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November 27, 2025 • 12 mins

Robert Weintraub writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine. He joined us to talk about the team he writes about on ESPN1530.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the RNL Carriers pregame sports talk show presented by
your Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Toyota Dealers on Moeger, Bengals
and Ravens. Coming up tonight. Countdown to kickoff just over
an hour away at seven pm with Wayne box Miller.
Robert win Troup joins My show on Thursdays Today's Thursday
Cincinnati Magazine dot com. He has a Bengals column that
he writes every single week, So uh, do this instead

(00:24):
of instead of, like, I don't know, talking about politics
with your family at the Thanksgiving table, Read Robert's column
and then use that to come up with topics for
your Thanksgiving dinner conversation. There you go, Robert is kind
enough to join us. It's awesome to have you. Happy Thanksgiving, Robert,
how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yes? And you know I've made a no Bengals talk
rule for this Thanksgiving on the house, just Turkey only.
But then the Bengals that schedule game that night, so
even that doesn't work out this season?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yes, yes, well, hopefully I believe they don't room Thanksgiving.
We will see. I'm gonna start positive. I'm gonna start positive.
The Bengals did lose last week to the Patriots, but
sweet to come out of that game complaining about the
lack of effort on defense. And Joe Stone had a
good game, like you know, the walking pinata. If I'm
going to beat him up when he's bad, I got
a credit on what he's good. He had a good game,

(01:11):
had a pick six, made a nice play of the
goal line. Over All, the defense wasn't perfect, but it
was better. Can I can I cling to the idea
that they started to turn the corner against the Patriots?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, if you mean by they turned a corner into
the path of an on rushing car, then I guess
say that. Yeah, they're still historically bad. They are still
the worst team by DVA through eleven games in DVOA history.
But they're right on the verge of catching those pesky
nineteen seventy nine forty nine ers, just a tent a

(01:43):
percentage point behind him. So one more good effort and
I think maybe they'll get out of that odious last
place there. Listen, did they play better on Sunday? Absolutely?
You know, they even showed Drake May kind of confused
a little bit. And I don't want to say who's
chasing ghosts or whatever the you know, the term is
for a confused quarterback. But you know, he didn't look

(02:04):
like the MVP caliber guy that we were like he was,
So guys we've written off, like you said, g know Stone,
certainly Miles Murphy had another, you know, pretty solid game,
and even barrk Carter made a handful of decent plays.
Just generally, they combined what they had been doing, which
is running around like chickens with their head cut off.

(02:24):
They showed some situational awareness, I think for the first
time in a long long time, and and you know,
married high energy, which you know, they it's not like
they had completely given up through most of these games.
They were trying. They were just using the opposing teams
were using that effort against them in a lot of ways,
and you know, demoralizing them by using that energy against

(02:48):
them so much so now that you know, you kind
of married that energy with actual execution and that's what
you want to see now, you know, does that mean
they're going to hold the Ravens to nine points? And
when the game seems unlikely, does it mean that we
can count on a lot of these guys as building
blocks for twenty twenty six and beyond also likely, but
you know, it's at least something, and I think Al

(03:09):
Golden is going to point to it and say, hey,
this is what we've been telling you guys all along.
See what happens when you actually listen to the message.
And I think that can only be a good thing
going forward. And you know, hopefully as the season plays out,
at least we'll have, you know, a defense that at
least keeps the team in the game and doesn't give
it away completely week after week. And that's where you

(03:30):
saw this past Sunday and hopefully for the rest of
the year.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I almost hate to do this because he did play
well last week, but Gino Stone has been mostly atrocious
this season. There's no getting around it. And so you know,
so many of us have wondered like there's nobody else,
Like there's literally nobody else. And I watched Tyson Anderson
play on special teams and I see a guy who
at least makes makes tackles, and same for PJ Jewels,

(03:55):
and so like, I get it. They're not being asked
to cover, but they're doing their jobs. And that I
get pushed back when I say, like, try one of
those guys instead of Geno Stone, And I'm told, well,
they're special teams players. Why why can't Why can't? I thought,
if you excel on special teams, maybe you get a shot,
especially if there's a player who's in front of you

(04:15):
who's struggling, get a shot to play your you know,
natural position, so to speak. Why can't they use those
guys in safety?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, it is a little hard to understand. I mean
I can under I know when you're talking about special
teams aces quote unquote, you know, the all time greats,
the Steeve Taskers and the Renee Thompson's going back, you know,
or Matthew Slater, guys like that who are so great
that you take them off special teams and ask him to,
you know, sort of fly away from what they're great at.

(04:44):
So you don't want to do that. But with the
average ranking special team player, I think back to a
guy from the Bengals, like a Clayton Frisdella remember him, Yeah,
you know, kind of a decent safety, had his moments,
and you know he made his way onto the team
and into the lineup because he played really good SMA teams.
And I'm not saying Tyson Anderson necessarily is even as
good as best down. But when you have a guy

(05:06):
playing out there, as you say, who's been so bad
and the guy who you know is only on the
team because he took a pay cut in the offseason,
let's remember that, why not give Tyson a chance or
PJ Jewles. I mean, it's it's not like you're taking
away a guy who you know. You're all of a
sudden saying, hey, we got to have you go play
special teams and this guy who's been on the special

(05:27):
teams unit is not going to take your spot, and
it's like you're worried about him poisoning the clubhouse. I mean,
the ship has sailed. Let's get somebody in there or
at least is going to try hard. And if it
doesn't work out and he gets lost in coverage and
he picks bad angles and doesn't make plays, listen, what
if you lost really at the end of the day.
So it does seem a little strange, especially in Anderson's case.

(05:50):
Who's you know, a drafted player at one point and
a guy who were at least thinking about counting on
as being a reserved depth player. To give him a
chance and say, maybe CATCHU lighting in a bottle, and
next year he was so bad and having to replace
the entire unit. Maybe at least you have one guy
you can say he could be a third or four
safety for us, and we feel good going into the season.

(06:10):
But you know, apparently they have their own plan in place.
And who are we questioning?

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Oh, of course that's right, Yes, who are we to
question anything that Bengals decide? Robert win Trump is with
us Cincinnatimagazine dot com. If we were if we were
to do this, we are doing it unscientifically. Like rank
offensive lines. Roughly, where would the Bengals offensive line b
right now?

Speaker 2 (06:34):
They would be right where we've always kind of wanted
them to be in the Joe Barrow era, which is
middle of the pack, you know, I mean their top
ten and I think they're tied for tenth. And pressure
rate allowed. We have a stat called adjusted sack average allowed,
and they're, you know, right there in the top twelve.
The running game, their success rate is very high. They're
still digging out from the early season in terms of

(06:57):
what we call adjusted line yards, which try to separate
the line from the running back. But overall, the running
game has obviously been really good the last six seven weeks,
one of the best in football. So the line clearly
has a lot to do with that. They're playing coherently
as a unit. You can see it on Sunday. And
given the fact and all the amount of inks billed
and talk made over the offseason about worrying about the

(07:21):
guard play and how this line was going to come
together and what are they doing, they've gotten what they
have always wanted and what they said they were going
to get. At you, I don't think you can really
say that, and certainly the way they've played. Remember we
talked about how it was a ticking time bound to
put a guy like Joe Flacco behind a line like this. Well,
you know what, it didn't work out. That why the
lines played pretty well and they scored a lot of

(07:41):
points with Joe Flacco. And they can certainly look at
the line. It's not a classically great line like the
Bengals that fielded in the past, and they certainly can
look to upgrade at certain spots and depth in the offseason.
But I think they can certainly look at it and say, hey,
you know what, we've made a lot of strides to overall,
Union has played well. They've been healthy for the most part,

(08:02):
and when guys have had to come in and play,
they've done well too. It's been a decent season from
the offensive line. Who would have thought that coming into here.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
The only thing that I detest right now more than
my mother in law's Cranberry relish that I'm being forced
to eat today is the fourth and one. Let's try
to draw them off sides play and look. I every
team every week tries it. It works occasionally. Bengals tried it.
Tried it against Pittsburgh, it didn't work. Tried it last
week against New England from their own forty five yard

(08:32):
line in the fourth quarter, didn't work. Delay a game penalty.
You're an analytics guy, FTN fantasy. Do do analytics? Maybe
there's no answer to this, but do analytics like the
dreaded fourth and short. Let's try to draw them off
sides with a hard count play.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, you're right, there is no real analytics for it,
because it's really hard to discern what the intended outcome
of the play is. Most of the time, it's just
sort of a it's what the offensive which just love
more than anything else.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Which is play without any real downside or consequences. You know,
the worst that could happen is you take it to
play a game and just punch or almost certainly planning
to do anyway, right. And I think the problem that
you have with it is most of the time it
happens in mission, like you alluded to with the Bengals,
you know, fourth and one, trailing the Pats and then
a good spot to make a fourth down conversion. Instead

(09:23):
of just going for it, which is what analytics does
want you to do. Clearly they don't want to, but
they don't want to just try it out. The punt
team do a chorus of booze immediately, So instead they
go through the motions of doing the fake off side play,
and you know, it hardly ever works, But it's sort
of the offensive inverse of the old you know what,
three things can happen when you throw a pass, and

(09:44):
two of them are bad. You know, in this case,
three things can happen, and only you know one of
them is great. We can draw them off side. So
that's why I think offensive coaches continue to trot it
out there, but almost always it's a situation where if
you just go for it, and you know, don't mess
around under or even try and pretend like you're thinking
about doing something else or you know, trying to you know,

(10:06):
it almost feels like you're utson the other team and
their coaches and saying, hey, look we screwed you. Here
are we geniuses? You know, just line up, get the
first down, or just punt it and be done with
it and trust your defense. Obviously, the Bengals don't trust
either their defense or their ability to make a fourth
down play in that case. So it leads to feeling
like you do, which is like, this is horrible. Why

(10:27):
am I looking at this? And it tastes terrible? Just
like my Thanksgiving turkey whittle with that cranberry on the
side or whatever.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, my love my mother in law, but the cranberry relish,
and I've told this to her face, is truly atrocious.
I propose this. If you try the fourth and one,
you know, try to draw them off sides and then
you have to take a delay a game, I think
the penalty should be like thirty yards. I think that
should be a competition Yes, the competition committee should review that.
There should be a steep penalty if you have to

(10:55):
take a delay, a game penalty after trying the dreaded
fourth and one, try to draw them off sides. Your
thoughts on that, well, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
It's we've talked about this in various other incarnations of
other plays, and especially the tush push I think comes
to mind. It's just it's bad viewing experience. You know,
it's a bad it's bad television. Who wants that? You know,
we know what's happening, We know what everybody's doing, So yeah,
make there have some consequences. Like I say, it's a
risk free play for the offense, and we shouldn't have those.

(11:22):
We should have plays that you know, both teams have
something to gain and lose, So if you don't make it,
you don't get the defense to jump fifteen yards and
you know, a loss of a timeout or something like that. Yeah,
something that would really make the offense think about going
forward more often, which is you know what we all
want to see anyway, and make the game more exciting.
This just lessens the excitement of your regular game, and

(11:44):
who wants that.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
I'm in favor of relinquishing draft picks, maybe relinquish a
whole game next year, A fine for the head coach
like I want the penalty to be steep, So we'll
see if they if they put that on the on
the agenda this offseason. Awesome stuff is always enjoyed the
game tonight, Have a great Thanksgiving and we'll talk to
you next week.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Absolutely, and to you two and to everybody out there,
Happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Robert Wintrop writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine
dot com. Go and read it now. Robert is Awesome
joins us every Thursday on ESPN fifteen thirty. We have
just over an hour ago, getting a set for countdown
to kickoff at seven pm. Let's talk about a guy
who's not going to be on the field tonight for
the Bengals, and it's not t Higgins. That coming up

(12:26):
after the top of the hour news. This is the
RNL Carriers pregame sports talk show, presented by your Cincinnati
and Northern Kentucky Toyota Dealers.

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