Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
After three. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Don't forget, we do have the game on Sunday, Bengals
and Packers live on ESPN fifteen thirty pregame coverage at
noon to kickoff in forwards twenty five. Bill Michaels from
Elder High School is the king of Milwaukee and Wisconsin
sports talk radio. I watch a show on YouTube today
for a while to get his thoughts on Bengals v. Packers.
This guy's swamped because you got the Brewers game four.
(00:24):
You've got everybody in Wisconsin waiting to find out who
they're going to replace Luke Fickle with. And obviously a
Packer's home game on Sunday. So I know he just
got off the air. I can't thank him enough for
his time. It's good of him to join us. And
if I can find the mouse that uses that works
with the phone, I'll put him on the air.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hi, Bill, what's up?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Hey?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
What's got me? Probably the most thrilled with Elder beat
Mohler this past weekend sold out. That was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I understand your your classes reunion is tomorrow. I assume
you're not going to be there.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
No I.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know what's funny is I really wanted to. I
was going to drive down and drive back, but I
just got home from New York. I'm a part of
Vice Channel doing a documentary on the Packers and on
Aaron Rodgers. I was out filming that, and then I
came home and I just it's too much travel not
to mention. And I saw you at the Elder Stag
earlier this year. Yeah, And I suddenly gained about thirty
friends that I never knew I had, who all want
(01:18):
tickets to come up to this game at lambeau Field
this week. So I'm hosting about eighteen people coming up
to Wisconsin. So I figured I'd just better stay home.
And I'd really love to come back home and be
a part of that, but I got a lot of
work to do this weekend, have a lot of entertaining
to do.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I was asked by a fellow graduate of yours in
this building if I would ask you that, so we
have our answer. I think I thought I knew what
the answer was going to be, but I had to ask. Nonetheless,
the week through two weeks, everybody's putting the Packers in
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
The shine has come off. What's gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Special teams basically, you know, they've had a block pat,
They've had a block field goal that could have won
them the game, even though they didn't play very well
in Cleveland. So special teams has ultimately cost him. But
the fact is the offensive line, you go back to
even training camp, it hasn't been intact all season. Banks
has been banged up. Their new left guard who they
bought from San Francisco in the offseason, moving Elton Jenkins
(02:12):
down the center, Zach Tom the right tackle. He ended
up getting an oblique injury. He's been out a couple
of weeks. You know, they've been moving around. Sean Ryan,
Jordan Morgan, last year's first round draft choices, come in
and hasn't played real well. They've picked up Darien Canard
from Philadelphia. He didn't play real well. There's been a
lot of instability on the offensive front, so I think
that's part of it. The secondary didn't have a good
(02:33):
game down in Dallas, and Dak Prescott got rid of
the ball really quick, which negated the rush of Michael
Parsons and Rashaun Gary. So I think a couple of
things were exposed. But more so than anything. They just
have not been able to get special teams right. They've
got five special teams penalties, two big returns, a block
pat and a block kick. So that explains where they're
(02:53):
at right now.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And all this when they played against Joe Flacco, they
didn't win the game, but they played against him.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
He was not good. I mean, he's a statue, you know.
And the funny thing is now we're going to get
a chance to see him again behind what's considered to
be an even worse offensive line. If you look a
lot of the metrics, the offensive line of of the
CINCINNTI Bengals is you know, I mean, if I'm sitting there,
Michael Parsons, Rashaan Gary, Edwin Cooper, the guys up front,
I've got to be salivating at dreams of this team
(03:21):
coming into lambeau Field to where they can just feast
on what's been a rather porous offensive line. And I
think I'm putting it kindly for Bengals fans, so that
aspect of the game I think favors Green Bay. What
really has to happen for the Packers is Jordan Love
has to ascend. We've all seen, you know, he's got
the capability to do it. He's a terrific thrower of
(03:42):
the football. We saw in that kind of two minute
meltdown that he had in Dallas where he just didn't
get The guys gathered in a hurry and they talked
about disconnect and the head coach falls on the sword
basically for the quarterback. But he's got to play smarter,
you know, turning the ball over against Cleveland making that
just completely errant throw, losing a fumbled deep in his
own territory against Dallas. He's only got one pick, but
(04:04):
he hasn't played to his potential, and we keep waiting
for him to arrive. And when I did the comparison,
you go back and look at Aaron Rodgers and you
look at Brett Farr. It wasn't until they took over
and maybe their third year under center, like their sixth
or seventh game, into their third year under center, they
really started to excel and assend that's what you're waiting
on with Jordan Love. Now I'm not saying Jordan Love
(04:24):
is the matrix walking to the line of scrimmage much
like Rogers was, but certainly after being in the league
now his sixth season he's got to understand it better
and look at it better than what he has, and
so we're looking for him to start to really kind
of kind of take a hold of this offense and
make it go.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You mentioned Michah Parsons. That was the Micah Parsons revenge game,
and he was kind of a footnote that forty forty tie.
What did Dallas do to keep him off of?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Dak? Prescott got rid of the ball real quick. I mean,
they doubled the triple teamdom then Devonte Wyatt went down.
Who's their big defensive lineman. They gave up Rashan Or,
they gave up Kenny Clark to the middle man down
in Dallas. When they made the Michael Parsons trade, which
left Avonte Wyatt the big kid out of Georgia who's
going for a second contract. That left him to be
(05:07):
that anchor in the middle, and then when he went
down with the injury, they didn't have the same push. Therefore,
they doubled and triple team to Michael Parsons, and Dak
got rid of the ball real quick. I mean, how
long did Peyton Manning survive in this league? Getting rid
of the ball in under two and a half seconds,
and that's what Dak Prescott did. And then eventually towards
the end of the game, guys started getting loose downfield.
And I don't know why it took him so long
to come out of zone, but they didn't come out
(05:29):
of his zone and they didn't start blitzing until midway
through the fourth quarter, and I think that cost him
a little bit as well. So we'll see if they
changed that up if necessary against Cincinnati. But that's the
way to do it if you can get rid of
the ball real quick at in may gates of pass
rush for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Do you guys want TJ. Slaton back?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know? No, not really? Look, DJ was a good
guy in a rotation the way go back to the
year the Packers won the Super Bowl ten twenty eleven.
They had BJ Rogie, who they just picked up as
a rookie. They had Ryan Pickett who had already established himself.
They had Colin Jenkins, they picked up CJ. Wilson as well,
(06:07):
and then they picked up Howard Green. Remember Howard Green
was cut by the Jets and was driving down to
his home in New Orleans when they called him and said, hey,
come this way. So we had to drive to Green Bay.
But they had five big, beefy bodies that they could
rotate up front. They could keep fresh, and they could
constantly put pressure on that beat or on that offensive front.
And then you had a guy like Klay Matthews coming
off the edge. And that was the year that they
had the defensive player of the year in Charles Woodson.
(06:29):
But it all started in the trenches. They don't have
a full compliment in the trenches as of right now,
so guys have to grow up there.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I attended the last Bengals Packers game in twenty seventeen.
It was in September. I think it was the hottest
game in lambeau Field history. This seems to me to
be ideal, right, because it's October, so it's not going
to be hot. But you're not going to go to
one of those like, you know, below freezing below zero
Lambeau games in December. For folks who are making the
trip for the first time, what do they need to know?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Just get the Lambeau and get out and walk, you know,
go park at somebody's lawn a couple of blocks away,
because that's what you can do. And if you pay
the extra five bucks. You can use their bathroom in
their house, which is kind of cool, but just no
walk around. I've got all these friends coming and I
don't know, well if you've seen it, but we get
a new RV every year, right and they call it
(07:19):
the Big un A Cruiser. So it holds about fifteen people.
So I'm taking sixteen people squeezed into this thing to
the game, and they're all wanting to tailgate, and I said, well,
that's great, but you need to go walk. You need
to go experience it. You got to go to stadium,
view into the bar and and doozies, and you've got
to go through the parking lot and smell it for
what it is and go over to Krawls and get
the god awful chili that they have over there. But
(07:40):
people just love it, you know, and walk around and
get the experience walking through neighborhoods and see what it's like.
It's the closest thing to a college atmosphere that I
can describe in the National Football League. It's just it
really is. And don't forget I mean, you know, Lambeofield
is the biggest building in Green Bay. I mean the
town only has two hundred and seventy thousand people until
all of a sudden game they hits and then you've
got an extra eighty thousand coming into town. So you
(08:03):
just get out and experience it, because it really is
a thing of beauty.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
While I have you and you're always good with your time.
How much do they hate Luke Fickle up there?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
With a passion, Absolutely with a passion. They don't feel
he's the right guy. And don't forget you know, they
had a guy that was here and everybody thought that
Jim Leonard should have been the guy because he's the
hometown guy, he's a Wisconsin player, that he should have
been the guy, and he didn't get the job. They
went after Luke Fickle, so he already Fickle had a
strike against him. He had to win fans over. And
(08:34):
then you start looking at his recruiting classes and you're thinking, man,
this is great. He's bringing in top twenty twenty five talent.
This is something we haven't ever seen here in Wisconsin.
So this team's going to flourish and it seems like
they can play really well, and then they face adversity
and they fold like a really bad tent. Man. It
just they have no intestable fortitude and that starts at
(08:54):
the top. I'm sorry, it just does. And I love Luke.
I've had him on the program, and I thought what
he did in Cincinnati and the way he climated himself
to all the the you know, the high school kids
down there and really wanted to recruit with them, and
it was great, and I thought he'd bring that here
and it just it just hasn't matriculated to the coaching
side of the football. And so I'm rooting for him.
But I think we did the eulogy today that if
(09:14):
he doesn't beat Iowa and he gets blown out by
Ohio State in Oregon and back to back fashion, he
may not survive the end of the stry.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I think I'm in the minority, but I root for
him too. It just it went south quickly. Are the
Brewers going to finish off the Cubs?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I said, they're gonna win tonight. You're Champagne tonight. I'm
looking forward to it. I I you know, and I
know what, because I know you guys don't like Cuffs
fans down there either. They inforstrate Great American Ballpark and
it sucks. So I said it this way as far
as a Wisconsin night now goes. They would then have
the Packers, remember, went in, got the Hollis Trophy at
Soldier Field, went on the Super Bowl two twenty eleven.
(09:47):
The Brewers won one sixty three the playoff game at
Wrigley Field to win the division in advance in the
playoffs from there and knock him out of the postseason.
How afropole would it be to win the NLBS at
Wrigley Field? So Chicago go for everything they had going
for him and all their arrogance. They can suck it
because they could. They just we own that, and I
love it because we've always been looked at as the
redheaded step child just above you know, Wrigley North.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So kiss my butt, all right, I'm rooting for it
and enjoyed the game on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You're the man. Thank you as always, Hi, buddy, thank you.
That's our guy. Bill.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
That guy is like massive. He's on like a million
radio stations throughout Wisconsin. He's on for four hours every
single day. He's got a YouTube channel. He's awesome aout
what he does and always kind enough to joy. We
had him on before the Reds played the Brewers, and
that was cool and whenever the Bengals played the Packers
every four years. Bill joins us and he's from Cincinnati,
worked here for like I think our past intersected for
(10:41):
maybe five minutes. So used to do traffic for us,
and I always like the king of Wisconsin sports. The
king of making us money is our guy, Lee Sterling.
He joins us.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
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