Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
After three. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. 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 Forward's 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
(00:22):
swamped because you got the Brewers game four. 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 2 (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.
Speaker 5 (00:44):
Thrilled with Elder beat Mohler this past weekend sold out.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
That was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I understand your your classes reunion is tomorrow. I assume
you're not going to be there.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
No I.
Speaker 5 (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 1 (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 2 (01:46):
The shine has come off. What's gone wrong.
Speaker 5 (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 of block
pat and a block kick. So that explains where they're
(02:53):
at right now.
Speaker 1 (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.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
And the funny thing is now we're going to get
a chance to see him again behind what's considered.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
To be an even worse offensive line.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
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 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
(03:31):
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 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
(03:54):
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 he hasn't played to his potential,
and we keep waiting.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
For him to arrive.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
And when I did the comparison, you go back and
look at Aaron Rodgers and you look at Brett Flarr.
It wasn't until they took over and maybe their third
year under center, like their six 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 is the matrix walking
to the line of scrimmage much like Rogers was, but
certainly after being in the league, now his sixth season,
(04:30):
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 1 (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.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I mean, they doubled the triple teamdom then Devonte Wyatt
went down.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Who's their big defensive lineman.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
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 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
(05:17):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So we'll see if they changed that up if necessary
against Cincinnati.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
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 2 (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.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
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, 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,
(06:16):
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. 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 1 (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 5 (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.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
And if you pay the extra five bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
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 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. I said, well, that's great, but
(07:28):
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 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
(07:49):
the National Football League.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
It's just it really is.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
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 just get
out and experience it, because it really is a thing
of beauty.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
While I have you and you're always good with your time.
How much do they hate Luke Fickle up there?
Speaker 5 (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.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Man.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
It just they have no intestable fortitude and that starts
at 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.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
The coaching side of the football. And so I'm rooting
for him.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
But I think we did the eulogy today that if
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 1 (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 5 (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 infustrate Great American Ballpark and
it sucks. So I said it this way as far
as a Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Night now goes.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
They would then have the Packers, remember, went in, got
the Hollis Trophy at Soldier Field, went on.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
The Super Bowl two twenty eleven.
Speaker 5 (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 NLDS 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 1 (10:10):
So kiss my butt, all right, I'm rooting for it
and enjoyed the game on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
You're the man. Thank you as always, Hi buddy, thank you.
That's our guy. Bill.
Speaker 1 (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.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
King of making us money is our guy, Lee Sterling.
He joins us. Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center Mammograms Save Lives.
Call five one three five eighty four pink to schedule
your annual mammogram with UC helps experteam. That's five one
three five eight four pink. On eastbound two seventy five,
there's an accident after Mosteller that one off onto the
left shoulder northbound five mile road. Another accident at two
(11:19):
seventy five. Traffic is stopping go southbound seventy five between
the Western Hills Viaduct and Fort Washington Way. Six minute delay.
I'm at ezelic with traffic.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
This report is