Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
For padco in the NATI brought to you by Modern
office Methods on ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home of
the Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Four quarter Pad Pounder. Don't forget tonight at long.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Next it's the Roundtable Show down the Hall with Lance
and Rocky. Do not let the fact that that show
is on seven hundred WLW distract you from this very
important piece of information.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
No one covers the Bengals like ESPN fifteen to thirty,
Cincinnati's sports station.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Twenty four minutes after four o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.
After a week off, our friend Robert Wintraub is here.
He writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine. You
can read it at Cincinnati Magazine dot com. This week's column,
as you might imagine, about the dawn of the Joe
Flacco era.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
When I say that, do you still chuckle the way
I do?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Forty eight seventy two hours later, if we found out
he's a solution to quarterback, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
It's everything changes overnight with the dawn of the Joe
Flaco era. It's really amazing that a guy that has
Bengal fans we've been conditioned to loath basically decades now
the Savior you know, from it out of nowhere trade.
It really is amazing and that just goes to show
you what the season has been like it It turns
(01:19):
out a dime and another plot twist. So that's good
for us in the content creation.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You know, I said all the time, be good or
be interesting, ideally be both got to be one. I'm
not sure how good this is going to be. It's
it's going to be interesting. There is there's a track
record with Joe Flacco, you know, joining a team, being
a quick study and in a reasonably short amount of
time operating the offense. We've seen this happen in other
you know, situations, very short. A couple of years ago.
Baker Mayfield goes to LA on a Tuesday, plays on
(01:46):
a Thursday, and wins. Josh Dobbs with Minnesota a few
years ago gets traded on Tuesday, plays on Sunday and wins.
When this typically happens, how dumbed down is the offense?
Speaker 5 (01:56):
Yeah, I remember when Bobby Lane got traded.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Trade isn't almost.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
The same thing, remember, kids, Yeah, you know, it depends
on the quarterback. Really right, the case by case bas is,
I think in the case is that you said it,
especially with Josh Dobbs. I mean that was basically they
were drawing up the plays in the dirt with six right.
I think the value of Flacco, He's had two hundred starts.
He has seen essentially everything there is to see. They're
(02:22):
not gonna run a highly you know, detailed and complicated
offense necessarily with him there. But then again, the Bengals
don't necessarily really do that anyway. There's sort of plan
of attack has always been under Zach Taylor to you know,
kind of out match up teams rather than outscheme them.
Than it's a broad stroke, but you know, our guys
are better on the outside and we're gonna win that way.
(02:43):
And you know, Joe Flacco's inexperience in the offense doesn't
really make too much of an effort in that context,
and I think that's why he's valuable to them. Picked
up a different quarterback off the scrap heap, who happened
to be available at this point in the season, we'd
be talking it a little bit about it a little
bit differently, So I think that is where they thought
Flacco was really the best case for them. Obviously, it's
(03:06):
not much of a not much of a deep pool
of guys who can come in and play that way.
But yeah, I don't think like when Carson Palmer went
to the Raiders, you know, of the retirement demand, I
don't think they really dummed it all the way down
because they knew Carson what he could do and what
his strengths weren't they played to it. It didn't necessarily
work out and wins and losses there, but probably won't
hear either. But I don't think they'll be, you know,
(03:29):
just chucking ninety five percent playbook out and hoping for
the best. I think that's why you have it. Joe
Flacco come in.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Of all of the possibilities, some far fetched, some may
be a little bit more serious, was Joe Flacco I
think was the most surprising.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
But was he the best?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Yeah? So, I mean of the realistic ones. You know
that you heard about a lot of ones that were
so far just Twitter ridiculousness. And Twitter's not in real life,
by the way, fap me on Twitter at Ruane little
self promotion there in amongst the blackou talk. I mean,
certainly in a case where you match him up against
the guy like Russell Wilson and the fact that, as
(04:08):
everybody has pointed out, you know, the Bengals offensive line
is deleterious to most quarterbacks health, and he just put
them side by side. He got Russell Wilson, who's a
mini me, and he got Joe Flacco at six six,
two forty five, who's a guy has taken a lot
of beatings over the years, but he hasn't been injured
all that often. He just has that body type that
can absorb a lot of punishment. Probably a good thing
(04:31):
because he's probably gonna get somehow in Cincinnati. And I
think I don't know how much the Bengals really put
that into their you know, sort of thought process, but
it works out pretty well where sort of the biggest
guy available and the and the you know, just kind
of most physically imposing guy is the guy who also
matches up with what they want to do best. So
in that sense, I think he was by far the best,
(04:53):
you know, And obviously he had this you know tradition
or you know, ability to come out of nowhere literally
off the couch and the case of the Browns and
not only be competent, but be very good. If the Browns,
the Bengals can run the ball the way the Browns
did in twenty twenty three, even without Nick Chubb that year,
they had a really good ground attack. If the Bengals
can have any semblance of that, that can only make
(05:14):
Flacco's life a little bit easier. But obviously we haven't
seen that thus far, and there's no reason to expect it,
certainly in the next couple of weeks or Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, and you referenced the offensive line and the lack
of mobility, and I think for a lot of folks
that means that this is a ticking time bomb.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Is that fair?
Speaker 5 (05:31):
That's a little strong. Like I referenced as a guy,
he's not really a guy who has been injured like that.
I mean, if that's what you mean, he's going to be,
you know, immediately sacked crumble into fifty pieces and we
have to see Jake Brownie again. I don't necessarily think
that's the case. I would imagine that the offensive line
will continue to hinder the offense's ability to move the
ball with consistency and efficiency, no question about that. I
(05:54):
don't know if that's a slow ticking time bomb or
a fuse that's you know, one hundred feet long, which
all season and we've seen that a lot over the
past few seasons, so it's it's nothing new. Really. I
just don't think that it's like a combination of his
lack of mobility with the Bengals porousness up front, this
automatically going to get him injured. I think Flaco's too
(06:17):
smart for that. Man. I just think part of his
ability to still play at this age is his ability
to you know, know when to fold them, so to speak,
chuck the ball out of there quickly, you know, check
out of plays that are immediately going to get him
killed if he sees it, and you know, get into
a safer play physically, so to speak, and just you know,
play in a certain way that'll ensure him of another drive,
(06:39):
another quarter or another game, as opposed to what we've
seen that of a lot of other quarterbacks. Even Jake Browning.
I mean, he didn't get injured, but he was just
playing with his hair on fire so much he never
he knew what the next play was going to bring.
You won't do that with Flacco. He you know, you
know what you're going to get but it's not going
to be something where he just like, what is this
guy doing out here. He'll be professional, and he'll be
experienced and he'll get them out of bad situations as
(07:01):
best as possible.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Robert win Trump is with this weekly Bengals column is
up now at Cincinnati Magazine dot com. You referenced in
this week's piece to me, among all the stuff that
happened last week, it's the one that was most frustrating
to me because it answered a question I had all
off season and all off season. You know, you heard, well,
the Bengals just need a league average defense, which sounds
neat right, But regardless of who the quarterback is, can
(07:25):
your unit get a stop when the game is hanging
in the balance, and so they they crawl back into
it at least sort of ten and a half to
go fourth quarter. If they get a stop, there's hope.
And the Lion shut the door in eight plays. And
there were a bunch of misstackles there, And so I
guess there's two different things. Number one, how much has
the defense failed essentially in year one of Al Golden
(07:49):
And I guess more specifically, they missed a ton of
tackles still that was a hallmark of last year's team.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It remains one this year. Why is it?
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Yeah? I guess if I had the definitive answer to that,
I'd be on the sidelines with them. You see it,
and it's really frustrating, especially the drive that you that
you refer to, where it was just like, yeah, I
mean down eleven with most of the quarter to go.
It's hardly insurmountable, you know, especially in modern NFL. And
it's one thing to give up some points in that situation,
but to have it just break down so completely, and
(08:20):
so it looks like the Lions were barely trying and
they just waltzed right down the field and scored. Really disheartening.
And it had to be crushing Al Golden because even
with the way the units played so far this season,
you know, he had an opportunity to kind of make
it go away with a couple of stands there, and
it just didn't happen. Yeah, the lead the Bengals are
tied for last in the league or first in the league,
(08:41):
I guess, depending on how you want to look at it.
In mistackles, and they're tied with the Jets, and I
think you see a lot of the times, it's it's
a question of want to and when the defense knows
the offense is atrocious and they're not gonna you know
that that last drive notwithstanding, they're not gonna have a
chance to win games. You know, the effort and the
want to to rally to the ball and really play
(09:03):
with the kind of speed and violence that you need
to play with in the NFL is is lacking. And
you know, you have losing teams missing a lot of tackles.
That's not a coincidence. And usually teams that don't have
great offenses missing a lot of tackles, the Bengals last
year again notwithstanding, and you know, it's a little early
to look at out Golden and say, all right, this
guy hasn't done anything. And it's been five games. I mean,
(09:25):
give the guy a chance. You know, their number one
draft pick, a guy that they're really counting on to
you know, health. The offense at the defense in a
lot of different ways has barely played Schamar Stewart and
you know, again, everything went to hell when Burrow went
down and they're all still scrambling. I think, if if
nothing else, Flacco can give them a little bit of
ball control, have at least a little bit of extended drives,
(09:48):
you know that they had. The Bengals are near the
bottom of the league also in just average yards for drive.
They hardly move the ball at all, and it's just
it compounds on a defense and you know what looks
like a lack of effort and poor tackling, you know,
fundamentals really is a lot of times just being on
the field far too much, and you know, they have
(10:10):
to get out of that rut otherwise they have no chance.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I've got like admitted here is the biggest glimmer of hope,
the fact that the AFC just top to bottom doesn't
appear to be very good.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
Yeah, well it helps, right, I guess it sort of
depends if you really think that this team has any
kind of contention possibility and is it worth being you know,
sort of six and eight and still have a chance.
And it was last year we all felt, but we
also felt that with Joe Burrow, all they had to
do was get into the playoffs and then they really
had to get crack. Did they have a that is
Burrow really going to come back? Are they going to
(10:41):
do anything with Joe Flacco? Even if they somehow sneak
into that seventh wildcard position, and you know, because the
AFC is such direk Yeah, I mean it's it's it's
you know, it's better than tanking and looking already to
twenty twenty six. Right, Nobody wants to do that, even
though maybe in the big picture it probably is the
thing to do, right, because the Bengals have proven they
can only really hit in the draft that they're picking
(11:03):
them in the top five or eight, so maybe they
should go down that route. But I think it definitely
helps them that and maybe they don't even make this
trade if they don't look around the landscape and see, boy,
nobody else here is really any good. The Ravens are
totally demolished, the Browns of the Browns, the Steelers nobody
believes in, and even the rest of the Aes he
doesn't look that good. You'll talk about Daniel Jones being
(11:23):
an MVP candidate, So I definitely think that's part of
the overall context. And you know, I think it does
give the Bengals a little bit of hope. But first
and foremost, you got to play better before you can
take advantage of other teams being crap. You can't be
direct yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Well said, We'll talk next week. Thank you as always.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Can't wait, Mom, Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Go read our guy Rob Wintrobs Cincinnati Magazine dot com.
He joins us every single Thursday right here on ESPN
fifteen thirty because.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
No one covers the Bengals like ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's
sports station.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Do we have time if we break now to play
the Jamar Jase audio that you've been working on, tara U?
Do we have to wait till next hour? I'll have
to wait till next hour? Right, very good. Dan Klaskin's
coming up in just about fifteen minutes to help us
win fantasy football games. I'm zero to five in one league,
so that seems like a tough test for him and
for me, but we'll try anyway. Coming up on ESPN
(12:17):
fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You've been listening to Football in the NATI on ESPN
fifteen thirty, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.