7-4-25 Cincy 360 with Chad Brendel and Joe Waddell

Chad and Joe fill in for Tony and Austin. They talk the development of the Reds' young core, the pressure facing new Bengals coaches Al Golden and Scott Peters, and expectations for UC Football.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Filling in for the boys today as we we get
ready to rock an Independence Day show with it's a
lot going on. Red's play one o'clock taking on the
Philadelphia Phillies. This a pretty critical series for the Reds.

(00:21):
I think you are heading in close to close to
heading into the All Star break. You have three series left,
You are hovering right around that five hundred mark. Three

(00:46):
in Philadelphia, and then you come home for seven seven
four against a Marlins team that is playing very well
right now, and then the dreadful Rockies. And for the Reds,

(01:12):
where you end up at the end of these eleven
games is potentially going to tell a lot of the
story for the rest of the season. The division is

(01:35):
going to be I don't want to say impossible, but
right now the Reds are seven back of the Cubs.
The Cubs are seventeen games over five hundred. The Reds
are three games over five hundred. Long way to go
to catch Chicago. However, when it comes to the wild

(02:01):
this team is very much in play. The three wild
card spots. You have the Mets and the Brewers in
front of the pack, Padres, Giants, Cardinals all tied for
the third spot. The Reds are next in line one
and a half back. If you limp into the All

(02:28):
Star break, a lot of the good that has been
done over these past five six weeks has a chance
to be undone. If you finish strong, you go into
the second half of the season with momentum and a

(02:49):
chance for this young cores to really make a push.
So this Philly series is super, super important. And remember
this is a Phillies team that is fifty one and
thirty six. They are a game and a half clear

(03:12):
of the Mets in the NL East at this point
in time. They are playing at home and they are
playing pretty well. So this is a situation for the

(03:34):
home team to get something done to show that they
are going to be a factor in the National League.
As we go through and you get into the dog

(03:54):
days of summer July, August, and September, you don't want
to have a situation where you have played well for
five or six weeks and then essentially had that erased
at the end. So this is a big time, big

(04:20):
time series for the Cincinnati Reds and it's time to
start looking at this core, I think, and start figuring
out whether or not this is the group that is

(04:43):
going over the next two three four years to power
this team through whatever you know run this might be.
Are we looking at a early two thousand and ten's
run where everything lined up in that core group? Car Evado, Bruce,

(05:08):
Brandon Phillips carried that group to success along with the
great pitching staff, And I think we feel good about
the pitching staff. I don't think there are as many,
nearly as many questions there. But when you get to

(05:31):
the position players, I think that's where this starts. This
conversation starts to get interesting because if I asked you,
and maybe I will, talkbacks are open. Make sure you
get your talkbacks in here on this fourth of July.
If I asked you, what is the Red's core when
it comes to position players, It's going to start and

(05:51):
largely be heavily focused on Elie de la Cruz. But
when this group came up, Spencer Steer, Matt McLean, Christian
and Karnoskio and Strand, we're gonna find out today. NOELV
Marte back, Graham Ashcraft back, We're gonna start to find
out today a little bit more about Noel V. Marte.

(06:15):
But if you looked at this team in April and May. Boy,
you couldn't have felt good about where Spencer Steere and
Matt McLain were in year three. McLain obviously missed last year.
Steer had a good year last year. But I think
those two guys behind Elie de la Cruz make up

(06:37):
what I would consider the core of this Red's lineup
going forward, going into the future. And we have seen
over the past couple weeks what it looks like when
those guys are effective. Now, I think you'd still like
to see Matt McLean get into a little bit more

(06:58):
of a groove, get a massive hole to dig out of.
And he's only hitting two point fifteen, even with how
much better he's played of late. On base percentage three
oh four, that's okay, it's respectable. Slugging only three forty five,
that's got to take a significant jump for Matt McClain

(07:21):
to kind of be that one two punch with Elie
de la Cruz. And then I think the next two
guys you wonder about a Christian Incarnacian Strand and Noelvie Marte,
those are supposed to be the corner pop Those are
supposed to be the guys that are in that four
five six hole in the lineup and producing runs, driving

(07:44):
in runs for this offense as you have these other
guys ahead of them, get on base and keep the
line moving. That's that's where the depth in this lineup
is going to come from. Is a guy like in
Karnacian Strand playing well. He's hitting two O six now.
The Grand Slam on Wednesday was massive, and I do

(08:10):
think we are starting to with Christian and Karnaskio and Strand,
and he's had under five hundred at bats. So I
don't want to speak in broad wide generalities here, but
maybe he's just going to be a guy that's a
low average guy that's going to give you that thump

(08:33):
when he gets on hot streaks. And is that enough?
Is that enough for a guy that's going to be
at first or third through this run, through these next
two three four years where this group that came up
together makes their their mark in Cincinnati. So I want
to get to that today. I think that is an

(08:56):
interesting scenario as we go into the second half of
essentially year three for these guys, for this core, for
this group, for this group that was at the top
of the minor leagues, that everybody was excited about to
see when they got to Cincinnati and what it was
going to look like. Are they ready And if they are,

(09:22):
we're going to have to start seeing it this weekend,
through the All Star break and then into the second
half of the season. They cannot have these guys go
on prolonged steer McClain, Incarnaci and Strand Marte as we
saw at the end of last year when he came
back from the suspension. They can't have these three, four,

(09:43):
five six week slumps. There's going to be ups and
downs in baseball. Everybody is going to get hot, everybody
is going to be cold for stretches. But if this
team is going to win anything, those four because I
think with Ellie like you're gonna get a great player.

(10:04):
I think he's already starting to be underappreciated in Cincinnati,
which is wild. But he's your he's your cornerstone, he's
your rock in terms of building out this position group.
Those four guys behind him are critical, critical. We'll get

(10:30):
to some Bengals today as well. Uh Listening to uh
Tony and Austin earlier in the week, they were talking
about the the stat that that covered Joe Burrow and
how often he is pressured, even though he gets blitzed

(10:55):
fewer than any court, less than any quarterback, less often
than any quarterback in the NFL over the last three years.
Teams don't send pressure at Joe Burrow. One because he's
really good at navigating it. Two because the tape says
they don't have to. They don't have to. It's not

(11:20):
required if you're gonna, if you're thinking about getting pressure
on Joe Burrow, it's not required to send five, to
send six. You can get there with four. Hell sometimes
we've seen teams get there with three with regularity, unfortunately.
And that brings me to We talked a ton since
the start of the offseason about Al Golden. They didn't

(11:43):
do a lot to change the pieces on defense, but
they changed the leader of the defense. They changed the
guy calling the plays, the guy designing the system. And
I think there is going to be some effectiveness to that,
because if you followed Al Golden's career, you know, and

(12:03):
if you followed Al Golden's career when he was the
linebackers coach at Cincinnati a couple of years back before
he left for Notre Dame, you saw their young linebackers
Logan Johnson, Jermaine Pratt, a team Davis gather that had
a young group of linebackers that came in and all
flourished under Al Golden. Al Golden's strength is working with

(12:24):
younger units, getting them to gel and play on the
same page and play well. And I think that is
something that's very important with this defense the way that
it is built right now. I did not think lou
Ana Rumo was a good fit for what Cincinnati's structure

(12:45):
on their roster is right now. I think Louianna Rumo
wants to be multiple. He wants to do things that
require a lot of veteran leadership, a lot of veteran
voice in the room, so that every week when you
come in, you say, Okay, what's the opponent do it?
Kind of a I've always likened the what Loua ayne

(13:07):
A Rumo wants to do to what the Patriots were
really good at under Bill Belichick for years and years
and years and years. Every week was a little bit different.
Every week it came down to what is the other
team's strength, how do we take that away. I think
with Al Golden, you're going to get a guy that says,

(13:28):
this is what we do. We're gonna simplify it. We're
gonna not make it ultra complicated. We're going to use
our speed, use our athleticism. We're gonna run around, run
to the football and make place. What we haven't talked
about a ton is that the Bengals are kind of
doing the same thing to Scott Peters, the new offensive
line coach. They did not go out and get Scott

(13:52):
Peters a lot of fancy new toys for year one running.
The Bengals offensive line tackles are the same center as
the same Cordell Vohlsen's here. He's going to compete for
one of the guard spots. There's a possibility, as leaky
as that offensive line was at times last year, that
you returned four starters and the fifth guy could be

(14:12):
a rookie. That doesn't sound like we're going all in
to make sure Joe Burrow is safe from a personnel standpoint.
So the question here is who is the front office
putting more pressure on because there's two guys that ultimately

(14:34):
are being tasked with kind of the same thing. Take
the chicken poop from last year and turn it into
chicken salad. Now, as the age old saying goes, you
can't make chicken salad out of chicken poop, But these
two guys are going to be asked to do it,

(14:57):
and which one has the bigger task, which one has
the bigger responsibility because I don't think they've done. Either
of these guys a whole lot of favors coming into
their new job. We'll also get to some you see

(15:17):
football Tuesday. Tuesday, we are in July. Training camp is
only a couple weeks away for the Cincinnati Bearcats. Tuesday
is Big twelve Media Days. If you're looking for coverage
on Big twelve Media Days, you can follow my guy

(15:38):
at Bearcat Journal Keegan nickoson ky nickoson forty two on Twitter.
He will be down in Dallas to hear from Scott
Saderfield and Brendan Sorosby and Joe Royer and Gavin Gerhardt
and Dante Corleone as that group heads down there for
the kickoff essentially of the ramp up to football season.

(16:03):
And it's a fascinating year for Scott's Odderfield three and nine,
five and seven his first two seasons. What is an
appropriate level of expectation in year three for Scott's Odderfield

(16:23):
because there have been flashes, especially last year. You get
to five and two, looks like things are humming along
pretty well. You beat Arizona State, who went on to
win the Big Twelve, and ecquit themselves very well in
the College Football Playoff, and then things kind of fell apart.

(16:45):
That kind of fell apart. They went on five the
last five games. Things fell apart. It's not sugarcoated. What
is an appropriate level of expectation for Scott's Adderfield and
his Cincinnati bearcuts in year two? Talkbacks? Get you talk
back in Go to the iHeartRadio app. Go to ESPN

(17:08):
fifteen thirty. When you're there, click on the microphone that
will let you record your talkback and send it back
to me and we will play that in the second
segment of our number two. So make sure you are
locked and loaded and ready to go there. New producer

(17:30):
for me today, Joe Widell on the Ones and Twoes. Joe,
how the heck you doing this fourth of July. I'm
doing great, Chad. You know, whether couldn't be better. It's
the fourth of July, one of the best days of
the year. Got no complaints. You're here until six I am.
Do you have plans after? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Absolutely, I'm going back home. You know, got my parents
doing a little cookout with the family.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Gonna get some good food, Dad, the girl master. Absolutely,
what's on the grill? Do you know? Dogs and burgers?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
And I think we're doing some barbecue and some chicken
pull chicken okay, okay, like like a like a pork
shoulder barbecue.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Or we'll see when I get there. He hasn't told you.
You're not You're not high enough up on the totem
pole yet to know what the menu is. You just
show up and eat.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
I'll just show up and eat.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
I like that. I'm going to a friend's house. I
don't know what's on the menu either. I don't think
he knew. I think he went to the store. My
best friend went to the te Costco this morning to
determine what the menu is. So uh, I won't know
until I get there. Probably probably get done here, run home,
take care of the dogs, get to the party, probably
be about five o'clock, and then I'll find out what

(18:41):
dinner is at that point.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Let us know on your talk back what's on the
grill today? It's a grill day. It's gonna be it's
gonna be ninety, it's gonna be hot, but no humidity
or little humidity. It's been warm out but it hasn't
been like insufferable, so perfect day. My best friend Buddy
and his wife, they have a great pool, so probably
a little pool time orchestrated in there and looking forward

(19:08):
to it. But first three hours of radio right here
on Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. I'm Chad Brenda and for
Tony and Austin. This is Sincy three sixty, a service
of Skyline Chile. Here we go. Let's get this show

(19:42):
on the road. Red's and Phillies one oh five today.
Get ready for this Reds starting lineup live from Philadelphia.
TJ Free leading off and in center. Matt McClain the

(20:03):
designated hitter, batting second, Elie de la Cruz at short
batting third, Austin Hayes clean up in left, Spencer Steer
at first, batting fifth, Tyler Stephenson batting sixth as the catcher.
Noel V. Marte. Welcome back to Noel V. Marte. He's
at third, batting seventh, Rhese Hines and Wright batting eighth,

(20:27):
and Santiago Espinal batting ninth at second base on the mound. Look,
you want to get this series started out properly. The
best way to do it is with Andrew Abbott on
the bump. So there is your starting lineup before the

(20:48):
Cincinnati Reds the Phillies. Let's see, here we go, Turner
at short, Schwarber the d H. Harper at first, Bomb
at third batting cleanup, our old friend Nick Castiano's batting
fifth and right field, JT. Real Muto and center, Kemp
and left Sosa at second, Rojas and center and Lozardo

(21:15):
on the mound for the Philadelphia Phillies. And again this
is this is a critical, critical series, I think for
the Rets, you have an important seven game homestand coming
up the Marlins. By record, the Marlins aren't great, but

(21:39):
the Marlins are a team that has been playing well
of late. And that's that's always dangerous, right It's sometimes
it's not who you play, it's when you play. The
Marlins are thirty nine and forty six, eleven games out

(22:01):
of first in the l East. Their last ten, they're
nine to one. They are as hot as anybody in
baseball right now. And that puts you in a dangerous
situation if you were the Reds. If you struggle against
a really good Phillies team and just go through that

(22:23):
Phillies lineup, it's not hard to figure out they're pretty loaded.
They are going to give the Reds problems, especially offensively.
That's why today you want to take advantage of that
pitching matchup. Lozardo comes in seven and four four oh

(22:46):
six ERA, and of course the dreaded left hander team
just still struggles mightily hitting lefties. But Lazardo's hittable four

(23:09):
oh six ERA strikeout numbers are high. He's got one
hundred and eleven strikeouts compared to only seventy six for
Andrew Abboit. But this is one you need to get
off to a good start today. You need to. I'm
not gonna you know, if they if they take if

(23:30):
they only take one of these three, not ideal, but
but you didn't you know, if they get swept, hypothetically
you're back at five hundred going into that seven game
stretch to end the season at home. They have done
a lot of work, a lot of work over the

(23:51):
last six weeks to put themselves in this position to
finish strong into the Ulstar break start today, starts today.
Let's take a break when we talk when we come back,
Let's talk about this core. Let's talk about our level

(24:14):
of comfort after look, it's not kid ourselves started to
be some concern in April and May about this core,
started to come out of it in June. What are
we going to see, especially from I think the four

(24:36):
key pieces to is this iteration over the next two
three years of the Cincinnati Red's gonna work. Let's take
a break. Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
Three sixty carries on on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station,
keep it rolling.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Chad Brenda filling in for the boys. Since not he's
ESPN fifteen thirty. We have no guests today. I can't
in good conscience ask somebody to be a guest on
my show on the fourth of July. I probably should,
but I'm full of enough hot air that I think
I can film most of the time. And then you know,

(25:27):
Joe on the other side, in on the ones and twos,
we're gonna, we're gonna, We're gonna work Joe in. Joe's
new to the on air stuff, so we're gonna work
him in are you feeling comfortable? Have you done some
like some vocal exercises, Joe, Like, how has the time
been since I said last night? Like, are you ready

(25:48):
to do some talking? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (25:50):
You know I do.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Luckily I have the kind of voice that is good
for radio. Your face raight, I've been told, Yes, I
don't really need to do a ton of warm up. Okay,
I'm enough of a I guess the term is a
yapper as it is, so just during the course of
the day, I'll just kind of get the vocal cords

(26:12):
warmed up, just kind of by talking too much.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
So you did worry me last night a little. I said,
do you know your stuff? And you said about what?
What do you think? Joe?

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well, like, I knew you meant like sports in general,
but I didn't know what you meant, like what topics
specifically you wanted to touch on.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
You know. The biggest thing is you're like, I don't
know FC. I don't either. I don't either, Like so
that's a that's a weak spot for me. But we're not.
We won't have to do a lot of that. We'll
we'll we'll avoid that fine with me, Okay, good. The
Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is the introductions are happening
right now. Joe okay, uh are you a are you

(26:50):
a fan of the hot Dog Eating Contest? Or do
you think it's one of the most disgusting things ever
put on TV? See I get why people think it's disgusting. No,
it's discussing it is kind of disgusting. Yeah, but it's
it's kind of ingrained into the Fourth of July, now,

(27:13):
don't you think. Sure, it's almost a part of it,
like it's Fourth of July.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
It's you know, the sun, go out on the water,
get on the grill, have a couple of beers, Nathan's
hot Dog Eating Contests.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
But I think when Kobeashi exited stage left on the
Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest and it just became like
the Joey Chestnut How many hot dogs can Joey Chestnut eat? Contest,
I think we lost a little bit of the luster.
We lost what potentially could have been a great era

(27:45):
in trying to eat seventy hot dogs in ten minutes.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, I kind of know what you mean. I so
the guys on part of my take. I was listening
to that the other day they had Joey chestnutt on
for an interview, and that's something even he brought up
is he said, it's kind of, you know, just him
against himself right now. He said he wants someone like
Kobayashi to to get back into the game a little

(28:09):
and push him a little bit, because it's just kind
of him seeing how many records you can break at
this point. And while that is entertaining, like you kind
of want to see this. You want a competition.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
You want there to be a you know, a minute
on the clock and two guys just trying to stuff
as many hot dogs and buns in their face as
humanly possible.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Exactly what's more American than that?

Speaker 5 (28:27):
Right?

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah? America? Hell yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
All right, let's let's talk a little reds here before.
And I'm curious if you want to include this in
your talkbacks as well. I know this is cliche, but
it's always fascinating to hear what people think. What could
you What would be the thing that you would eat competitively?
Because they do everything everything, do you name it? There's

(28:53):
a record for like how fast somebody can eat it.
What would be the one thing to chick wings? Hot dogs, cheeseburgers, Like,
is there anything you think tacos? I could, I'd probably
be tacos for me. I can put down some tacos.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
You think anyone's ever tried Skyline before?

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a there's a guy I
know ed that used to have a podcast in the
city and he did as a as a challenge to
Sean Casey, he said, if you'll come on my podcast,
I'll eat twelve I think it was twelve Skyline cheese conies.

(29:37):
I think he made it to nine. No, just how
fast can you? How many can you eat? I think
he made it to nine and did not make it
past nine. But Shawn's Casey still came on his podcast
good Man Now Sean Casey's now Now. He's recovering from
a complete hamstring tear. Yep, well, I guess he didn't

(30:01):
stretch enough. Don't run at that age. It's like, unless
you're being chased, like there's an alligator in hot pursuit
or something, don't run at that age. Your body is
not built for it. You're not supposed to sprint in
your forties and fifties. The Reds in their core this

(30:23):
is it's a fascinating topic to me, Joe, because we
know Elie de la Cruz is part of that for
as long as he's here, a critical part of that core.
We know Hunter Green Andrew Rabbit. I think you can
he hasn't been maybe as good as some of the

(30:44):
hype when he got here, but I think you can
put Nicolodolo in that group. We don't know about Chase
Burns yet, but at least there's another name that is
ready to, like, you know, insert himself into that conversation
it comes to position players, it's Ellie and Dot dot Dot.

(31:07):
Matt McClain was supposed to be Robin, right. They made
that like they made that joke or that comparison when
these two guys were coming up Batman and Robin. Matt
McClain gets hurt last year and did not look like
the same person when he returned to start this season,

(31:28):
not at all. We're starting to see some signs of
life from Matt McClain, and I'm gonna be honest with you, Joe.
I think in terms of just pure presence at the plate,
his swing, you know, the way he handles himself in
the batter's box. I have a ton of confidence that

(31:50):
whatever is wrong with Matt McClain, he will work through.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
I think if you asked me, I think it's all
in his head because his approach is fine. But you know,
sometimes he'll take two pitchers who would you know, swing
and miss at a middle middle meatball and then get
himself down two.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
He's also an excellent fielder, and we've seen him make
more fielding mistakes this year than we've seen him make.
So that's why, since it's both offensive and defensive, I
think it's mental.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
I think I think that's there's something definitely to that.
I think some of it is trusting that shoulder that
is for a guy that is I think the best
way I would describe Matt McClain's game is fundamentally sound,
and for a guy that's game is fundamentally sound when
you have a piece of that machine break, I think

(32:45):
there is a period of adjustment to, Okay, how do
I still do what I've always been able to do
while I'm not always going to be at one hundred percent.
And I think he's finding that. I think we're starting
to see more of those plays in the field that
we're used to from him. He's still making a couple
of mental errors. Like you said that, you know we're

(33:07):
not used to from him, but I think it's coming
back for him. I think we're starting to see slowly
but surely Matt McLain is starting to look like Matt
McLain again. Yeah, I would agree Spencer Steer. I think
you can kind of put in that same boat. He
had an injury to start the season, played through it
for the most part. Now he's back up into that

(33:29):
two fifty range. You're starting to see the power return
a little bit. He gives you great versatility in the field.
I just think those three because of their approach, like,
if this thing is going to work, it has to
be on the back of those three guys.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Would you agree, I would say so. I think the
other if you could make an argument for someone else,
I think it'd be another infielder. I would say Noelvie
Marte would be the other core piece of that because
he was the key piece acquired in that Luis Castillo
trade that kind of kickstarted this whole young core wave.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
I don't disagree that. The only thing I will say
is we have not seen enough from Marte yet. You
know that we haven't the what he put on tape
last year coming back from the suspension was bad. Yes,
it was bad. And then we saw him start to
really get hot at the beginning of this season, then

(34:30):
he gets hurt. So I don't like, make no mistake,
the Reds are counting on Marte and Incarnaci and Strand
to be the thump in the middle of that lineup,
because I think with Ellie, yes there's some power, but
you're seeing his batting average improve, his on base percentage improve,

(34:52):
you know, you're seeing him become a more well rounded
weapon at the plate. And then Steer's got some pop.
I don't think Steer is ever going to be like
that thirty thirty five home run guy. I think he's
like a twenty twenty five home run guy. Yeah, that's
what he's been so far, and that's what he's been
so far. And I just but he's a guy that's
got gap to gap power. He hits a lot of

(35:13):
doubles when he's right. And I think if you're relying on,
you know, the the basics to elevate your core, right,
McLain and Steer give you that. They give you some pop,
they give you situational hitting ability, They can hit gat

(35:33):
the gap. They run the bases pretty well, although that's
something that has been a bit of a nightmare for
this franchise for you know, it feels like forever now.
But then that's where that next group, that's where Marte
and then Carnacio and Strand come in. And we talked

(35:54):
a lot about it in the off season, like they
needed to go get a bat, They needed to go
get somebody in the middle of that lineup. And the
only way that works is if one of those two guys.
Because they got Austin Hayes. Austin haz is good. I
do not because of the injury history. I don't consider
him to be, you know, an elite middle of the

(36:15):
order guy. So I think you you look at those
five guys and you say this thing is going to
sink or swim largely on the production of what those
five guys can do together as a group. I was
concerned about it as we went through April, April and May,

(36:38):
because they weren't good as a collective. Have they done
enough so far in June into July or do you
look at it and say, you know what, like there's
still another gear. These guys have to hit because they
are chasing teams that are really good. You are chasing

(36:59):
the Philly and you know in the wild Card you're
chasing the Mets, and the Brewers and the Padres, the Dodgers,
the Cubs, and the Phillies are are teams you would
all potentially have to go through if you're going to
make a run in the playoffs. The Giants and the
Cardinals are right there, like for this team to reach
its potential, I think all five of those guys, or

(37:19):
at least four of those five guys, really need to
be more consistently good.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, I would agree, And I think that's partially because
you know, we've heard it again and again and again,
and some people might roll their eyes when they hear this,
but it's the injuries really have played a factor in
the development of these guys because of how different guys are,
you know, getting hurt for extended periods of time at
different points in their development cycle. I think they initially

(37:49):
everyone was getting caught up that twenty three season, they
were on the same path. And now you've got McLaine
who was out for a year, and Carnacion Stram was
out for a lot. Noov Marte out suspended and Ellie
I think is obviously the most talented of the group.
But we see Ellie in a better spot now because
he's had the time and the reps on the field
to get better and a lot of these guys haven't

(38:11):
had as much time, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, but that's sports man like, that's you know that,
it's it's a reason I think people one of the
my pet peeves Joe in this, in this business, in
this dealing with you know, social media and sports fans,
there's a bad grasp of the line between reasons and excuses.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, I know, I know what you mean. I wasn't
trying to make it no no, no, no, no, no no,
I'm just saying but like everybody has to deal with
that like that is.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yes, you are correct that missing that time that those
guys have missed has delayed their development. But this is
a win, you know, win or lose business, and you
got to figure out a way to get where you
need to go. And uh, so far a couple of
them have, most of them have been inconsistent and the

(39:04):
path has been bumpy to the halfway point of year
three for this group, and there is a massive stretch
coming up that we're gonna find out a lot about
what you know, do they turn the corner and become
a team that we're talking about regularly contending and being

(39:25):
five six, ten games over five hundred, or is this
going to continue to be in operation that goes three
games over and three games under and three games over
and three games under and that's how they spend one
hundred and sixty two games.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Time will tell I think that, like you said, this
stretch right before and probably a little right after the
All Star break is going to tell us not only
the direction of this season, but the direction of the core.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, let's take a break. The hot Dog eating contest
is underway. We are one and a half minutes in.
Joey chest Nut has eaten fifteen Glizzies in one and
a half minutes. Sixteen. Now in a minute forty, we'll
give you continuing coverage of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

(40:16):
More after this. SINCY three sixty, a service of Skyline JILI.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Sixty, continues on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Bugome back Sinceinty's ESPN fifteen thirty SINCY three sixty Chad
Brendle filling in for Tony and Austin and Joe. This
is this isn't even close. It's kind of not I mean,
what's the point. What are we doing here? Chad Brendle,
Joe Waddell on the ones and twos, Joey chest Nut,

(40:51):
we are we are just past the halfway point. Joey
chest nutt has forty eight hot dogs. Second place is
at thirty two. That's what I was talking about, Joe.
All this build up and we're not even halfway through,
and Joey Chestnut could stop eating hot dogs right now
and they wouldn't catch him at the four minute mark.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Can't imagine they would. That's terrible. I've got it on
TV right now. He just got his fifty first down
and he does not look like he's slowing down.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
They say it's the equivalent of a seven days worth
of calories.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
I think I'd probably puke at ten.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah. I like to eat. I love good food. I'm
not a volume eater, Like I don't think I can
get past like twelve chicken wings, Like I just don't
eat for volume like that. Is there anything you think
you could eat like a at a competitive level, like

(41:52):
not Joey chestnut level, but like you could be one
of these slappies that's got like eight eight nine hot
dogs in seven minutes. Right.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
I don't know, because maybe maybe I used to like
back when I was kind of still growing a little bit,
but I've kind of stopped growing. I'm twenty three now
I've kind of stopped.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah. You know, well now you now you stop growing up,
you start growing out.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Right, that's yeah. You gotta be careful about that. So
or you just don't care like me, or you don't
care and you just kind of keep going. You know
what it is for me, Joe, I'll let I'll let
you indo a little sect. I'm short, right, I'm like
five nine five eight five nine somewhere in there.

Speaker 5 (42:32):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
I was called short my whole life. And then you know,
I put on a little weight and people stop calling
me short. They started calling me fat. I was like,
I can be fat. I was fine with being fat.
I just didn't like being short.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
So so fat ranks significantly higher than short on the
uh yeah, bodo the insult scale.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, like I'm okay, Like I'm a little I'm overweight,
that's fine, Like I can I can lose weight. I'm
never gonna get tall. Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
I guess, because you know, weight something you can control, right,
kind of makes you feel like, no, I earn being fat,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
I put a lot of work in exactly to this
hot dogs, and uh, since he light a lot of
a lot of work into that.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
You can get fat. It's a good way to do it, right.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
It's this so gross, though, joe It's so gross watching
this is discuss like just watching them stand there and
they're all like at the at the at the point
of like nearly vomiting, you can see all of them
what and trying to like force down the hot dogs.
The worst has got to be the buns. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
I see Joey right now, he's just eating the dogs.
He's not getting the buns down.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Well, yeah, they do, like they'll do like three they
put the buns in the water.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, and then just kind of shove it. Oh god,
that's gross. It's disgusting. Like why do we watch this
every year?

Speaker 1 (43:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
I'm I'm talking to you and I'm I'm just watching
Joey Chestnut like lurching forward every three seconds shoving more
hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Down his throat.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
I have him blinked him probably stes. I know it's captivating.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
It's like you. It's hard to look away from Joey Chuss.
Not now. At sixty four dogs with a minute ten left,
you're probably ahead of me. The TV in here is
usually pretty slow. No, I see sixty four Okay, sixty
four dogs a minute left. I don't know what the
record is. It's something in the seventies, isn't it. I
believe it's seventy six. Yeah, he's not getting to seventy six.

(44:24):
We'll get close, you think, so, I don't. I don't
know if he's got seventies gonna be. I mean that
he looks like he's struggling. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Do you think that year off kind of took a
little little away from him? No?

Speaker 1 (44:38):
I think he was still eating. He did eat, yeah,
during the year off.

Speaker 5 (44:41):
I I.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Just think seventies a lot of freaking hot dogs to eat.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
In ten minutes. I couldn't do it. I couldn't even
get closer. How many days would it take you to
recover from eating twelve hot dogs in ten Let's say
a hot dog a minute, Ten hot dogs in ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
I'd be sick for two three days.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
I say, I don't even think we'd be talking days,
maybe weeks. If from me, from me out of mountain
that quickly, Oh god, I'd feel awful.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
I mean, just like it's five four he got, Oh,
oh nope, sixty nine. Nice. So they gave him seventy.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
They gave him seventy.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
They gave him seventy. I think that was a.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Little, uh ah, little boost for the king.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, I don't know. I think I think that was
after the horn. But they the closest to him was
forty six, twenty four hot dogs away. Somebody's got somebody
has to step up and challenge Joey Chesnat.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
No one has yet.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Unofficial they bumped it to seventy one.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Interesting, so yeah, he was five away from tying his
own record.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
They didn't want the controversy on whether he got to
seventy or nine, so they just gave him an extra
one to that way, if they take one away still
at seventy.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
I think he real quickly shoved two in his mouth.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
I think he tried. Yeah, And that's the thing. You
don't have to chew it, you just have to have
it in your mouth. Yeah, disgusting, so gross, nasty. It's
so cross to watch. And every year I say the
same thing, that's disgusting, and then every year watch I
watch it. Yeah, it never fails. Oh all right, let's

(46:30):
take a break.

Speaker 6 (46:31):
We will.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
We'll talk some Bengals when we come back. Our number
two coming up. This is Cincy three sixty right here
on Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Cincy three sixty about Cincinnati from Cincinnati, sponsored in part
by Cinci Shirts. Cinci Shirts, All Cincy, all Day. This
is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
We're back. Good Save Joe. Those those end of the
hour breaks aren't as long as they used to be.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
No, that one was pretty quick. I thought you were
going to be in there. That's why I should have.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
That was on me.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
I checked in to make sure we were.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
I was, I was. I was just chatting with Tearn.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
That's fine.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
I thought. I thought we I thought we had like
an extra ninety seconds or so, and then here he yell, Chad,
we're back. Happens happens to the best of us. Phone
lines are open five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty.
If you're out there, help leave us a talkback call.
You were just hanging out here on the fourth of July.

(47:49):
We just watched Joey chest Nutty seventy one hot dogs
in ten minutes. I'm a little sick to my stomach.
I'm not gonna lie. It's so gross. It's so gross.
Oh well, now that's behind us. That is officially behind us,

(48:11):
And now we get to the heart of the matter.
As the Cincinnati Reds get ready to take on the
Philadelphia Phillies, noelb Marte back. He is starting at third
base today. Graham Ashcraft also back for the Reds. So

(48:37):
Graham Ashcraft's an interesting one to as well, Joe, because
I think of you to ask a year ago, we
would have considered him part of that core, wouldn't we. Yeah,
a lot of people did, because he was his starter
and he had, you know, his first season. He looked
pretty good. But I've I had this discussion and even

(49:00):
last year with my brother shout out John. We always
we both kind of agreed. We saw him in terms
of his arsenal and his personality and stuff. He seemed
like a bullpen guy, did he not? Yeah, just because
he didn't, you know, he was only really a two
pitch guy.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, and he kind of had that sort of screw
you energy that a guy coming out late in the pen, Yeah,
kind of has to have, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
I think it's the best move for him to be
a bullpen guy, and I'm interested to see how that
as his career develops, Like can he be like a closer,
Can he be a like a back back end of
the bullpen guy or is he destined to be like
seventh eighth inning setup man.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
I think it's going to be really interesting if they
decide to, because obviously, Amelia Pegan, you don't want to
move from out of that closer role right now, not
at the moment, no, But I think it'd be really
interesting to experiment with an Ashcrafted closer.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yeah. Ryan Vlade goes back to Triple A, Sam Ben
Scooter goes back to Triple A as well to make
room for Marte and Ashcraft. As we are about to
get started, your lineup for today, free to leading off
in center. McLain the DH batting second, Dela Cruz batting

(50:17):
third at short, Austin Hayes and left batting Ford, Spencer
Steer at first, batting fifth, Tyler Stevenson behind the dish
batting six. Noel v Marte makes his return as we said,
batting seventh at third base, Reese Hines at right and
right batting eighth, and Santiago Espinal batting ninth and playing second.

(50:40):
Andrew Abbot on the mound. The Reds Ace, at least
as things currently stand, Andrew Abbot, the reds Ace getting
ready to take the bump and take on the Philadelphia Phillies.
We're supposed to.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
This is.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Have you have they given you the sports talk radio
handbook yet the the unwritten rules of sports talk radio.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Kind of?

Speaker 1 (51:11):
So the Reds start at one. That's why we did
all pretty much all Reds hour one because when you're
going against the Reds, you want to do counter.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Programming, right, So it's not just the same thing, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Well, the people that are gonna want to hear Reds talk,
or you know, the Reds fans per se, are gonna
be listening to the Red scheme. So you want to
give an alternate. You wanna you wanna go opposite when
when when the Red zig? You want to zag in
the summer. So we're gonna we're gonna do a little
less Reds, go heavy Bengals here for a little while.

(51:45):
We'll also get into some Cincinnati Bearcats with uh media
Days coming up on Tuesday, and I'm not back here
for a while for for some reason MOE. Normally, June
and July I are the load management summer months for MO.
But this year MO went June and August, So not

(52:06):
a lot of dates in July for me, but apparently
a heavy workload when I'm my busiest, Mo's gonna take
a bunch of vacation days just to make me more busy.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Kind of how it seems to go, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't consult me like on his vacations,
which I you know, I understand. I guess you get.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
The means you get to come in here and have
fun at the studio, right yeah, yeah, what's wrong with that?

Speaker 6 (52:34):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Generally the only thing that's wrong with it. In August
is uh UC's training facility for football camp is in
West Harrison, Indiana, and I got to get up early,
go out to West Harrison, Indiana, cover football practice, get
content up, get everything done, and then be back here
to do a radio show from three to six and

(52:58):
then go home at night and do the Bearcat Journal
Network podcasting stuff. So August that can mean a day
where I get up at six thirty seven o'clock in
the morning and I'm doing content until like eleven o'clock
at night.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
I retract my what's wrong with that comment?

Speaker 1 (53:15):
But look like I'm not digging ditches right, I'm watching
sports and talking about it for a living. I'm okay,
But August August can be a little hectic. But you know,
and then you had Bengals camp in there and Siloka.
We're almost there, Joe, We're almost there. I know you can.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
You can kind of feel it in the air a
little bit. Weather's getting warmly. Yeah, training camp's going to
be heating up here soon.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
So let's let's let's get a get onto a Bengals
topic that you know, I think these two storylines, we'll
tell the tale of the Cincinnati Bengals twenty twenty five season.
How much better, how much different? How much more effective

(54:00):
will the defense be under Al Golden with essentially the
same pieces as a year ago. It's not they that
they didn't add anyone, but they didn't make wholesale changes
on defense. They didn't make wholesale additions on defense. So
you're taking one of the worst defenses in the NFL.

(54:23):
You subtract what I truly believe is a is a
valuable It's gonna be one of those huh that looked
like that hurt? Yeah, that did not look like that?
Felt good Rojas from the Phillies centerfielder diving catch on

(54:45):
a sinking TJ friedol Flair for the first out of
the game. Great catch. Anyhow, this is not a defense
that's going to look substantially different than it did a
year ago. And they were one of the worst defenses
in the NFL. And I think lou Ana Rumo is

(55:07):
a quality NFL defensive coordinator. I also don't think the
way lou Ana Rumo coaches defense was a match for
what the Bengals decided was going to be their their
plan of attack. As you get into Joe Burrow's contract
years and now also Jamar Chase and T Higgins contract years,

(55:33):
you're going to have to win young on defense if
you're Cincinnati in this window. I don't think that's a surprise.
I think, like you know, you you focused your energy,
you focused your bank account essentially on Burrow Chase and Higgins,

(55:57):
and that means you're gonna have to do it differently
on the other side of the ball. Al Golden, I
think is a great fit for that. He has excelled
at college. When he's been in the NFL, he has
excelled with younger guys. I think he has a and
I hate using this term because I don't think it's

(56:23):
I don't think it's super I think it sounds bad.
I guess that they're gonna quote unquote dumb it down,
that they're gonna be more simple on defense. I think
in a lot of ways, especially defensively, that can be
a good thing because guys aren't thinking as much. Guys
are reacting. There's you study the tape, you know what

(56:46):
your basic assignment is, and then you go execute it.
I think that's something that, especially for a young defense,
is important. I think you can overload a young defense.
I think if you watch lou Ana Roumo's defenses over
the past two years, I think it was a lot
of reacting and not acting. I think it was a

(57:06):
lot of hesitation. There just didn't seem to be a
whole lot of confidence when the chips were down on
that side of the ball. So I think what you're
trading there with Al Golden is a guy that's philosophy
greater matches the philosophy of the organization and how they're

(57:30):
building the defense. So that I think is a plus
for Al Golden. If you're talking about how is this,
how does this work? When you didn't make wholesale changes

(57:50):
to the players, but you made wholesale changes to who
was at the top of the pyramid. Red's good down one, two, three.
That looked very easy, very easy for the Phillies to
start that first inning. But I think the one that
we're not talking about enough, and we're talking about his personnel,

(58:17):
but we're not talking a lot about having a new
guy in charge of the offensive line. Scott Peters has
a monumental task ahead of him, and that is to
do better than the Bengals have done in the first
five years of the Joe Burrow era, because when it

(58:39):
comes to protecting the quarterback, this franchise has been dreadful.
Fortunately for them, they've got an all time great quarterback
that has accepted that challenge and not had it impact

(59:03):
him the way we've seen it impact some. But if
we're looking at those two guys Al Golden, Scott Peters,
Joe Who do you think has more pressure on them
to perform, to have their unit perform at a high level,
Because I don't think the Bengals can win the Super

(59:23):
Bowl if the defense isn't inside the top twenty.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
I would say, gosh, that's a really good question. But
I would I think I'd have to go with Al
Goldon because I get that he's a first year guy,
but in the personnel, you know, it's a lot of
those young, kind of mysterious developmental prospects. But we've seen

(59:48):
this offense last year, especially operate at a high level
even with a shaky offensive line because of Joe Burrow, because.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Two worst guards in football, correct, the two worst graded
guard guards in football.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Yes, we hate the guard position. The interior offensive line.
Ted Krris, I think is a great center, but he
is getting older, he's starting to slow down, and the
guard play is just simply unacceptable. But I think we
have two good tackles and Joe Burrow and the offensive
weapons we have with you know, Chase Brown at running
back and then obviously Jamar t at receiver, Andre Giusavash

(01:00:24):
great receiver, Jamaine Burton still got a lot of talent,
and I think that because of the pieces on offense.
I think if the guard play is not great, still
I think they can still succeed. The defense needed a
complete overhaul, and we're not getting anywhere if the defense
does not perform. So that's why I think it's golden.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Here's what I will combat with when you get to
the elite levels of this league. If you can't protect
your quarterback, you can't win. Tom Brady was dominant for

(01:01:06):
two decades, but in two Super Bowls we saw his
offensive line fail, and in both of those Super Bowls,
the Patriots lost. Look no farther than last year. Kansas
City made it through last year with a suspect offensive
line and they got all the way to the Super Bowl.

(01:01:28):
But they got to the Super Bowl and the Eagles
defensive line kick their rear end for sixty minutes. I
here's where I think I would lean Scott Peters. Al
Golden doesn't have to produce a top ten defense. Al

(01:01:54):
Golden needs to find a defense that can be like
eighteenth in the NFL. With an eighteenth ranked defense, the
Bengals can win a Super Bowl. When you get to
the to the games that really matter, the games that

(01:02:15):
you're trying to win to get home field in the
first round of the playoffs, or the games that you're
trying to you know, you're trying to win an AFC
Division round, an AFC Championship game, potentially a super Bowl.
If Aaron Donald gets blocked on that last play of

(01:02:37):
the Super Bowl, Joe Burrow hits Jamar Chase, Bengals win
the Super Bowl. I think Scott Peters has a monumental
task because they have not protected Joe Burrow well at
all in his five years here. He's lost three seasons

(01:03:00):
to injuries, not the whole season. But you know, because
the law of averages say, when you get hit as
much as Joe Burrow's been getting hit, something is eventually
going to happen. And something eventually happened three different times.
So it's not that I lessen Al Golden. It's that

(01:03:26):
I think Al Golden can, especially in this first year,
if you can get him into the top twenty, I
think the offense can do enough to take you however
far you want to go. But boy, if you still
can't protect Joe Burrow, I just don't think you can

(01:03:48):
win it all. I don't think you can win it all.
And I think Scott Peters has been asked to do
a lot Joe a lot. Yeah, I agree, I like
where they're out of town. But the numbers speak for themselves.
The number of times last year Burrow got hit fourteen times,

(01:04:10):
Burrow got hit sixteen times, Burrow got hit nineteen times. Like,
that's just a brutal way to try to navigate a
championship season.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
I think that's why it's such a complicated discussion. And
why you know we're even talking about this of which
coordinator or coach has more of the pressure on them
is because they picked two guys one you know, Peters
and Golden, and are relying on their expertise and their
teaching and coaching ability to fix two absolutely massive holes

(01:04:47):
on the roster, one being the defense and obviously the
other being the interior offensive line.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
And doing it without significant player upgrades, correct, without significant
play upgrades, just on the strength of, Hey, this is
your job, now fix it. Fix it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah, here's essentially the same guys on Yeah, bad units
last year.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Have fun and oh, by the way, we're we're not
trying to be competitive. We're in a Super Bowl window.
So you know, no pressure or anything like that exactly.
Just take a break. Talkbacks coming up next. If you
haven't got your talk back in, get them in now.
Independence Day edition of SINC three to sixty right here

(01:05:37):
on Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
I'm on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Is that
time for talkbacks? Press the microphone, hand record your message
for us, staying in tone, please keep it clean and
don't be mean.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
And a sprinkle, sprinkled, drip drip. It's that time for talkback.
It's our favorite part.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Of Sancy three sixties.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Austin Buddy played that talk back on your screen, and
please try not too Saba Taja, Well, it's time for
talkbacks and uh rough. First for Andrew Abbott. Andrew Abbott
has allowed one run or fewer in twelve of his
fourteen starts. It's three nothing Phillies in the bottom of

(01:06:27):
the first on the strength of course of a two
run bomb by Nick castianis of course curveball over the plate.
And that that's what I was getting to earlier about
the h the depth of this Phillies lineup, you get
all the way to sixth, then you've got jt realm

(01:06:48):
Uto hitting six where would hit for the Reds fourth third.
He's on three sixteen with ten home runs and like
sixteen doubles, Like he'd be he'd be the best hitter
on the red team. He's hitting for the Phillies.

Speaker 5 (01:07:03):
Ouch.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Uh, look, people, I please talkbacks? What are we doing?
I blame this partially, Joe. I blame this partially on
Tony and Austin because they treated yesterday like Friday. They
basically told everybody don't worry about listening tomorrow. You don't
have to listen tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
What happened to give them? The little guys shot?

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
I know?

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
We got one talkback people.

Speaker 5 (01:07:28):
One.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Look, I'm not afraid we'll play this one talkback. If
I have to, I will take a break and then
come back and we'll try it again. Talkbacks. Let's listen
to the one. I guess at least here we go.

Speaker 6 (01:07:49):
What's so fellas? Oh? I am a Suprise first time listener.
Just wanted to give my boy Joe Wadell quick shout
out on air for the first time. I'm not really
sure what all flies on this talkback segment, but I
was just wondering to start Joe's on air career off strong.

(01:08:09):
What's his biggest hot take for the Bengals this upcoming season?

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Interesting? Biggest biggest hot take?

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Hot take?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
My boy's supreme?

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
I got one. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I think T Higgins makes it through the whole season
without making a game with injury. I mean that's hot.
I know, sizzling, sizzling hot. That that was, you know,
putting the steak in a cast iron pan with like oil,
you know, some some extra virgin olive oy on butter.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
A whole season for T Higgins, the whole season? Has
he done it? Has he played sixteen games? Seventeen games?

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
I don't believe he has now maybe maybe his rookie year,
but not since then.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Oh, look at that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
We got a second talkback.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
Oh let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Oh, maybe they'll start coming in. Let's get this one going.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Oh, let's hear it. What up?

Speaker 6 (01:09:11):
Chad?

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Done your buddy? I'm sorry I didn't catch your name.
Juys are doing great, Joe. This is my first talkback ever,
and I heard you only had one so far, So
let's let's up those numbers. Appreciate it. Happy Fourth of July,
Keep up the good work. Always love listening to you, Chad,
appreciate you appreciate it. Yeah. He has played two full seasons.

(01:09:34):
Joe season twenty twenty he played sixteen games. Twenty twenty two,
he played sixteen games. The last two years they've gone
to seventeen games. He's only played twelve in each of
those two years. He's missed five in each of the
past two years.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
I think he does it this year. I don't know
what it is. Oh, we got some more coming in.
We got another talkback. Let me all right, let's go.
I'm gonna make sure this one's good to play out
on the air.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Here we go. All right, it'll be fine. Here we go.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
I'll be honest with you, Chad. I had no idea
you were on air until I jumped in the car
to head up the gas station. I just think they
were running the best of me too. Hey, we'll be
in the rest of the show, buddy, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
I kind of thought that too, Like Red's game on.
I thought we were going to get a best of today,
and you had hit me up and said, hey, can
you do fourth of July? He said, can you do
twelve to three or three to six? At twelve to three, sir,
twelve to three. Let's Joe, let's take a break. We'll
leave the talkback lines open, and then when we come back,

(01:10:39):
we'll see if we've got any more and we'll continue talkbacks,
and if not, I'll come up with something else for
us to talk about more after this. Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
This is since he three sixty point rolling right along

(01:11:01):
on this fourth of July Independence Day here in the
luxurious ESPN fifteen thirty studios, Red's Red's trying to put
a little rally together with one out in the top
of the second Steer and Stevenson on noelvi Marte, his

(01:11:22):
first at bat since returning from the il no new talkbacks.
I'll still we're gonna keep it open until the end
of this segment, but we did get a call Chris
and Covington wants to talk fourth of July. Chris, how
the heck are you?

Speaker 5 (01:11:41):
What's going on?

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Guys?

Speaker 5 (01:11:42):
Everything all right over there.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
I mean, it's as good as it possibly can be
for having to work on the fourth of July.

Speaker 5 (01:11:49):
Why, I kind of felt sorry for you because you
don't get the normal call backs you normally did. I know, well,
I'm getting my grill together. I got the charcoal in there,
I got the hot, the broths, the mets, everything going on,
bake beans and everything now and you got more welcome
on over down here in Covening. But you know what,
I think that I think the Bengals are gonna be

(01:12:10):
just fying the way they are, you know what I mean. Well,
we'll let it play out and see. But uh, we're
just down here. We're gonna celebrate the Fourth of July
here in coveningt And uh, you know, we got a
lot of fire rusts going off around here, so it's
all good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
Appreciated, Chris, you have a fantastic Fourth of July, and uh,
thanks for the invite. You guys, you and your family
have an awesome time, all right, Thank you so much, buddy.
I appreciate you, man, I appreciate you. It looks like
you got another one, Joe, we do have another one.
Let me scream work Okay. We're making the best out

(01:12:45):
of this. Sometimes you got to make the best of it.
I mean, I got plenty of stuff we could talk about.
I'm never you guys know I've been around doing this
long enough, you know I'm never at a loss for
things to talk about I will always come up with
something to get us through the day. That is never ever,

(01:13:06):
ever a problem in terms of me being able to
fill airtime. But you know, this is the talkback segment
where we've expanded it. We're doing talkbacks and phone calls.
I guess for right now, because look, sometimes sometimes people
fill in on this show and they just skip talkbacks

(01:13:28):
all together. They just do their own thing, And I
don't think that's right to talk back Nation, I think
you are owed somebody that is willing to sit in
this chair when Tony and Austin are gone and still
honor and still value talk. Did you hang up on

(01:13:53):
that guy?

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
He said he wanted to leave a talkback, didn't want
to go out over the air, so he just wants
to do a talk. So we'll see if I can
get that in.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
We did.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
We did have one more come in. Okay, let's hear it.
Jeff from New Richmond's Okay, Jeff and New Richmond, let's
go off. Has to say, Hey Chad, Jeff and New Richmond.
Happy fourth of July to you guys. Hey, Chad, I
wanted to ask you real quick about Corey and the
GM of the basketball program. What is his role going

(01:14:24):
to become the season? Will he actually be at games
or how do you envision that will look from his standpoint?
Be curious to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
Thanks, I fully he's talking about Corey Evans, who is
the new GM for the UC basketball program. Corey, if
you are unaware, was a previously a scout that helped
build the Oklahoma City Thunder. Had a know, a pretty

(01:15:00):
good hand in uh building that roster and getting things
to a championship level for Oklahoma City. He and west
Miller have been friends for a long time. I've also, fortunately,
I've known Corey for a long time as well. He
worked in my industry for a little while as a
national scout for Rivals dot Com. So Corey's guy I've known.

(01:15:26):
You want to know how far back if you're a
if you're a Cincinnati basketball head, uh, Corey Evans coached
an AAU team And this is gonna be way too
old for you, Joe, You're not gonna have any clue
who I'm talking about. Coach an AAU team with a
kid named Shane Behannon. And as Shane Behannon is Joe not,

(01:15:47):
I feel like I've heard the name before. But not
in any meaningful contest. He was from Cincinnati. He committed
to Cincinnati during like the middle portion of the mc
cronan years and ended up decommitting from Cincinnati, going to
Louisville and was on Louisville's national championship team. He was also,

(01:16:09):
what's a good way to put this, he had a
role in the uh, the thing, the things that happened
at Louisville.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
I gotcha, I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
That was that was Shane Behannon. Corey actually coached I.
I you see, it was recruiting Shane at the time.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
And I actually that's when I started my relationship with
Corey was when he was coaching Shane Behannon. In terms
of role, like, I don't think there's gonna be a
lot on like game day that that Corey does. I'm
assuming you'll see him down around the bench area. I
don't know if he'll be like in that second row
of guys on the bench. I'm not sure what exactly, Man,

(01:17:01):
that's a tough go of things for the Reds. I'm
not sure what exactly like that that specifically entails. But
he's going to be a vital part of this operation
where he sits on game day. I don't know, you know,
it's not I don't think it's going to be like
the like a GM in basketball that sits up in

(01:17:21):
the luxury suites. I think he'll probably be around the
team more uh than than that. But uh my guess
would be like that second row behind the bench, like
the behind the head coaches, something like that, or maybe
like in those you know, the the section, that first

(01:17:41):
section right behind the bench. But I don't think, you know,
it's it's gonna be a Wes Miller, you know, Chad Dollar,
Andre Morgan type operation. Tim Buckley. I think might have
increased responsibilities this year from from his coaching role, So
I don't expect him to be involved in the coaching.

(01:18:03):
He's going to be more roster development, roster construction. But
you'll see him around. I know he moved to Cincinnati recently.
So I hope that answer your question. We got another one.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
Nothing else, No, Benjamin. Benjamin didn't leave a message. He
might still be trying to figure it out. He said
he's he's new. Yeah, he's he says he's been a
long time listener, but it's new to the talkbacks and
calling in things.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
Benjamin, look you if you just a tutorial, If you
need it, you go to the iHeartRadio app, and then
you search for ESPN fifteen thirty. When you pull up
ESPN fifteen thirty's iHeartRadio page, there'll be a microphone. You
hit that microphone and there will be prompts that instruct
you how to leave a talkback. Let's go ahead and

(01:18:55):
take a break. That's the unofficial end of talkbacks. If
you guys want to send walk back throughout the show.
Joe's new here, so we need to you know, he
can continue checking talkbacks and maybe we'll play him like
phone calls if you guys want to leave him throughout
the show. If not, I get it, But uh, let's
take a break. I've got a I've got a Are

(01:19:17):
you a college football guy, Joe?

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
I am proud graduate of Indiana University? Oh, Joe, very
proud Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
You don't know Kegan Nickoson? Do you I do not? Okay? Good?
You guys want to Did you graduate like two years
ago twenty twenty three. I was a winter of twenty
four grad You were there at the same time. Keegan
was in the sports journalism wing. I guess that's that's
where I was too, but I do not know the name.
Huh the big school. Did you work for the student newspaper? No,

(01:19:52):
I was born on the broadcast. Yeah, so you had
like did you have class with Olivia? I did not.

Speaker 6 (01:19:59):
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
I did do a newscast show with Luke Brenman, though,
So do.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
You know who Olivia is? Olivia Ray from Channel five,
my my beat guy, my number one guy at Bearcat
journalist and Iu Alum I got you. We hold it
against him. All right, let's take a break. I've got
a college football college sports question for you, hypothetical for

(01:20:25):
you when we come back. Joe more after this. Cincinnati's
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
Three sixty continues on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
Welcome back, closing out our number two, A service of
Cincy's shirts right here on Cincy three sixty any more
talkbacks linger in.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Not so far now.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Tough top of the second for the Reds. They get
a Spencer Steer walk, a Tyler Stevenson single, a noelve
Marte walk, bases loaded one out, re signs, dribbles one
back to the pitcher, comes home for the first out,
but on his way to first Reese signs, helmet comes off,

(01:21:28):
it kicks up off of the back of his heel
as he is running, and then deflects the baseball that
was being thrown from home plate to first base, and
the Reds get a run. And then Marte strikes out
or Espino Sanchicago, Espinol strikes out. Tough. They got one.

(01:21:55):
They should have got none, Joe. It should have been
a resigns double play and they get none. And right now,
I mean, I get it. You got to fill out
the lineup. You're still recovering from some injuries. But resigns
and Espinall aren't giving you much, if anything at the

(01:22:17):
bottom of that lineup. Not right now.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
I mean there's Espinall is he is who he is.
I think he's a platoon guy who's kind of been
fistic play every days.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Question Mark resigns pitch selection. It's terrible. Likes to swing,
that's tourrible lot. Did Charles Barkley watch? I mean, it's
terrible's turrible. Do you swing like a swing a golf
club that's durable. Top of the third, uh, Bred's get

(01:22:50):
the leadoff runner on in TJ. Friedo, Matt McLean at
the plate now, Uh, Stuart mandel h had a mail
bag earlier this week, Joe, And in the mail bag
somebody proposed a trade and that trade was the ACC
trades cal Stanford and SMU to the Big Twelve for Cincinnati,

(01:23:19):
West Virginia and Central Florida. Would you make that trade,
m mister Indiana alum.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
That wouldn't affect me at all.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
But no, it wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
Let me think about that because you've got a couple
of nice programs in they're going back. But you said
cal Stanford Callen Stanford right now, wouldn't be a Stanford's
got Andrew Luckeran in the show now, so they might
be something soon, but they're not really a lot right now.
How Yeah, SMU got a lot of donor money.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
Well, SMUs being allowed to be SMU finally right like
they've wanted to they did. They just want to cheat
and be left alone. They want to pay their players
like they've always had money. Money's never been the problem.
Money is why they ended up with the death penalty.

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
That's why they end up making the postseason.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
Yeah, this past year two well, I mean, I don't
know if you know exactly how all that works. They
are not getting any TV money. No, they basically said,
we'll come for free, We'll take care of our own
we will, we will fund ourselves with our billionaire donors
from the Dallas Fort Worth area. You keep your TV money,
We just need a place to play.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
And would do you in this hypothetical scenario, would that
be continuing if they were to move to the Big twelve?

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Oh yeah, that's always like they're the the college program
of this you know of Dallas, like I that's where
the money is. Like, the money is not really at TCU.
You would think tc you would, and TCU's got some
big money. But I mean there's a lot of billionaires
in Dallas. There's a lot of oil money in Texas.

(01:25:08):
So SMU financially is in a really good place. So
that would Yeah, that wouldn't stop now, I'm sure if
you know, I don't know if they could talk to
Big twelve into giving them a little well scratch because
they'd fit better in the Big.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Twelve, a little bit little bit juice on top of
the donor money. Yeah, But as it stands in the
ACC they don't get any money, which I mean I
guess they don't really need it, but it could never
hurt if you get that extra money.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
Yeah. Now from a Cincinnati perspective, yeah, it would put
you back with Pitt and Louisville. You would reunite with
a bunch of your old Big East buddies. I think
I think there's a a potential rivalry that you could
see between UC and Virginia Tech. Like those two sides

(01:25:56):
have have played football quite a bit for two teams
that have never been in or not in the same conference.
So regionally, if you know the regional thing is something
you're interested in regionally, it would be a win for Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
Yeah, it wouldn't have to travel as far and be
a little more local. Are you like, is was the
mailbag talking from a UC perspective, No, the mailbag was.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
It was a national mail bag. But we're in Cincinnati. Yeah,
so the money's about the same. Yeah. I Right now,
I will say the Big twelve is more stable than
what's going on with the ACC. The ACC is doing
something that I just don't think has any chance at success,

(01:26:51):
and that is tilting the money towards TV ratings. TV
payouts are going to be dictated sixty percent of the
TV money to the a C is going to go
based on who gets more viewers. So so the first
time this has been done at the major conference level, I.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
Don't know if that's sustainable for the ACC specifically, just
because I'm sure you know about this too. There's all
sorts of whispers, mainly about Florida State and Clemson about
maybe wanting to leave so well.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
They want to leave that they can't leave right now,
like they want to leave when they would leave right
So if I were, if I were UC, I'm staying
right where I am in the Big twelve because the
Big Twelve, that's kind of what I saw, at least
for a lot of storylines.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
Last year was the chaos conference, the kind of the
fun conference, So people were tuning in because you didn't
know who's going to win. So competitive it'll drive the
ratings up a little bit. Maybe you know you you've got,
like you said a few minutes ago, the stability. I
would not take that risk with the ACC, even if
it would be more regionally beneficial. I think you got

(01:28:07):
to take the known since you just got up to
the P four level, you got to take the known
quantity at this point we evaluate later.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
Yeah, because I think that's where you know, when UC
went to the Big East back in two thousand and six,
there were cracks that were showing in the Big East
at that point in time that the football and the
non football schools. That was always the problem with the
Big East. Half of the conference had football, half of

(01:28:34):
the conference didn't, and the football schools wanted something that
the basketball schools weren't particularly interested in, right yeah, And
that was always going to cause division between those two groups.
And Cincinnati walked into a conference that they had to

(01:28:58):
take the invitation had to. You weren't gonna stay in
Conference USA if you had a chance to go to
the Big East. So there's a no brainer to take it.
But in retrospect, the cracks were, you know, the signs
were showing that that conference wasn't unified. Right there are

(01:29:25):
there's not just cracks, there's like like divots, there's craters
showing that the big dogs in the ACC won a
lot of the dead don't want to deal with a
lot of the dead weight in the ACC. Right It's.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
It's gonna be messy because I don't want it to happen,
because you know, I'm already not happy about the PAC
twelve dissolving.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
And I think, yeah, but the PAC twelve dissolving was
the PAC twelve's own right. It was at their own downfall,
it was their own arrogance, right, Like the PAC twelve
did not have to dissolve. The PAC twelve had a
very good TV deal that if they would have just
accepted it. The PAC twelve never goes.

Speaker 2 (01:30:10):
Away, right, And that's that's not what I was trying
to say. Yeah, but yeah, no, that that was their fault.
But what I was saying is because, like you know,
I'm a bit of a purist. I don't like seeing
that go away. And then on top of that, I think,
because again, like you said, the giant cracks and as

(01:30:30):
you said, divots that we're starting to see with the
UH the ACC, I think, inevitably this this train's only
it can only go to one station, and that's the
two conference superconference model.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
See. I don't agree with that because I think here's what,
here's why I don't agree with that, Joe. If the
if the NFL could sustain fifty sixty markets, they'd be
in fifty sixty markets. Okay, College has that college has

(01:31:03):
fifty sixty seventy established major fan base, money, revenue, whatever
you whatever you want to say college, because it's been
done the way that it's been done, and it's been
done over the length of time that it's been done.
You would be essentially if you went to a two

(01:31:24):
you know, if you went to a thirty teen thirty
two team thirty five team system like you have in
the other pro leagues, you would be cutting off thirty
five forty plus revenue producing markets. And that's it's not
good business. So I don't think we're ever going to
see here's the other thing that I the other main reason.

(01:31:46):
I don't think we're ever going to see the Big
ten in the SEC merge and become one entity. They
don't agree on anything. We are learning that now. Well
I've been talking this for a decade, but we're seeing
it now. They don't agree on the playoff format, they

(01:32:07):
don't agree on revenue share, they don't agree on nil
and how nil should be handled. Like just diametrically, the
SEC and the Big Ten are about two completely different things.
They both rest on opposite ends of the spectrum, and
I don't think they'd ever be able to coexist I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
Think they would ever merge.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
It would just become where a lot of the premier
not necessarily all of the schools, but a lot of
the premier schools want to be either Big ten or
SEC for the money, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:32:38):
Su where everybody wants. Yeah, everybody wants to go where
the money is. But but there's always going to be
three or four power conferences because there's enough teams and
enough people that care, and enough people that, let's get
down to a joe, enough people that spend money. If
there's enough people that spend money, whatever they're spending money
on is not going away. So the ACC is interesting

(01:33:04):
because I don't think it would go away. Like if
Florida State and Clemson, and actually I don't think Florida
State and Clemson are the two hot properties in the ACC.
Who would you go with. It's North Carolina and Virginia.
And here's why I say it's North Carolina and Virginia.

(01:33:26):
In my opinion, the SEC is already established in Florida,
the SEC is already established in South Carolina. For Clemson, now,
maybe the Big Ten would want to get a foot
in the door in the South, but academically, those two
universities do not match the Big Ten. So I don't

(01:33:50):
know that the Big Ten would bite on Florida State
or would bite on South care on Clemson, but they
absolutely would bite on North care Line in Virginia.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
I see your point.

Speaker 1 (01:34:02):
Those are high level, high high level academic institutions, and
they have great athletics. So I do think there's going
to be at some point there's going to be a
splinter in the ACC. But I think there are enough
teams that the ACC will stick around. I don't think
it will be like the PAC twelve where everybody, you know,

(01:34:25):
everybody jumps ship. I don't think there's enough landing spots
for the ACC if a couple teams jump, you know
what I mean? You know what I mean. Yeah, that's
just maybe we'll continue that later in an hour two.
I think it's it's a fascinating conversation because we're not
done with shift in the college football world. There's still

(01:34:47):
plenty more coming. Just take a break, we'll talk some
Bearcats football. And oh, by the way, Reds are up
five to three. Just caused a pitching change, and and uh,
it's still the top of the third and there's no
outs and they've got runners on first and third. How
about that? Or after this? Since I he's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:35:12):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
Our number three on the broadcast radio debut for our guy,
Joe Wattell. Feeling good, Joe? Are you settling in? Is
it like the you're like in the fourth fifth inning? Now,
like you know, you got your nerves, You're you're, you're,

(01:35:40):
you're throwing strikes. Starting to feel pretty good. Yeah, the
arms warmed up.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
Got my first time through the lineup through you know,
time to time to start, you know, not relying on
the fastball so much, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
Don't give up seven runs and one third of an inning, Joe,
that that would be ideal. Yeah, speaking of scoring some runs,
the Reds put up a five spot in the third. TJ.
Friedel starts it with a bunt and then it just
kind of trickles from there. McLean walks Ellie with a

(01:36:15):
single on a line drive to Castianos. Friedel scores, McClain
goes to third, Hayes doubles down the line. McLain scores,
Ellie score or goes to third. Speed Steer doubles down
the left field line, Ellie scores, Hayes scores, Stevenson singles
on a fly ball to Castianos Steer to third, and

(01:36:38):
then finally Noelvie Marte lifts a flyball to uh the
deep center field that gets uh Steer home on the sacrifice,
and then uh Reese Hindes grounds into a double play
to end the inning. That's baseball, heines is Hinds is

(01:37:01):
hitting one twenty five his ops it's four forty six,
and the guy hitting behind him espen all two forty one,
his ops five seventy seven.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
And a lot of that's bullied by the op and
not the s right.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
Woof. And that's that's twice already today, second inning and
the third inning, or yeah, second inning and the third inning,
where those two guys have been in a position to
do some damage and neither did. Gotta be better, got
you got? I mean you can't. It's really hard if

(01:37:47):
you've only got seven functional spots in your lineup.

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
It's fine, every guy in the lineup's not going to
get a hit every time. No, like you just said,
if you can only rely on seven out of your nine,
bad and the last two or sunk costs. That's that's
not a postseason.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Well, because you right now, with Marte back, you're in
a pretty good situation one through seven freedom, McLean, de
la Cruz, Hey, Steer, Stevenson, Marte, like those guys are are,
You've got a chance to be pretty good. And then
you get to the bottom of the lineup and and
you know, any of the work done by four, five, six,

(01:38:24):
seven is almost erased because eight and nine are automatic outs.
It's tough. It's tough, but it's not that's not belittle
the negative when the positive is Reds are up six
to three. Abbott struggling a little bit start to start
the bottom of the third though.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
This is kind of his thing though. He likes to
get in jams and then get himself out of them.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Yeah, this is not a Phillies lineup. I would I
would mess with not at all. And uh yeah yeah,
I mean you you charmer singles to start off the inning,
Harper singles, bomb singles.

Speaker 4 (01:39:05):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
Now you've got the bases loaded and no outs in
the bottom of the third.

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
Tough to prevent runs that way.

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
It's tough too for a guy that you know he's
been so so good, and he has a rough little
bump in the first, but you give him six. He's
got six in the top of the third, and uh boy,
he's gonna have to wiggle his way out of this one.
And he's got Castianos who's already hit a two run

(01:39:38):
homer and real Muto coming up next.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
Is there some sort of like tragedy we haven't heard
about yet? And that's why I was.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Gonna you know what I almost did, Joe, what's that?

Speaker 4 (01:39:50):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
We were coming, we were going into our our first break.
As Castiana's hit the home run. Coming back from that break,
I was gonna do like independent and stay like uh,
you know the the the White House has been is
under attack and uh and you know the the the
Capitol building has been destroyed. And there's a long drive

(01:40:13):
the left field. It's a two run home run for
Nick castians.

Speaker 2 (01:40:19):
It'd just be one more in a long series for
that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:40:22):
Right. Yeah, great movie. Have you seen Independence Day before? Once?

Speaker 2 (01:40:28):
When I was a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
It's been a while. Great movie. You should you should watch.
Have you ever do you follow the Twitter account?

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
Oh, I'm not sure I know about the Twitter account.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
So there's a Twitter account that just goes through and
and live tweets the movie throughout the day as it's
supposed to be happening in real time. Oh that's great. Yeah,
they do it every fourth of July. I love it.
It's outstanding. Uh, let's get to uh, let's get to
some UC football. As the Bearcats are in need of

(01:41:04):
a big season. Like it's that simple. They have not
they have not held up there into the bargain in
the first few years of the Scott Sadderfield era. And
some of it is understandable. Some of it is I

(01:41:26):
don't think people have enough respect for how difficult the
jumping conferences, how difficult it is to go from the
American where I think it's pretty obvious you're in a

(01:41:49):
league in the American where you can build a quality
top of the roster, but it can be a lot.
We're challenging to sustain that, to to build the type
of depth and sustainable depth that you need to win

(01:42:12):
at the highest levels. And Cincinnati lost a ton in
the last two years the Fickle two years of the
Luke Fickle era, you're nine guys drafted and then I
believe four or five guys drafted in that the final
year that Luke was here, and you're turning that over
as you go in to a new league. And we

(01:42:34):
know now, when you lose a coach in today's day
and age, you lose your roster, by and large most
of them. You know, the guys that are at the
bottom of the roster are going to transfer. The guys
at the top of the roster, you know, you're gonna
have to see if you can pay them enough to

(01:42:54):
stick around. Uh, do they want to deal with that?
Recruiting takes a bump for a year or two as
your new staff comes in and gets settled. There's just
a lot of challenge that comes into switching conferences and
also switching coaches while you're doing that. Now, first year

(01:43:14):
was bad, bad, bad. It was not an easy It
was not a good brand of football to watch, especially
from my perspective. I'm down on the field on game
days and seeing those big twelve teams come onto the field.
It was very clear that Cincinnati was not at a

(01:43:36):
point to physically be able to compete over the course
of a season in that league in the first year.
Second year was better. They get off to a five
and two start, but one of those was just a
mind splitting loss to Pitt that should have never happened.

(01:44:00):
Would have made Cincinnati Bowl eligible if things, you know,
it played out as they did otherwise. But the reality
is they didn't get there. They lose their final five.
The offense that had been super effective early kind of
fell off cliff. Some of that was the play of

(01:44:22):
Brendan Sorosby, who was excellent his first six seven weeks
of the season. You've got Sooresby back, You've got Dante
corleone back, You've got Joe roy'er back, You've got the
captain of your offensive line, Gavin Gerhart back. I think
they did a much better job filling the roster, filling

(01:44:44):
the holes in the roster, in the portal this offseason.
I think you have a recruiting department that's starting to
find a groove. They understood where their weaknesses were and
they got a lot of it taken care of. But

(01:45:07):
you're in a league and this is where this year
is going to be critical. Do I you know Cincinnati
goes six and six. Do I think Scott Sanderfield is
getting fired? No, I don't. But a Cincinnati goes six
and six, you've got a fan base that's already not

(01:45:30):
completely bought in on this new coaching staff. Like I said,
some of that's not their fault. Some of it is
just Even if Luke Fickle stayed, I think these first
two years in the Big twelve would have been tough.
But we are in a results driven society, especially as

(01:45:55):
sports fans, and that's understandable. Tickets are expensive. Spending a
day going to a football game with the tailgating and
everything that comes with it, it's expensive and you have

(01:46:17):
a right to expect a quality product if you are
spending your money. Joe, you go, you go to many concerts.
You're a concert guy. I try to if I if
I've got the time, how many bad concerts have you
been to? Can't say I have ever been to many.
I'm picky. Well, even even sometimes in somebody that's uh

(01:46:42):
that's done this for a long time. Even sometimes you'll
go to a concert of a of a group that
you like or you you know well and they'll have
a bad night. That feeling like if you're you've gone
to a bad movie before. Oh yeah, absolutely, that feeling
when you're walking back to your car that you spent
your money and you spent your time, and the product

(01:47:04):
you got was crap.

Speaker 2 (01:47:05):
That's no different than a sporting event. I've been a
plenty of bad sporting events, right, that's no different. It's
it's it's nearly identical. Yeah, just sort of that sunk
you're mad feeling, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
You want to curse you like you want to go
on to a message board like Bearcat journal dot com
and yell at the owner.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
I like the plug there.

Speaker 1 (01:47:33):
That was good. Thanks, Thanks. I have a I have
a hashtag Joe. When things don't go well for U, see,
people will get mad and then start uh taking it
out on me. Uh so though my mentions will just
be full of people like venting about coaches or players
or whatever, and I'll just hashtag I'll quot tweet it

(01:47:54):
with the hashtag I'm mad tweeted Chad. But that's it's
a natural thing. Yeah, And you see, has not been
good enough at home under scott'siderfield. That's been a big
part of the problem. If you're gonna win in a
big boy league, you're an Indiana fan, you know what
losing in a big boy league is like, plenty of it.

(01:48:15):
If you're gonna win in a big boy league, you
have to protect home turf, and Cincinnati hasn't been good
enough at doing that. And the Scott's Siderfield is going
to get this thing over the hump in twenty twenty five.
Beccotts are gonna have to do a much better job
taking care of home turf. That's that's a big part

(01:48:36):
of the challenge here.

Speaker 2 (01:48:39):
That's theoretically where it should be the easiest to win
because you've got the fans on your side. It's where
you're comfortable spending all your time. It's where your practices
are like that's that's a home base should be where
you do most of your winnings. Not to you know,
vent veer off too far from the uc topic, but

(01:48:59):
like you, I'm an IU guy. This past season we
had best season program history, undefeated at home.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):
Right, it translates, it does, and Cincinnati's got seven home
games this year. Bowling Green, Northwestern State, Iowa State, the
University of Central Florida night managers. I don't know if

(01:49:25):
you know or not, but the UCF one of their
main functions as a university is to staff the front
overnight front desk at Howard Johnson's Across the country, Baylor
Arizona BYU.

Speaker 2 (01:49:43):
And how many of those games would you say you
would not expect them to win.

Speaker 1 (01:49:50):
I mean I probably would have said by you up
until their quarterback is no longer their quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:49:59):
Yeah, and the those other ones.

Speaker 1 (01:50:01):
You know, Arizona, you should be able to beat. Iowa
State's usually really good. And that is a three years
ago Matt Campbell did one of those like we're gonna
we really like this freshman class. We're gonna go all
in on this freshman class. This freshman class are now juniors.

Speaker 5 (01:50:23):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:50:24):
They're gonna be good. But that's I mean, if you're good,
you gotta be able to beat Iowa State at home
or at least have it be a game that comes
down to, you know, the final two minutes of the
fourth quarter. That's gonna be an early October game. It's
family weekend. It's gonna be crowded. You know, Baylor kind

(01:50:47):
of had a bounce back at the end of last
year after a really bad start. But you get Baylor
homecoming late October, Like, those are games. Maybe you're not
gonna win all five of those games, but well you
better go four and one if you're expecting to have
a seven to eight win season because your road games Kansas, uh,

(01:51:13):
who knows with Kansas? Oklahoma State?

Speaker 5 (01:51:16):
Who?

Speaker 1 (01:51:17):
Mike Gundy is notorious for a year with big expectations,
his team plays like crap, and then the next year
there's no expectations and his team ends up in the
Big twelve championship game. He is notorious for that. So
I fully expect Oklahoma State to be decent. Utah playing
out in the mountains in November not going to be easy,

(01:51:41):
and then TCU to close out the season in Dallas.
So you know, realistically, one in three, maybe two and
two in those four games, boy, you better, you better
be good at home. Yeah, that the home.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
How they play at home is it's going to determine
their Bowl record. It sounds their Bowl eligibility. I should say,
it sounds self explanatory. But you know, for a team
that wasn't as good as they needed to be at
home last year, Yeah, the point kind of needs to
be made, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:52:17):
Yep, I agree. Let's take a break. Phone lines are open.
You want to talk some some Bearcats football, You want
to talk some Bengals. We're here five, one, three, seven, nine,
fifteen thirty let's take a break. When we come back,
I'll get you caught up on what's happening in Philadelphia.
In the top of the fourth, This is Sincy three sixty,

(01:52:38):
a service of Penn Station closed on the fourth of July.

Speaker 3 (01:52:42):
Penn Station three sixty is back on ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (01:53:01):
Moving right along final hour hour number three Cincinnati's ESPN
fifteen thirty Chad Brenda filling in for the boys. They'll
be back on Monday. Let's get a Reds update here.
As the good guys tack on one in the top

(01:53:27):
of the fourth, they now lead seven to four over
the Phillies. As they go to the bottom of four,
Santiago Espinal heard us, Joe, seems like you did. Got
a single to lead off the inning. Freedo singles and
then a bat or later Ellie singles that scored espinall. Unfortunately,

(01:53:52):
inning ends as Austin Hayes grounds into a double play.
But so far, so good for the Reds. Nine hits.
Friedo has two of them, dal La Cruz has two
of them. Tyler Stevenson has two of them. So as

(01:54:14):
we we finish up, we round out the third turn
through the lineup. A couple guys haven't productive days. Dey
La Cruz with two RBIs Steer with two RBI, Marte
has one, and Red seven to four. Andrew Abbott three

(01:54:37):
innings so far, seven hits, four runs, all of them
earned for Andrew Abbott. And he is just not it's
not look sharp normally he's he's sharp in the zone.
There have been a couple of balls that have that
have been much more hit or in much more in

(01:55:03):
a position to be hit hard. As I say that Sosa,
the eight hitter for the Phillies, drives one off the
wall on a pitch that you know, just his command,
I'm using a lot of words to say his command
is not where it has been so far today.

Speaker 2 (01:55:21):
No, because he's normally really good or he has been
this good this season that his thing has kind of
been dot in the edge and teetering on the ball
and strike to confuse the hitter. His balls have been
way off the plate and his strikes are very hitable
for loud contact.

Speaker 1 (01:55:34):
And it looks like they've been in the hitting zone,
like in the hot zone. For now, the Phillies have
an outstanding lineup, like they can really really hit right, Yeah,
that's and you know, sometimes you make a good pitch
and a good hitter hits it. I haven't felt like
that today, Joe. I don't know about how much you've

(01:55:58):
been able to watch, but you know, in watching a
lot of it's watching back, like you look over after
the hit happens, and you watch the replay and like
they're squaring them up pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:56:13):
Yeah, and that's you know, like you said, we don't
when we say Abbot's not doing well, we don't want
to take away from the Phillies line because the Phillies
do have one of the better lineups, at least in
the National League, maybe in all of baseball. But I
feel like today it's more so the Phillies are taking
advantage of, you know, uncharacteristic mistakes by Andrew Rabbit rather
than just out talenting Andrew Rabbit, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
Boy, and you really don't want to get in a
position where you score seven runs in the first four innings.
You've got Andrew Rabbit on the mound. You got to
win that game, right. I just saw they've got Sam Mall. Yeah,
they got them all up in the bullpen and they're
first and third, No outs on Abbot in the bottom
of the fourth, and I mean nine hits, four runs,

(01:56:58):
only two strikeouts through three innings, three official innings, three
innings and two batters, both of those batters being on base. Yeah,
not great, Bob, not great. All right, let's take a break.
I don't know what the heck we're gonna talk about
when we come back. I'll figure it out during the break.
More after this. It's that easy SBN fifteen thirty. This

(01:57:21):
is since he three sixty. Interesting decision from Terry Francona
here in the bottom of the fourth in Philadelphia. I'm
Chad Brindle Bearcat Journal dot Com filling in there.

Speaker 2 (01:57:42):
You go.

Speaker 1 (01:57:42):
That's much better whatever that was.

Speaker 2 (01:57:47):
Yeah, I don't know what that was. There was two
bumpers in there.

Speaker 1 (01:57:49):
So wow, what a play. What a play from the Reds.
Terry Francona. Uh, I did kind of agreed with us, Yeah,
Joe and uh Andrew Abbitt just wasn't pitching well, he
didn't have it today. He didn't have it today. And

(01:58:11):
as a result, with two on and no outs in
the bottom of the fourth, oh, that's close to the
plate and the Reds, the Reds holding to a seven
to four lead. Terry Francona went out and got his ace, said,
Andrew Abbit, that's a day for you. Sixty six pitches

(01:58:35):
for Andrew Rabbit. He just didn't he was he was
not sharp, as we were talking about in the last segment,
a lot of a lot of hard contact, which is
just not normal for Andrew Rabbit. He's not a power guy.
He's a guy that's good at getting soft contact. The
guy that gets ground balls or or popouts or lazy

(01:58:56):
fly balls. He was not getting that today. Credit again
to a really good Phillies lineup, but Terry Francona goes
and gets him. Sam Maul gets a grounder back to
the pitcher with runners on first and third. He pump
fakes the runner back to third, throws to day La
Cruz at second to get the force out, and then

(01:59:20):
the runner from third breaks home. Ellie makes the throw home,
Edmundo Sosa out at home for the double play first
and third, no outs, You get a Trey Turner pop out,
then you get the Schwarber double play and the Reds escape.

(01:59:42):
What could have been? Because if to better paint the picture, Joe,
the eight and nine hitters were the guys on first
and third, Trey Turner, Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper were coming
up next. Yeah, and it didn't get to Harper. Turner

(02:00:03):
pops out, Schwarmer hits into the double play. Now, maybe
most importantly of all in that scenario, Harper is coming
up uh with nobody on leading off the bottom of
the fifth. So that's massive, massive.

Speaker 2 (02:00:23):
And that's That's kind of something that I feel like
the Bullpen's done a lot is these tightrope backs. We
just saw it recently the Yankee series Toys Santion getting
Aaron Judge out in that and extras in the Yankees game.
This these these you know, heart attack inducing title box. Yeah,
you know, they just keep finding a way to get
out of It's impressive.

Speaker 1 (02:00:45):
And that's kind of the fun thing about this bullpen
is they're not they're not going to wow you. They're not.
You know, they've got some guys that throw hard, but
but they're not coming in with three, four, five guys
throwing ninety nine plus you know, wipeout sliders and and
just dominant stuff. But it feels like they've put together

(02:01:09):
a group of guys that really knows how to pitch
out of the pin. Yeah, and that's sometimes just as effective.
And and I think the biggest thing is it eliminates
some of the variables on bullpen pitching because a lot
of times you've got these guys that throw it really hard,

(02:01:32):
but there, you know, w Ei, they're in the bullpen.
They're in the bullpen because they can't consistently throw strikes.
You know, they can throw it one hundred and one,
but they're not consistently throwing it over the plate. And
so there's gonna be some variants in their success year

(02:01:53):
over year. If you go with with the model the
Reds are using right now, I think there's less variance
because you have a lot you know, more guys that
know how to pitch.

Speaker 2 (02:02:03):
Right Joe right, Guys that there, you know, their trademark
skill isn't you know a you know, one hundred and
three mile an hour fastball or a slider that you
know has you know, thirty degrees of horizontal movement. It's
just guys that can throw strikes.

Speaker 1 (02:02:20):
And the one hundred and three mile an hour fastball
is a strike forty two of the time, and the
slider's never a strike. It's just a matter of can
you lay off of it or not.

Speaker 2 (02:02:29):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:02:32):
Uh, let's take a break and then come back for
the final segment. I I'm are you a Bengals guy?

Speaker 2 (02:02:38):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (02:02:39):
Okay. I want to talk about something that happened this
week across the division. Do you play poker? Joe can't
say a do. Okay, I'm gonna make a poker analogy.
I know enough about it with the Pittsburgh Steelers and
what they did this week. Okay, I like it, and
then we're gonna go home. I'm gonna go home. You're
gonna stay here and do the rest of the Reds game.

(02:03:00):
Something like that, something like that final segment coming up
after this sinsy three sixty A service a Penn station.

Speaker 3 (02:03:10):
It's time for Sincy three sixty Quick Hits on ESPN
fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (02:03:17):
All right, final segment of the day, Quick hits. I
don't really have any quick hits. It's the fourth of July.
I'm trying to get out of here. Let's be honest
with ourselves. I did have a topic that was on
my brain earlier in this week. And you know, sometimes
because I only you know, get this pulpit when Mo

(02:03:40):
isn't here, they are things that happen, and then I've
got a topic in my brain that I don't get
to get to, and then by the time I am
on this microphone, a different news cycle is upon us.
But I'm gonna talk about it now anyway, because I
want to the Steelers, the mink of Fitzpatrick, Jalen Ramsey
trade and going out and getting Aaron Rodgers and this

(02:04:05):
I heard it a couple of times, Joe. I heard
people referred to the Steelers as quote unquote all in.
And the the interesting thing to me is all in
doesn't necessary It's not necessarily like a good thing if

(02:04:26):
you're familiar with poker, because you know what happens like
if you're if you're low on chips, you're not a
poker guy, right, Joe. Not particularly so if you're you're
in a poker tournament, or you know, you're you're you're
playing a cash game and uh, you've been playing for
a while and you're kind of having a rough day

(02:04:48):
and you're just kind of hanging around, right, But the
blinds are going up and people are getting a little
bit more aggressive because their stacks are getting bigger. And
you might not be like short stacked, but you're not
in a You're definitely not in a position of power,
I guess is a good way to put it. That
kind of feels like where like if the Steelers went

(02:05:11):
all in, they went all in with like seven to
eight of diamonds. Like, this is not a team going
all in with aces. Their defensive line is getting old,
their quarterback. I don't know if there could be a
worse fit for Pittsburgh than Aaron Rodgers if things go

(02:05:31):
even a little sideways, Like if they win big, it'll
be fine. If you win big, nobody really cares. Everything
goes fine. But if they're struggles there, and that's a
city that's already frustrated with Mike Tomlin a little bit
because they've they've won, but they haven't won enough. They've
gone to the playoffs a bunch, but they haven't won

(02:05:52):
a playoff game. They're not really a threat to win
the division anymore. They're all in with a with a
hand that you kind of just are like, look, I
don't have a choice here. The blinds are coming back around,
my stack's getting low. I'm going to have to put
my chips in the middle. That's not all in with

(02:06:13):
Like remember when the Rams went all in right before
they beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl, and they
went all in right, they went after it. They're trading
all their draft picks. They didn't have a draft pick
in the first three rounds for like four drafts. Like
they were aggressive, knowing we got the quarterback, we got

(02:06:34):
Aaron Donald, like we got a situation where we can
win a Super Bowl. They went all in with pocket
aces or pocket kings, like they were all in. Joonas,
I feel like the Steelers are all in with a
good hand, especially in a division with the Bengals and
the Ravens.

Speaker 2 (02:06:55):
Let me just say this. You brought up the Rams.
The Rams were trading pieces to acquire talent with the
goal of winning a Super Bowl in mind. Would you agree?

Speaker 1 (02:07:09):
Yes? Absolutely, they went all like they went all in
with a strong hand. Correct.

Speaker 2 (02:07:15):
The Pittsburgh Steelers are trading pieces because they're scared they're
gonna lose TJ. Watt and they want to do as
much winning and get as much fan revenue as possible
while TJ. Watt is still in town and that defensive
line is still intact.

Speaker 1 (02:07:35):
Yeah, sure, but that's not that's not And this is
from a different perspective because I've been around a long
freaking time now and I've watched the Steelers organizationally for decades.
That's not who they are, like that that their identity
is not hanging on to pieces of like they've been

(02:08:00):
very good at moving forward, I guess, is what I'm
trying to get at. Yeah, they draft well, they develop well.
You know, they've kept plenty of stars. It's not that
they're they're running off guys, but and you know, I
think there's a part of what you're saying that there's
definitely some validity to like they're feeling the pressure of

(02:08:21):
we have been good but nowhere near good enough, and
now we might lose TJ. Watt and we don't have
an answer a quarterback. You just traded one of the
guys that kind of was the backbone of their identity
and Mika Fitzpatrick for an aging Jalen Ramsey. Like I
don't want to go as far as saying they're rearranging

(02:08:43):
deck chairs on the Titanic, but it just feels like
they're they're going all in without a strong hand, without
an advantage, I guess, right.

Speaker 2 (02:08:56):
And the point I was trying to make with the desperation.
Is Pittsburgh, like you alluded to, has sort of been,
at least in the NFL, the model of consistency in
terms of organization and roster structure and stuff like that.
But ever since the Killery Beide trio, the Belle Brown

(02:09:20):
and Roethlisberger with Ben, ever since they were all out
of town. I don't know if you feel the same way,
but something just feels different about the Steelers organization.

Speaker 1 (02:09:32):
I don't maybe.

Speaker 2 (02:09:33):
Complacent is the wrong word, but some I don't know
what it is. Something just feels off, like, just doesn't
feel like the same Pittsburgh Steelers organization. And maybe I'm
crazy for feeling that way, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:09:48):
I think there's something to that, and I think it's
what was Will Benson doing there? I'm so confused. Did
he not score?

Speaker 5 (02:10:01):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:10:01):
They they so espinall hits a ground ball through the
left side in between short and third. Benson was on
first and for some reason, on contact, he went back
to the bag. Oh I didn't see that instead of
running to second and was thrown out at second in
a force out.

Speaker 2 (02:10:21):
Oh my god, I didn't see that. Now, see I
saw the score was nine to because there's eight to four.
Before I saw nine to four, I'm like, oh, and
the saw him the doug. I was like, Benson score, Nope,
that's the furthest thing from it. Wow, that's that's yeah.
They made a change. Espinal has given us the middle
finger here. Do you think they have a live feed

(02:10:42):
in the dugout of maybe, Like, listen to these Chad
and Joe idiots talk about potentially how potentially's ops and
all that gets you know, seize Red smokes coming out
of his ears and just starts lightening up.

Speaker 1 (02:10:57):
But back to the Steelers, Yeah, one they have and
they did, I guess, have a window before Ben where
they were shuffling through quarterbacks. They were still successful, but
they weren't They weren't great, but they were still good
in the in the cower H era. But I guess

(02:11:20):
is this is this what it looks like as a
franchise that has not found an answer at quarterback and
is looking at a division with Joe Burrow and Lamar
Jackson through twenty thirty and beyond. Maybe like that's desperation,
isn't it. Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:11:42):
I'd say so. And the Steelers, you know, there's another
organization not too far from us over there in Indianapolis
that they've kind of been doing the same thing of
shuffling through quarterbacks, but they have not had the consistency
that Pittsburgh has, which is, you know, to your point,
you know they've got a good roster.

Speaker 1 (02:12:00):
I don't think anybody's gonna deny that.

Speaker 2 (02:12:02):
But like you said, the backbone isn't really there to
afford going all in, and yet they're still doing it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:08):
They're trying. I mean, they're they're giving I guess it's
they're giving the illusion of going all in. I mean,
Mike of Fence, mih Mika Fence Fitzpatrick a little bit,
a little bit, a little bit, I'm ready to get
out of here, Mika Fitzpatrick for Jalen Ramsey. Okay, like
you got worse at one area, you got a little
bit better at another. Like I I don't that that

(02:12:30):
move doesn't really jump off the page at me as
making them significantly better.

Speaker 2 (02:12:38):
It's a move I think that impacted the headlines and
the processure more than it did the actual.

Speaker 1 (02:12:43):
Yeah, and you get people so all the Steelers are
going all in, like, Okay, that that's great. They went
all in, but then they flip over two three suited
on a King Jack nine board. Did I just talk
way over your head there a little bit? But I'm following.
I'm following well enough. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (02:13:03):
I'm following well enough. It's yeah, they they're they're just
making the moves that you know, five years ago might
have put them in the Super Bowl conversation. But it
just feels too late. It feels too late, and it
missed their chance.

Speaker 1 (02:13:20):
It feels forced, and it feels this is crazy. But
it almost feels like the Tomlin era is nearing an
end one way or the other.

Speaker 2 (02:13:31):
And it may not be the fault of Mike Tomlin,
because I think he's a pretty I think he's a
great coach. He's a great, very very good coach. But yeah,
the writing's on the wall. I think he knows it.
I think the front office knows that fan base wants
it actively. But it just kind of feels like all
sides are just sort of they know it's coming deep down,
but they're just trying to stave that off as long

(02:13:52):
as possible. And I just don't know how much, especially
if this experiment with Aaron Rodgers fails, I don't know
how much longer they can do it.

Speaker 1 (02:13:59):
Yeah, I mean it's one of those when you look
at the history of the Steelers, they do not like
making change. No, Chuck Noll, Bill Cower and Chuck Nole,
I think was my great great great grandpa was probably
alive when Chuck Nole was that became the coach of
the Steelers, like they've had three coaches like in the
in in many, many lifetimes. But sometimes it's just time

(02:14:24):
to time to make that change.

Speaker 2 (02:14:27):
Even if only just to do a sort of organizational reset.
Just you just need to hit the big red button sometimes. Yep,
all right, that's gonna wrap it up, Joe, awesome job,
Thank you very much. Yeah, it's this was a great
experience for me.

Speaker 3 (02:14:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:14:44):
Obviously I did a little bit, you know, early on
when I first my first week here, probably like a
few secons with Gary Jeff.

Speaker 1 (02:14:51):
But yeah, well I'm glad we got to have some
fun and I look forward to it next time. Happy forth, everybody,
We'll see you next time. This is since he thirty
sixty on sp fifteen thirty