2/11/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
To win a thousand dollars. Enter this nationwide keyword on
our website. Bonus, thanks bonas.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Enter it now.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Oh yeah, that's right, thank you. It's three all four.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Good afternoon on Muleger. Thank
you for joining us over having a fun Tuesday. I've
lost track on what the weather is supposed to do,

(00:27):
so I don't know. I'm not even gonna reference it.
We're done early today. UK hoops at five thirty. Wildcats
and Tennessee tonight pregame at five thirty, tip off at
seven o'clock, part of a busy area college basketball night.
We'll go to good Year in an hour, but first,
because it's Tuesday. Paul Tayner Junior from The Athletic and
the Growler podcast is here. He has a ten point

(00:50):
plan to get the Bengals back to the super Bowl.
You could read that at the Athletic dot Com. He
also has and he and I have both been looking
forward to this his first draft big board. Yeah, and
so you can read that at the Athletic dot Com
as well. Follow him on Twitter at Paul Danner Junior.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
How's it going.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
It's it's going great. It's going great. Uh, A little
bit of snow flurry is still happening out there. That's
our update.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
All.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yeah, they've been sort of intermittent lately, a little just
a touch, just a tiny touch right now.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
One of my my, my daughter had a three day weekend.
They had in service day the day after the Super Bowl. Yes,
same here, not coincidental at all, and so on. She
was playing with one of her friends on Monday who
informed her that there's not going to be school on
Tuesday because it's going to snow. And so I had
to beat the heavy and inform her last night it
might snow, but you're you're going to school tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
You're going to school. Yeah, no, I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:42):
I think it's everybody's got to tighten down the snow days.
At this point, after we went through over the last
couple of months, I have I've printed your ten step
path back to the super Bowl. It makes I feel
like I'm I did something worthwhile. If you decide to
go to the printer, usually I can get you to
go to the printer a couple times a week.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, I like I like, I like to print, I
like to highlight, I like to to leave notes. I
I'd rather flip through than scroll through while you're here,
and then your your draft a big board right here too.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
There it is. There's also something else.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
From the athletic that's Bengals related that you didn't do
that I love, and it's this chart that we're going
to reference here in just a little bit. But first,
the super Bowl, you know, was on Sunday. It was
so I'm obligated as you watch, I did, Yeah, I did?
Did you Yeah? I felt like I give it a
turn it on?

Speaker 4 (02:30):
I had it on. What is you?

Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm obligated to ask what is your biggest Bengals related
Super Bowl takeaway?

Speaker 4 (02:37):
Yeah? Well you have to have to do that.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
I mean, can it be anything other than just keep
filling your team with defensive linemen with premium picks. I
think it is don't be afraid to go young there.
I mean, you know, you go through all of the
contributing defensive linemen and it's all a bunch of dudes
that are young players that they picked, home grown, they

(03:02):
spent high premium capital on. And it was something that
we talked about this last week how different maybe this
Super Bowl could be from the last time they were
chasing Patrick Mahomes around, and that was they had some
older guys doing it at that point, and here they
had a bunch of young, energetic, freak show athletes doing
it and it, boy, did it ever show right. And

(03:22):
so I think I think that's a message that don't
be afraid to go all in with that and understanding
what that come up. Now the whole league knows that, right.
I mean, this isn't a secret or whatever. You gotta
do it right. It was the funny part, not funny
for anybody listening it to Bengals.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
I understand this.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
The Bengals have done this, yeah, you put it side
by side. They've invested in similar ways. I mean, they
didn't draft as high to be able to get a
Jalen Carter, you know, but they have put a bunch
of picks in that are a lot of them in
the same areas as some of the guys you saw
making those plays. They just haven't gotten many of that,

(04:03):
you know, out of them. And that's kind of, I
think been the message that's been consistent over the last
number of months now is they got to find a
way to take these picks and get something that looks
like that the whole league is trying to do that,
but it's not for lack of trying, they just haven't
been good at executing. Ye. All right, I have two
Bengals related Super Bowl takeaways?

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Are you ready? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (04:24):
What I did your mock off season? I had the
Bengals signing Milton Williams. Yeah I kind of want him?

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yeah? Ye still agree with that take ye?

Speaker 5 (04:32):
Him?

Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah pretty good?

Speaker 5 (04:33):
Him and Josh Sweat are sitting there after that game saying,
how about that? Huh, come and get it, you know,
I mean, yeah, no, no doubt. I mean they seem
to have found one there. I think it's just gosh,
it's it also reinforced to me, you know, just the
importance of the game wrecking defensive tackle in general. Like

(04:57):
I just I just feel like it is really just
been the dominant position that no one talks enough about
because they do tend to be anonymous and even a
d you.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Know, the DJ reader.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
You know, the Bengals lived this life of what it
looks like when you have a DJ reader pushing the pocket,
even when.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
They don't get the stats.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Bengals fans scream this for years because you saw it,
like that is changing the game. It is pushing the uncomfortable.
You can feel the discomfort in Patrick Mahomes when he
goes to step up or do his thing where he
spreads out and can't go anywhere, because every single play
the pocket pushed right into his face. Guys on skates,

(05:38):
guys blowing around other dudes. I mean, it was just
on repeat. And that's the type of thing that it's just.
It's why Burrow wants better at guards. It's it's why
everybody understands how important that is, and and the Bengals
lacking in that the last couple of years certainly has
has shown and Milton Williams is a is a great
example amongst all those dudes everybody, and it's kind of

(06:01):
where it all started for the Eagles, and pretty obvious.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Here's my second Bengals related number two Super Bowl takeaway.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
Let's hear it.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
It's finally okay to say out loud, Joe Burrow is
better than Patrick Mahomes. You think, yeah, I do, I do,
because why do you say that he performed better this season?

Speaker 5 (06:19):
He played quarterback better than Patrick Mahomes did. Patrick Mahomes
team won more often. Patrick Mahomes is more accomplished. But
Joe Burrow played the position of quarterback better than Patrick Mahomes.
If you said that at any point this season, you
got the hang tight.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Patrick Mahomes played the worst game of his life in
the super Bowl on the biggest stage. He didn't look comfortable,
He couldn't make do at all. He struggled with what
Joe Burrow has had to deal with, and he fell
flat on his face. Joe Burrow was the better player
this year, and now it's okay to say that because
everybody watched him fail spectacularly on the biggest stage in sports.

Speaker 5 (06:59):
Yeah, he did get the taste of Joe Burrow's life. Yeah,
you know, this is kind of what Joe's been doing. Yeah,
is having to live in these circumstances for a while.
I would have liked to have watched that game with
Joe Burrow. Yeah, what's it like?

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Yeah? How's that feel? Just sitting there with them going,
you know what do you think? Joe? Can you tell
us what he's dealing with here?

Speaker 5 (07:15):
It's funny somebody posted some of the highlights of Burrow
against the Eagles, and you forget how well he was
playing and dealing with that pressure in that game. We
went back, I know Charlie and I did a rewatch
and we were looking for some Super Bowl stuff and
went back to that Bengals Eagles games and you see
Burrow taking hits to the chest, dropping dimes down and
go balls down the field, getting the ball out quickly.

(07:38):
A couple of the GESICKI play was in that game
third and twenty two, where you're just having to make ways.
I'll give you that. I get uncomfortable going there because
I don't care about the comparing. I know it matters.
I don't either. I don't either, but but you would
be to turn this into ranking. My eyes glaze over
when it comes to that stuff. But I do believe

(07:59):
the Bengal have the best quarterback in the NFL, the
person who was best at playing quarterback in the National
Football League. Again, he's not the most accomplished, he hasn't
won the most hardware. Mahomes has what Burrow doesn't. But
that argument was crystallized for me by watching the Super Bowl.
Doesn't mean Mahomes is a bum or a bad player.

(08:19):
Doesn't mean that he's not going to be an MVP
next season. I think I said this on our show yesterday.
One of the more interesting storylines this coming season is
going to be does Patrick Mahomes turn into Superman again?

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Or is he just a very good quarterback? This year
he was a very good quarterback and had some awesome moments,
and he won playoff games. Burrow was better, And I
feel like for a lot of folks, it took that
game on Sunday to not along with what I have
said for weeks.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
That's fair, that's a fun takeaway.

Speaker 5 (08:45):
I don't you know, I tend to have a hard
time viewing it that narrowly in this one season, and
what one game kind of establishes, I feel, you know,
what he had to deal with in that game is rare,
even by Burrow's pressure standards.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I mean, so, I don't you know. I think it's
it's a little different.

Speaker 5 (09:03):
And the way he's been able to finish off so
many games is something that that he did over the
course of the season that stands out to But yeah,
but from a numbers perspective, it's your Your argument is
air tight. If you put player a player B as
you can do sometimes next to each other, it's not close.
There's there's no doubt about that. So yeah, you probably can.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
I get you.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
I hear what you're saying. I'm fine with it. I
just don't like. I don't like because I'll be like,
what about Lamar, Like, let's put Lamar in there as
player see and let's get into I mean like, I
just feel like they're in the tier together. Yes, right,
Like that's what matters. That's fine, dude, dude that can
win you a championship tier has very few members in
my opinion, as far as you know, can do it

(09:46):
with minimal help. I mean, and and they're both in
there together. I think you can say that. And I
you know, I think that Burrow will win one one day.
And I think when he does that, you'll hear roaring
of that he's better than Mahomes and and that that's
because that's what in the recency bias every single year

(10:06):
that happened.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
I mean, you get you get it, And so yeah,
I think that's that. It was thirty one nothing.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
I so badly wanted the shutout because I had the
tweet ready to go. Joe Burrow's never been shut out
in the Super Bowl, by the way, neither has anybody else.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
I had and then they ruined it by scoring points. Yeah. Uh.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Did you have any takeaways from Joe Burrows New Orleans
Media Blitz. Did you have to sit shut out Mike
g and watch every everyone that he went on?

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Every review? I specifically, well, I have, I had a
couple of gys. I don't. I don't.

Speaker 5 (10:40):
I had to watch breakfast Ball, which is apparently a
show on f S one Grey Carton.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, and there's a couple other people.

Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yeah, and then Parkins from Chicago Parks pretty good. Yeah, yeah,
not a fan is a very blustery for like seven
thirty in the morning.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
It's a little early for that level. So it was
a lot. There was a lot to take in there.

Speaker 5 (11:03):
My decision was to find the first one that he's
doing and watch that in full and get the feeling
for the talking points that Joe's trying to make and
be on top and then like, I'm not going to
watch all of these, right I did. I did follow
some of them, but I didn't. You know, So, outside

(11:24):
of the fact that breakfast Ball is probably not my
cup of tea, my takeaway is he's not ever going
to back down off this point, like, look, you can
do this, I expect you to do this for the
eighty ninth time. I'm drawing the line in the sand.
This is a clear I want to make it clear

(11:46):
what I want. I'm going to fight for my guys,
and that's what this is about. And you know what
I'm I just we've talked about this a bunch. I
just think the fact that he is applying this pressure
and putting it all out there is just fascinating to
watch unfold over the course of this offseason because we

(12:08):
know where everyone stands.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
Usually you don't.

Speaker 5 (12:11):
Usually there's just so much Oh, I don't know, how's
this gonna go, and then it gets the spin machine
comes later, and oh no, he wanted this the whole time,
and we we always knew it was gonna be okay
to let he go, or that Joe was gonna be okay. No,
everyone knows where everyone stands on this, specifically all of
these players believing you can do it.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
There's no excuses here.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
You can do this, and you're if you don't, you're
choosing not to, and I don't think you should. I
think we all want to be together and will help you.
It's it's erasing all excuses and just making sure everyone
is clear here. On how they feel about it. That's
what makes it fascinating. I don't know how it's gonna
play out. I don't know if it's gonna have any
effect at all. In fact, i'd probably be more willing

(12:56):
to say it's gonna have the opposite effect that they'd
wanted to have. The further you did your heel, because
I've seen this organization over the years that said, we'll
watch it and we'll know how everyone felt going into it,
rather than having to guess if we're getting spun later.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
So I played some audio from Breakfast Ball. I did
peruse that because I wanted to hear if Craig Carton
and Joe Burrow talked it all about Craig going to prison.
I didn't know if Joe wanted to know what prison
life was like, and here's an opportunity for to ask
somebody who's been in the can. But we played audio
from the first take one where they laughed at him,

(13:31):
They laughed in his face.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
They did they did, I mean, I mean they asked them.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
The question, you know was similarly worded to all the
other ones he's been getting about, you know, what makes
you think the Bengals can do this, and Joe started
to talk about we've got cap space and they literally
laughed in his face.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
His face.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
Yeah, I mean, you know, but look, the same people
that have been laughing at the Bengals for years, and
they sometimes they've ended up with egg on their face.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
Sometimes they have it right.

Speaker 5 (14:00):
I mean, there's been plenty of times where people sitting
on that desk have had to eat their words, and
plenty of times that they've stood and yelled louder.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
They're gonna yell either way, right, but yeah, it's it's
funny to see.

Speaker 5 (14:11):
And then actually, actually I'm kinctually happy for them at
least they actually did do it to somebody's face. Yeah,
instead of just constantly being behind the back and ah,
they laughed at them. I mean, we'll see, all right. Uh.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Paul Danner Junior is here from the Athletic dot Com.
He has a ten step path to Super Bowl sixty
how the Bengals can get back to the big game.
It's a it's a good read. You should go read
it now at the Athletic dot Com. There are a
couple of points I want to talk about. Are you
gonna laugh in my face about point two?

Speaker 2 (14:41):
No?

Speaker 3 (14:41):
But I am going to talk about point two, okay,
because I think it's a valid point.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
Yeah, it's a valid suggest You'll probably laugh on my
face about something else though, undeniably. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Paul's here till four, so we have forty one minutes
to find something to laugh at him about. I'm here
till five thirty. Mullegor ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 6 (14:59):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, the experts that you see health have been
giving heart patients of chance at better outcomes. That's boundless care.
You can trust expect more at UCHealth dot com. On
two seventy five north and southbound, you're going to find
the left two lanes blocked off in each direction at
US fifty. Crews working on the accident as well. There

(15:28):
southbound seventy five. It's a disabled vehicle that is off
on the left shoulder at Fort Washington Way. I'm at
Ezelk with traffic.

Speaker 4 (15:36):
Twenty four minutes after three o'clock.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Mogger with Paul Danner Junior
covering the Bengals off season Free agency, the draft, and
more at the Athletic dot Com and this podcast. The
Growler podcast is a must watch and listen as well.
UH Paul has a ten step path to Super Bowl

(15:59):
sixty the Bengals. Ten ten steps. That's all you gotta do,
only ten.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Ten easy things. Ten easy things.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
I wonder how many of these ten will actually get that.
That's a there's probably an I remember. Yeah, I think
an over under on six and a half.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
Is probably fair.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
So item number two, yeah, trade Trey Hendrickson.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, I know, I'm not super thrilled with it either,
Like I just I am. I mentioned this a little
bit in your first segment.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
I am just sort of of the there's a lot
to fix, go all in on all of these young guys,
and and go. It's not a it's not a matter
of like gotta save the money. I think philosophically going
young together with a bunch of people and getting more picks,

(16:51):
specifically those in a draft where you know you'll be
able to get a premium pick Lineman and an assumption
that you'd be trading Trey Hendrickson or maybe you're getting
a player back, a young player of some sort whatever,
but knowing that you can add to that mix on
top of what you already have to add to that
mix on a defensive line. Can have that give I

(17:12):
think just gives you a unique juice and you can
cover more ground in terms of all the things they
need to fix and throw more answers at the problem
versus betting on if you're talking about extension versus trade,
because I think it's pretty clear here that that would
not be an easy path to making Tray play out

(17:34):
this contract. They certainly can and deal with eat the
distraction and go forward and know that he'll go play.
They can do that, But if you're talking about one
versus the other, I'd rather take the chances that a
bunch of young players cohesively create a sort of unique
pass rushing juice to them, versus you're going to continue
for multiple years to get something resembling what you have

(17:56):
been getting out of Trey Hendrickson. If you told me
I could get the last three years I just got
out of Tray Fredrickson, I would pay him more than
Nick Bosa.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
It's not about Trey the player, It's about the lack
of precedent of getting that type of production. When you
start crossing the age that he's at, it's just his history.
I got somebody came into my mailbag questions and was
taking a shot at me, like, hey, how about we
get some brevity, bro. You didn't have to put all
fifty of the top pass rushers with their ages from

(18:27):
the last five years, And I said, yeah, I did.
It was to prove a point, visually, keep going and
keep going until you find someone who's thirty one or older.
Keep going, keep going. There's fifty names here and it's
just a three at the bottom. You know, he didn't
have to read all those names.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
I think he wanted to.

Speaker 5 (18:45):
I was trying to make the point that you don't
have to read there's so many you just keep going.
You find anybody with the age on September first of
that year that actually ended up in that world that
Trey has lived in. Okay, it's maybe he does, But
I would rather bet on a bunch of young players
coming together to do something not what the Eagles have done,

(19:08):
but like Eagles ish right, the Eagles adjacent rams adjacent,
Then you're gonna get what you got out of Trey Hendrickson,
and you can and building around that is fine, Like,
I think you can win either way. I just I
like personally the idea of doing that, taking some of
that money and using it elsewhere, but mostly about just

(19:30):
kind of throwing a bunch of young, talented athletic players
at this pass rush. If the goal of the franchise
is to have the smoothest off season ever, yeah, then
we are taking off the table having him play out
the last year of his deal. So then it comes
down to an either or thing for me at least

(19:51):
trade or extend. And I'm just not that interested in
Trey Hendrickson in twenty twenty seven, yeah, being paid for
what he didn't twenty four.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:02):
And like I said, I mean, we've certainly seen the
show before where you tell them tough, that's your contract,
come play it eight But comes with noise, right, it
comes with noise. But if you're saying, look, we'll eat
that noise, which is what I would do, I'm okay
eating the noise. I'm okay going you know what, Fine,
We'll put up with this. This is life in the NFL.

(20:22):
I said this to you, I think last week, like
I've just accepted that this is unavoidable as long as
you have good players, somebody's always going to want to
get paid. Somebody's always going to want an extension, somebody's
always going to want a trade.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Someone's not going to be happy. You just have to
figure out a way to deal with it. And if
your culture is what they always say it is, then
you ought to figure out how to just overcome it.
But if you're going, you know what, screw that. We
are avoiding the noise we want the most. Our objective
number one is the most peaceful offseason and training camp. Ever,
then you can't do that, then that comes off the table,
and it's one or the other. And the preference for

(20:56):
me is to get younger using trays. Stature is value value. Yeah,
and we'll go in that direction, And okay, we're gonna
miss Tray, but we'll figure it out with what we
can spend that we're freeing up and with what we
could use with those picks, and the objective is accomplished.
No Trey hendrickson noise.

Speaker 5 (21:15):
Yeah, And I don't you know how much does that matter?
I mean, that's a question that they have to ask themselves,
is how much do they because you know Trey had
noise last year? Yeah, and and it ended quickly, it
went away. Will that be the same? Will he Will
you go get angry Trey Hendrickson production? Maybe like, maybe

(21:35):
that's something you just say you're willing to take. Maybe
that's that's the thing that ends up being the bottom
of the totem pole. Here is everybody else gets their
deals and Trey has to just kind of suck it
up and play on his current contract and be angry
about it. I don't there's a number of I mean,
it's the fascinating aspect of this entire offseason. Ques so
many different ways that you can go with all of this.

(22:00):
That's just for me because I do think that resetting
the culture without just drama, there's so much drama capability
right now without it, I think, and just getting that
young energy back with a new defensive coordinator known for
kind of being able to develop all of that stuff,
just lean all the way into that. That's why to me,

(22:21):
I would just philosophically go that direction with the assumption
that you know, there's a lot of value in what
you could probably get for him right now.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
What happens to Trey's value with Miles Garrett putting himself
in the market.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
I mean, you know, the Browns have to actually be
willing to do that, you know what I mean. And
so I think it exposes teams that are desperate to
find a dominant pass rusher. And perhaps you would have
two teams bidding against each other and figuring out pretty
openly what they're willing to do, and the one that

(22:56):
doesn't get the guy is like, well, but for seventy
five percent of the price that we were going to
give for Miles Garrett, we could go get this guy,
you know, because I think he would be probably the
second biggest thing. There's other names that are out there.
I mean, Michael Parsons, potentially Max Crosby. I don't know
if how real any of that will prove to be here,
if it's just everyone trying to exert leverage right now.

(23:18):
But so I don't know if it's a direct effect,
but there's so many pass rushers being talked about, and
maybe the bigger effect though, will be how many pass
rushers there are in this draft. We've seen that in
many years where teams were just not willing to go
there in drafts where that position was so deep they
knew they could get something there, and so they're not

(23:42):
as motivated to do that little bit extra to make
something like a trade for a current player happen. That
probably would have a bigger effect than anything that's gonna
come of Miles Garrett.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Trey Hendrickson had a many media blitz last week, one
on the Pat McAfee Show, and his comments kind of
kicked all of this into a different gear. And he
takeaways from his many media blitz.

Speaker 5 (24:05):
Well, I mean, it's got to be the comment about
you know, I wish I wouldn't have heard it from
my dad in the text with a tweet. That's the
it's we're back to the communication thing again, which haring thing,
recurring thing. I mean, it goes as far back as
AJ Green and Andrew Whitworth and I mean we've talked
about that's that's been something that's Jonah Williams and DJ

(24:28):
Reader and T Higgins and Jamar and Jesse Bates and
like it. Well, and I I get it, like this
is the type of stuff you here said in the
middle of negotiations, but it just seems so consistent, and
it's like there, you know, there's got to be a
time to revisit there's got to be a time to

(24:49):
revisit the approach. Is there is can we Is there
something you can revisit about the approach? Is there a
new way to to kickstart these negotiations?

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Is it?

Speaker 5 (24:58):
Is it about the types of offers that are being
made to kickstart these negotiations? Is it about setting expectations
for how you think it's gonna go and them just
not feeling lost and unsure or whatever it is? It
feels like maybe just a little a little more detail
needs to be given to that because it is just
it just seems it's so consistent, and that's just you

(25:21):
don't mind I think as an organization having players have
making the blitz that they're doing like you prefer it.
But this is what it is, is the NFL man right,
They're gonna keep putting microphones in front of these guys
faces because it gets everything they want. You can handle
everything that was said for me this week, except for
that's the one where you're like, can we not have that?
We not make it look like we weren't proactive and

(25:43):
understanding this and and have this antagonistic feel. So that's
that's the one. The one thing that stood out from
last week all right, I gotta ask a questions about
your big board. Oh good, okay, that's available at Athletic
dot com. We have to talk about wide receivers, we
have to talk about tight ends. We have to talk
about a theme that came up on our show yesterday,
Hall of Fame voting and a chart in the Athletic.

(26:04):
You keep showing me the chart. I'm trying to think
that I think I know what chart that is.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Like charts. Yeah, I like charts too. Like the chart.
This wasn't in your piece. This was in Mike Sando's piece.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Yes, but I know the where I thought it was
a fun, fun chart that I think I want to
see this to be a thing moving forward.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
Well, I'll get to that when we come back.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Sports Headlines next twenty five Away from for this is
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 8 (26:29):
SINCY three sixty with Tony Pike.

Speaker 6 (26:32):
Do we want to move on to doctor keep Goring
and Boston Elmore.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
I think you should continue to let me keep going.

Speaker 6 (26:37):
There, SINCY three sixty Tomorrow Which twelve News on ESPN
fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 7 (26:47):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center for more than
two hundred years. The experts that you see health have
been giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's
found this care you can't trust expect more. U seehelp
dot com. Southbound seventy one seventy five, the entrance ramp
from fifth Street blocked off. That is from a disabled

(27:08):
semi also going to find a disabled vehicle on southbound
seventy five that over at Fort Washington Way, the lut
lane blocked off there I at Eazelik with traffic.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
I'm of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from
their family to yours for life. Kelsea chev dot com.
Reds have signed a reliever righty Scott Barlow signs a
one year, two and a half million dollar contract. He's
a guy who had some really nice seasons in Kansas City.
Was cut loose by the Guardians last year. Thirty two
years old. He has long hair and he's right handed. Cincinnati.

(27:39):
He's also signed reliever Josh Staumont to a minor league contract.
He had an ERA of three seventy and twenty five
games with the Twins last year before he got cut.
Did not allow a home run, which is useful reds
pitchers and catchers going through physicals today and working out tomorrow.
College hoops Tonight you see host Utah at seven on
seven hundred WLW. Kentucky is hosting Tennessee at seven on

(28:03):
ESPN fifteen thirty. Also tonight, Miami battles Toledo and IU
is at Michigan State. Paul Danner Junior is is here
from the Athletic dot Com and the Growler Podcast. Your
positional Priority Draft big board.

Speaker 5 (28:18):
Yeah, I felt like I couldn't just say big board
because everybody has a big board, right, So if I
call it the positional priority draft big board, it differentiates.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
I understand you feel it.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
I understand what I what I liked about it, And
I mean, from my standpoint, it's February of the eleventh,
we're dealing with just surface level stuff. It it does.
It does certainly feel like the needs match where the.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
Depth is here.

Speaker 5 (28:44):
I agree, no that and that was kind of you know,
the point of doing it that way was I just
wanted to take a look at these these major areas
and kind of just compare it to what you see
and what where, what's going to be there, and what
the draft looks like what you're hearing. And I mean,
there's no number of defensive and offensive linemen that they

(29:07):
could take that would make you say, oh, that's all right,
you did it, stop right. And the good news is
I think in this draft you kind of can just
keep doing it. Especially on the defensive line. You could
just keep taking players. But at the top there's some
premium players that should be available. It's just very reminiscent
of what happened at offensive tackle last year, where you

(29:29):
knew that you were gonna have somebody you really liked there.
There's just were so many right at the top, and
that was a premium need for them. You could base
your you could be very comfortable basing your offseason strategy
off of that. That's not always the case. It's kind
of rare to be able to do that in the
draft because it's such a you never know, such a

(29:51):
dice roll what's gonna be there, and you want to
be taking best player available. You don't want to feel pigeonholed.
I feel like you can come into this and say,
we're gonna get good defensive lineman in this draft. Run one,
round two, round three, whatever we're going to and base
some of your decision making off of that, and that
shows whether you're picking at seventeen, which you know has

(30:13):
defensive tackles and edges that that look great, or you're
talking about with picks that you would see available to
you in second and third round. That's you know, when
I talk to people, that's what I hear the most
about is man that second third round you're going to
be getting really good value on defensive linemen. That's where
the like insane quantity really starts to show itself. So

(30:37):
at some point, you know, if you have if they
just end up with just the three picks in the
first two days, I would be stunned if two of
them were not defensive linemen. You know, it just feels
like that's where it needs to come from. Or certainly
you would expect just a ton of picks that come
in from on the trenches. What will they do at

(30:58):
wide receiver of T Higgins leaves, I think you'll see
them look at free agency and some of these mid
tier guys and I don't know, you know, they're out
there the Darius Slayton's of the world, people that have
played that. Hey, maybe a guy who's played pretty well,
but his quarterback wasn't so good. Maybe there's more playing

(31:20):
with Joe Burrow now, like there's I think there's a
vision that we talked about that is the second ride
receiver here can kind of be like the tight end here.
Put somebody in that and watch them catch sixty balls
for six hundred yards over and over and over again.
Because when you have things structured the way they are

(31:41):
with Joe and Jamar and the Chase Brown now and
the whole offense the way it is, those are positions
that if you have the ability to get open with
any kind of regularity like Joe, can probably get production
out of that. You're not gonna your offense is going
to change in the way that it's structured, and defenses
are gonna change the way they struck things toward Jamar,

(32:01):
but you can still get production out. So I think
you could say, Okay, do that and some kind of
a draft pick again, you know, and hope that it
goes better than the last third round receiver.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
What is the more thankless task filling the shoes of
t Higgins, this uber popular player who's very productive, or
being the landlord who hands over a set of keys
to Jermaine.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Burton, I know which one I don't want to have, right,
I yeah, not not great? What's there? Is there a record?

Speaker 5 (32:34):
Is there an NFL record for evictions? It's a great question.
I don't know to look that up. That's got to
be on Pro Football REP. Four receptions, two evictions. That's
not the race would and the evictions are within two
months of each other. Right, I want to know what
was going through the second landlord's head when you know
he's got the least papers and he's got the key,

(32:56):
and it's like, so, what happened at your last place?
And I mean it's kind of out there and then
all right, well I guess so Jermaine, here are the keys. Yeah,
keep it.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
We we don't have that many rules, but you know,
keep it in between the lines.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
And already they're like what does that place have to look? Like? Yeah?
Where does he go next? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (33:17):
That's the so so you know, we always always hear
the stories of like Chad was living at the at
at Paul Brown Stadium or whatever, like how far are
we from it being like, well, Jermaine's living at the stadium,
Like oh good, he's turning things around.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
No, like Lily, just no one will give him a place.

Speaker 5 (33:30):
Can show up late if he spends the night at
the facility, So got to go wake up a perfect Yeah,
that's to both worlds. He's not wreaking havoc in some
apartment and you can get you know where to where
he is, you know where to find him. Hey, Jermaine,
meetings in five minutes up and at him.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Let's go. Might be for the best, might be for
the best.

Speaker 5 (33:46):
Can you just build a little like Sweet the Jermaine
burdens Sweet in the back, or like find an equipment
room or something you knew that was going to come
up tonight. I'd hope, so I'd be very disappointed. If not,
I mean, you're right chasing down what to eat? And
if he could, could he even out receptions to evictions.
There's still times a long way to go.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Oh, we have months in front of us. I don't
know if he's gonna be all. I don't know if
he's ever gonna play in the NFL again. I do
know he's going to try to find housing, So I mean, well, well,
we'll see, we'll see if the evictions end up outwent
for his sake, I hope not.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
And for the sake of anybody handing over those keys.
I I hope not.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
I just if you're a landlord and this guy walks
in and he's like, yeah, I hear, I hear, you've
got an apartment for for rent.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
Uh yeah, yeah, it might be time to fight. I mean,
like a friend's house. I guess maybe you're looking at
no oh.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
No, because with the landlord, there's financial liability. He loses
his deposit at a friend's house, no way, man, Yeah,
zero chance. A lot of folks grasped onto this who
were watching the Super Bowl late in the game. Uh,
Kevin Burkhard and Tom Brady, we're talking about Nick Sirianni.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
Super Bowl.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
He coach, and hey, he's he's a guy they swapped
out coordinators and he's gonna have to do it again
on offense because Kellen Moore is gonna coach the Saints.
But they were talking about boy, you got to give
a credit to him because he relinquished offensive play calling
and decided to focus on the big picture issues and
let Kellen Moore come in and do the play calling.

Speaker 4 (35:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
And I had folks call this show yesterday and go,
why can't Zach do that that was there could Bengals related,
He's not. Takeaway he could, He's not. My response to
that was, like, the offense was pretty good last year.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 5 (35:29):
I certainly didn't look at it and be like, man,
why aren't any of these offensive play calls working like
they you know, Chase Brown was a star and everybody's
breaking records. They're scoring all these points, they're scoring in
huge games, they're scoring thirty over and over again. They're
on one of the best offensive runs we've ever seen.
And then the first thing you get is is, you know,

(35:52):
fire the play caller or we need a new play
I just, you know, I get it, like there's there's
frustrations with the big picture.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
Element of job that was done last year.

Speaker 5 (36:02):
But yeah, I felt like like the offensive performance last
year was certainly a chance to take a break from
screaming about the play calling. But and there were bad moments.
Everyone's going to have bad moments, yeah, but I mean
the offense was really good.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
I don't. I don't have I didn't have a huge
problem with that.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
I've kind of reached a point where I feel like
Willie Anderson's not going to get the call to camp.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Yeah, so the new rules, we'll see what happens with those.
Clearly the voters.

Speaker 5 (36:29):
Didn't understand the math because they they it's the all
the all the messaging from them was, well, you know,
we we didn't realize that the way that it went,
that it would end up in this small class, the
smallest class you could have. They changed the rules eighty percent.
It's a bunch of there's a bunch of stuff that
goes into it, but basically it certainly makes it much

(36:50):
harder for players to get in, which that's fine if
that's what the Hall of Fame wants to do, but
you know, not just Willie Anderson. No brutal for Kenny Anderson,
because it is now so much harder for a Senior
Person member to try to get through, even if you
get Now, even if you manage to get through, you know,

(37:10):
the needle in the haystack that has been trying to
come out of the Senior Committee over the years just
seemed to be impossible. Now you get to the point
where you only have a certain percentage chance of even
getting in from that right, and you end up in
front of these voters who they're not focused on the
older players it's like a whole other thing you got
to put in front of them to know, because it's
again the same fifty people that I'm doing this forever.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
And so.

Speaker 5 (37:34):
The if it gets harder to get you've now been
a finalist, he is at least a finalist next year automatically,
you know, you get to keep being a finalist. But look,
these first ballot guys are going to keep coming down
the pike. There's only going to there's always some every year.
And if you have a chance of these classes being down,
we're only three of modern era players get players getting in,
and you got to compete with some of the big

(37:55):
names that are going to be on here the next
couple of years, on top of those that are already
in the mix with you. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's
because here comes Drew Brees and here comes Tom Brady,
I mean, you know, all of them.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
But what's interesting about it is I felt bad for Willie,
but like, and I know people are gonna say it
was a kicker and a Vanitari is not a Hall
of Famer, right.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
Well, that list the list of the four, the list
of the four that made it. Yeah, uh, and but
didn't get in. I mean, will you have Willie Yeah,
Keith Lee, Vinitieri, Tory Holt has been had better. He
should have been in before Isaac Bruce, and he's still
outside when he's been a finalist longer than anybody. He
just keeps getting to this finalist round and getting left out.

(38:37):
And you know what, not everybody gets in the Hall
of Fame. That's what makes it special. That's fine, it's
but I think here, here's the frustrating thing for me.
And maybe it's because I'm lazy. You know, we we
do these things consecutively. We're in mid January.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
The Baseball Hall of Fame ballot comes out, and it's
easy to understand. I get how it works. Five hundred
so writers get ballots. Uh, they can each vote for ten.
Dudes gotta get seven. You could argue with the results,
but I know how it works. And then there are
subsequent committees that a player can get rolled through or
thankfully Dave Parker gets through. But I understand how it works.

(39:12):
I don't understand how football works. The voters, they're barely
understanding how it works. They had to kind of learn
as it went how it works this year because they change.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
It and it's silly, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
And you think you thought the lobbying and politicking was
bad before, how about now when everyone's trying to play
this math and numbers game, it's gonna be brutal. Expand
it have there's so many people that have covered the
league for a number of years. Expand it out and
have it work just like baseball. And that's where your
percentages come from. You want to have the group of
fifty get down to your fifteen finalists, okay, okay, take

(39:46):
then take those fifteen finalists and have everybody vote for
their top five or whatever it is, and take your
percentages off of that and have a bigger group. You
avoid all the politicking, You avoid all the lobbying, all
the counting of numbers, and it just gets down to
who deserves it from a broader group of people that
can that are you know, tasked with and ticket seriously,

(40:06):
which they which they would and so you know, but
will that happen?

Speaker 4 (40:12):
Will not happen.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
This is the same thing we've been talking about forever,
and it's how you end up with some of the
discrepancies that currently exists in the hall situation, like oh,
I don't know, almost thirty Steelers being in and Anthony
Munno's and Ken Riley being the only ones.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
Basically on a Bengals side.

Speaker 5 (40:30):
You know, it's just there's just certain biases that evolve
over time against either types of teams or types of
players or players from certain situations that happen when you
have the same people making so many of these months.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
I've never understood a process or rationale lesson and it's
I'm frustrated for Willie. Yes, I mean, Chris Carter was
at the Roger Bacon's stag and I forgot that. It
took him like five or six years. Yeah, he's like
at the time, he's in the top five and like
every major.

Speaker 5 (40:59):
Gout hmm, like gotta wait your turn, gotta get in line.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yeah, and then you get in.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Line, and then you don't get in right, It just
because it ends up then somebody else. And you know,
I it's it's hard because there are everybody's gonna have
a gripe, everyone's gonna have a complaint when you only
can take so many. But can we just get a
clear processes and not have so much that feels like
it happens in this shrouded back room behind the curtains,

(41:27):
and and all the politicking and lobbying that occurs because
of that. It's just everybody trying to squeeze their agenda through,
is what it ends up being, rather than Hey, how
about we all just vote for who we think belongs
and that be it.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Work a little bit short on time here, but your
colleague Mike Sando has a chart in his weekly Pick six.
It's it's toward the bottom, but it's it's a chart
comparing where Joe Burrow stands on the Carson Palmer timeline.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
Yeah, you care to come in on this. We've talked
about that timeline often on the pop. Maybe we'll talk
about it on the pot tomorrow when you come on.
I'm in maybe we'll maybe we'll talk about that. I mean,
it's you can see. I think we're in. I think
we are in like the two thousand and eight It's
like I think on the timeline, it's like January of
two thousand and eight. I think that's where we exist.

(42:15):
He didn't ask for a trade until three years later. Right,
It can it can diverge from here, but I think
that this is this is where at the time when
Carson first started kind of openly publicly politicking for things
that he thinks should be done, and he had been paid.
This is an audio medium, But who makes your guys charts?

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Look?

Speaker 5 (42:32):
Look, I am not responsible for that chart. I'm not
gonna I don't. I don't know what to tell you.
I don't outsources to a high school was drafted. But
if you've printed out many of my stories, you've seen
my charts. My charts don't look like that, and that's
not I don't know enough about the charting situation that's
happening in that story. But I don't really understand what

(42:54):
there's other than there's two colors.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
There's a couple different directions. It could really be about anything. Honestly,
it sure could be. The yellow one looks like my
four oh one kid.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah, we'll talk to you tomorrow on the Growler.

Speaker 5 (43:09):
Thank you as always. You are not going to be
here for a couple of weeks because you've got vacation, and.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
We'll talk about the comb Call me in Indy. Oh,
I will call me in Indy.

Speaker 5 (43:16):
I'll be in the big hallway, you know, trying to
try and stay away from all the action that's happening.
I can tell you about all the activity that's going on.
We'll call you. Yeah, I know you will.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
I'll be there. That'll be great.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Read Paul's work The Athletic dot com and catches podcast
The Growler. As we say, where you get your podcasts.
It's a couple of minutes away from four o'clock on Moegor.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 6 (43:41):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 7 (43:45):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. For more than two
hundred years, the experts that you see health have been
giving heart patients a chance at better outcomes. That's found
this care you can't trust. Expect more at ucehealth dot com.
Southbound seventy one one seventy five, the entrance ramp from
fifth Street blocked off. That is from a disabled semi

(44:06):
also going to find a disabled vehicle on southbound seventy
five that over at Fort Washington Way, the luft lane
blocked off there on that Eazelac with traffic.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
This reporting, sponsored by Dollars, entered this nationwide keyword on
our website green that's greed.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Enter it now.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
You found Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Detroit.

Speaker 5 (44:27):
It so four oh four of this is ESPN fifteen
thirty on Moeger.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Thank you so much for joining us. We're done early
UK basketball at five thirty. Wildcat's taken on Tennessee. So
you and I between now and then, and our friend
Gordon Whittmeyer, the Cincinnati Inquirer in Cincinnati dot com standing
by Reds are in Goodyear. Pictures and catchers have reported
physicals today. Reds are still signing guys, including another reliever,

(44:53):
Scott Barlow, who comes over on a on a one
year contract, two and a half million dollar deal and
a million dollars. He is a former closer. Gordon has
a piece up right now Cincinnati dot com about this
and what it might mean for the incumbent closer, Alexis Ts.
Let's bring in Gordon now from beautiful good Year. It's

(45:13):
snowing out here. What's the weather out there at Gordon?

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Oh my god, you don't want to know. Yeah, it's yeah,
it's about it's pushing seventy degrees and not a cloud
in the sky.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
Delightful.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Well, I'm happy for you, and happy we get your
dispatches from Goodyear, and happy that you've been nice enough
to give us a few minutes. Is there going to
be like a competition to be the closer over the
next six seven weeks.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Look, the simple way to put this is it's Alexis
d As his job to lose. A year ago, he
came in and the feeling was that maybe he felt,
I don't know if k title is too strong of
a word coming off the All Stars, that maybe he
wasn't as prepared as he should have been. And we

(45:58):
saw him struggle often last year, not always in closing
situations or saved situations, but anytime they needed him to
keep a game close close when it was tied or
maybe one run the wrong way or something, he struggled.
And so they brought in some options this year. And

(46:20):
if that lights a fire under his butt, then that's
not a bad thing. That's the way they look at it.
And if he comes in and supposedly he's in great
shape coming in this time around, if he comes in
and does what he did the first half of twenty
twenty three and when he was a rookie in twenty
twenty two, then you've got yourself an All Star looking closer.

(46:41):
And then you've got two guys like Taylor Rodgers and
Scott Barlow, who also have experienced closing games. Who can
be the guy when Alexis Diez is maybe gassed a
little bit after maybe three days in a row or
three out of four days or something like that. You
got somebody like that. Plus we've got guys that can
just handle the hotspots lad in games, and maybe you're

(47:02):
in better shape than you were coming in last year.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
Yeah, no, it feels like that's the case.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
That was one of my questions as the offseason started
to unfold, and they've addressed it here late top to bottom.
Do they have the potential to have a pretty good bullpen?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
I think so, you know, and looking at it, they've
got experienced guys. You know, Brent Souter is another one.
Sam Maull, we saw what he could do, Emil Pegan.
They've got these guys that are experienced veterans who have
done it before, some of them in the playoffs even

(47:36):
And it's it's a little bit different feel than it
was either of the last two years. I mean two
years ago you had a bunch of basically cast offs
that overperformed, and then last year a lot of those
guys were back and they were Okay. I think this
has the potential for being maybe a higher floor and

(48:00):
that higher ceiling, So I guess that's the definition of
being better, right.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
No, it's been a busy last couple of weeks. The
big headline move was still Terry Francona. You wrote this
weekend about spending some time with him in Tucson.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
A very good piece.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Terry Francona's baseball bona fides are impeccable, and there's still
so much excitement for the fact that the Reds were
able to lure him out of retirement. Give me one
or two takeaways from spending time with him just during
the off season.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, I think that this guy is so relatable to people.
And this is this is what I've been told from
people that have been close to him over the years,
worked with him and for him. He's so relatable to
so many kinds of people. And I think that's just
because he's he's one of those one of those people

(48:53):
that's just so comfortable in his own skin. He is
just who he is, and you know he's not going
to be yet, you know, and he's not. And at
the same time, if you play for him and if
you work hard for him, He's also not going to
bury you. So he's just he has a natural way

(49:15):
about him that all the best managers in any walk
of business had is the way they deal with people.
He's extremely gifted at that. He's really good at that,
and I think that's something that's going to translate this
year with this club. So that's my biggest takeaway is

(49:36):
just seeing that up close, with having a chance to
spend a couple of hours with him one on one,
and all of a sudden, all these things that people
talked about that that I hadn't seen firsthand, I started
to understand what they meant. And I do think it's
going to be a different here. This guy has won
everywhere he's been with different kinds of they well except

(49:56):
Philly the first time around. But he had two entirely
different teams in Boston and Cleveland, two entirely different cultures
sports markets, and had success, had some I would argue
that he came away from each of those places as
that franchise's best manager in history.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Gordon Wittmeyer of The Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com from
Goodyear at the end of the year last season, when
the starting pitching fell apart, and they were deploying relievers to.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
Start a whole lot of games.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Rent Louder shined, and admittedly during a period of time
where maybe people weren't paying as close of attention, and
I think a lot of us walked away from what
he did in September and said, there you go. That
guy should be in the starting rotation in twenty twenty five.
It feels like the battle for him to make that
happen in spring training this year is an uphill one.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
How much of an uphill battle is it?

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Well, you're referring to what we found out today that
he's dealing with what happened. I talked to him a
little bit after we were told this. He about a
month ago. He said he just wasn't recovering right. He's
throwing bullpens and everything seemed to be going fine. He
just wasn't recovering perfectly, and so you know, he told

(51:17):
him about it. He got an MRI, no structural damage.
They shut him down for a few weeks. He's ramping
back up starting this week, but they're not going to
rush him. Kids only twenty two years old, and they've
got five other starters in camp who are healthy, right, now,
Wade Miley's also around some figures to be in the

(51:39):
mix of things maybe by mid May, so they're not
feeling rushed with him. I don't think they. I don't
think anybody's viewing it at this point as anything serious.
But it could be something that maybe just because of
how cautious they're playing, it could wind up putting him
on the or the fifteen day il when when the

(52:02):
season opens. That could happen. And there's also the possibility
that he could be healthy when the season opens too.
It's one of those things. They're just playing it super
cautious right now because he is so young. And to
your point, I was one of those people that this
guy's got to be in the rotation coming in this year.

(52:23):
He had won seventeen ERA and six starts in his
debut last year, and you know, just all he did
was back up everything they already thought about him as
a number seven overall draft pick. So I think they still.

Speaker 5 (52:39):
Think all that.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
I think I think if this team is good this year,
he's going to be a part of why they are.
It just may not happen out of the shoot all right.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
So with Rhett, it's just elbows soreness, but an MRI
that showed no real major structural issue. So I shouldn't
lose sleep over it yet, is what you're saying, right And.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
He says right now, he says, I feel great this
that's a direct quote from him today, and he's ready
to He's ready to go.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
Things last week for what it's worth.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
I will take that for what it's worth very much so.
Things at the end of spring training last year started
to devolve with injuries, and their death got tested early
once the real games began, and they struggled. Yeah, exactly right,
and so they were cycling through this endless line of
They brought Mike Ford back, and we had Connor Capele
and Jacob hurd Of. He's nothing against those players individually,

(53:33):
but I've wondered all off season are they going to
be better prepared for when death gets tested? Have they
accomplished that this offseason? And what has to happen in
the coming weeks to ensure that when injuries start to
take hold, this team is better prepared.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Well, they can still only withstand so many injuries. But
I do think that they've done a much better job
of create depth. When I say that, I mean you
look at last year, and until Noelle Marte got popped
for steroids in March, he looked like, well, he's gonna
come right in and play third base, and Jamer Candelario

(54:14):
comes in from the outside of the organization and he'll
play some herd first and DH and you got Kristin
and Karnoscion who broke in in twenty three, who's gonna start.
At first, it looked like and McLain. You know, McClain
is going to be McLean and Ellie were going to
be your middle endfield. Two guys that broke in in
twenty three. You were counting on guys that debuted in

(54:35):
twenty three, and then of course McClain gets hurt, and
Karnacion scram doesn't perform. Marte steroids and then he doesn't perform.
They were not only did they did those guys not
represent depth. They were supposed to be your starters, and
they didn't produce enough or play enough to even be

(54:56):
considered good enough to be debt. This year they've gone
out and got guys like Gavin Luxon and Austin Hayes,
backup catcher Jose Travino, who just got done playing in
a World Series along with lux Uh and uh And
was an All Star, Hayes was an All Star. They've

(55:17):
built themselves up more of a floor. I believe when
it comes to the lineup, you still don't have that
you know, or he's got the highest ceiling, but you
still don't have, you know, the you know, three or
four MVP candidates or anything like that, or somebody that's
gonna win a batting title for you. But you've got

(55:40):
more guys that you think you can count on for
minimal competitive big league production. And if you get the
pitching that you think you have, if you get if
you both then performs like you think you've prepared it
to and you catch the ball even a little bit
better across the board, then when you do scored some runs,

(56:00):
they're all gonna matter. And that's kind of where they've
how they've built the team. I do think there's more
depth because of that. Some of those guys that were
in the starting lineup last year on opening day probably
aren't going to be on the roster on opening day
this year. That's that's the difference.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Yeah, And you mentioned something that I and I'll let
you run after this, that I I don't know how
much Spring is going to give us an answer. But
I've been asking all off season will they catch and
throw the ball better?

Speaker 4 (56:31):
Will they?

Speaker 3 (56:32):
And it's errors, but it's also throwing the ball to
the right base. It's not you know, it's it's giving
away outs when an error is not a sign like
this team at times last year drove me out of
my mind. Defensively, I'm really interested to see how much
that improves, because it's badly needed.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
I agree with you that. I mean, that was probably
the single biggest flaw that team had, you know, just
mistakes in general. His mistakes on the bass pass too.
I think the mistakes on the bass pass can get
cleaned up because I think they have talent in that regard,
and that's just keeping your head in the game. I
don't know how much better they're gonna be defensively. Austin

(57:12):
Hayes should help a little bit, Travinia should help behind
the plate when he plays, McClain should help just by
showing up whatever. But McClain was their best player in
twenty three when he was there, even as a rookie.
But that was only three months, basically three months in
the big leagues, so we don't know. Is he gonna hit,
is he gonna Is he gonna struggle at all, as

(57:34):
the league addressed to him as he comes back. I
don't know. But if he just show goes up, he's
going to improve them defensively. That I think we can
count on if he's there. So between that and TJ.
Fried being back in center field, assuming that he stays healthy,
which he was, he had a hard time doing much
the last season, that's gonna improve things. They got a
Rule five kid who give I give a chance to

(57:55):
make the roster only because he's a plus defender, never
played a day in the big leagues. I don't even
remember his name, But because he's a defender, he's going
to be in play for that roster if he's if
he can compete at all as a hitter, if he's
just not overwhelmed as a hitter. So these are the
things that you're looking at for defensive improvement. Terry Frank

(58:19):
Cota can only do so much that way, no matter
what his credentials are, and so I do think that's
still going to be a potential weakness for this team
no matter what the roster looks like on opening Day.

Speaker 4 (58:32):
Cooper Bowman. I believe is the young man you're talking.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
About the name.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
Yes, Gordon, I can't thank you. That's right.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
I remember him because you wrote about him when they
acquired him, So you know, I bookmark stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
I'm right about rule five.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Guys, there's your byline from December the eleven, so there's
an imposter. I know you have a lot going on.
I appreciate you carving out some time. Thanks so much.
Enjoy the nice weather.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
And training, Gordon, Thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
You got it to Gordon Wittmeyer, covering the Reds for
The Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com. He is in goodyear
Reds pitchers and catchers. They're doing physicals today. I had
the Rent Louder news. I saw it just before we
put Gordon on the air. So he is and look, man,
you are probably you are probably just like me. I

(59:23):
saw it initially from Mark Sheldon of MLB dot Com.
He put it on a social media that he is
dealing with some elbow soreness and is being limited with
his program. MRI showed no structural issues, according to Nick Krawl,
and like you see that right, and it just it
evokes it evokes so many memories of like, I don't know,

(59:45):
I'm not even gonna make a direct comparison because there
are so many of a guy in spring training. It's
just it, it's no big deal, it's fine. He just
he's gonna be limited. He feels fine. And then it
turns out that, like he never pitched. So we'll be
paying very close attention to this. It is interesting. Rent
Louder at the end of the season last year was
really really good, and it did feel like even prior

(01:00:08):
to this he had a little bit of an uphill
battle to make the starting rotation. He is one of
their prizes, He is one of their absolute organizational gems, and.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
So this is.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
One of the news stories of spring training, Rent loud
Or how and again, he may be totally fine, but
I mean, come on, man, if you're a Reds fan,
if you're a baseball fan, but I think, frankly specifically,
if you're a Reds fan, how many times has the
it's okay, this is no big deal thing in spring
training turned out to be something that's a little bit
more significant. I'm certainly not rushing to conclusions here, but

(01:00:46):
we've been burned before, so we'll be paying attention to
this again. Thanks to A. Gordon Whittmeyer for joining us
Reds working out tomorrow. First Cactus League games are a
week from Saturday. It's twenty minutes after four o'clock. My
name is Moeger. We have a lot to get to
between now and five thirty. We're beyond calling them must wins.
We'll call it a prove it game Tonight next Cincinnati's

(01:01:10):
again fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
Moeger.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Thank you for listening today. We are for guests free
for a while. Awesome stuff with Paul Danner Junior as always,
good stuff from Gordon Whittmeyer as well.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
We thank them and you and I for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
You see plays the night against Utah, a rematch of
a game that the Bearcats could have won, one that
they should have won one. I think we talked about
them putting forth a masterclass in dumb stuff that day.
They if they could make a mistake, they did. They
also got crushed on the glass. Bearcats have pivoted things
a little bit in the right direction. They're playing well.

(01:01:49):
A good road win against UCF, which to me was
more about how they played than that they won and
who they beat, and you know, similar lines on along
similar lines, the BYU game stood out for how they played. Obviously,
you gotta win games, and they have, and so now
what happens next? I think from a bracketology perspective, from

(01:02:10):
an NCAA tournament perspective, they obviously have a ton of
work to do. I use this as a reference. I
went to the bracket Matrix yesterday, don't I don't spend
a lot of time on bracketology until right after the
super Bowl, and then you know it's it's worth paying
attention to because by then teams have played, you know,

(01:02:31):
basically two thirds of their seasons. Bracket Matrix, if you
don't know, it's a website that takes eighty eight different
bracket projections. Some are really well known, some are a
little bit less known, some are some have a track
record of being really accurate, some maybe not so much.
Eighty eight different bracketologists, and you see appears in the

(01:02:56):
bracket of one of them. So that should illustrate how
much work the Bearcats have in front of them.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
Not that we didn't know that already.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
I think the math is actually pretty simple here for
tournament qualification. I have a hard time believing that if
this team goes six and two the rest of the
way and finishes the Big Twelve regular season with a
five hundred record, I have a hard time believing that
the Bearcats will be on the outside looking in. Now

(01:03:25):
that might not be with a bye, might mean they
have to go to Dayton, who knows, might not be
a great seed. But I think if they're ten to
ten in the Big Twelve, I think they're going to
get in this game tonight. For me is it's kind
of the prove it game. I guess if you will.
All Right, they beat UCF and played the kind of

(01:03:50):
style we thought we were gonna see all year long. Okay,
was that a one game outliar? Well, then they beat
BYU and played a similar style in that game, specifically
in the second half, and ran away from the Cougars.
And all right, so is there a little bit of
a confidence thing now starting to snowball for this team?

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
Perhaps?

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
I think you're being fair if you look at tonight
and go get this one, and we'll start to take
them a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
Seriously.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
I've harped on you got to win your Big Twelve
home games, and so my thing after UCF was cool
now you have back to back home games, winning them,
and then we'll talk win this one tonight, and then
we'll talk. We'll talk about what they're gonna need to
do to pull off a road upset, what they're gonna
need to do to even have a prayer of winning
against Iowa State. But they've at least I think they've

(01:04:45):
at least piqued some people's interest. I think they've at
least laid a foundation for how they can play, and
let's see if tonight they can build on it. I
think a third consecutive win would take some skeptics and
at least not have them completely buy in that they're

(01:05:06):
going to make the tournament or completely express that they're
sold on West Miller, but at least start to create
a dialogue amongst fans about how something can still be
made of this season. I think if they lose tonight,
what they did against UCF and what they did against

(01:05:26):
BYU is going to be looked at as a mirage
or a nice little outlier in an otherwise frustrating Big
twelve season.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
We will see.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
They should have won that first game against BYU. They
were awful on the glass, they did not defend for
large stretches of that game. They missed a bunch of
free throws, missed a bunch of front ends of one
in ones. See if that repeats itself tonight, and hopefully not.
It is twenty eight away from five o'clock sports headlines,
some pretty significant reds news, and I think the Bengals

(01:05:57):
can do what the Eagles did if they keep t
Higgins coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 6 (01:06:04):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN Cincinnati Sports Stations.

Speaker 8 (01:06:09):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
God sure is Sports headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet,
home of lifetime powertrain protection and guarantee credit approval from
They are family to yours.

Speaker 5 (01:06:24):
For life, kelseyschev dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
So, according to a handful of media reports, Rhet Louder
is dealing with some elbow soreness. MRIs showed no structural damage,
but Ret Louder, prize of the twenty twenty four drum Sorry,
twenty twenty three draft, is gonna have his throwing program

(01:06:48):
in spring training limited. He had an MRI no structural
damage that according to Nick Krawl, so we'll take his
word for it, but worth paying attention to his spring
training gets underway. Reds did sign a reliever today, Scott Barlow,
a former closer, one year deal two and a half
million dollars. He is thirty two years old. Pitched last
season with the Guardians, ended up getting let go. He

(01:07:11):
had a bunch of really nice years with the Kansas
City Royals. Cincinnati has also signed reliever Josh Staumon to
a minor league contract. Pitched in twenty five games with
the Twins last season. An ERA of three seventy was
cut loose in early August. Meanwhile, college basketball tonight, we
talked about UC in Utah. Seven o'clock is your tip.
The game is live on seven hundred WLW. Also tonight,

(01:07:33):
Kentucky battles Tennessee. That game at Rupp Arena. Wildcats won
the first one in Knoxville. Pregame at five thirty. Tip
at seven on ESPN fifteen thirty. Also tonight, Miami battles Toledo,
and Indiana takes on Michigan State. Poll questions on Twitter
are a service of United Heartland Insurance. Go to UHIS

(01:07:56):
dot com. It doesn't matter what your insurance need is.
You know you often hear me talking about like homeowner's
insurance or car insurance. But if you own a business,
there's lots that you have to have that gets insured.
That's a clumsy way of me saying you need business insurance,
need business fleet insurance. So if you're a business owner
and check out what United Heartland Insurance can do for you,

(01:08:18):
go to UHI ins dot com. How many wins will
Terry Francona be worth to the Reds this season? Four choices?
Vote now at muegger on Twitter, Thank you and good luck.
Five point three seven nine fifteen thirty is our our
phone number.

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
You know a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
We do this every year and sometimes in fact, usually understandably.
So team wins the Super Bowl, what can we take
from what they did and apply it to our team?
How do we localize it? And the Bengals have some
really big decisions in front of them as it relates
to t Higgins and Trey Hendrickson right. We've talked about

(01:08:59):
him for weeks on end and we will continue to
Trey is obviously not a free agent, but among the
major decisions the Bengals have this offseason is trade them,
or extend them, or don't do anything with him and
deal with the possible fallout deal with the possible fallout
of not signing T Higgins, both in terms of what
Joe Burrow would do, what he would say about it,

(01:09:20):
what he would think about it, but also how they
would replace him. So if you watch the game on
Sunday night, it was impossible to ignore how good Philadelphia
was defensively, but specifically upfront. They dominated the line of scrimmage.
They made Patrick Mahomes uncomfortable in ways that as much
as I've ragged on Patrick Mahomes and think that Joe

(01:09:40):
Burrow is better, Joe dealt with a lot of pressure
this season, not really the avalanche of pressure that Patrick
Mahomes had to deal with on Sunday Night.

Speaker 4 (01:09:49):
But the big.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
Takeaway I think for a lot of folks was you
got to have you got to have a defensive front
like that, and you've got to have an offensive line.
And frankly, Philly's defensive front was far more of I thought,
than their offensive line. But they're really good in the trenches, right,
really good up front, and so that's how you do it.
That's how you do it. Forget these wide receivers and

(01:10:11):
the shiny objects on the outside. The real key to
building a championship caliber team is to build from where
the players are closest to the football.

Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
Okay, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
What if I reminded you, though, that the Philadelphia Eagles
this year had two of the NFL's top eleven highest
paid wide receivers in total value of their contract. AJ
Brown wasn't cheap and DeVante Smith his second contract not cheap.

(01:10:49):
Those are expensive players. Now, they had deals that were
structured in a way that gave the Eagles some financial flexibility.
And we could say the same thing about Jalen Hurts.
I don't think anybody who's saying give T Higgins a
blank check. I don't believe anybody believes that the Bengals
are going to make Jamar Chase and T Higgins the

(01:11:09):
two highest paid wide receivers in the sport. We've talked
about this for weeks now that if T is really
interested in who pays him the most money, and that's
what he prioritizes more than anything else, and if so,
by the way, fine good for him. Then the team
that he signs with is probably not going to be
the Bengals, the team that offers him the most money.

(01:11:30):
If that's what he's indeed most interested in this offseason.
Chances are that's not Cincinnati. Now, there are other factors
in play here, comfort level, his happiness catching passes from Joe,
chance to be a civic icon, playing with Jamar Chase, whatever,
all field considerations there are. So you know, I mean Philadelphia,

(01:11:51):
they don't have, you know, two guys who are the
two highest paid wide receivers in the sport, but they
got two guys occupying a pretty significant chunk of the
team's overall payroll. Well, and by the way, Saquon Barkley
does as well. What have they been able to do?
They've been able to do what really good smart front
offices do. They've been able to make smart free agency acquisitions.

(01:12:12):
Zach Bond signed with them for one year, three and
a half million dollars. They got a great year out
of them. Are they going to resign him? Hell, that's
a guy you can make a casion end up in Cincinnati.
I don't know, but the Eagles made a very wise
smart free agency signing. They also grab McKay Becton on

(01:12:32):
the offensive line. A bust with the Jets goes to
Philadelphia one year, two seven five changes positions, so smart acquisition,
smart coaching, and the player ends up on kind of
a proven deal, enhancing his worth. Kai Becton end up
back in Philadelphia this season. I don't know, but they

(01:12:53):
got a really good year out of him. The sort
of plug and play get a lot of out of them.
Player buy low, sell high, buy some of the risk,
but enjoy some of the reward. However you want to
frame it. Smart free agency acquisitions, the idea is to
use free agency, not to spend the most, not to
make the splashiest acquisitions, to use free agency to make

(01:13:17):
your team better, to supplement what you already have, to
fill holes. And sometimes it costs a lot of money,
and sometimes yeah, you do have to overpay a little bit.
Bengals have done that in the past. But you want
to do what the Eagles have done. Pay a couple
of wide receivers. And it's not necessarily apples to apples.
I get it. Neither Aj Brown or Davonte Smith have

(01:13:38):
won the NFL's Triple Crown. Jamar and t are kind
of a special set of circumstances. But let's not pretend
that the Philadelphia Eagles have gone bargain basement at their
skill spots. Jalen Hurts is highly paid, Saquon Barkley is
highly paid. AJ Brown is highly paid. Davonte Smith is
highly paid. What else have they done? They use the

(01:14:01):
draft to find players who want defense? Excuse me, made
an instant impact. Quinnon, Mitchell, and Cooper dejen were finalists
for the Defensive Rookie of the Year award. Are the
Bengals going to be able to find two of those
next year? Maybe not to win the award, but just
players who give them instant return. The answer needs to

(01:14:22):
be yes. This is the case regardless of what they
do or don't do with t Higgins. But like it's
easy to look at how Philly won that game up
front and ignore what they can do on the outside.
By the way, offensively, at least Philadelphia didn't get Saquon
Barkley going on Sunday Night. But Jalen Hurts connected on

(01:14:42):
some downfield passes that he didn't connect on two years ago.
Why he's a better quarterback than he was two years ago. Also,
they have good outside threats. Like I do not accept
the suggestion that you see you don't need wide receivers.
You don't The Bengals franchise remake occurred. A. They drafted

(01:15:04):
Joe Burrow. B. They threw money at the defense. See
they drafted two really good wild wide receivers in consecutive years. Now,
if you look at it, back then, the defense was
making all the money, and now the wide receivers in
the quarterback are going to be making all the money.
Cool find players in the draft, find free agents who
make sense, coach them up what really good front offices do.

(01:15:29):
Here in lies the skepticism now that what Duke Tobin
did with the defense a couple of years ago is
easier to do than what he's got to do this year,
assuming you keep t Higgins and even believing for a
second that he might not be back in Cincinnati, what
he did a couple of years ago is easier. Just
overpay dudes. Find guys and overpay them. Now you got

(01:15:51):
to be a little bit more judicious with money. And
who knows if there's a Zach Bawn out there. Who
knows if the if on the offense offensive line, there's
a guy with Mackai Becton's pure physical skill set, I
don't know. By the way, they also made some moves
in free agency that didn't work. They signed Devin White.
That guy got cut after four games. You're not going

(01:16:12):
to bat a thousand, but you've got to have a
success rate in both. That enables you to take advantage
of when you have a guy like t Higgins who
wants to be paid to stay here and wants to
stay here. Eagles have really good players on the outside.
They also have a terrific front office, a great general manager.

(01:16:33):
They're awesome at evaluating, they're apparently really good at coaching.

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
Those things can be true here. They have to be.

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
True here regardless of what happens with T Higgins. The
Trey Hendrickson thing. Dana and I were talking about it before,
and you know, he has his ten step plan to
get the Bengals back to the Super Bowl next year.
I think to a degree, this comes down to what
you prioritize. If you're Duke Tobin, if you're above Duke Tobin,

(01:17:07):
do you look at this offseason. Do you look at
training camp and say, we have to prioritize quieting things down.
We need to ensure that as the off season unfolds,
the only time we're in the news is when we
acquire a player, trade for a player or draft a player.

(01:17:30):
We want there to be no noise, no trade requests,
no contract weirdness. We don't want to be when we
get to training camp having to deal with hold ins, holdouts,
none of that stuff. We don't have to don't want
to have to deal with cryptic tweets. We want the

(01:17:50):
most quiet, serene off season possible, and you might be
right in prioritizing that. If you're prioritizing that, then the
Trey Hendrickson thing is really about just two choices. Do
you extend him and pay him in twenty twenty seven,
perhaps for what he was doing in twenty twenty four,

(01:18:14):
or do you trade him, take the money he'd be
making this year, spend it elsewhere on your team, and
just draft a whole bunch of and sign a whole
bunch of free agent defensive ends. You might not be
prioritizing quiet and serenity during the offseason. Maybe you're not.

(01:18:35):
I'm kind of of the belief that a noisy offseason
is now almost inherent, almost impossible to avoid. As long
as you have good players, you're gonna have guys who
want to be traded. You're gonna have players who want
contract extensions, and there might be some controversy or some

(01:18:56):
significant questions about whether it makes sense to sign them.
A hold in could be a guy who doesn't come
to mini camp, could be a guy who threatens to
not play in the preseason, and maybe even drags a
hold in until the eve of the regular season, which
is what Jamar Chase did. I if you are not
concerned with that, and if you're willing to handle the noise,

(01:19:19):
if you're built to deal with the fallout from the noise,
if you're okay handling a distraction or controversy and you
think your team itself can handle it, if you think
your coach is good enough to handle the questions that
are going to come his way about something that he
really doesn't have that much to do with, then I
think the obvious answer is you have Trey Hendrickson play

(01:19:41):
this year, You deal with whatever short term fallout there is,
and you assume he's going to show up Week one
and not forego a game check. I think for me,
that's kind of what this comes down to. What are
we prioritizing here? And I will admit I could see
both sides of the argument. I could see look, man,
We've dealt with a lot of noise, don't want to
deal with any of this offseason, and I could certainly understand, like,

(01:20:05):
hey man, we're good to handle the noise.

Speaker 4 (01:20:07):
We're built to handle the noise. We're gonna be Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:20:09):
We want the player on our team, We're gonna keep
them on our team, but that doesn't mean we're gonna
pay him in twenty twenty seven to be on our team.
More on this, there's another part of the t Higgins
equation we'll talk about. Plus a few thoughts on the Reds.
The Red Louder news is not great, but we're not
gonna panic yet. It's a couple away from five o'clock
on Moeger. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
iHeart now your chance to win one thousand dollars. Enter
this nationwide keyword on our website, shack. That's shack.

Speaker 4 (01:20:43):
You enter it now.

Speaker 8 (01:20:45):
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 5 (01:20:49):
Hey, it's all Magar. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank
you so much for listening. Hopefully you're having an awesome Tuesday,
and we are done early. Coming up at the bottom
of the hour, or as normal people call it, coming
up at five thirty, we flip itto Lexington UK is
hosting Tennessee, the Wildcats looking for a second victory of

(01:21:09):
the season over the Volunteers. It feels like Rick Barnes's
team has kind of righted at ship. They lost a
couple of games in a row in late January, including
that loss to Kentucky. So UK looking for a second
victory this season over Tennessee, also looking for a second
consecutive victory overall, after beating South Carolina and showing some

(01:21:31):
defensive improvement, you are being very reasonable if you're a
Wildcats fan if you wonder, okay, did that have more
to do with what South Carolina doesn't do than with
what Kentucky did do in that game.

Speaker 4 (01:21:41):
But nonetheless, if.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
The Wildcats are going to rejoin the conversation about the
teams that could make a run to the Final Four,
they're gonna have to make improvements defensively. They have to
start somewhere. Maybe they started on Saturday, Perhaps they'll continue tonight.
Pregame coverage at five thirty. Tip off tonight at seven
o'clock on ESPN fifteen thirty. Obviously a very busy night

(01:22:04):
in the area. College basketball highlighted here in Cincinnati by
UC hosting Utah. This is a game the Bearcats should win,
and I know they lost to Utah the.

Speaker 4 (01:22:14):
First go round.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
This was a game the first go round where if
the Bearcats could do something dumb, they did, and when
they took a step forward in that game against Utah,
they typically took two steps back. Remember they started the
game by making five of their first six shots, and
yet Utah made five of their first six shots. They
had dumb turnovers, they had a silly flagrant two. That
was a game where they missed the front end of

(01:22:36):
a one to one three times in the second half,
something I had never seen. They were crushed on the glass.
This is not a very good Utah team. The Utes
since that game against UC have lost two out of three.
The one win came against Colorado, who hasn't beaten anybody
in the Big twelve. It's a Q three opportunity, and
you know you could use the word opportunity in air quotes.

Speaker 4 (01:22:58):
It's a Q three game.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
So not one that the Bearcats are gonna get a
lot of credit for when you look at their NCAA
tournament resume, but one that could sync their resume.

Speaker 5 (01:23:09):
I'll make it very simple. They've got eight games to go.
If if they go six and two the rest of
the way, that's ten and ten in.

Speaker 4 (01:23:17):
The Big twelve.

Speaker 5 (01:23:18):
I think we would feel okay. Now, it's worth mentioning
if you go to a bracketmatrix dot com. I think
I mentioned this before.

Speaker 3 (01:23:29):
Bracketmatrix dot com is an aggregate website where they take
all the different bracket projections that are out there. I
think eighty eight of them one as UC in the
field and so they're not in right now by any
stretch of the imagination, despite what that bubble watch guy
at ESPN says. But I think if they go six
and two the rest of the way, we're gonna feel
okay about this team being ten and ten.

Speaker 4 (01:23:50):
So I'll make it simple. I will.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
I don't want to, I don't want to assume, but
let's just say the most likely outcome when the Bearcats
go to Iowa State is that you see loses, And
the most likely outcome of the Bearcats go to Houston
is that you see loses. Okay, can they win the
other six? Well, they can't if they lose. Tonight seven
o'clock Asior tip off live on seven hundred WLW.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
More on that tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
Of course, I had a really good time talking with
Gordon Whittmyer the Inquirer. I'm a sucker for those first
few days of spring training. I'm a sucker for those
first few bars from Tommy Thrall from Goodyear, which we
get next weekend. I'm a sucker for that footage you
see of like, you know, three bullpen sessions happening at once,

(01:24:39):
or some early batting practice, and you know, I'm such
a sucker for that sort of stuff that I try
to caution myself against allowing the good feelings that come
with that stuff to create optimism that's not deserved. But
I do find myself the more I think about this team,
and look, I'm not here to tell you that if

(01:25:00):
you're pessimistic about this season that had that that hasn't
been earned, or if you're cynical when it comes to
anything Reds related, that that's not earned. I'm also not
going to tell you that I think this team's going
to win ninety five games and run away with the
National League Central. I do think, though, You've got to
put stock into a couple of things. One is the
fact that year to year, teams that are awful in

(01:25:22):
one run games tend to be okay in one run
games the following year.

Speaker 5 (01:25:27):
It's sort of average itself out. They call it what
regression to the mean? Yes, regression to the mean. You know,
Buster only writes about this at ESPN dot com. Today,
all of their writers were asked a series of questions
about the season as spring training begins, and you know,
Buster was asked what team are you more interested in

(01:25:49):
today than you were a year ago? And his response
was the Reds And he says that the odds makers
have set the win total at seventy eight and a half.

Speaker 4 (01:25:57):
Seventy eight and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
Last year they won seventy seven games, and Buster says,
that makes no sense. They were fifteen to twenty nine
in run one run games last season. Easy for me
to say they'll probably automatically be better, maybe close to
five hundred. Well, that represents improvement. I think they have
a good starting staff. I think they have the potential

(01:26:18):
to have a good starting staff. And the reality was
last year they had a good starting staff. I am
also not giving up on Matt McClain and Christian and
Carnassi and Strand being really really good offensive players, and
if they are, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:26:31):
An instant boost.

Speaker 3 (01:26:33):
And our pole question today, which comes your way thanks
to United Heartland Insurance, is about how many wins Terry
Francona is going to be responsible for. And I will
admit to you I think the number is probably right
around five, and that could represent a huge difference. But
I think where his impact is going to be is
going to be really hard to quantify. If we get
the expected impact, meaning a good communication, accountability, mistakes being correct,

(01:27:00):
that sort of stuff, to me, it's not gonna be
about as lineups or as pitching changes. You nitpick, You're
gonna find instances where he gets that stuff wrong and right.
I'm really curious if we see mistakes in April, do
we see them in June? If we see them in June,
do we see them in August? And my guess with
the manager with this kind of resume is the answer

(01:27:20):
is no. Look, I spent years talking about David Bell
and saying into this microphone, I don't know if he
is a good manager or not. I know Terry Francona
is a good manager. And then that other stuff that
I suspect, which is the good starting pitching, better performance
in one run games, the players that are not bailing

(01:27:43):
on McClain and Cees specifically being really good offensive players.
Maybe a major step forward for Elie Dela Cruz where
he ascends to a true superstar. I'm starting to turn optimistic,
and maybe it's just a natural thing we all do
this time of year, but I feel and I also
like individually, I like some of the individual moves they've made.

(01:28:08):
You know, none of them, you know, needle moving on
their own merit, but I do think they have addressed
some areas where they needed players who either had big
league resumes, a slight track record, or at least a
skill set that filled a specific need. A lot more
on that tomorrow, you know, another day goes by and

(01:28:32):
we talk more about t Higgins and Trey Hendrickson and
Joe Burrows comments and Danner was with us before and
was excellent on the Trey Hendrickson thing. He kind of
outlines a ten point plan for the Bengals to win
the Super Bowl next year, and item number two on
his list, the Athletic dot Com go read it is

(01:28:55):
trade Trey Hendrickson. Look, I'm of the belief that noise
is almost inevitable when you have a team with good players.
Someone's gonna want to get paid. Someone's gonna want an extension,
someone's gonna want a trade or a bigger role. There's

(01:29:16):
gonna be questions about a contract in pass and there
are hold ins and holdouts. Like I'm kind of the
belief in the NFL this stuff, this stuff is almost unavoidable.
But if you are angling to avoid it and you
don't want to give him a contract extension, you almost
have to trade him. They you might say, look, pay him,

(01:29:38):
give him his money, He's earned it, and there might
be something to that, except again, he is under contract
for this season and an extension is probably gonna be
more than one year. Are you really that willing to
give him the kind of money commensurate with twenty twenty

(01:29:59):
four perduc auction in twenty twenty seven. I don't think
the answer is yes. I don't think the answer for
the Bengals is yes, I should say. And so if
that answer is no, and you're you're trying to avoid noise,
you're trying to avoid holdouts, hold ends, you're trying to

(01:30:21):
avoid drama, you're trying to avoid distractions, you almost have
to trade them. I do wonder what the market would
be relative to what it would be if Miles Garrett
wasn't dangling himself out there looking for a trade from
the Cleveland Browns. On the Tea Higgins thing, Jason Williams

(01:30:41):
has a piece today in The Inquiry about the Bengals offseason.
You know this isn't about necessarily giving Joe Burrow what
he wants. I think what a lot of this is about,
and I know I went on a little bit of
a rant about this last week. We've tried it the
other way, and I think Joe Burrow will tell you
that they've tried it. They've tried it the way that well,

(01:31:05):
we've criticized them for not succeeding with which is the
inability to replace really good players who leave. We've tried,
all right, don't pay Jesse Bates, replace him with a
draft pick. We've tried, all right, let's not extend t
Higgins and see if we can find his eventual replacement
in the mix. Maybe it was supposed to be Jermaine Burton.

(01:31:27):
He is reportedly on the verge of being evicted for
the second time in like a month. He now has
four NFL receptions and two evictions, so maybe the evictions
will catch up to the receptions.

Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
I don't know. They've tried it that way.

Speaker 3 (01:31:42):
They tried to replace Von Bell right and Von Bell
came back, but that wasn't the original plan. So I
think from Joe's perspective, all right, we've tried it this way.
He's referenced, you don't want to be the team that's
constantly letting really good players get away. Well, it's one
thing if you replace them, right, They've tried it. It
hasn't worked. So from Burrow's perspective, Okay, we've tried to earway.

Speaker 4 (01:32:03):
Now try it my.

Speaker 5 (01:32:04):
Way, and as I've said many times, if it doesn't work,
then the onus falls on Joe Burrow during a stretch
in his career that I think is ultimately going to
define Joe Burrow's career. He is more likely if he
wins his Super Bowl to win one in year six
through ten than years ten through fifteen. There's also something
about this, like t Higgins, I've had folks say to me,

(01:32:26):
and I don't disagree. In this offense, he is a
number two wide receiver, number two wide receivers are hard
to replace. I mean just and it's not apples to
apples because college football has changed. But at the same time,
Bengals have had some really good number two wide receivers
like TJ. Houshman's on if you want to go back
a long time, when he left, it took them a

(01:32:46):
really long time to find a like a legit number
two wide out. Right, remember Lavernius Coles. Remember the pairing
of Chad and to and then they got Aj Green? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
AJ was awesome, but really the offense didn't take off
until a real, legitimate, bona fide number two wide out emerged.
And that didn't really take place until AJ's third NFL season.
And then if you remember, the year after that, like
a whole bunch of guys got hurt, there was no
number two wide receiver. Then the year after that they
had a number two wide receiver, and then well those

(01:33:19):
guys left and they drafted Tyler Boyd. And the point
being I think we talk about T is if he
is going to be really easy to replace. Now, I
certainly understand that if you watch college football every single week,
you see guys who just fit the profile of NFL
wide receivers, and maybe you grab one of those guys,
and maybe there's a player who's not quite as high
profile as t Higgins but that you could PLoP into

(01:33:42):
the Bengals offense and get the production you're looking for.
Maybe maybe, but that's a little bit of an unknown
tea isn't known. I'm willing to pay more for knowns. Also,
if the idea is to let T Higgins get away
and use a draft choice to replace him, well, I
thought we wanted them to draft like the Philadelphia Eagles,

(01:34:04):
where last year they took in rounds one and two,
two finalists for Defensive Rookie of the Year. So and
I do believe this, and Paul and I talked about
this too. I think there's value there that's hard to
quantify with a dollar amount. A guy who wants to
be here, a guy who brings a lot of known

(01:34:26):
variables to the table, a guy who has a reputation
for being a total pro, a guy who just embodies
you know, coaches and teams are always talking about culture.
Here's our culture, you know. I think T Higgins would
be reflective of the sort of culture that Zach Taylor's
trying to achieve.

Speaker 4 (01:34:43):
And trying to maintain.

Speaker 3 (01:34:44):
So I know this is not the first time I've
talked about this, but now with the offseason coming into
very clear focus, and Joe Burrow's media tour kind of
being finished, and T Higgins making his recent comments, and
even some folks looking at the Philadelphia Eagles and how
they build third team, the more I think about it,
the more I really want the Bengals to sign T Higgins.
The Trey Hendrickson thing, I'll be honest with you. I

(01:35:08):
can be convinced either way. I could be convinced go
ahead and give him an extension, But the extension financially,
I think has to make sense because we're not talking
about a twenty five year old player, and my guess
is Trey's gonna want even more money keep him and
let him play the year out. You could sell me
on that, but then you can't go on and on
and on about how they've got to avoid distractions, because

(01:35:30):
that scenario invites a distraction, and then if you trade
the guy, your defense from a year ago doesn't have
its best player. We are most definitely not finished talking
about T Higgins and Trey Hendrickson. You can hit me
up on Twitter at Moeger. UK basketball is coming up
in just a few minutes. We'll step aside on Moegar.

(01:35:51):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 6 (01:35:55):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.

Speaker 7 (01:36:00):
You See Health Traffic Center. For more than two hundred years,
the experts that you see health have been giving heart
patients of chance at better outcomes. That's foundless care you
can trust, expect more at UCHealth dot com. East Found
two seventy five an accident on the carrabl Cropper Bridge
causing a backup in the area.

Speaker 4 (01:36:18):
West.

Speaker 7 (01:36:19):
Found on Highway thirty two. An accident at Klepper Lane
in southbound Reading Road. It's a vehicle fire between L.
Santaville Avenue and Seymour Avenue. I'm at Ezealik with traffic.

Speaker 4 (01:36:30):
This report is Hey.

Speaker 3 (01:36:31):
A couple of things before we flip into Lexington for
UK basketball tomorrow, we are broadcasting from Northern Kentucky Turfway
Park racing and Gaming.

Speaker 4 (01:36:38):
I'll be there from three to six tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (01:36:40):
Great place to have dinner, great place to watch college basketball,
great place to bet on college basketball, great place to
get a happy hour beer as well. So we hope
to see there.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
Tomorrow is starting at three oh five Turfway Park Racing
and Gaming. Rick Boring joins us to talk Xavier and
NKU basketball. We'll react to the UC and Kentucky games tonight,
latest on the Reds from Goodyear, and Brendan Soresby will
join our show at four thirty five, the UC quarterback
getting set for his second season in Clifton. We are

(01:37:10):
definitely looking forward to that. Anything you might have missed
on this show, you can go get on the iHeartRadio
app or the podcast page at ESPN fifteen thirty dot com.
Podcasts of our show a service of Long Next Sports Grill.
If you're thinking, God, I'm in northern Kentucky tonight and
I hear about the weather, but you know I'm cool
and know how to drive, I'm gonna get out watch
the Wildcats. Or maybe you're a Bearcat fan in the

(01:37:31):
eight five nine, I want to watch UC in Utah, Wilder,
Hebrin and Richwood. Three locations Long Next Sports Grill. We
are out of here. I want to thank Tarren Bland
for producing and you for listening.

Speaker 4 (01:37:43):
Have a great night.

Speaker 3 (01:37:44):
UK basketball is next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati sports stations.

Speaker 4 (01:38:16):
So the pen in dim s the s

All Episodes

2/11/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show

Episode Transcript

Mo Egger News

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}2/11/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show

Episode Transcript

Mo Egger News .css-1q01m3q{margin:0 0 -2px 0;}

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

All Episodes