage, the result in the Super Bowl would have
been the same as last night. Philly wins convincingly, but
maybe not. It felt and this isn't even really about
the Bengals. If you watch the season, it felt like
that the Bills team that we watched all year long
would have put up more of a fight against Philly,

(11:21):
and maybe the same against Baltimore, and heck, maybe the
same for a Joe Burrow led Bengals team. At the
same time, you might look at it and go whoa
the Chiefs. I'll tell you what they're there for. The taking.
One of the storylines to the entire off season and
the entire twenty twenty five season, to me, is going
to be what kind of player is Patrick Mahomes next year?

(11:43):
Because while he wasn't bad this season, he also wasn't
superman And uh, I'm kind of curious next year which
version of Patrick Mahomes shows up in Kansas City and
what do they do around them? And do the answers
to those questions lead us to a place where we
feel like that case team is more vulnerable than ever before.

(12:04):
And if they are, can the Bengals be one of
the teams or be the team that takes advantage? We
can discuss over the afternoon T Higgins talk with Joe
Daniman this weekend. We'll have that for you. Also, I
was asked last week on this show, who's the free
agent you want? I said, Milton Williams. Did you watch

(12:25):
him last night? His price tag just went up with
another dominant performance and he had a lot of company
on that Philly defensive line. We'll get to that a
little bit later on the college basketball from over the weekend, you.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Know, after a couple of weeks where it felt like.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Xavier's season trajectory was pointing upward and U see was
pointing downward. Well, Musketeers blow a really good opportunity for
a good win last night. Their marching for air is
smaller than it's been all season long. Now, the Bearcats,
you might be like me where you're not necessarily skeptical,

(13:03):
but you're not quite ready to jump entirely back on
board to go. You know what, this team is good,
They're fine, They're gonna be in the tournament.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
They can make some noise.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
But I think you have to acknowledge the way they've
played over the last couple of games, and I think
specifically in the second half against BYU on Saturday night
most definitely encouraging. We'll have some of that for you
a little bit later on as well. You can hit
me up on Twitter during the show at Mulegger. Thanks
to Delta Dental, Delta Dental is building healthy, smart, vibrant
communities for all good at Delta Dental, oh dot com.

(13:37):
Five point three seven four nine fifteen thirty is our
phone number. Pitchers and catchers report today in good year.
You know, typically when stuff like this starts to happen
and we get to spring training and you know, no, no,
but even when they were kind of destined to lose
one hundred games or at least close in twenty twenty

(13:58):
two and that first day of spring training, we just
want optimism, right. There's legit reasons for optimism to stand
out more than any others. They're obvious, I think, but
worth pointing out nonetheless. Next on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's board.

Speaker 5 (14:10):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic from.

Speaker 6 (14:16):
The UC Health Traffic Center. For more than two hundred years,
the experts at you See Health have been giving heart
patients a chance at better outcomes. That's boundless care. You
can trust expect more at UCHealth dot com. Roadways are
clear around town at the moment, no accidents or other
problems slowing you down. However, southbound two seventy five down

(14:36):
to one lane at the Indiana Kentucky state line. That
is for ongoing repairs being made on the Carrol Cropper
Bridge on that ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
This reporting is sponsored by but we dig just solid.
We put everything on the internet. It's on the iHeartRadio apps.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
And also go to my page at ESPN fifteen to
thirty dot com. Podcast in this show are a service
of long neck Sports Growl. I was having a conversation
on Saturday evening with a couple who said, you know,
we were at Connor High School for their son's wrestling meet.
I guess, and they said, you know, Mo's always talking
about long neck sports grill. They were in northern Kentucky.

(15:15):
The typically live on the east side of Cincinnati, and
checked out the Hebren location and said, damn it, Mo,
you were right. That place is awesome, and I am
right about that. You got Wilder, you got Hebren, you
got rich Wood, you got long necks. So next time
you're out about for a wrestling meet or anything else,
go check out one of the three long necks in
Northern Kentucky. More on the game last night here in

(15:39):
uh in just a bit. You know, the game was lopsided.
Super Bowl commercials, for the most part, aren't funny anymore
because everybody gets so offended by everything that we really
can't take serious stabs at humor. So when the game's lobsided,
people talk about the game itself being kind of a dud.

(16:00):
I thought there was something something deeply satisfying about watching
the Chiefs get served a slice of humble pie. That's
a great organization. Andy Reid's going to be in Canton.
Patrick Mahomes is going to be in Canton. Travis Kelcey,
even though he kind of runs like me, is going
to be in Canton.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
Chris Jones is terrific. Like okay, tip your hat.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
But it was something very fun and satisfying about watching
them lose the way they did.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
I also enjoy saying these words. Pictures and catchers report,
So that's happening in a goodyear. Today, players trickling in
the Reds obviously send some video of guys walking through
the parking lot into the facility. The timeline if you care,
they're going to have physicals tomorrow. So tomorrow is the
day that the pictures and catchers do that turn your

(16:51):
head and cough thing, and then they'll have a workout
on Wednesday. The report date for position players is Saturday,
and then the first full squad workouts a week from today,
and obviously the first Cactus League game a week from Friday.
I cannot wait. Look again, will be the first to

(17:11):
admit on this show. As we've talked about what the
Reds have done, there's been a lot of frustration because
of the I think the reluctance or the inability, depending
on your perspective, to make the big, splashy move, because
not just for excitement, not just to sell tickets, this

(17:32):
offense could use a boost relative to what it was
last year, and so I think there was clear merit
to the idea that going and getting a big bat
from somewhere else, either in free agency or via trade
could have made a significant difference that didn't happen. That
doesn't necessarily mean the Reds have had a bad offseason.

(17:53):
I think the Reds have had a decent offseason. And
let's be honest, what happens with this team this year
is probably going to be much more based on people
who are a part of the organization in twenty twenty
four and twenty twenty three than anybody who came from outside.
Taylor Rogers is a nice addition, and Austin Hayes is
a nice addition, and Brady Singer, I think is a

(18:16):
nice addition and might be even more than a nice
edition because he badly brings to the table or he
brings to the table what this team is badly needed,
which is a starting pitcher who has a lot of
experience and has gotten through full big league seasons before.
They don't have that right now. But what happens this
season is going to hinge a lot more on. You know,
does Ellida La Cruz take a major step forward? And

(18:38):
can Matt McClain come back and perform offensively at least
the way he did in two thirds of a season
in twenty twenty three, And can seeees come back and
give this team offensively what I think they believe he
can give this team and what I believe he can
give this team. Do they get a bounce back? Jamer
Candelario season right? I mean, there's lots there. Biggest reason

(19:01):
for optimism is an obvious one, but it's still worth stating. Nonetheless,
in this long stretch of time that the Reds have
gone without making the postseason, and I know they made
it in twenty twenty, but in this long stretch of time,
we'll make it about since the last the Reds last

(19:22):
won a playoff game, which was twenty twelve, In the
long stretch of time since there have been there have
been spring trainings, there have been report.

Speaker 4 (19:33):
Dates today.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Where we didn't know who the Reds opening day starter
would be, much less who was going to make out
the five man rotation. I've sat in front of this
microphone or at least microphones like it, and in the
middle of February have asked, like, do we have any

(19:56):
clue who is going to be in the starting rotation?

Speaker 4 (19:59):
Any idea? Anyone?

Speaker 3 (20:02):
And I mean you could look at the collection of
dudes and like pick five guys. And usually when that's
the case, you're about to be pretty bad. With this
year's team, there's there's some questions. There's some questions about
the staff, right like is Andrew Rabbit going to be
ready to go from a health perspective, And where's Wade
Miley fit in if he sticks to the timeline that

(20:25):
everybody has for him. And you know, as the season unfolds,
do they get health from guys who haven't been able
to stay healthy like Hunter Green and let like Nick
Lodolo and like Andrew Abbott.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
But there are some really intriguing options.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
I mean, think about this Rhet Louder and this was
in September when you might not have been paying very
close attention because you know they were out of it
and football was starting. But Rhet Louder gets called up
less than a year and a half from the time
he was drafted, and he was terrific. He might not
be in the opening day rotation, like if you want

(21:03):
to hang your hat on something on February the tenth.
I mean, the starting staff I believe at least has
a really high ceiling start with Hunter Green, who got
say young votes last year, who was an All Star
and by the way, an All Star unmerit and you know,
there have been these just flashes, and they have for

(21:26):
the most part, just been flashes from Lodolo and Abbott
that I think we still recognize. There's a ton of
upside there. And Nick Martinez last season was awesome a
relative to what everybody thought when they got him. And yeah, man,
they're probably overpaying him because he took the qualifying offer,
but he was really effective last season. Feels like he's

(21:48):
going to be a starting pitcher this year because of
what they're paying him. That's pretty good. And Brady's singer
is exactly what they were looking for. Like I wish
they made the offense better, but offensive improvement was always
more likely going to come from guys who were already
on the team, and some of whom you might believe
in and some of whom maybe not so much. I

(22:09):
certainly am there, but some of these guys I think
still have a chance to do better than they ever have,
and some of them I feel like have probably plateaued.
But where there's more upside than anywhere else for me
is with their starting pitching, which for much of the
year last season that the numbers kind of get out
of whack because in September they had to use so
many bullpen games. But for four four and a half,

(22:32):
almost five months, this team's starting pitching was better than
league average. The next step from quote better than league
average is really freaking good. And there's a lot of
these guys who I think can achieve that if they
could do it together at the same time, Hell, you have,

(22:53):
this team can win the National League Central.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
You might not bet on them.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
And I understand what a lot of the you know,
statistically based projections say about this team. Baseball Perspectives seventy
three and a half wins, Fangraft seventy seven wins, And
I understand why those projections are where they are. I
don't take him that seriously because there's still such a

(23:16):
young team. There aren't many guys with a very long
track record, So how do you how do you take
a projection seriously if it's if it's based on track
record and not many guys on this team have a
very long one. But if there's if there's an area
where it feels like they can make the step from
already pretty good to really good, it's their starting staff

(23:37):
start there. Even above and beyond talking about the manager
and Terry Francona's impact cannot be understated. And I've often
said about David Bell over the years, I'm not sure
if he's a good manager or not. There's no such
uncertainty when it comes to Terry francon He's a good
certainly an accomplished manager, and you can't find anybody who says, ah,
actually he's kind of overrated. But even above and beyond that,

(23:57):
if you want to like get excited about something on
the day, the pictures and catchers report, it's the pictures,
specifically the guys uh that they're gonna pick from to
be in the starting rotation, and that excites me twenty
seven away from four o'clock. Phone calls are coming up
five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight
six six seven oh two three.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
Seven seven six.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Speaking of optimism, haircats may be giving his reason for some.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
From the UCE Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, the experts at you see Health have been
giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's boundless
care you can trust. Expect more at ucehealth dot com.
Roadways are exident free around town at the moment, but
there is construction westbound two seventy five here the Kentucky

(24:53):
Indiana state line. The right lane is closed off sethbound
two seventy five down the one lane. Also at the
Indiana at Kentucky state line on that ezek with traffic.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
This report is sponsored by Rapid Radios.

Speaker 5 (25:06):
Rapid Radio you found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
It is twenty two from four o'clock. This is ESPN
fifteen thirty. I'm Mullegar Teren. Goot your liked halftime show.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
I'm enjoyed given I like this era we're in where.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
These guys get mad at each other and sing songs
about each other.

Speaker 7 (25:30):
Like that.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Sports headlines are a service at Kelsey Chevrolet, home of
lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family
to yours for life Kelsey v dot com. That's me
reaching for the sports headlines, of which admittedly there aren't
a ton Reds pitchers and catchers reporting to a good
year today. They revealed this on social media, and I

(25:55):
don't think this is a huge surprise to anybody. The
team this season will be wearing a number fourteen pack
on their sleeves, obviously commemorating Pete Rose, who passed away
on September the thirtieth. Heard that in the top of
the hour update from ESPN. Remember they're doing a Pete
Rose Day in May. First full squad workout a week
from today. First Cactus League game a week from I

(26:15):
think I said before a week from Friday. It's actually
a week from Saturday.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
So there you go.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
College basketball Kentucky after they went over South Carolina now
fifteenth AP Top twenty five poll, eighteenth in the Coach's Poll.
The Mark Pope Show is tonight at six o'clock live
on ESPN fifteen thirty. Kentucky hammered an awful South Carolina
team xaviery yesterday. It felt like an enormous missed opportunity.

(26:46):
The turnovers caught up to him. They had nine at halftime,
which kind of helped negate a really good shooting performance.
I thought for the first thirty minutes or so, they
did a terrific job on Eric Dixon, and then Xavier's
inside guys had no answer.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
Ryan Conwell has gone cold from the outside.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Dante Maddox was really good, but more than anything, they
had turnovers on more than twenty percent of their possessions yesterday,
and on the road in the Big East. That's not
gonna fly. The Musketeer Sean Miller was on this show
with me last week and we talked about, you know,
the small margin for error, and this is obviously an
inexact science, you know, projecting the NCAA tournament field and

(27:26):
figuring out who's.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
On the bubble.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
But yesterday was their tenth loss, and so I think
a lot of us going into that game, coming out
of the Georgetown game, thought all right, if they go
what seven and won the rest of the.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Way, this team's gonna be okay.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Lose one more game that'd get him to ten, and
included in there is either a victory on the road
against Villanova or a home win against Creighton. Now it
feels like the margin for error is almost gone. Where
they have in front of them some games themselves that
might not be that easy, but some wins that if
you get them from a team sheet perspective, they're not

(28:03):
going to get a lot of credit for. And you know,
let's face it, with basically three weeks to go in
the month of February, a little bit less than that obviously,
but with this much time to go in February, with
not a lot of Q one opportunities in front of them,
the Creighton game right now still may be one that's
weeks away.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
It feels like they have to win out in the
absence of that.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Losing one more and then a loss in New York
would put them at twelve and the math starts to
get very, very difficult.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
The Bearcats, on the.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Other hand, still have a very small margin for error,
but relative to what a lot of us were saying
a week ago, when you know, it was the day
after they had played that miserable game against West Virginia,
last Sunday afternoon, where how they played and how they
looked seemed to matter a lot more than what the
loss was going to represent from a tournament resume perspective.

(29:03):
They played well enough to go on the road and
win against UCF, and played well enough in the second
half against BYU to first of all, undo a three
point halftime deficit and take an opponent that beat them
by twenty eight points two weeks prior and thumped them
in their own building by eighteen points. And I think

(29:29):
you're being reasonable if you go, Okay, this is nice,
but I'm not sure how sustainable it is. It is
just a couple of games. They had a stretch on
Saturday night where they could not get out of their
own way. They were shooting sixty three percent at halftime,
but they were still trailing because of the turnovers. But
the stretch really the entire second half. But the eight

(29:50):
minute stretch to start the second half is I think
easily the best they've played all season long. They played
really well against Georgia Tech on the road, but I
think that stretch to start the second half, the first
eight to nine minutes against BYU on Saturday is easily
the best they have played all season long, and more
than team sheets or bracketology or Bubble Watch or Ken Palmer,

(30:14):
Bart Torovik or any of the metrics that you could
look at to figure out where they are in relation
to other Bubble teams. The basketball part of it has
to be fixed first. I don't know how much we
could say it's fixed after just two games, but you
know it's better. Back court has been terrific Dayda Thomas
was awesome against UCF, Gisel James was terrific on Saturday

(30:36):
against BYU, and they've at least they've at least come
off the mat. The margin for error is still really small.
The good news is they have a lot of opportunities
for really good wins. The bad news is some of
those games seem not seen are going to be really
hard to win. Winning at Iowa State it's going to
be tough. That goes without saying despite their recent struggles,

(30:59):
winning at Houston is going to be tough. One might
say close to impossible. But it feels like there's at
least a path and if the basketball part of it
continues to improve. In the last two games, they have
had a look that is the antithesis of how they
looked prior. It is certainly against West Virginia where they're
playing fast and they're playing loose and the ball isn't

(31:22):
sticking nearly as much, and when they don't turn it over,
you know they're getting good shots. There's better ball movement.
They got a really good game. And again, like you're
looking at things wondering how much are they repeatable, they
get a really good game from Josh Reed on Saturday.
Is that someone you're going to start to count on
moving forward? Probably right now the answer is no. But

(31:43):
the two wins have at least reignited the conversation about
what it would take for them to make the tournament.
They do have another home game tomorrow. It's imperative they
win their home games if they win this one tomorrow.
I think that game in Morgantown against West Virginia week
from Wednesday is enormous, But the look and the feel
and the vibe is an exact one eighty from the

(32:06):
look and the feel and the vibe in the aftermath
of the West Virginia game last Sunday. More on that
coming up here in a bit right now, though we
have folks waiting five one three fifteen thirty is our
phone number, Bob in northern Kentucky. You could start us off.
You're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Good afternoon.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
How are you sorry, Rob, I said Bob.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
I meant Rob, yes, sir, Well, thanks Moe, and thanks
for taking my car. I then, keeping with the theme
about the Bengals and the takeaways as it related to
the Super Bowl last night, I had one comment about
the defense and one comment about the offense. I know
Tony was addressed in this in his show, but I

(32:51):
was running errands and in and out of the car,
so I didn't catch nearly the whole show. But I'll
make my comments and then I'll shut up and listened
to your reaction. The first is about the defense, the
Eagles defense. Total defense in twenty twenty three was twenty

(33:13):
sixth twenty six. In twenty twenty four it was second.
Come on, man, So I think two words sum it up,
Vick Fantio, I mean free agents. They signed it. They
signed three linebackers, Berks, Vond and Huff. I think they

(33:37):
were all the one year contracts, and then the cornerback Gardner,
and then of course they got in the draft Cooper Degen.
The point is they added players who complimented and had
and enhanced the performance of the existing players they had,

(33:57):
so beyond Hendrickson made the Bengals have some more solid
defender's in what many folks speculate that they currently have. Hopefully,
how Golden can remotely I mean a lot of people
have talked that the Bengals would just have a you know,
twelfth to fifteenth ranked defense, you know, we would be

(34:21):
super competitive. So hopefully ol Golden can come you know,
halfway close to what Vic Fangio did.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, I might really quick, really really quick. And then
I'll let's move on to the offense, because there's a
couple of things there. Number one, Vic Fangio was in
Miami where the players, the defensive players, complained that he
worked him too hard and celebrated.

Speaker 4 (34:43):
His exit on social media.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
Give the Eagles credit for not caring about that, because
there are NFL teams that would have said, well, we
can't do that. That guy's brand isn't very good right now.
But we know he said, fine, this guy's available, his
resume being what it is, awesome. Maybe our players do
need to be worked hard, you know. They also I mean,
you talk about what they what they've done with free agents,

(35:07):
and you know, Zach Bond obviously had a big play
in the game last night, was terrific all season.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
That dude's gonna get paid.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
They draft Jalen Carter, They draft Cooper dejen who you
talked about, They draft quin Jon Mitchell. I mean, they
take Jordan Davis, Landon Dickerson, like they nailed it in
the draft with defensive players, and so a very good combination,
almost a perfect combination of guys you acquire from outside,

(35:34):
guys you draft and develop, and guys who had been
here for a little while. I think that same blueprint
is going to have to work here. You know, you
talk about, well it's Trey Hendrickson and other guys. There
are players who are on the twenty twenty four Bengals
who are going to be asked to either play bigger
roles or play better in twenty twenty five. They're not
going to remake the secondary, and I don't think they should.

(35:55):
They have a lot of young players back there that
they've used early round draft choices on. Let's see if
Al gold and can get more out of them. They
took two defensive linemen in the first in the second
day of the draft last year, and Chris Jenkins and
McKinley Jackson, both of them, I think we like, right well,
you're gonna have to get more. I like that they're
gonna have to take major steps forward and you're gonna
have to find pieces in the draft that can help

(36:16):
right now, and you're gonna have to use free agency.
And use free agency doesn't mean you spend a billion
dollars on every player. Find some guys that fit that
you can get a lot out of that you might
have to get on the cheap. And you do that
if you have an effective, creative GM. You do that,
if you have an effective, good scouting department, and if
you have an effective and good coaching staff.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yep, they definitely put it together. I mean, think about that.
Twenty six to second defense in one year. Unbelievable. So
my comment about offense just gave me pause to think
about Zach Taylor. I can't remember exactly who made the
point last night in the broadcast, and that's sure if

(36:59):
you caught this. I think it was Brady who made
this comment about Sirianni and you know, with his offensive background,
and I think. Someone on press row or radio row
during the week asked him if he ever considered calling
his own plays, and his response was, I thought about it,

(37:24):
but I wouldn't be able to manage the game.

Speaker 4 (37:27):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
That made me think, wow, you know this is this
is common sense. So your fault?

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Well, you know, I mean I heard Kevin Burkhard and
Tom Brady talking about that on the broadcast. It was
a conversation that they had kind of late in the
game when it was already decided, and it was about
Nick Sirianni bringing in Kellen Moore to be the offensive coordinator,
who it looks like now is going to be the
head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Nick siriana gave up,
or Sirianni gave up play calling does and said, you know,

(38:02):
I've got basically, I've got too much on my plate.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
There's too much here, right, and so I'll.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Be involved, but I'm going to hand over play calling
duties because there's just so much that I've got to
deal with, so much on my desk, so many problems
to solve, that it might be a little bit too much.
We've wondered that about Zach Taylor in the past. Now,
let's be honest. Offensively, this year the Bengals were fine, right,
this was a good offense. Do we credit Zach Taylor

(38:28):
the play caller for it? I don't know that there's
any one way to do it. I have always wondered,
or at least I have in the past. I have wondered,
if maybe you took Zach and said you're going to
be involved in the game planning process, but someone else
is going to be responsible for calling the plays, if
you would get a more efficient and more effective offense,

(38:51):
and if Zach would then be better at some of
the game management duties that at times we have called
into question. There are some who do both. There are
some who don't call plays and they just manage the
game on Sunday. I don't think there's a right or
wrong way. What I do think is cool is you
got the head coach who says, fine, you know what,
we're not doing it this way anymore because it's not working.
Let's try it some other way. And I think that

(39:14):
requires somebody sacrificing some ego, eating some humble pie, and
showing a willingness to admit that my way of doing
things to this point hasn't worked, so we're gonna try
something else. And by the way, that something else actually worked,
so good for him.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Well, thanks you for thanking my call and thanks for
your reaction.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
Sure, Rob, thank you very much. But I think I
mentioned Landon Dickerson.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
He's an offensive player, but Nolan Smith at him edge
rusher like they've nailed it in the draft.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
There's no one way to build a team. But the
Sirianni thing.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
They were having a very good conversation late in the
broadcast about that last night where he gave up play
calling duties. Number one, You've got to have a coordinator
that you are comfortable giving play calling duties too. It's
worth mentioning than in his previous two star Kellen Moore
took a lot of heat for I'm trying to think
of the best way that I read this was caring

(40:08):
too much about offensive fireworks and not so much about
playing good offensive football.

Speaker 8 (40:15):
And you know, it was.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
A great addition to the Philadelphia Eagles, but not an
addition that was not called into question by some And
same for Vic Fangio. Both worked out. I mean, you know,
the play calling thing again, the Bengals offensively this year
were fine.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
They were fine. Do you take issue with certain play calls?

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yes, we talked about it in certain games this year
where they take the ball out of Burrows hands. The
game management at the end of the Denver Bronco game
didn't make any sense as a general rule. I would
love to see what it would look like if Zach
wasn't calling plays. But offensively last year they were fine.
Their biggest issue, the reason why they were on the
outside looking in for me at least, wasn't the play

(41:03):
calling stunk. It was Defensively they were a disaster, and
the main reason why they were a disaster on defense
was the opposite of why the Eagles had a really
good defense. Eagles made good free agency acquisitions and terrific
draft choices. Bengals recently not so much. Six minutes away

(41:24):
from four o'clock five point three, seven four nine fifteen
thirty is our phone number, and eight sixty six seven
oh two three seven seven six works as well.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
I want to play a what if game with t Higgins.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
You'll hear his comments to Joe Daneman of Fox nineteen
and two things I want to know as a spring
training begins, and if you're a Reds fan that you
should want to know as well. Plus we'll hear from
both Wes and Sean Miller. Coming up at four thirty
five on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 5 (41:53):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.

Speaker 6 (41:59):
The you see Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, the experts at you See Health have been
giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's boundless care.
You can trust expect more at ucehealth dot com. Roadways
remain accident for around town this afternoon. However, a little
bit of slow traffic southbound seventy five between Shepherd Lane

(42:21):
and Ronald Rerakean Highway up to a ten minute delay.
Northbound seventy five from Mitchell up toward town that is
a three minute delay. I'm at Ezelek with traffic.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
This report is sponsored by your chance to win one
thousand dollars. Enter this nationwide keeward on our website. Money
that's money, Enter it.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
Now, Hory, what's up?

Speaker 3 (42:44):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. You're listening. Thanks, thanks, hey,
really quick, really quick. On Wednesday, two days from now,
I will be broadcasting from Turfway Park Racing in Gaming.
So you should come to Turfway Park Racing and Gaming

(43:04):
and we'll hang out and I'll do a show and
you'll sit there and have a cold beer and something
to eat. Last time, last time we were doing the
show from there was the day before I was getting
my colonoscope.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
So we did the show and it was a fine,
great place.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
But my guy gentleman by the name of Rodney Simpson
was producing on site and just housing burgers and onion
rings and had a cold beer and I couldn't have
any of it.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
So I'm going to get my come up ince on Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
We'll see you there three to six Wednesday afternoon at
Turfway Park Racing and Gaming.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
And by the way, the same deal as we had
for Friday. Now nobody did it.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
But if you swing by Turfway Park Racing and Gaming
and pick up a sandwich and bring it to Terran,
you will be the ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
Listener of the week. So and we'll have a certificate
for you as well.

Speaker 8 (43:52):
What do we have?

Speaker 3 (43:54):
Six after four? My name's Moeggor. Glad you're here. Hope
you had a great weekend. Your phone calls are welcome
at five When three seven four fifteen thirty and a
sixty six seven oh two three seven seven six. We
are stealing this from the dean of Cincinnati Television sportscasters,
the Ohio sportscaster of the Year, Joe Danoman, the iconic
Joe Danoman, and this he had this last night his

(44:17):
conversation with T Higgins. I think this is the part
that most people have been talking about.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
Tarren.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Go ahead and play some of that audio of Tea
talking about his preference We're staying in Cincinnati.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
Can we can we try it again?

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Can we can we play the audio of t Higgins
talking with Joe Daniman about his preference We're staying in Cincinnati?

Speaker 4 (44:49):
Okay? Can we can we play the audio now? That
would be awesome. Go ahead.

Speaker 9 (44:53):
That you guys have had discussions as a group about
staying together. Is he correct that you guys have actually
talked about this in the future where not just you,
Jamar and Joe, but also Trey all stay Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 10 (45:07):
Uh, yeah, of course.

Speaker 7 (45:08):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (45:08):
We all wanna you know, keep the core pieces of
what it is, you know, even with Mike Jaseca you
know what I mean, you know, Uh, that's that's the
court piece as well. So obviously we wanna build something
here in Sency.

Speaker 11 (45:18):
But you know.

Speaker 10 (45:21):
It's not in my hands right now. So, uh, I
gotta do what I need to do, and if let's
go to another team, and you know that's what happens.

Speaker 9 (45:31):
So well, a lot of angles fans will be watching
this tea and they all want you to stay. You
know that what is your priority when it comes to
this offseason and finding the best fit for you in
your future.

Speaker 10 (45:42):
Right now, I'm just trying to stay away from it
right now, and you know, uh, clear my head, get
away from the game, especially after this after tonight, clear
my head, get away from the game for a few weeks.
And then obviously at March, Uh, it's when things start
ramping up for me with the free agency coming up.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
And then.

Speaker 10 (45:59):
I mean, obviously I would love to be here in Cincinnati.

Speaker 11 (46:02):
I love it here.

Speaker 10 (46:02):
I love the city, a lot of fans, a lot
of you know, coaching staff, everything in the building. But hey,
it signing my control.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
There's a T Higgins with the great Joe Tanneman from
Fox nineteen. The twenty twenty four Ohio Sportscaster of the Year,
The dean of Cincinnati Sports anchors.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
You know's what's interesting about that to me? And there
are a.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Few things, but you know, I'm I'm old enough to
have a pretty decent sense of Bengals history, and the
franchise's history has been littered with players who could not
wait to get out, and at times couldn't wait to

(46:48):
get out because they wanted to go be a star
somewhere else. Like Marvin Jones is one of the nicest
four or five athletes I've ever talked to. Marvin Jones
wanted to see if he can go get number one
wide receiver money. You got a sense the part of
his motivation for leaving was like, yeah, it's nice being
a two or a three behind aj Green, but I
want to go and you know, like financially it's different.

(47:10):
He went on to Detroit and had a nice career.
But there've also been players who have expressed, you know,
sheer frustration, sheer, not necessarily anger, but exasperation with the franchise.
There have been players who have asked to be traded away.
There have been players who have expressed frustration with whoever
the coach has been at the time. Here you have

(47:31):
a guy who's making it known I want to be here.
I mean, just think of the Bengals brand, right, which
you might believe, and to a degree I do, is
at times miss poor trade. People look at this franchise
and go cheap, frugal. Nobody would want to play there.

(47:53):
Why would anybody want to go there? Players are gonna
do everything they can to get out. Like here is
a guy who has been involved in an entanglement with
the Bengals regarding this contract for two years now, and
he's still publicly saying he wants to be here, publicly
talking about keeping the core pieces together. That's I don't

(48:15):
know that there's any grand takeaway to pull from that,
but that's at least interesting to me.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
Let me ask you this.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
If T Higgins played last season for anybody else Kansas
City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles at Cleveland Brown's, Chicago Bears, played
for anybody else and came out and said publicly, I
want to play with Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase. I
want to play in Cincinnati. That's where I want to go.

(48:50):
What would the reaction here be? Do you think the
reaction would be?

Speaker 4 (48:56):
Sh jeez, I don't know. We you know, we already
got Jamar.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
I think the reaction if he was coming from somewhere
else and stating publicly got to be awesome to go
play for play with Joe Burrow and play with Jamar Chase.
It'd be cool as hell to play in Cincinnati. I
think the reaction would be from everybody. And I think
most of us want to see the Bengals key T Higgins,
But those who are skeptical about the Bengals' ability to

(49:22):
build a team while keeping Tea and Jamar and Joe together,
I think they would change their tune if the same
player at the same position from outside said I want
to go to Cincinnati. I want to catch passes from Joe,
I you know, and like he doesn't say I'll be
willing to take less. But I mean, you heard Joe

(49:44):
ask him about conversations that he's had with Burrow and
with Jamar Chase, and you would expect him to have
had those conversations and not surprised that he acknowledged them.
If they're having those conversations, I'm guessing that those conversations
have involved significant discussion about what this could look like financially,
maybe what some of the guys or one of the
players or all three of them have to sacrifice financially

(50:05):
or what they have to do financially. But if this was,
I mean, here's a guy who is he might be
the top free agent available. That's subjective, he might be
the top free agent available. Imagine a scenario in any
other year where the top free agent available, the number

(50:27):
one guy atop many lists, would state publicly, I want
to go to Cincinnati. Can you imagine that happening? T
Higgins of the Minnesota Vikings or T Higgins of the
Seattle Seahawks, number one free agent says I'll go to Cincinnati. Dude,
I'm gonna catch passes from Burrow and I wanna play
with Jamar Chase.

Speaker 4 (50:47):
Let's see if we can make it happen. Kind of
out of my hands. Who knows.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
If this was the number one free agent in the
National Football League playing for any one of the other
thirty one teams, many of those who would say, well,
you can't do it with both wide receivers would say,
screw it, go get that guy. This guy's telling you
he wants to be here. He's not telling you he
wants to be here for not what the most money is.

(51:13):
He's not telling you he wants to be here, and
he's willing to take a huge haircut when it comes
to what he could get financially. But there is a
stated desire to be here. If T Higgins was the
top one, and again you might argue, well, he's not
the best free agent, but I mean he's certainly among
the top free agents.

Speaker 8 (51:30):
Right.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
So let's just say, let's say ESPN's.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
List of the best fifty available free agents, T is
number one, and he's telling anybody who would listen, I
want to go to Cincinnati. Everybody here would want him,
and many of us do, perhaps most of us do.
It's interesting how the conversation for some though, is a
little bit different because he's already here. And again, I've

(51:55):
said this now for months on end that we've been
talking about this. I do not subscribe to the belief
I could be dead wrong about this. I don't subscribe
to the belief that if you signed T. Higgins that
you have no chance of making the rest of the
roster better. If that's the case, let's not talk about
the draft then, and let's ignore the rest of free

(52:15):
agency then, and let's also discount the possibility that some
of the players from last year's team can improve, especially
on defense with better coaching. By the way, you could
apply this to Trey Hendrickson as well. What if Trey
Hendrickson was a free agent and the reigning NFL sack
leader and DPO Y finalists said, yeah, I played last

(52:38):
year with the Tennessee Titans, or I played last year
with the New York Giants. I led the league in sacks.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
But you know what I want to do. I want
to go to Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
There's not one of us that would go, yeah, I
don't know most of us would say, Okay, fine, you
might have to pay him for a little bit longer
than you would like, but in the short term, you
get a dude who's really good at getting after the quarterback. Okay, fine,
Here you have these two guys. Trey is obviously not
a free agent, but here are two stars. I mean,

(53:09):
Tray's a star, and call tea against a star too.
Might be a star number two here, but a star.
They're saying publicly, I want to say, Miles Garrett's trying
to get traded out of Cleveland and do anything he
can to get out of there.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
That's a dude. That's a guy.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
He's twenty nine, He's done everything individually. Wants to win,
Trey wants to win. T wants to win. I'm sure
they do.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
They want to stay here. Doesn't that matter.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
If the reigning NFL sack leader played for another team
and was under contract for a year and said, I
want to be traded, but I want to be traded
to the Cincinnati Bengals, we'd all perk up and go, dude,
make it happen. So I don't know, man, I think
Trey's fascinating and what they do with Tea is interesting.

(54:01):
I'm a believer that you should keep both, and even
with Trey, I don't love succumbing to the possibility of
noise the threat of noise being made. But you know,
I think when you frame it that way, it sort
of sounds a little bit different, right. I think we

(54:23):
talk about these players a little bit different just because
they played here last year.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
They're both telling you they want to be here.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Think of, if you care about this team, how many
players it feels like have either angled for a way
out or have left, you know, with both middle fingers
in the air, or have tried to get traded or
in one significant case threatened to retire and you know,
did sit out like There's been a lot of dudes
over the course of this franchise's history that Corey Dylan

(54:51):
chucking his pads into the stands like guys who just
felt like, man, I'm free, I can get out. Two
guys telling me here they want to day. I think
you have to consider that, especially because we'd give it
extra consideration if they were already playing elsewhere and telling
anybody who would listen they wanted to come here. Seventeen

(55:13):
after four o'clock five point three, seven four nine, fifteen
thirty and eight sixty six, seven oh two, three seven
seven six are our phone numbers. More on the college
troops from over the weekend coming up here uh in
about fifteen minutes. Reds pitchers and catchers reporting today. Roster wise,
a lot of stuff is going to get sorted out.

(55:34):
There are are two kind of overarching questions I have
about the tone of the team and even the makeup
of the team in twenty twenty five. One I don't
think we're gonna get an answer to in March or February.
The other we might well ask both. Next on ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 5 (55:51):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 6 (55:57):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, of the experts at you see Health have
been giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's
boundless care you can trust. Expect more at ucehealth dot com.
Two right lanes are blocked from an accident northbound seventy
five between Mitchell Avenue and Norwood Lateral a twenty minute delay.

(56:18):
Right now back from seventy four once found two seventy five.
It's an accident on the ramp from Ronald Reagan Highway.
I'm at ezelic with traffic. This report is sponsored.

Speaker 5 (56:29):
By fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's sports station.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Put the pipes on that guy, huh. Twenty two minutes
after four o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Sorry, I
just dropped my pen five fifteen thirty. We'll go to
Goodyear later this week and uh spend some time on

(56:57):
the reds. His pictures and catchers begin. There's an ex piece.
Charlie Goldsmith, formerly of the Cincinnati Inquirer, has a newsletter
that you subscribe to and shows up in your inbox,
and you'll read it that's for those who like to read.
For those who can read, that's how it works, and
has a good read on Terry Francona and Nick Martinez

(57:18):
desired to pitch for Terry Francona and our buddy Gordon
Wittmyer today and The Inquirer has a good piece on
Terry Francona as well.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
You know, it's one of the stories of the season.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Terry Francona is going to get rave reviews for his
affability and it's going to be really fun to you know,
hear the dispatches from good year with you know, players
talking about what it's going to be like to play
for him and their offseason conversations with him. There's like
two things that will hover over the start of the season.
One is on Terry Francona. And you know, we talked

(57:52):
about it a lot when he got hired. We talked
about this a lot during the season last year. How
how mistakes continued last season to get repeated, you know,
for whatever attributes David Bell may or may not have
brought to the table, and for whatever criticisms of his
lineups there might have been, which I think are dramatically

(58:15):
overstated as last year unfolded. I think the thing that
we started to talk about most and where I started to,
at least on this show lob criticisms at David Bell
that I hadn't previously on this show were when we
saw things that just seemingly never got corrected. Base running,

(58:37):
and you know, Ellie daylor Cruz gets talked about more
than anybody else to a large degree, understandably so, but
he wasn't the only person, only player, or guilty of.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
Some of this stuff. The base running.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Some of the times we saw this team cross over
from aggressiveness to stupidity, some of the defensive issues not
necessarily being about misplaying a ball, but not going to
the right base with the ball.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
That sort of stuff just mistakes.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
If you watched the twenty twenty four Reds for any
significant amount of time, you saw a lot of things
that as the season went on, you said, why aren't
these things being fixed? Why aren't these things being corrected?
Why do these things keep popping up? And so where
I look for the and I think most would agree,
where I look for the biggest impact made by the

(59:22):
manager is going to be with that stuff. Do the
mistakes get corrected? Do they get addressed. You know, people
talk about players being held accountable. This kind of all
folds into that if we see things in April, are
they cleaned up by the time we get to June,
or are we still talking about them in August.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
I think the other thing is, you know, last year
and they had.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Their they were sixteen and fourteen through thirty games, which
we joked about being their best start since the twenty
thirteen season. But there was this real ominous stretch of
time right when spring training was ending, where Matt McClain
got hurt and you had the sense the depth was

(01:00:07):
going to be tested very early and very dramatically. And
we had a lot of fun with the Reds signing
Mike Ford. If you remember, Mike forb was a guy
that went to camp last year, had a very good camp.
They didn't bring him North, had no room for him,
and then got so desperate they had to go get

(01:00:28):
Mike Ford and then like hit him third for like
the two weeks that he was with the team. When
this team's depth got tested last year, they failed. And
know the way to put it now, their depth, you know,
it's it's not the starting pitching held up for a
while and then totally fell apart at the end of
the year when the depth got tested last year. So

(01:00:51):
I like, I like the Gavin Lux deal, And even
though the Austin Hayes deal like, I don't know that
those guys are going to be monster performers for this team.
Austin Hayes has put up good numbers against lefties. But
you know, even if we're not entirely sure what Gavin
Lux's role is going to be, and even if you
could say that about a handful of players, be nice

(01:01:12):
to have a bench that when they turned to it,
you feel like can be counted on. At the beginning
of the season last year when the depth got tested,
and if you remember, there was this stretch of like,
you know, months on end where it felt like they
were cycling through Mike Ford's and Jacob Herd to Bees
and Connor Capble, dudes like that. And not that there

(01:01:33):
can't be guys like that in camp, but the fail
safe against injury has to be more established players has
to be dudes who are more ready to step in
and contribute, and they can't be so backed into a
corner and injury was reason for this. Injury will occur
this year. You can't be so screwed depth wise that
you're backed into a corner and having to pay people

(01:01:54):
to come play for you that you didn't have room
for when spring training ended. And so as spring training
unfolds and it still feels like we're forever away from
the start of the regular season on opening day March
twenty seventh. That's one of the questions that I hope
we start to get an answer to is when the
team's depth gets tested, and again, like I like what

(01:02:16):
they've done this offseason to build their depth a little
bit better, Are they ready to pass those tests when
they were ill equipped for them last season. Your phone
calls are coming up next, and we'll hear from Shawn
Miller and West Miller on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty To traffic.

Speaker 6 (01:02:36):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, the experts at you See Health have been
giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's boundless
care you can trust expect more at UCHealth dot com.
Westbound two seventy five, it's an accident on the ramp
from Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway right lane blocked off

(01:02:57):
at the end of that ramp. Northbound seventy five five
right two lanes blocked from an accident after Mitchell Avenue
Police emergency cruise on scene on that ezealek with.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Sports headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet Home of
Lifetime powertrain Protection and guaranteed credit approval from Bear Family
to Yours Life kelseyshev dot Com. Reds are starting spring
training with pictures and Catchers reporting today they'll have physicals tomorrow.
Will the physicals be streamed? Do they stream those at

(01:03:30):
reds dot com? The live live physicals?

Speaker 8 (01:03:32):
I doubt it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
No, that doesn't happen, all right, Well, maybe one day
they will. They'll have a workout on here's the timeline,
workout on Wednesday, and then the rest of the guys
get there on Saturday. Then they have the first full
squad workout on Monday, and then they'll play a couple
of games next Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:03:49):
Split squad action Reds in Goodyear Pictures and Catchers.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
The team announced today they'll whear a number fourteen Pete
Rose patch on their uniforms to commemorate the hit King
who passed away last September, the thirtieth College Basketball AP
Top twenty five Men's Poll, Kentucky fifteenth Coaches Poll, eighteenth
The Mark Pope Radio Show is tonight at six on ESPN,
fifteen to thirty. Kentucky beating South Carolina on Saturday. Let's

(01:04:19):
work backwards here and play some audio for you. So
we talked about the Musketeers behavior, goes to Villanova and
back and forth affair for about thirty two minutes, and
then too much Eric Dixon, too much bad offense and
Xavier fails to get a win in Philadelphia, and easily
for Philly sports fans, the biggest thing that happened yesterday

(01:04:40):
was Villanova beating the Musketeers. Here's Sean Miller talking about
his team and the difference between how they played in
the first thirty minutes versus the last ten.

Speaker 11 (01:04:49):
Yeah, you know, joy, I think the last ten minutes
of the game were a lot different than the first thirty.
We just had a very difficult time stopping them, period.
And look, when the team scores forty seven points in
a half, it's going to be hard for our team
to win. And you know, our credit Villanova. You know,
one of the things that happened in the game is

(01:05:10):
Tyler Perkins, who at one point I think this year
missed twenty eight three point shots in a row. He
had twenty points on us and he made four threes.
And when that happens, that's a different offensive problem that
Jolanova really poses. So you know, not only do you
have Dixon, but you have an additional shooter that quite frankly,

(01:05:32):
they haven't had all seasons. So I thought him going
four for five scoring twenty points, that was as big
of a part of the storyline as anything. But the
forty seven points they's got sixty percent in the second half,
fifteen to twenty five from the field. Our defense wasn't
nearly good enough, tough enough. We didn't compete at the

(01:05:53):
level needed. We didn't execute. And when that happens, especially
on in a way court in February, it's going to
be uphill battle. And for most of the game it
was an even game, but the last ten minutes they
really poled away.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
That's Sean Miller with Joe Sunderman and Byron Larkin yesterday
on seven hundred WLW.

Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
By the way, Joe and Byron are awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
The the TV broadcast yesterday, John Fanta and Tim Spernarkle
signed me up for those two. I mean, I'd read
to listen to Joe and Byron, but the TV broadcast
on FS one yesterday was Tom Dodge.

Speaker 4 (01:06:28):
Not that that matters. You see One on Saturday night
beat BYU.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
They were down by three at halftime and then came
back and played I think their best half of the season.
I think, inarguably almost their their best ten minute stretch
of the season to start the second half, and they
took what was a three point deficit end up outscoring
the Cougars by twenty one. They win by eighteen. They
beat a team that beat them by twenty eight two
weeks prior. Main reason why, according to Wes Miller, the

(01:06:53):
play of his two guards Dayda Thomas and Jessel James.

Speaker 11 (01:06:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:06:58):
First off, I thought our guys played played really well tonight.
They they looked they looked confident, and they were aggressive,
and I thought I thought Dada and Jizsel really set
a tone early in the game for that making plays
for themselves, making plays for others. I thought our movement

(01:07:18):
off the ball early in the game, you know, created
some of those opportunities for Day Day and Jizsel, and
then I thought that kind of permeated throughout the team. Uh,
you know, there was contributions all over the place tonight.
I mean, I thought Dylan defensively really gave us something.

Speaker 13 (01:07:36):
You know.

Speaker 12 (01:07:36):
Uh, he was all over the place. He did a
great job in his ball screen defense. You know, disease
for the most part was was like a presence in
the ball screen. And I thought we did a better job,
especially in the second half, of garding it with all five,
not just with two or three. Josh Reid, you know,
I'm not just saying it, because he's sitting right here

(01:07:58):
with me, that that's the best, the best game of
his career to date. And as I told him in
the locker room, it won't. It won't be the best
game of his career soon because he's it's not a
fluke like he's been Uh, he's been improving, and we've
always known he was capable of this. It was great
to see it happen out there in a big time
college basketball game. So, you know, I thought we had

(01:08:19):
contributions all over the place, Like Josh was fantastic. Dan
was fantastic tonight, and I thought he gave us a
real lift and energy off the bench. I thought Aaronton
page in some limited minutes, which isn't easy, I thought
was really positive and that that that run there in
the second half was really important in those minutes. So
with with Dylan and Val trouble, so anyway, I could

(01:08:40):
kind of keep going down. But I was obviously pleased
with the guys tonight and they look like the group
that we know that they can look like. And again
I thought Dada and Gisel said a real tone early.
And you know, Josh, I think making a couple of shots,
you know, in that second rotation was really big force too.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Yeah, I'm happy for Josh reed wes Miller for his
team's eighteen point win over at by You And you
know he talked about how they looked and that look.

Speaker 4 (01:09:07):
I don't know what it's going to mean moving forward.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
I'm a little bit I will admit that I'm a
little bit too jaded by how they played for large
stretches of time during that stretch where they lost eight
out of ten, and how they played and how they
looked eight days ago is still very fresh in my mind.
But they have responded and they've forced the issue on offense,

(01:09:34):
and they're making shots, and when they stop turning it over,
they've looked like they have the capability of being a
pretty good offensive basketball team. They'll host a Utah tomorrow night.

Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
All right? Is that all I got for sports headlines?
I believe it is.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
Let's see here, Robert you're you know, perhaps I should
pull the screen closer to me so I can actually
read the names. Robert, You're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank
you for your patients. How are you good?

Speaker 13 (01:10:00):
No, thank you, I enjoyed the show. Appreciate your and
Tern's hard work.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:10:05):
I got a couple of quick comments and then one
hopefully fun question. Yeah right. The quick question is uh,
or the comment is you know? When I was watching
the game last night, I was struck by a couple
of things as it pertains or relates to the Bengals.
One was when they talked about coach Siriani being willing
to give up the play calling. Uh, that's got that

(01:10:28):
kind of got my attention. And then just uh, the
incredible uh you know, drafting and play of their defense
last night. Uh, you know, compared to compared to ours
right now, the Bengals right now. So so my question is,
like when it when it comes to the Bengals creativity
and working, I don't know how hard they work, but

(01:10:52):
sometimes I think we question how smart they they work. Yeah,
So my my kind of fun question off of that is,
you know, do you think they would ever consider something
like calling up the Browns and saying, you know, we'll
sign if this is even possible, we'll sign and trade
you T Higgins and Trey Hendrickson for Miles Garrett. That's

(01:11:14):
all I got.

Speaker 11 (01:11:14):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Uh, well, no, I mean I think if I'm if
I'm if I'm T Higgins, I'm just gonna go ahead
and sign a contract with the Browns. You know, I'm
just gonna go ahead, and you know, let's if I'm
going to go to Cleveland.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
There are rules.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
It's not like there are no sign in trades in
the NFL like the NBA, to the best of my knowledge,
and so if you sign a contract with a new team,
you are with that team for a certain amount of time.
So you couldn't do that if you were to go
to Tea with that such a scenario. If I'm T Higgins,
I would just rather negotiate directly with the Cleveland Browns,
but I'd like Miles Garrett. I don't think Kelsey Conway

(01:11:52):
has a piece in the Inquirer that came out last
week which outlines why trading for Miles Garrett is is
not going to happen, and I think everybody around the
league would be stunned if the Browns traded him in
their own division. And then there's the issue of working
at a contract extension with him. But I mean they
if they're going to sign T Higgins, They're signing T Higgins,

(01:12:12):
so he plays for them.

Speaker 13 (01:12:16):
Yeah, that makes sense. Full transparency, I think I hear
you allude to it sometimes. But are we confident in
the Bengals front office at this point or is it?
Or is there some major concerns?

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Major concern you got to earn confidence. They haven't drafted
well enough on defense to earn it, and we have
spent a ton of time on T. Higgins and Trey
Hendrickson and understandably so. But the backbone of this offseason
is still going to be made up of the draft
and what ultimately is going to constitute whether or not

(01:12:51):
the Bengals have a dramatic shift in what their defense
looks like. I think is still going to have more
to do with how they draft, and I'll fold in
last year's picks because they draft the guy on defense
that I think have a bright future. I think is
going to have more to do with who they draft
than anything else. And you are being completely reasonable if
you look at what they have done drafting on defense

(01:13:11):
and drafting to replace players who may leave, and you
look at that and you lack confidence based on the results.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
That is completely fair and understandable.

Speaker 13 (01:13:21):
How about the offensive play calling, and then thank you
for taking lakof well the.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
Offensive play calling for me, Robert, thanks so much. The
offensive play calling for me. Anecdotally, there are times I
don't like what they do. But it was a good
offense this year. I mean, relatively speaking, this was a
good offense. The function of the offense was mostly fine.
Are there areas where you could nitpick?

Speaker 4 (01:13:47):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
Did we, you know, devote segments this season to Jack
Taylor taking the ball out of Joe Burrow's hands at
key moments?

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
Yes? Do we still talk about Zach and situational football? Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):
And you could argue I think that he'd be better
at situational football if you know, he didn't have his
hands full with the play calling.

Speaker 4 (01:14:07):
But I think the play calling.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
The issues that the play calling discussion in the past,
I think has been about the Bengals offensively going through
these very large lulls.

Speaker 4 (01:14:21):
They didn't have as many of those this year.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
This was a good offense this season. This was an
offense that in games they lost, did everything. You could
ask again, if you're gonna go, well, hey, this play
was called and I didn't like it, I mean, you know, yeah,
there were times where that happened, But the overall body
of the work of the offense, I don't know that
you have to disrupt now if you want to make

(01:14:44):
the argument Zach would be a better game manager if
he didn't have his hands hold of the offense.

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
I'm here for that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
But the offense worked, and so are we sure the
offense would work as well if you changed up what
they were doing with the play calling. I'm gonna guess,
especially in the absence of them changing offensive coordinators, that
how they call the plays and how they designed the
game plans and the operation on game day is not
going to change. What I would like is for Zach

(01:15:13):
Taylor to figure out ways within the parameters that he
has set by himself, which is I'm going to call
the plays to leave us questioning game management decisions less
like the time against the Chargers when it felt like
he should call a time out, when Jamar Chase is
on the sideline and they look like they're a little

(01:15:37):
bit too hectic and disorganized coming to the line of
scrimmage with the game hanging in the balance, or instances
where he has taken the ball out of Joe Burrow's hands.
That to me is not so much a play calling
issue as it is a game management or a game
decision making issue. But the function of the offense this
year I thought was fine as a general rule. I

(01:15:57):
thought was fine if you're going to go well. This
one time he called a run play on second and
seven and it got stuffed, Like I don't know. And
by the way, I think when it comes to play calling,
Joe Burrow has a large say in what happens as well.
I don't really have an issue like I don't view
on the things that has to happen for this team
to be playing a year from yesterday. I don't view

(01:16:23):
play calling as very close to the top of the list.
Where I am skeptical is whether or not they could
use the draft to fill the spots left by players
who leave, and whether or not they could use the
draft to find guys who can create the backbone of
a really good defense. Moving forward their recent draft choices,

(01:16:44):
and again I'll sort of remove twenty twenty four because
it's not fair to judge an entire class after one year.
But they've not gotten what they were looking for from
a lot of the guys they took in the secondary,
many of whom, most of whom are early round draft choice.
The Miles Murphy pick has not worked out.

Speaker 4 (01:17:03):
Joseph O.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
Sigh is a draft choice has not worked out. That's
got to be rectified, and that's got to be rectified
no matter what they do with Ta and no matter
what they do with Trey. We could look at Eagle's
roster composition and man, Yes, acquired Saquon Barkley from elsewhere,
and acquired aj Brown from elsewhere, and made the decision

(01:17:25):
of drafting and then ultimately giving the team to Jalen
Hurts and extending him and him rewarding them, and some
of the decisions they did make in free agency. But
Howie Roseman's also awesome at drafting. He's awesome at using
the draft to make the team better, and that has
to be the case regardless of whether or not you
have a quarterback who's making a huge amount of money

(01:17:47):
or a quarterback under a rookie contract. Since Joe Burrow
has come out of his rookie contract years, the drafting
hasn't been very good. Thirteen away from five o'clock five
point three, seven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight sixty six,
seven oh two three seven seven six Joe Burrow yesterday
one and lost that coming up at five oh five

(01:18:09):
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 5 (01:18:11):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 6 (01:18:16):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than
two hundred years, the experts at you see Health have
been giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's
boundless care you can trust. Expect more at UCHealth dot com.
On northbound IS seventy five, the left lane blocked off
from an accident. That's after I seventy four northbound seventy

(01:18:38):
five as well. Let's a disabled vehicle on the entrance
ramp from Ezra Charles Drive used caution around there. I'm
at Ezelek with traffic.

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
This report is sponsored nine away from five o'clock.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Molegger Thrilled that you're
with us today, Mark Pope Show coming up at six o'clock.

Speaker 4 (01:19:00):
Uh Hi, Mike, the heck are you? Mike? I'm doing well?
On on Saturday. I got to tell you something.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
On Saturday, I was at the UC basketball game, and
when the game ended, I decided to go get a
postgame beverage.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
Just there and Clifton at meos and I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
Standing there money not me. I'm standing there minding my
own business. And a guy comes up to me and says,
do you guys pay Mike to call in?

Speaker 11 (01:19:28):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
Can you make sure that you for the benefit of
the audience who might believe that you're on our payroll
to spell that for us?

Speaker 8 (01:19:39):
Categorically incorrect?

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
Okay, very good, clear it up. We're not paying Mike.
How you doing, Mike?

Speaker 8 (01:19:46):
That's weird, man. Are you serious?

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
Yeah? The guy asked, if we pay you to call in.

Speaker 8 (01:19:51):
Well, I must not be a very big hit there
with the guys.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
I don't take it as a negative. I don't think.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
I don't think he thought you're a bad caller, but
just wanted to know if we pay you for appearing
on this show as a caller.

Speaker 8 (01:20:06):
That's hilarry. Yeah, maybe in a roundabout way, if I
got more people involved with the home dog strategy, because
I get a cutoff to off my boss for that
on a national basis. But that's a different story. Okay, Uh,
you were talking. Joe g is the man. He's the
man in sports talking Cincinnati right now on television. Yes,

(01:20:28):
my my favorite guy growing up was the infamous Jack Moran.
Have you ever heard of Jack?

Speaker 14 (01:20:34):
I have.

Speaker 8 (01:20:37):
Unbelievable guy. He was on there. I don't know how
old he was when he left. I just wanted a
couple of guys maybe out there listening on the audience.
We'll recall Jack Moran. I can't remember what station he
was on, but he was on for a long time though.

Speaker 3 (01:20:54):
So Moran was no well, I mean, Jack Moran was
primarily if my memory starts correct, on Channel nine.

Speaker 8 (01:21:03):
That you would know because you're more in touch with them. Hey,
you know you mentioned earlier. I had so many things
I always want to talk to you about. But you
were saying earlier about the game last night and the
overall climate in the NFL this year, the last few years,
and that there's really no one way to build a team.

(01:21:24):
But you know, I kind of the Patriots might be
an exception, but that's not really current. Now that's a
couple to three years old.

Speaker 7 (01:21:32):
What do you mean, Well, I'm thinking that really there
is one way to build a really good team now,
and that is through the draft.

Speaker 8 (01:21:45):
And here and they're hitting the free agent market. But
obviously these teams like the Rams, the Bucks and now
Philly are getting a studie of doing this with analyzing
these college players, and it's paying off because of how
it affects the salary cap and what they can spend.

Speaker 3 (01:22:04):
Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to build an NFL
franchise that can enjoy sustained success is to first of all,
have a very good quarterback and have made the appropriate
investment in him, and then master the draft trades.

Speaker 4 (01:22:23):
In free agency, you know, you.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
In twenty twenty five, you have to use free agency,
and just more and more teams than you know, the Bengals,
one of the Bengals take a major step forward. They
did two things. They drafted Joe Burrow and they embraced
free agency. And used it as like a major, a
major mechanism to build their team in twenty twenty. It's
not always going to work, but it's a tool available

(01:22:50):
to you, and so you're you're woefully behind the times
if you choose not to use it now. That doesn't
mean if. But being really good and being active in
free agency doesn't mean spend the most money, doesn't mean
sign the most famous players, doesn't mean make the biggest splash,
but use it to make acquisitions that fit, that makes

(01:23:10):
sense for your team, that provide value that you can
get a lot out of.

Speaker 4 (01:23:15):
That doesn't ignore the importance of the draft.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
And so like the whole thing about there not being
any one way to build a team, like Philadelphi Eagles
are checking every day. They've got a high end quarterback.
Jalen Hurts is maybe different than Joe Burrow, but I
think we would say a quarterback that are very comfortable
having invested in was the MVP of the game last night.
Nail it in the draft, use free agency to your advantage,

(01:23:39):
use smart trades to acquire a talent from outside. And
you know, with what they did with what they did,
that's interesting is they've with Saquon Barkley. They've kind of
changed the conversation about running backs too. I'm not sure
that anybody is going to go throw a huge amount
of coin at the best running back available this year.

Speaker 4 (01:23:58):
But what they've done sounds easy to replicate.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
I don't think it is. But I don't think there's
any one way to build a team. I think if
you looked if you went around the NFL, and let's
say you found that the twelve most qualified general managers
and asked them, what should the Bengals do with T Higgins,
I would imagine some would say extend them, some would
say don't extend them. One or two might say franchise

(01:24:25):
tag him. There's no right way to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:24:28):
I think what is.

Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
Inarguable, though, is whatever they do with T. Higgins, you
still have to figure out a way to use free
agency when you still have a lot of money to spend.
But this team's inability to successfully draft defensive players must change,
and if it doesn't, the results are going to be limited,
and the really good results are going to be short lived.

Speaker 8 (01:24:51):
Well, now, I mean you stated that about as well.
I couldn't have stated it any better. Of course, you
typically do but Michael, last night's game, I'm looking at
how the how the Eagles are too. I mean, they're
a hammer, They're all dude camp and Mahomes can't go anywhere.
And Tampa did it to him a couple of years
ago with that same kind of regal. Wink was pass rush. Yeah,

(01:25:17):
so I think with maybe the league is hip too well.
Of course, maybe that's just based on their offensive line
is in adequate and up with Kansas City? What do
you think about that? But Tampa did the exact same
thing to them though a couple of years ago, you
remember it was?

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
It was remarkable and striking the similarities between the two
that in both instances. I don't know off the top
of my head how often Tampa Bay blitzed, but if
I if I think back to that game, it felt
like Tampa Bay was just winning with four upfront, and
Philadelphia obviously last night also won with just four upfront. Now,
the Chiefs, in reaction to that game against Tampa Bay

(01:25:54):
went to work on their offensive line. What is the
reaction by that franchise after their lack of past protection doomed?
There are Super Bowl chances and look, and I'm gonna
talk about this in further detail after the break.

Speaker 4 (01:26:06):
Patrick Mahomes has to play better for them next year.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
Like the subtext to the season for them was they
performed unevenly on offense, in large part because their quarterback
wasn't quite as good as he has been. Is that
a one year outlier? Does that trend continue? Is this
who he is right now? Or does he turn back
into Superman next year? I think it's gonna be really

(01:26:30):
interesting to find out. Mike, I gotta run the check
is in the mail?

Speaker 4 (01:26:33):
Okay, wait here quick one? Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:26:36):
Utah? You see sixty eighth and rebounding in the country.
Utah's fiftieth. Don't know so it'll make a difference, but
it's hid. Thanks moll.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
Utah kicked the hell out of him on the glass
in their game in Salt Lake City and that's why
they lost. The rematch will be uh tomorrow night five, one, three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty is our phone number. Joe Burrow was talked
a lot about last week, and so last night he won,
but he also lost. That incredible sports talk radio topic
is coming up. Plus more on the Reds on the

(01:27:06):
first day of spring training, and a few college basketball
notes as well.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
Five o'clock on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Now your chance to win one thousand dollars. Enter this nationwide,
Keward on our website.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
Credit that's credit.

Speaker 4 (01:27:19):
Credit Enter it now, c R E D credit. What's up?
It's six after five.

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Moegger. Thank you for listening.
If we had a great Monday Mark Pope show in
fifty four minutes, be here for that.

Speaker 4 (01:27:40):
I said the Super Bowl was a dud and I
liked it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:45):
Like, let's be honest, man, if you're a Bengals fan,
you were rooting for Kansas City unless you bet on them,
and I didn't. So, I mean it would have been
one thing to watch them lose twenty seven to twenty
four and like a j Elliot field goal or some
sort of close game. But to watch them lose a
game that bad boy felt like it was over with

(01:28:06):
five minutes to go in the first half.

Speaker 4 (01:28:09):
I mean it was.

Speaker 3 (01:28:10):
I think we all thought going in, Philly's got the
better team, Philly's got the better roster. Oh but dot
dot dot Kansas City has Patrick Mahomes, and maybe that
game changes how we talk about this sport at least
a little bit because we love to talk and debate quarterbacks.
We love to rank quarterbacks. I mean, we love to

(01:28:30):
discuss which ones are eliite. We had with us last
week on this show, Evan Cohen from ESPN Radio, and
I had like six or seven things I wanted to
ask him. It turned into a twelve minute conversation about quarterbacks.
And so the way the game was framed last week was, Okay,
who do you think is gonna win? Do you think
the team that has the better roster or the one
that has Patrick Mahomes? And Patrick Mahomes has been a

(01:28:53):
marvelous player for a while, could retire today and is
in the Hall of Fame, has accomplished something that players
like Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and
even newly minted Super Bowl QB Super Bowl winning QB
Jalen Hurts would be extremely lucky to accomplish. Where he's
played in five Super Bowls and he's won three. But

(01:29:14):
last week, it was interesting if if you tried to
make the assertion that you know what, I like Philly
in this game, and then tried to outline all the
reasons from a roster perspective, what they could do running
the ball, which Kansas City bottled up, what Hurts could
do both running and throwing, the threats they had on
the outside in the event that Kansas City oversold itself

(01:29:36):
to take a take away Philly's run game, the things
they could do up front defensively. The counter to it
was yeah, but dot dot dot Patrick Mahomes. Well, as
awesome as Patrick Mahomes has been, there were two things
about it. Number one, not good enough with a roster
not as good to beat the better team that, by
the way, had its own really really good quarterback. Number two,

(01:30:00):
and I think this is going to be one of
the more interesting things about this offseason. I thought Joe
Burrow played quarterback this past season better than anybody in
the NFL. Now, yes, I'm a little bit biased, admittedly, Also,
I watched more of Joe Burrow. I saw every Joe
Burrow snap. I didn't see every snap of any other

(01:30:22):
NFL quarterback, but I saw enough based on what I watched,
Joe played quarterback this season better than anybody else in
the NFL.

Speaker 4 (01:30:38):
The reason why.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
He was an MVP finalist was he played quarterback at
such a high level that the people who determine who
the finalists are kind of gave Joe a pass. Even
though he was on a team that didn't make the
postseason and barely finished above hundred. He led the league

(01:31:01):
in categories, many of them were counting stats like number
of touchdowns, passing yards, completions, attempts, led the league in
yards per game. I thought he played quarterback this season
better than anybody else in the NFL. Josh Allen was MVP,
which is fine. I would have voted for Lamar Jackson
because I do. I value the winning component and Lamar

(01:31:24):
was better head to head against both Joe Burrow and
Josh Allen.

Speaker 4 (01:31:27):
His team's won.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
But I thought the mechanics of playing quarterback, Joe did
that better than anybody else in the NFL this year.
If you said that, what you would get in return
is I know. But he's not Patrick Mahomes. And there's
a difference between how the two are playing quarterback, mastering

(01:31:50):
the position, running their teams, and what's on their resume.
Jalen Hurt's resume now has a super Bowl win that
can ever be taken away. He's in the club super
Bowl winning quarterback. Joe doesn't have that. Lamar doesn't have that.
Josh Allen doesn't have that. Justin Herbert doesn't have that.

(01:32:14):
Can't be to attack if I Looa doesn't have that,
like can't be taken away Trevor Lawrence, I mean we
keep going to.

Speaker 8 (01:32:20):
C. J.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
Stroud doesn't have that. Like Jalen Hurts is in the club.
Jalen Hurts has asked to play a different type of quarterback.
I think if you asked most general managers or evaluators
how you could build your team around this guy or
this guy, most would say Joe. That's no knock on Jalen.
Why because Joe Burrow this year, I felt like the

(01:32:43):
act of playing QB was better than anybody else in
the NFL, including Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 4 (01:32:49):
The numbers would tell you that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
I think the tape would tell you that if you
were to sit down and grind away at it, which
I'm obviously not as qualified to do. It doesn't mean
Patrick Mahomes is a bad player. But you know, his season,
by his standards, was so pedestrian that he was the
starting quarterback for a team that won fifteen of its
first sixteen games, that ran away and hid in its

(01:33:13):
own division. Though was the number one seed, had the
best record in the league, he was the starting quarterback
for that team. He was not an MVP finalist. That
is an indictment against his play, which this season was fine.
Wasn't terrible, but it was fine to a degree. He's

(01:33:35):
kind of the victim of his own previous success where
he's thrown fifty touchdown passes in a season where he's
twice led the league in TD passes, where he's twice
led the league in yards per game. They're running a
different type of offense. He looks different. So what I
think is going to be fascinating now moving forward is
what Patrick Mahomes do we see moving forward. He's not

(01:33:57):
yet thirty years old. He turns thirty I think in
September of year. He's not yet thirty years old. He's
obviously not a bad player. But you know, for years,
if we've been doing like Tier one qbs, it was
Mahomes and then whoever else, or you might say, Mahomes
isn't a category all by himself. Even this year, you

(01:34:17):
heard a lot of people say, well, okay, he's he's
not an MVP. He's not an MVP finalist. Statistically, maybe
he didn't do what Lamar did this year, what Josh
Allen did with Joe Bert, but he's still the best
player in the sport. He's still the best quarterback in
the league. That guy that I watched last night wasn't close.
I've never seen a player considered the best in the
league in a game like that struggled the way Patrick

(01:34:40):
Mahomes did. And yes his pass protection failed him, but
just look at him. Watch you could find the game
that didn't look like a quarterback who had confidence, that
didn't look like a quarterback who had mastered the game plan,
that didn't look like a high end quarterback. So one
of the things I want to know moving forward is
like what Patrick Mahomes is the NFL getting much less
the ca Nta City Chiefs? What QB are the Chiefs

(01:35:02):
getting As the next half of the decade starts to unfold,
I thought, no way, guys like Joe Burrow won last
night because number one, it's one fewer super Bowl they
have to chase down. I said this on our show
last week. I was rooting against Kansas City for all
the obvious reasons, but also like I don't want Joe

(01:35:24):
Burrow to turn into Patrick Mahomes Peyton Manning, Like these
guys are all going to be judged against each other.
The more that Mahomes wins, the harder it's going to
be for Joe to catch him. Right now, Joe's got
his hands full of just getting back to a Super Bowl,
much less winning one, much less winning three, much less
winning four. But I feel like now you can have

(01:35:47):
reasonable conversations about quarterbacks and not have to make an
exception for Patrick Mahomes, which I think we were willing
to do all year long. But after last night, when
you wrap the season into his performance last night, he
wasn't better than those guys. He was on a team
that had a better season. He certainly made his share

(01:36:09):
of plays at precisely the right time. He's a marvelous player.
He's going to the Hall of Fame. He's an all
time great. But you know, even as you look at
the landscape of the AFC, I walked away from that
game last night thinking to myself, like, boy, that team
was really vulnerable this year, and only the Philadelphia Eagles
could take advantage.

Speaker 4 (01:36:30):
No one else in the AFC could. What a missed opportunity.

Speaker 3 (01:36:33):
And so now what do they do around him, What
does the offensive line look like, what adjustments do they
make to the defense. I know fans in Kansas City
are complaining about the offensive coordinator, Matt Naggi, But more
than anything, I want to know which Patrick Mahomes plays
for them next year, because if it's the guy who
played for them this season, I promise you they will
not go fifteen to two, which means they'll be even

(01:36:54):
more vulnerable than they were last night and all this season. Now,
Joe Burrow I think wins in that regard, he also
sort of loses because in this stretch where he started
in twenty twenty two, qbs had won super Bowls. One
was Patrick Mahomes, the other was Tom Brady, And so
you could always say, well, like, dude, you mean give
him a pass. He's competing with Tom Brady. He was

(01:37:16):
a rookie Brady was in year twenty. I mean, come on,
it's Tom. Nobody can catch Tom Brady. Fine, And then
the only other guy that had won titles was Patrick
Mahomes and obviously Matthew Stafford the head to head. Now
there's one more. And so in that same draft class
is a guy who is in the club So when

(01:37:37):
we have these incessant conversations about elite quarterbacks or Tier
one quarterbacks, no matter what you say about you about
Jalen Hurts, he's got a ring. And there's a lot
of other dudes who are in that conversation that don't.
But at least Patrick Mahomes doesn't have one.

Speaker 8 (01:37:54):
More.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
It's one of the storylines of next season, which Patrick
does the MVP Patrick Mahomes And, by the way, get
Rashid rice back Xavier Worthy certainly looks like a very
good target. Hollywood Brown resign there? Do they give him
a more effective running game? One of the things that
was interesting about the game last night is it felt
like the Chiefs had no interest at all in running
the football, and then the game kind of got out

(01:38:16):
of hand and they had no choice. They couldn't run
the football. But which version of Patrick Mahomes do the
Chiefs get next season? The guy who's merely good or
the guy who's superhuman? This year, he was not superhuman. Yesterday,
obviously he was anything but eighteen minutes after five o'clock,
five to one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty as

(01:38:36):
the phone number.

Speaker 4 (01:38:37):
If there's one other thing from last night.

Speaker 3 (01:38:39):
I did the exercise with Paul Danner Junior, who's on
our show tomorrow. We did his mockoff season where we
take a spreadsheet make individual decisions regarding players. The Bengals
can cut players, the Bengals could extend players. The Bengals
could move on from We could also slide in free
agents in Milton Williams, and the cap number was very

(01:39:03):
very big. The salary was very very big. I did this,
by the way, and I held on a Trey Hendrickson
anti Higgins. Milton Williams made himself a lot of money
in the NFC title Game win over Washington. He made
even more last night. He was unblockable. This is a
dude who is an interior guy. Is awesome rushing the passer.
I didn't grade out nearly as well stopping the run

(01:39:24):
this season, but in the past has been really good.
Just twenty five years old, not a ton of tread
on the tires. What's it going to cost? I have
no idea, but I was asked by a caller on
this show last week, pick a free agent, name the
guy that you want most. You saw him last night
in the Super Bowl helping to dominate that Kansas City
offense nineteen minutes after five o'clock at Moegar on X

(01:39:47):
thanks to Delta Dental, which is building healthy, smart, vibrant
communities for all.

Speaker 4 (01:39:51):
Good to Delta Dental, oh dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:39:55):
Day one of spring training, Day one of potential turning
in to reality, we hope next to ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 5 (01:40:03):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 6 (01:40:10):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, the experts at you see Health have been
giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's boundless
care you can trust. Expect more at ucehealth dot com
on observatory. It's an accident over at Shaw Avenue, Clinton
Springs Avenue. Reports of a vehicle fire that near Mitchell

(01:40:31):
Avenue northbound seventy one traffic moving slow from Stuart Road
over toward Ronald Reagan Highway. A two minute delay on that.
Ezeleic with Sharn twenty.

Speaker 4 (01:40:41):
Four after five.

Speaker 3 (01:40:42):
This is excuse me, ESPN fifteen thirty on moleg Or Wednesday.
Today is not Wednesday. Tomorrow's not Wednesday either, but Wednesday
we're gonna be broadcasting from a turfway park. Racing and
gaming and we hope to see you there from three
to six, because that's what our show is. That's also
the day the Reds have their first work out with
pitchers and catchers. Tomorrow is the physical Tomorrow the go

(01:41:05):
through the physical regiment, and then they play baseball. I guess,
though without the position players because they don't report until Saturday.
Of course, though a lot of position players are already there,
because the Reds have a bunch of guys who care.
The next few weeks a lot is gonna unfold, you
think about it. I was reading a redreporter dot com,

(01:41:26):
which is a very good website, on kind of the
forecast for the Red starters this year. You know, if
you think about it late last season, late last season,
two things were happening. The starting staff was falling apart,
and David Bell was getting fired. And what was really
interesting about that was David Bell, I think, was doing
his best work in September last year, just trying to

(01:41:50):
find guys to eat innings while still trying to win
baseball games. And then he lost his job. And everybody's
not really pumped up about Terry Francona, and understandably so.
But in that mix Rhet Louder comes up and less
than a year and a half from the time he
was drafted ends up really pitching well, might not even
be in the starting rotation this year.

Speaker 4 (01:42:11):
There is a lot of depth, a lot of depth.

Speaker 3 (01:42:14):
I mean, there been years over the last decade or
so where on the first day of spring training, as
pitchers and catchers were reporting, it was it was it
was almost impossible to pick an opening day pitcher, much
less identify who five starters could be. I mean, think
about the last decade or so, how many times the
Reds went to camp and it was like I might

(01:42:35):
know one guy or two guys. Now there's like, if
Nick Martinez is in your starting rotation, which I think
most of us expect him to be, that's that's all right.
And Brady Singer was specifically what they were looking for.
And Hunter Green was an All Star last year. I
think people forget how good Hunter Green was for a
huge chunk of the season last year and did come

(01:42:58):
back and pitch at the very very end, which I
don't think was insignificant. You know, they still there's still
a lot of upside with Andrew Abbott, and still a
lot of upside with Nicolodolo, like, there's there's some depth there,
so much so that Rhet Louder might not make the
starting rotation. And by the way, Rhet Louder not being
in the starting rotation to start the season might be

(01:43:19):
the right decision to make, like for all of the
to a degree justified angst over what the Reds didn't
do this offseason and making a play for like a big,
splashy type acquisition. And as much as I do have
serious questions about this team's ability to consistently score runs,

(01:43:41):
what kind of trumps all of it for me? Why
why I believe they're gonna sail way past what fan
well Fangrafts had seventy seven. Baseball Perspectives had him at
seventy three and a half and finishing in last place.

Speaker 4 (01:43:54):
I buy into the ceiling for this starting staff.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
Now, they gotta stay healthy, and you're being fair if
you wonder if that's gonna happen, either individually or collectively.
But I think there's a lot of teams who were
on the outside looking in last year who would like
to have some of the starting pitchers the Reds have.
And it's funny you still get people who kind of
look at you, askew. If you suggest Hunter Greens and
Ace Hunter Green was eighth in the National League say

(01:44:19):
Young voting last year. Now that doesn't necessarily mean he's
arrived as a star, but he checked a lot of
boxes last year. The one that he did not check
was get through the entire season uninterrupted without going on
the injured list.

Speaker 4 (01:44:32):
So that's next.

Speaker 3 (01:44:34):
But if a lot of those guys can do that,
then the Reds do really have the making of a
team that should have a pretty good, pretty solid starting rotation.
I'm still a little bit uneasy about the bullpen. I
like the Taylor Rogers acquisition. I am still I don't know, man,
But the starting staff was better than league average for

(01:44:54):
much of the season last year.

Speaker 4 (01:44:56):
Was I mean, it was part of what.

Speaker 3 (01:44:58):
Made last season so frustrating that the year before they
had a disaster of a starting staff and hung into
the race until the second to last day of the season.
Last year of their starting pitching was dramatically better fixed
relative to what it was in twenty twenty three, and
the team never really seriously contended. If the starting staff

(01:45:20):
is even better this year, this team should contend. And
I certainly hope they do. There's also this and I
was thinking about this in reading about Terry Francona Gordon
Whittmeyer the Inquiry today writing about Terry Francona and the
decision to come back and come out of retirement. And
you know, he's held in such high regard around the
sport and people love him. He's one of these like

(01:45:41):
revered figures in all of baseball. With David Bell over
the last six seasons, most of the time when asked
about him, my counter would be, I don't know. I
don't know if he's a good manager. I don't know
if he ever really set up for success.

Speaker 4 (01:46:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:46:03):
I don't know if Terry Francona is going to win here.
There's really nothing he hasn't done. There's no type of
player he hasn't won with. There's no scenario he hasn't
had to work through. One in a big market in Boston,
but also one in Cleveland where they were constantly moving
on from guys before they should have, one in a

(01:46:26):
bigger market, one in a smaller market. And you know
a lot of people looked at the Reds hiring him
in October and said, well, this means he's coming here
because he thinks they're going to spend. And again, they
didn't have a you know, a listless offseason, but it,
I think, relative to what a lot of people were
hoping for, it was relatively quiet. What I liked most

(01:46:48):
about Terry Francona coming here wasn't so much what it's
said about their willingness to spend, then what it said
about what they have and what he saw when he
saw the roster.

Speaker 4 (01:46:58):
He's talked about that a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:47:02):
And mentions that in Gordon's piece, there's a lot to
like here, and it starts with the starting pitching. Twenty
nine away from five o'clock. Five one, three, seven, four nine.
Fifteen thirty is our phone number. Sports headlines are next
on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 5 (01:47:16):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 6 (01:47:21):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than
two hundred years, the experts at you See Health have
been giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's
foundless care you can trust, expect more at UCHealth dot
com on observatory. It's an accident over at Shaw Avenue,
Clinton Springs Avenue. Reports of a vehicle fire that near

(01:47:43):
Mitchell Avenue northbound seventy one traffic moving slow from Stuart
Road over toward Ronald Reagan Highway. A two minute delay
on that ezek with traffic.

Speaker 14 (01:47:53):
This report is sponsored by Man Sports Headlines are a
service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime power train protection
and guaranteed credit approval from your family to yours.

Speaker 4 (01:48:06):
For life at kelseyshead dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:48:09):
Reds pitchers and catchers reported to a good year today
for spring training. Red's also announced that all season long,
I don't think this is a surprise to anybody, the
Reds will wear a number fourteen patch. Obviously the first
season since Pete Rose passed away last year on the
day the regular season ended, as they'll wear the number

(01:48:31):
fourteen patch all year long. College basketball Kentucky now fifteenth
in the AP Top twenty five Men's Poll, eighteenth in
the Coach's Poll. The Mark Pope Show. I think earlier,
I said Mark Stoop Show. The Mark Pope Show is
tonight at Mark Students will be eating at Rubiess in
Lexington tonight. Mark Pope will be doing his radio show

(01:48:52):
six o'clock tonight live on ESPN. Fifteen thirty Wildcats coming
off a win over South Carolina on Saturday. By the way,
that there is no and I looked at the schedule,
I double checked. It does not have a Shawn Miller
radio show tonight, so my apologies do.

Speaker 8 (01:49:10):
Not have one.

Speaker 3 (01:49:11):
Musketeer is getting set to take on Providence in Providence
on Wednesday evening. Shawn Miller's team trying to bounce back
after their loss yesterday afternoon.

Speaker 4 (01:49:22):
And it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:49:23):
You know, for weeks on end felt like the team
most likely to make the NCAA tournament between UC and Xavier,
were the Bearcats beat Xavier head to head, XU did
not get off to a very good start in Big
East play, and then Big Twelve begin. Big Twelve Play
begins after Christmas, and the Bearcats then lose eight out

(01:49:44):
of ten, and meanwhile, Shawn Miller's team survives ish that
early season gauntlet in the Big East, and you know,
the two teams were kind of on different trajectories. I'm
using my hands here for an audio medium, which doesn't
make any sense, And it felt like for a couple
of weeks, you know what, it's Xavier's era is pointed

(01:50:04):
up and maybe they're the team more likely to make
the NCUBAA tournament and the Bearcats row was pointed down
and now Xavier suddenly has lost three out of five.
Bearcats have won two straight games. Neither team should feel
great about their chances right now, though it is interesting
and Tony and Austin had this dude on last week
from ESPN's Bubble Watch Neil Payne Scott uc is having

(01:50:28):
a seventy five percent chance of making the NCAA tournament.
I think that's based on opportunities in front of them.
The Bearcats have chances to play Iowa was stayed on
the road, Q one opportunity, a chance to play Houston
on the road, Q one opportunity, opportunities for good wins
on the road against West Virginia, which that was a

(01:50:49):
game I felt okay about before they played here, and
then we saw how the game unfolded. Whereas with Xavier
there's still obviously lots of games and the big carrot
dangling in front of them is the Creighton game. Still
already ten losses and not a lot of wins that
you're gonna, you know, for lack of a better way
of putting it, get credit for. And I am I'm

(01:51:11):
a little bit more skeptical about the Bereckkats than some
just because I want to see a little bit more.
I want to see your performance tomorrow night to really
suggest that how they played against UCF and how they played,
specifically in the second half against BYU are not mirages.

(01:51:31):
A week ago at this time, you know, folks were
banging on their tables for uc to fire Wes Miller
and we were talking about how they played and how
they looked and what that was in the game against
West Virginia. Here they have played better since and encouraging
performance against UCF, a really good performance at least in

(01:51:53):
the second half, and they shot the ball well against BYU.
The problem was they kind of got sloppy at the
end of the first half and they had a stretch
eight turnovers in the first half, which is a lot,
and so it undid or negated a lot of the
good stuff they were doing offensively. But in the second
half they were terrific. They have looked and felt like

(01:52:16):
a different type of team. They're playing fast, they're playing free,
they look unburdened, and I want to see more of that.
And then you know, their point guards have been terrific
both Dayda Thomas and Gisel James. Last couple of games
have been really really good. And if that can continue,
you know, then you beat Utah tomorrow night and you're

(01:52:38):
probably still not going to love their chances against Iowa State.
But could they steal one on the road against West Virginia.
Could they get one against the Mountaineers. That game that
you see played against West Virginia. Not to take anything
away from the team that won, but that game was

(01:52:59):
less about what West Virginia did, I thought, at least
ed more about the Bearcats not showing up. If they
show up in Morgantown, can the result be different? So
tomorrow night, seven o'clock, you see and Utah. Obviously, one
of the more frustrating performances of the season by the
Bearcats was the first game against Utah in Salt Lake City,

(01:53:20):
a game that frankly was there for the taking kind
of got crushed on the glass. That was the one
where they lost forty one to twenty three on the
glass and then had all sorts of offensive execution issues
as well. Hopefully that is rectified in tomorrow night's game
and Bearcats can take a step toward the thing about
bubble teams is like we sometimes look at at games

(01:53:45):
that bubble teams lose and we go, okay, well that
eliminates them. Like bubble teams are bubble teams for a reason.
They're not great. They have a hard time staying consistent,
and so you'll sometimes see teams if you follow a
lot of archetologists, seed teams that don't move either way
in any one direction, even if they've won a couple

(01:54:07):
of games in a row or if they've lost a
couple of games in a row. There's a lot of
teams vying for just a handful of spots, and what
the Bearcats and Musketeers are among them? Nineteen away from
six o'clock Back to last night next ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 5 (01:54:21):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 6 (01:54:26):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than
two hundred years, the experts at you See Health have
been giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's
boundless care you can trust. Expect more at UCHealth dot com.
Only one accident at the moment that is on observatory
over at Shaw Avenue northbound seventy five traffic slow from

(01:54:49):
Mitchell Avenue to Paddock Road a five minute delay and
northbound seventy one slow traffic Kenwood Road to Ronald Reagan Highway.
I'm at Ezelek with traffic.

Speaker 3 (01:55:00):
Fourteen away from six and the end of the show
on ESPN fifteen thirty. I didn't watch a lot of
the pregame show yesterday, watching Hub Brown's last NBA broadcast
on ABC. Great career, phenomenal, ninety one years old, still
doing games, incredible former Knicks coach, and so I you know,

(01:55:24):
the two weeks leading up to the game is a
pregame show. I don't know what they're going to cover
during a seven hour pregame show. That hasn't been covered
as the two weeks have unfolded. But I did catch
the Jimmy Johnson homage, which involved AI generated videos of

(01:55:45):
younger versions of Jimmy Johnson talking about himself. That was
one of the creepiest things I've ever seen in my life.
All leading up to this moment where Jimmy Johnson neither
announced he is retiring or that he's coming back. If
you saw that that was My wife even said like this,
this has giving me the creeps. Most things AI involved

(01:56:06):
give me the creeps that most definitely did that most
definitely did. I don't know why such things bother us
as sports fans, but you know we we liked Minutia,
liked the Mi Nusha, and maybe me a little bit
more than others. So the graphic on a TV screen

(01:56:27):
that shows the score is called a score bug, right,
shows all the score, how much time has left, number
of timeouts, that sort of thing. And Fox's last night
looked like it was borrowed from like a public access
broadcast of a ninth grade boys basketball game.

Speaker 12 (01:56:51):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:56:52):
Like, even thought to myself when it popped up on
the screen, like this is a substitute for the one
they want to use tonight, which, for whatever reason, excuse me,
they can't generate.

Speaker 4 (01:57:02):
This is not what they're gonna go with for the
super Bowl, and yet they did.

Speaker 8 (01:57:09):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:57:11):
Tom Brady's performance on the Fox broadcast is being widely panned.
I I'm sensitive when it comes to talking about broadcasters,
because god knows, you could take three hour shows I've
done and just crush me for them, including today's. I
thought as the season went on, he was neither good

(01:57:31):
or bad, and maybe that's okay, Like at the end
of the day. I want an announcer who's not annoying,
Like when I think when when people started really banging
on Tony Romo, when the shine kind of wore off
him on CBS, is when I feel like folks were
annoyed by him. That's kind of a litmus test for

(01:57:51):
me for a game analyst, Like some are incredibly insightful,
like it's not in vogue to say, but like I
think Chris collins Worth is awesome, and I think as
a game analyst, Kirk kurb Street is terrific. I think
some of the social media beefs he has put himself
in has kind of obscure and how good he is

(01:58:12):
at sitting in a broadcast booth and telling you what's
going on on a football field, and so some are
really really good at doing that. The baseline for me
is like, don't be annoying. I didn't think Tom Brady
was annoying, but I don't know that over the course
of watching him all season long, and obviously you know
I was paying attention to him closer once the playoffs
got here. I don't know that he was overly insightful.

(01:58:36):
I don't know that he was overly entertaining. For the
most part, he was just sort of there, and.

Speaker 4 (01:58:41):
You know that's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:58:44):
I mean, you know, that's it didn't make me want
to turn the game off. It's kind of what I expected, though,
as this was announced that Tom Brady is going to
do games for Fox, I expected neither. Chris collins Worth
two point zero. I didn't expect to romo. I didn't
expect him to be totally terrible either. I do wonder

(01:59:04):
how sustainable this model is where he is going to
continue to have a stake in the Las Vegas Raiders
and continue to be involved in some of their decision making.
You know, he operated with restrictions as the season went on.
They apparently loosened them as he prepared for the Super Bowl,
and you know, Fox in the NFL have both said like,

(01:59:26):
we're cool with this arrangement moving forward. I just I
wonder how much that's going to eventually compromise his ability
to do the job to the best of its ability
as it relates to access to other teams, ability to
criticize officiating, ability to make, you know, emphatic statements that

(01:59:49):
you know might need to be there about something happening
in the league. Like I just I feel like, big picture,
that's going to be pretty restrictive. But his performance last
night was widely panned, and again I guess I didn't
notice them.

Speaker 4 (02:00:06):
And maybe that's a problem for you. It's it's not
so much a major issue for me.

Speaker 3 (02:00:11):
I've said this now as it relates to television commercials
for the super Bowl. I've said this maybe for seven
or eight years. You know, there's a part of me
so many of them come out before the game itself,
so you see them. There was sort of a part
of me that wishes, you know, we were back to
when it was when the Super Bowl commercials for the

(02:00:33):
most part were a surprise because you hadn't seen them
throughout the course of the week, that hadn't been you know,
revealed on social media or on a company's YouTube page.
But I've said this now for seven or eight years,
the funny commercials will return when we stopped being offended
by everything. The halftime show itself, Terrence a huge Kendrick

(02:00:54):
Lamar guys.

Speaker 4 (02:00:54):
He liked it.

Speaker 3 (02:00:55):
I thought it was entertaining. I thought it was incredibly
well shot. And again, as a nerd like that's what
stood out to me as much as anything. I thought
it was incredibly like well and I can't imagine how
complex that was to shoot, but I that was I
thought it was incredibly well shot. And you talk about
something that was the opposite of universally panned, that would

(02:01:15):
have been Kendrick Lamara last night. I give him credit
for taking on an assignment that is I've talked about
this in the past as well that I think is
almost thankless. Were the folks who have made up their
mind in advance I'm not going to like this, will
go out of their way to tell you why they
didn't like it immediately after it takes place. It's almost

(02:01:38):
no win. And in that environment, I feel like he
might have gained new fans last night. So I thought
it was entertaining. And again, because I'm a dork, I
thought it was incredibly well shot.

Speaker 8 (02:01:51):
So did you?

Speaker 4 (02:01:54):
I did not. I bet on Peyton. I don't know why.
I just I bet on Peyton to make kick kick
of Destiny. Oh the way did they show that on TV?
Because I had to go watch it later, So it's funny.

Speaker 3 (02:02:05):
I went, I made I made my prop bets at
like five thirty yesterday, and I got the like notification
when I opened up the fan Duel app that you
know Eli had won, So I didn't. I saw the
commercial for Eli winning like during the game, but I didn't.

(02:02:28):
It aired last year, but I think it aired pretty
close to kickoff, and I started watching about forty five
minutes before kickoff last night, and I think the kick
of destiny had already been decided.

Speaker 10 (02:02:38):
Well, only just make that part of like the whole
Super Bowl, like have him kick back before the national
anthem or something.

Speaker 4 (02:02:42):
I'd be fine with that. Do it at halftime, yeah,
do it? Do it between quarters?

Speaker 14 (02:02:46):
We do it.

Speaker 3 (02:02:46):
We bring out like these big Doctor Pepper cans for
big college football playoff games. Between quarters. Do it between quoters.
Now I didn't, I didn't see it happen, but I
do know the result. Eli won. I bet on Peyton.

Speaker 10 (02:03:01):
And I didn't know, Like they started at twenty five
yards then if they missed, they moved being closer, right.

Speaker 3 (02:03:05):
Yeah, I don't know, but that congratulations to Eli and
everybody who wagered on him. We're done. Show's over. Gotta go, daved.
Mark Pope is next. Mark Pope Show is coming up next.
Head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats. Stick around for that.
Maybe call the show, talk to the coach, talk about

(02:03:28):
his his guy. Rick Patino's on the cover of Slam
magazine this week.

Speaker 4 (02:03:31):
I've seen that. How about that?

Speaker 3 (02:03:34):
Johnny's keep playing well. Anything you might have missed go
get on the iHeartRadio app. Thanks to a long Next
Sports Girl, Thanks to timmor and Plan for producing. Thanks
to you for listening.

Speaker 4 (02:03:43):
Mark Pope Show is next. This is ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati sports station leaping Indie Despit