December 16, 2025 • 36 mins
Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic and The Growler Podcast joined us to discuss a miserable day for the Bengals, a miserable season for the Bengals, Joe Burrow's future, and more of the same from the venue originally known at Paul Brown Stadium.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week, the Bengals and Dolphins meet up in Miami
for a South Beach showdown. Speaking of the beach, my
swimsuit of choice is a speedo European style. I don't
like those Peski caadlines. The Bengals stool the Dolphins get
the call live from Dan Lloyd and Dave Lapham. The
(00:20):
game kicks off at won DM with covered starting at
nine am Sunday. Stream for free are the new and
improved iHeartRadio app or ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home
of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
All right, that's us. Good afternoon on my legg this
is ESPs to thirty. Thank you so much for joining us.
You having an awesome Tuesday. We are because we're at
Oakley Greens in Oakley, where it is FASTI we are
nine days away from Christmas. You could feel it in
the air here at Oakley Greens. And an awesome place
to celebrate the holidays, to have your holiday happy hours,
(01:00):
a great place to watch the college football Playoff, a
great place to watch the Bengals game on Sunday or
other meaningful NFL games involving good teams. And it is
a great place where tonight the NBA Cup Final takes
place between the Knicks and Spurs, and there's gonna be
a lot of people here for that tonight, watching New
(01:21):
York go for its first NBA championship since nineteen seventy three.
That and so much more here at Oakley Greens. We
love the staff here. They're very welcoming. It's a great
place to hang out with your family. It's a great
place to post up with your buddies, cool place to
take a date, great place to sit by yourself if
you want, which I might do. For the NBA Cup tonight,
we will see Paul Danner juniors here.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
What's up?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The Athletic dot Com is a great knicksbeat writer who
is on the scene in Vegas for Nick Spurs covering
a championship.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I mean, what do you think should the NFL institute
a meaningless Cup in the early season. Maybe that will
help it for some teams that end up playing not
so important games later in the season.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Perhaps that's something in season they could do. I don't
know how you would pull that off. Maybe play for
the first overall pick or something I like that.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Take all the teams that are eliminated, and then they
just play each other at the end, and the winner
of said weird tournament ends up with the number one
overall pick.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I like it what I watched on Sunday. I don't
want to watch that team play anymore.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Some good.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm all right, I don't need any more of that.
I'm trying to convince myself that I should actually watch
these last three games.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, there's not. It doesn't feel like.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
There's a ton of reason to do so. But you know,
it is football, It is the team. It is Joe
Burrow playing, which is interesting to see what that will
look like after what we saw and heard last week. Yeah,
so maybe this week will sound and look different. That
might be reassuring for some people.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Right now, Paul Danner Junior is here covering the Bengals
for The Athletic and the Growlar podcast. The latest episode
came out just a short while ago. Go watch that
on YouTube or get it where you get your podcasts.
You have been on the Bengals beat for fifteen sixteen years.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yep, long time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You've covered a lot of really great days, You've covered
a lot of not so great days. You've covered some
some days that brought about some interesting developments. A lot
You've seen and heard and watched and been through a
lot where on the scale of awful days, not on
the beat, but just awful days for the franchise that
(03:30):
you've had a front row seat for, does where does
Sunday rank?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
It's approaching the.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Twenty ten press conference right, like, which is the one
that I think was the gold standards for a wild
day of just bad day, Like nothing good came of it.
It's up there because that was one thing that went wrong, right,
This was a combination of everything kind of from the
(03:59):
season and that was bubbling under the surface, all coming
out in one spot. And so it's certainly one of
the worst individual days I can remember in recent history.
And it's got to be on a top five list
in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
The season itself is one of the most miserable in
my lifetime. Now that's saying something. I've watched bad Bengals
teams go through bad Bengals seasons from weeks before a
game was played from the Samar Stewart and Trey Hendricks,
And I'm talking about as a fan. I'm not talking
about as like a content guy. I just like somebody
who has rooted for this franchise since I was eight
(04:39):
years old. I liked very little about the offseason. Yet
there were some pretty big expectations. They get off to
a two and zero start, but that's dampened by the
Burrow injury.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So there's all of that.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
There's the five minutes that Flacco was fun, but there's
how they totally created with Jake Browning. There's how they've
given away games that they should have won. There's been
the just exasperation and exhaustion of patients with Duke Tobin
and Zach Taylor by many people, and understandably so, There's
been these unpleasant storylines like Jamar Chase spitting on a
(05:13):
guy like there's there's Joe Burrow's body language and words
last week, and then there's what that looked like on Sunday,
the final meaningful Stanza looking like a page right out
of nineteen ninety four. This this has been as thoroughly
unenjoyable as an NFL season can be.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
And it's it's exasperating because it comes from a spot of,
like you said, high expectations. This is the prime of
Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase and t Higgins, right, this
is man.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
This is gonna be special.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, continuity and all of these things that you liked
and such high hopes for this year, and yeah, the
Burrow injury, those entire seasons for a loose No, that's
it's the obvious part of this. But for it to
feel so disheartening and like such a huge step backward
(06:13):
from any momentum you felt, because it's like it's easy
to forget that there felt like there was momentum. Even
though last year wasn't great. They still were incredible on
offense and went nine to eight, and you felt like, Okay,
there's ways you can fix things. And they did. They
checked the boxes of who Burrow wanted, so it felt like, Okay,
he should be in a good place. He's got his
(06:34):
first full off season to feel ready to go. They're
focused on starting fast. They still have so many winning pieces,
they have so many of the hard things in the
NFL taken care of here, you know, And so when
you had such high expectations and for it to then
between everything that's happened on and off the field, to
(06:55):
feel so disheartening and like such a aggression of any
momentum and giving up and feeling like so many things
where we're referencing the nineties and yeah, and and historical
stats and uh, there's a hopelessness to that that has
this season has just been kind of caked with. And
(07:17):
it's also tapped into like Bengals fans worst fears of
the triggering notion of ruining Joe Burrow wasting his prime,
of reverting to the nineties of his ownership, gonna ruin
this thing that could be so great?
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Will they come back from it?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Will there be you know, the conversation of continuity that's
that's happening today right like, is that are we just
going to go forward? There's just gonna be a dragging
of your feet and comfortable with the same stuff happening
over and over again. These are the triggers of Bengals fans,
certainly specifically really those that have been around yeah for
a while, and they I feel like every trigger has
(07:59):
beenked right. It's been the fighting over contract stuff that's
felt silly with multiple people, and botching of off season
plans that could have been done so much better and
looking like they're asleep at the wheel. All of that
stuff is very triggering of please don't let that be
the case here and there's been this timeframe where it's
(08:21):
felt like maybe it's not and maybe Burrow was covering
up a lot of that, or there are other things
happening reasons why it didn't feel that way, but this
year has been so full of them, and then Sunday
was kind of all of that coming to a head.
When you throw in the stuff that happened with the
snow and the fans being frustrated, the cold, and the
(08:42):
worst performance and it just looking bad and everything about
it piled I think all of that stuff that's felt
triggering and terrible all year kind of felt like it
was all part of one bad Sunday.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Since mid December of twenty nineteen, I have looked at
almost everything that has happened with this franchise through a
pretty optimistic filter, through a very rose colored lens. That's
not to say that everything has gone great, but there's
(09:15):
always been a degree of hope. You know, last year
went poorly, but it's hey, look, Burrow's at the top
of his game, he's healthy. Fix one or two things
on defense, they'll be okay. Maybe not championship caliber, but
not that far away. Two years ago, didn't make the postseason.
You know, what rite it off? Burrow injury, and hey,
(09:36):
look they made it fun down the stretch. They beat
the Jags, beat the Vikings. At least they have their
backup quarterback all right. One year sort of step back,
maybe kind of inevitable after back to back AFC championship games.
They're fine even going back. Burrow's rookie season didn't unfold
the way we would like. But still they got Burrow right,
there's the benefit of experience he gained, and he'll come
(09:57):
back and they'll take off, which they did. I have
for the first time in six years, I've kind of
stopped looking at things through that lens. And Wednesday was
the start of it, admittedly, but you take Wednesday and
then you add to it. Not that they lost. I
said this to you on the Growlery today. I could
look at the box score and tell you they played poorly.
(10:17):
You had to have seen that. You had to have
watched that to see what it looked like. Now, Joe
had help in playing poorly, you know, drops, Jamar Chase, uncharacteristic,
Andrey Yoshabas Mitchell Tinsley had one of the back in
the end zone like he had help. But I watched
that second half. I watched the body language. I watched
the lack of urgency. I watched a quarterback who was
(10:39):
the antithesis of everything I've come to know and love
about this guy. And I add to it the weirdness
of last Wednesday. Add to it just the way the
season is unfolded, the lack of patients with people who
are probably still going to be in place. For me,
and I'm talking about as a fan, this is the
first time in a while that I have felt this way.
(10:59):
Everything else has been pretty positive, pretty forward thinking, relatively upbeat.
Now it's hard to feel that way. Yeah, And we've.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Seen this as we've done you know, I love doing
our fan survey every year. That'll be fun. Yeah, Well,
because it's really you can because then you can see
this coming.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, like you see when you could.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Go year over year in the same way you've seen
that like tick down. The trust levels have ticked down
each year the last couple of years. And that's not
just connected to winning. It's connected to watching how everything's
going down and you're seeing the seeds being planted of
what you're describing now, which is kind of the blooming
(11:42):
of all of that stuff. That's happening where it's like
this is this is what it feels like when it
falls apart, and that's really it's it's hard, it's hard
to look past.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Now.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I think that this is also stuff that is that
changes in a few months of an off season.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Oh I'm ready for it.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean you know, because you'll get it'll get
explained away and it figured out. A few minor moves
will happen. Maybe there'll even be a really good week
of free agency. Maybe there will be a week that
feels like twenty one or twenty two or whatever in
free agency where it's like real defensive pieces show up,
and then you'll get excited about the draft and they'll
have a top ten pick and they'll they'll bring somebody
(12:23):
in that you like, and next thing you know, it's
like you're back.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
You're bought in.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Burrows saying all the right things like Burrow will make
you feel better, like yes, the season, the last press
conference of the season, yea, Burrow will be like I
believe in everybody here, and you know, I think that
we have the right people in place. It was important
to me that they're here. You can hear this stuff now,
making soothing, making people feel better and keeping people believing
(12:48):
in that, having hope in that, and that it can
turn around.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You can write many of your off season stories now
and just play in names.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Right, it's just a matter of who it's gonna be
and and that's the way.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
That's the way it can go.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And that's the way it went honestly around here for
a long time. I mean when there was rough patches
or even in the good times of the March and
the Marvin Lewis era there where where it felt repetitive
the way they would lose in the postseason. But there
was always a reason every year where this next one
would be different, right, and this is there's a reason
that it could be different. And the bottom line is
(13:22):
they did play the vast majority of this season without
Joe Burrow. The bottom line is the defense did get
incrementally better since the buye like these you can you
can like these are the things that are gonna happen.
They are gonna there's gonna be an attempt to build
optimism and hope on it. And why this was an outlier, Well,
convince ourselves of.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
These Oh we will, yeah, I'll you'll take a break
from me in late June, and you'll come back and
late July do your pre cam show with me, and
I'll tell you they're gonna win eleven games. I know,
but but it feels like I'm further away from that
than I've ever Yeah, in this era.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
They any benefit of the doubt that they lived with
and were bestowed because of all of the goodwill of
twenty one and twenty two is totally gone. They still
had some before this year. Yes, I think you very
much had some with everybody involved in this and this year,
(14:23):
calendar year, not season. This calendar year has taken that away.
I think that's what you're referring to.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
To me, it's it's the hope that, like well with Burrow,
everybody will rise up. Everything has kind of has changed.
There is a new way of doing things, and that
it can feel there. I just think the benefit of
the doubt of it'll be okay with Burrow here Burrow
can help keep this franchise feeling different. It's been clear
that not only maybe he can't, but it could break
(14:53):
him trying.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
To do so.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
The highlight of the last calendar year was the t
and Jamar press conference, and even that came with it
this tinge of not regret, but okay, are they really
going to fix the other stuff? Why did this take
as long as it did? How much are they going
to be in peril because of the length of time
(15:17):
it took to get these two done? Like it the
high point of your calendar year. Can't be a press conference?
Yeah for two players who have been here for a while.
The Steelers game, okay, the Flacco that was fun.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah, like I'm a Flacoh.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Thursday night against the Steelers, I would say, was I'm
a Flaco fan for life.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, I'm a Flaco fan for life because of that
that was that was a blast. And the days right
after that when you were kind of like convincing yourself,
all right, you know, maybe maybe maybe they can buy
just enough time to mid December and the like the
cruel irony of it all is Burrow came back earlier,
earlier than we were into this is the week we
were targeting him coming back, like, oh, just keep it
(15:57):
afloat until the Miami game.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Well, no one could, including.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Joe, Yeah, no one could, including Joe.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
And and even Thanksgiving into that into that mix where
it was like rice is fun what a cool, feel
good story and and you know it's it's the week
to week of this league, and you got it. You
do have to come back and and look at it
through the whole picture at the end. And I just
you know, from my angle where I sit, I hope
that however they go forward, that there are real lessons
(16:29):
that enact change in the way that they operate. If
it is going to be the same people doing it,
that there can be change in the understanding what happened
off the field this year and the impact that it
had in the on field product, the airs that it created,
and how much of that lack of weather we're talking
(16:50):
about communication across everybody, which was the you know, the
word that of the of the year back in January,
February and March. Communication and all of that to the
mistakes that it ended up leading to of not having
a team that was built up well enough to handle it,
specifically defensively this year, that all sides learn something, whether
(17:11):
it's clarity, whether it's how to approach things, whether it's
the need to be far more aggressive in what they're doing,
that there can be some kind of lessons. That's where
the hope is going to have to live, because any
hope that you're talking about is not gonna it's not
gonna come from from anybody that's currently here now. It's
gonna have to come from people that are acquired in
(17:33):
free agency, making things feel different or something that sounds
and feels different other than what we've kind of gotten.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
This three fifteen less Sunday, the Bengals are in Buffalo,
leading by ten. Burrow has played great, and I'm like, dude,
like this this may happen. And exactly one week later,
at around three fifteen on Sunday, I'm watching a team
that looks like it's checked out and I barely finish
the game like it was. It was remarkable to me
(18:02):
how quickly I went just me. I went from all right, man,
like get a stop here, and they will have gone
to Buffalo and bad weather and beating the Bills again,
and the Ravens are coming, and boy, here we go
to four and ten, wondering if Burrough should play. There's
a disconnect and I feel nothing but despare.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Welcome to the margins in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Twenty four minutes after three o'clock. He's Paul Danner Junior.
I'm Moeger. He's here till four. I'm here till six.
We're at Oakley Greens in Oakley on ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Station twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
After three o'clock he ESPN fifteen thirty, we're broadcasting from
Oakley Greens. We went along that segment, so I got
to get back on time. We will talk about Joe Burrow.
We will talk about how the Bengals changed without firing people,
players who have stuff to prove over these last three games,
and what happened with Zach Moss because he called him
(18:56):
the worst franchise in sports, and I want to spend
some time on that. Paul Day and her juniors here
from the Growler podcast and the Athletic dot Com.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
He wrote a piece today that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It was well written and uh and insightful and comes
from a place of being very well sourced.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm not sure it's going to be received very well.
I'm sorry. I don't this is not I don't want
it to be like this, Like I don't want to
be the one that has to say this stuff. I
feel bad. I felt like I opened the podcast day
and I just said I'm sorry, like I don't.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, it's it's not my fault.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
You.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
The headline of the piece should have been well, actually,
well right, because that's what it was. Yeah, yeah, you're
you're the well actually Paul Damis, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Well actually I hate I hate to be the bearer
of bad news, which is you know, this is for
some people, very bad news. And that's just I'm sorry.
That's all I can say.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Go read that at the Athletic dot Com. We'll talk
about it when we come back to Oakley Greens three
thirty on ESPN fifteen thirty. Since at the sports station
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
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(20:28):
Traffic being directed around the spot. Gonna be best to
find an alternate route. And on State Route thirty two,
an accident at Harold Road. I'm at ezelic with traffic.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
This report is sponsorble.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
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to yours for life, kelseyshef dot com be reds Hall
of Fame class of twenty twenty six was announced a
short while ago. Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang, Reggie Sanders, and
the Great lou Panela will be inducted on the weekend
(21:02):
of February twenty four through twenty six. Weekend culminates with
the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at the Cincinnati Convention Center. Meanwhile,
college basketball tonight, the undefeated Miami RedHawks take on Wright State.
The Dayton Flyers have a game tonight against Florida State,
and hockey this evening, the Blue Jackets skate against the
Anaheim Ducks Paul Danner Juniors. Was any Bengals news anything happened?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Not that enough?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
What is the most responsible way to process and talk
about everything that has happened over the last half week
With Joe.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Burrow, I don't know. I mean, I think I think
having some perspective over where he's at in how hard
this year has been for him, like, I just think
understanding that these the end of long seasons that are
(22:06):
very challenging on multiple fronts leave you in weird places
that take time to recover from. And he has been
forced to speak to us when he is probably not
fully mentally recovered from what he's had to go through
(22:26):
in terms of obviously his incredible strain to get back
from the injury and then to come back to a
team that went one to eight without him and recognize
how steep the cline was going to be when he's like, man,
I got myself back and playing, and then and then
and then to lose a game in a way that
(22:46):
it felt like they lost every game in twenty twenty
four in Buffalo, and what.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
That does to you. I just feel like the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
He could probably have used an off season to come
back in April and be like rejuvenated in a better
head space, but he's had to because he's come back
kind of emote and go through it therapeutically a little
bit in front of us. And I think that's hard.
I think that's hard when you're dealing with a lot
of new feelings a little bit, you know what I mean.
(23:20):
I think he's coming to terms with a lot of
the stuff of where the cape's kind of been ripped
off of him a little bit, and how hard the
rehab must have been. And I just think perspective on
how hard this year has been on him, and some
grace that probably should be given to him because of
that is where I start.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Obviously a lot of folks have taken this conversation and
advanced it to places where Joe was going to request
to trade this offseason and which team should be, you know,
pushing the other ones out of the way to go
ahead and trade for him, And he's gonna pull a
car Center, He's gonna pull and Andrew Luck. All of
that stuff seem to me to be premature, right, Yes,
(24:04):
you agree, yes, But but I do understand why people
go there.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean, there's the reputation here over the law
Hall is earned, there's a history of it, and people
can literally reference another number one overall pick yeah, who's done.
Like I understand why it goes there, I also understand
that this is the NFL entertainment business. This is how
(24:30):
it goes. There is some preconceived notion, some thing that
that will fill airwaves and that has right. I mean,
it's like, why do people talk about Tim Tebow so much?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
One thing?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Why do people talk There's just there are certain things.
And since the day that Joe Burrow was potentially going
to become a bangle in twenty twenty, this has been
a thing of Joe Burrow doesn't want to be in Cincinnati,
And there is this idea that at every turn, whenever
(25:03):
it can feel like you can say it, it's gonna
be said loud, and it's by a lot of people,
is that Joe Burrow is never gonna want to be INSINCENTI.
He can't want to be in Cincinnati. I think that's
fueled by a lot of people with agendas across the
league that will help build that up. And whatever if
it's if it's networks, if it's shouty shows, if it's
(25:25):
whatever like that stuff that that does drive attention. He's
a star in a small market that has been forever criticized.
So yes, it's gonna be obvious people are gonna try
to plant that seat a little bit. And so I
just think that's that's where so much of this comes from.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yet Joe Burrow knows all that.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, and so when.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
He offers this demeanor that is different than what we see.
He knows that, he knows where that's gonna go, and
he knows how it's gonna be consumed. So I think
then people go, well, he's he's using that platform to
send a message.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Maybe, but that message can be misconstrued potentially. But I've said,
I feel like there's some version of smoke here obviously right.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
After the game.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't think that there's there's
anything like that.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But I also something's broken, Yes, like something between Wednesday
and Sunday. Your takeaway doesn't have to be he's going
to demand a trade or he's going to retire. My
takeaway is something's off, which, by the way, they're four
and ten, things are going to be off.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
But there is.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I think we first suspected it on Wednesday, and then
to me that game on Sunday, just how it looked,
not that they lost, how it looked like something's a miss,
something's fractured.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, I think I think it feels that way with
with where he's at and I and I think whatever
he was maybe trying to do on Wednesday maybe didn't
come across how he wanted or mean, he just wants
it to be clear that he's not happy, or maybe
he didn't like how people were contemplating that he lost
his edge because he was happy to play with his
(27:07):
friends and talked about that after both Thanksgiving and Buffalo. Yeah,
and maybe he wanted to make it clear that I'm
not happy with losing whatever, like you said, some version
of the calculated.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I mean, none of us can pretend to be inside
a jumps He's a very unique dude. Yeah, and so
I can't say what his thing was, but you know,
you do get the sense that he probably didn't like
the way that it came out, and I think it
was fitting or at least very notable. How he instantly
said this was not about Cincinnati on Sunday to make
(27:43):
it clear that, you know, I don't want this to
be about my teammates or the people in this building.
It's just whatever I'm going through. But yeah, I do
think he wants to make it clear I'm not happy
and that.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
It's it's it's.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Time and this is what I wrote. It's time for
this organization to build this dude back up. Yeah, like
they it is their responsibility. I'm not putting it on
Joe anymore. He has done enough carrying, okay, and this
dude has been through it. It is time for this
organization to finally really build this dude back up and
put a team around him that can allow him to
(28:17):
not feel like he has to be perfect all the
time and not feel like the weight of the world
is on him all the time. He may still put
it on himself to some degree, but they just have
to and if they can't do it this year, then
it's on them whatever hell happens next.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
You wrote last week about basically Joe Burrow the football genius,
good time, good time. I know, I know that one
didn't go so I read that in the fourth quarter
on sad It.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
I know, I know it was bad time.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Up to this point, up to this point, his ability
to set protections and and like diagnose everything that was
going and then he goes out and has maybe his
worst game in that regard that we've seen.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I don't know. It's my fault. I take this is
my fault. I'm sorry. This is why we just shouldn't
write anything.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Okay, It's like you just shouldn't write anything. You know,
like it's immediately gonna be proven wrong.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Apparently, when when you say you stuff on the radio,
it just sort of goes away.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
For the last part.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You put that on the Athletic that that bad boy
Liz forever.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I believe he will come back and still be good
at this. It was just a one off. It's just
a one off.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Like, all right, I got more to ask you. It's
quarter to four. Paul Danner, Junior, the Athletic dot Com
on the Growler Podcast. He's here till four at Oakley Greens.
We were here till six on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati
Sports Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
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Speaker 2 (30:09):
Report thirty Paul Danner Junior for another few minutes.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
We've reached the point of the season.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Why I watched games from my fingers because Joe Burrow
is gonna play.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, anything that can change that, I don't know. It
seems like he's going to do they want him to,
he wants to, So I think he's gonna play.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
By te Higgins, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I mean, the fact that he was back kind of
even in any capacity in practice, makes you think that
it's it's possible. I don't love the idea of him
going back out there the rest of the year, but
you know, we don't. We don't know. It's hard. It's
hard to know right now with when you get into
concussion protocol stuff.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
But Jamar Stewart, Yeah, I think you're gonna see him soon.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah. I mean, if there's anything be kind of nice.
If there's anything to get out of these last three weeks,
it's that dude needs wraps.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah, and so just.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Put him out there and let him play a ton
and make mistakes and whatever, and just because the thing
that he's missing is he just doesn't have any experience
he did. He didn't get any hardly in the offseason.
He you know, he was limited with it. It really
been injured almost all year. Let him go play and
just what who the games won't matter anyway, Just get
(31:23):
him a bunch of snaps.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, speaking of letting guys play so they can make mistakes,
Genostone gonna be unchallenged last three games at this point,
what's the matter, right? I kind of want to watch
the last three games the Geno Stone players that.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
No?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Why not? Just let him?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Let him play?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Zack Moss sounded off on the whole seat snow blowing thing.
He says, it's worse franchise in sports. Uh take us
back to how things end it with Zach Mows and
so should he have an axe to grind?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, I think he. I don't think he loved how
everything was handled with his next situation. I remember writing
that way, but it kind of feels like forever. Yeah,
it was back in the beginning of August. Wasn't that
long ago? But yeah, I mean, I don't think he
loved the way things were handled with his injury. And
(32:15):
now when he talked to me, he didn't go as
far as to go there. But you could tell that
he wasn't super thrilled with everything. But I think he
was also wrestling with like if his career was over
or not. And I also think that there was a
lot of stuff going on there. So yeah, I mean
when it ends weird, then yeah, you're gonna have some
(32:37):
kind of an extagrind. But I don't that that one
came out of left field for me. I didn't didn't
see I didn't see the Zach Moss.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
No, from the top, I didn't think Zach Moss would
be somebody I ever talked about again. And nothing against Zach,
but I just figured I'd shove him away forever and
that would be it.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
But back in our lives, back in our lives.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
No snow on the seats in the press box.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Everything was fine.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, it was great, actually really enjoyable experience for me.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, yeah, no issues, It must be must be nice.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It was nice that the chip ice off the seat
before you sit down and watch the game.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, that was a pretty stunning one to walk up to,
like just to just to sit down and just be like, wait, yeah,
everything is covered, yes, you know it looked. It was
pretty It looked gorgo actually was and it's very aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Uh, misopportunity.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I drove, I drove downtown. We did our show at
the Grail, you did yours. Next I saw you walking past.
You could not have looked more miserable and that cold,
and we talked about it on the air.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Oh I didn't. Well, I knew, I knew. So I
really wanted to go get a shot of the river
steaming because it looks cool. And I was like, I'm
gonna go get the shot. I don't care how cold
it is. And then as soon as I started walking
and I heard your guys voices to the grail we
saw you, I was like, oh, no, they're going to
say something. Yeah, And I was that fine, you know what,
say what they want. I don't care. I don't care.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
It is cold, so what.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
But anyway, so as coming down seventy five and turn
on to you know, second Street, you could see the
upper deck of the stadium and it looks like an
arena does when everybody gets a white T shirt at
their seats.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Yes, it looked cool. That was my first thought.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I said, Oh, are they doing like a white T shirt?
Playoff game? Truly, that was my number one my initial thought.
And then I looked close and I leaned in a
little bit, and I was like, that's all snow. Yeah,
how about that? All snow?
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Snow? How about that? Who knew? And then I had
the snarky tweet.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You getta push back for that? No, I don't know.
Maybe if there was, what are you gonna say?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a fact. They didn't blow
off the seat.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
It was just it was just a fact.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Here it is welcome we fans for coming to the game.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Here it is.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Here's you're coming in to the game. Here's your your
s sheets covered in sea.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Here's the thing, though, if you if you know that
that's going to be the case, you bring in like bourbon,
well Bourbon slush with snow on this. It's that's clean snow.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
At my house, whenever it snows like this and we're
stuck inside, my kids made snow cream. We go, we
get the ice cream, mix it up with like the
vanilla and the cream and everything, and you make like,
that's what they should have done. They should have had that. Yeah, everybody,
we we left it on your seat so that you
could have a free ice cream at your sea.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
We have flavored snow dye. Yeah, problem is we left
the flavored snow dye sit outside, so it also froze, yeah,
and thus was not usable. My daughter was taking one
of the bottles of flavored frozen snow dye and like
like trying to like beat it against the chairy what
you don't She's like, I'm trying to make it, you know,
liquid again.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah, Like that's that's really.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Not how it works. That's not how it works. Run
onto some hot water for you. All right, Well, thank
you as always. It was pleasure, It really was.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Thanks you for coming.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Paul Danner Junior the Athletic dot Com covering the Bengals
the Growl of podcast. Follow him at Paul Danner Junior
and uh eighty one degrees in Miami.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
On side going, I am going, all right, yes, I
have I have a book. Okay, I plan on being
near a pool. Oh I mean, and uh, I'm gonna
enjoy that and I'm gonna try to make the most
out of it. Nice. That's all I can do. And
then you know, obviously really gonna grind over the tape
of this game.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I will be in Greenville, South Carolina for UC versus
Clemson O game with major NCAA turn him.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Absolutely please absolutely Have you been? Have you been to Greenville?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
No? No, Well, I'm sure there'll be a great experience. Yeah,
it's not bad.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Paul Danner, junior at the Athletic dot Com. I'm sure
Greenville is lovely.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
It is.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
You talk about a team that has me salty. You
would do another hour? Huh No, No, you want to
do an you want to do a whole other hour.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
I don't think it would matter whether I was here.
We would just mention that team and then you would
just go off for an hour. So I'll just leave
and keep listening in.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
My life right now? Yeah, I know, all right, We're
at Oakley Greens. Paul's leaving. We're here till six. This
is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati sports station.
This week, the Bengals and Dolphins meet up in Miami
for a South Beach showdown. Speaking of the beach, my
swimsuit of choice is a speedo European style. I don't
like those Peski caadlines. The Bengals stool the Dolphins get
the call live from Dan Lloyd and Dave Lapham. The
(00:20):
game kicks off at won DM with covered starting at
nine am Sunday. Stream for free are the new and
improved iHeartRadio app or ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home
of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
All right, that's us. Good afternoon on my legg this
is ESPs to thirty. Thank you so much for joining us.
You having an awesome Tuesday. We are because we're at
Oakley Greens in Oakley, where it is FASTI we are
nine days away from Christmas. You could feel it in
the air here at Oakley Greens. And an awesome place
to celebrate the holidays, to have your holiday happy hours,
(01:00):
a great place to watch the college football Playoff, a
great place to watch the Bengals game on Sunday or
other meaningful NFL games involving good teams. And it is
a great place where tonight the NBA Cup Final takes
place between the Knicks and Spurs, and there's gonna be
a lot of people here for that tonight, watching New
(01:21):
York go for its first NBA championship since nineteen seventy three.
That and so much more here at Oakley Greens. We
love the staff here. They're very welcoming. It's a great
place to hang out with your family. It's a great
place to post up with your buddies, cool place to
take a date, great place to sit by yourself if
you want, which I might do. For the NBA Cup tonight,
we will see Paul Danner juniors here.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
What's up?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The Athletic dot Com is a great knicksbeat writer who
is on the scene in Vegas for Nick Spurs covering
a championship.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I mean, what do you think should the NFL institute
a meaningless Cup in the early season. Maybe that will
help it for some teams that end up playing not
so important games later in the season.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Perhaps that's something in season they could do. I don't
know how you would pull that off. Maybe play for
the first overall pick or something I like that.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Take all the teams that are eliminated, and then they
just play each other at the end, and the winner
of said weird tournament ends up with the number one
overall pick.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I like it what I watched on Sunday. I don't
want to watch that team play anymore.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Some good.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm all right, I don't need any more of that.
I'm trying to convince myself that I should actually watch
these last three games.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, there's not. It doesn't feel like.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
There's a ton of reason to do so. But you know,
it is football, It is the team. It is Joe
Burrow playing, which is interesting to see what that will
look like after what we saw and heard last week. Yeah,
so maybe this week will sound and look different. That
might be reassuring for some people.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Right now, Paul Danner Junior is here covering the Bengals
for The Athletic and the Growlar podcast. The latest episode
came out just a short while ago. Go watch that
on YouTube or get it where you get your podcasts.
You have been on the Bengals beat for fifteen sixteen years.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yep, long time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
You've covered a lot of really great days, You've covered
a lot of not so great days. You've covered some
some days that brought about some interesting developments. A lot
You've seen and heard and watched and been through a
lot where on the scale of awful days, not on
the beat, but just awful days for the franchise that
(03:30):
you've had a front row seat for, does where does
Sunday rank?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
It's approaching the.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Twenty ten press conference right, like, which is the one
that I think was the gold standards for a wild
day of just bad day, Like nothing good came of it.
It's up there because that was one thing that went wrong, right,
This was a combination of everything kind of from the
(03:59):
season and that was bubbling under the surface, all coming
out in one spot. And so it's certainly one of
the worst individual days I can remember in recent history.
And it's got to be on a top five list
in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
The season itself is one of the most miserable in
my lifetime. Now that's saying something. I've watched bad Bengals
teams go through bad Bengals seasons from weeks before a
game was played from the Samar Stewart and Trey Hendricks,
And I'm talking about as a fan. I'm not talking
about as like a content guy. I just like somebody
who has rooted for this franchise since I was eight
(04:39):
years old. I liked very little about the offseason. Yet
there were some pretty big expectations. They get off to
a two and zero start, but that's dampened by the
Burrow injury.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So there's all of that.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
There's the five minutes that Flacco was fun, but there's
how they totally created with Jake Browning. There's how they've
given away games that they should have won. There's been
the just exasperation and exhaustion of patients with Duke Tobin
and Zach Taylor by many people, and understandably so, There's
been these unpleasant storylines like Jamar Chase spitting on a
(05:13):
guy like there's there's Joe Burrow's body language and words
last week, and then there's what that looked like on Sunday,
the final meaningful Stanza looking like a page right out
of nineteen ninety four. This this has been as thoroughly
unenjoyable as an NFL season can be.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
And it's it's exasperating because it comes from a spot of,
like you said, high expectations. This is the prime of
Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase and t Higgins, right, this
is man.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
This is gonna be special.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, continuity and all of these things that you liked
and such high hopes for this year, and yeah, the
Burrow injury, those entire seasons for a loose No, that's
it's the obvious part of this. But for it to
feel so disheartening and like such a huge step backward
(06:13):
from any momentum you felt, because it's like it's easy
to forget that there felt like there was momentum. Even
though last year wasn't great. They still were incredible on
offense and went nine to eight, and you felt like, Okay,
there's ways you can fix things. And they did. They
checked the boxes of who Burrow wanted, so it felt like, Okay,
he should be in a good place. He's got his
(06:34):
first full off season to feel ready to go. They're
focused on starting fast. They still have so many winning pieces,
they have so many of the hard things in the
NFL taken care of here, you know, And so when
you had such high expectations and for it to then
between everything that's happened on and off the field, to
(06:55):
feel so disheartening and like such a aggression of any
momentum and giving up and feeling like so many things
where we're referencing the nineties and yeah, and and historical
stats and uh, there's a hopelessness to that that has
this season has just been kind of caked with. And
(07:17):
it's also tapped into like Bengals fans worst fears of
the triggering notion of ruining Joe Burrow wasting his prime,
of reverting to the nineties of his ownership, gonna ruin
this thing that could be so great?
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Will they come back from it?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Will there be you know, the conversation of continuity that's
that's happening today right like, is that are we just
going to go forward? There's just gonna be a dragging
of your feet and comfortable with the same stuff happening
over and over again. These are the triggers of Bengals fans,
certainly specifically really those that have been around yeah for
a while, and they I feel like every trigger has
(07:59):
beenked right. It's been the fighting over contract stuff that's
felt silly with multiple people, and botching of off season
plans that could have been done so much better and
looking like they're asleep at the wheel. All of that
stuff is very triggering of please don't let that be
the case here and there's been this timeframe where it's
(08:21):
felt like maybe it's not and maybe Burrow was covering
up a lot of that, or there are other things
happening reasons why it didn't feel that way, but this
year has been so full of them, and then Sunday
was kind of all of that coming to a head.
When you throw in the stuff that happened with the
snow and the fans being frustrated, the cold, and the
(08:42):
worst performance and it just looking bad and everything about
it piled I think all of that stuff that's felt
triggering and terrible all year kind of felt like it
was all part of one bad Sunday.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Since mid December of twenty nineteen, I have looked at
almost everything that has happened with this franchise through a
pretty optimistic filter, through a very rose colored lens. That's
not to say that everything has gone great, but there's
(09:15):
always been a degree of hope. You know, last year
went poorly, but it's hey, look, Burrow's at the top
of his game, he's healthy. Fix one or two things
on defense, they'll be okay. Maybe not championship caliber, but
not that far away. Two years ago, didn't make the postseason.
You know, what rite it off? Burrow injury, and hey,
(09:36):
look they made it fun down the stretch. They beat
the Jags, beat the Vikings. At least they have their
backup quarterback all right. One year sort of step back,
maybe kind of inevitable after back to back AFC championship games.
They're fine even going back. Burrow's rookie season didn't unfold
the way we would like. But still they got Burrow right,
there's the benefit of experience he gained, and he'll come
(09:57):
back and they'll take off, which they did. I have
for the first time in six years, I've kind of
stopped looking at things through that lens. And Wednesday was
the start of it, admittedly, but you take Wednesday and
then you add to it. Not that they lost. I
said this to you on the Growlery today. I could
look at the box score and tell you they played poorly.
(10:17):
You had to have seen that. You had to have
watched that to see what it looked like. Now, Joe
had help in playing poorly, you know, drops, Jamar Chase, uncharacteristic,
Andrey Yoshabas Mitchell Tinsley had one of the back in
the end zone like he had help. But I watched
that second half. I watched the body language. I watched
the lack of urgency. I watched a quarterback who was
(10:39):
the antithesis of everything I've come to know and love
about this guy. And I add to it the weirdness
of last Wednesday. Add to it just the way the
season is unfolded, the lack of patients with people who
are probably still going to be in place. For me,
and I'm talking about as a fan, this is the
first time in a while that I have felt this way.
(10:59):
Everything else has been pretty positive, pretty forward thinking, relatively upbeat.
Now it's hard to feel that way. Yeah, And we've.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Seen this as we've done you know, I love doing
our fan survey every year. That'll be fun. Yeah, Well,
because it's really you can because then you can see
this coming.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, like you see when you could.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Go year over year in the same way you've seen
that like tick down. The trust levels have ticked down
each year the last couple of years. And that's not
just connected to winning. It's connected to watching how everything's
going down and you're seeing the seeds being planted of
what you're describing now, which is kind of the blooming
(11:42):
of all of that stuff. That's happening where it's like
this is this is what it feels like when it
falls apart, and that's really it's it's hard, it's hard
to look past.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Now.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I think that this is also stuff that is that
changes in a few months of an off season.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Oh I'm ready for it.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean you know, because you'll get it'll get
explained away and it figured out. A few minor moves
will happen. Maybe there'll even be a really good week
of free agency. Maybe there will be a week that
feels like twenty one or twenty two or whatever in
free agency where it's like real defensive pieces show up,
and then you'll get excited about the draft and they'll
have a top ten pick and they'll they'll bring somebody
(12:23):
in that you like, and next thing you know, it's
like you're back.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
You're bought in.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Burrows saying all the right things like Burrow will make
you feel better, like yes, the season, the last press
conference of the season, yea, Burrow will be like I
believe in everybody here, and you know, I think that
we have the right people in place. It was important
to me that they're here. You can hear this stuff now,
making soothing, making people feel better and keeping people believing
(12:48):
in that, having hope in that, and that it can
turn around.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
You can write many of your off season stories now
and just play in names.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Right, it's just a matter of who it's gonna be
and and that's the way.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
That's the way it can go.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And that's the way it went honestly around here for
a long time. I mean when there was rough patches
or even in the good times of the March and
the Marvin Lewis era there where where it felt repetitive
the way they would lose in the postseason. But there
was always a reason every year where this next one
would be different, right, and this is there's a reason
that it could be different. And the bottom line is
(13:22):
they did play the vast majority of this season without
Joe Burrow. The bottom line is the defense did get
incrementally better since the buye like these you can you
can like these are the things that are gonna happen.
They are gonna there's gonna be an attempt to build
optimism and hope on it. And why this was an outlier, Well,
convince ourselves of.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
These Oh we will, yeah, I'll you'll take a break
from me in late June, and you'll come back and
late July do your pre cam show with me, and
I'll tell you they're gonna win eleven games. I know,
but but it feels like I'm further away from that
than I've ever Yeah, in this era.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
They any benefit of the doubt that they lived with
and were bestowed because of all of the goodwill of
twenty one and twenty two is totally gone. They still
had some before this year. Yes, I think you very
much had some with everybody involved in this and this year,
(14:23):
calendar year, not season. This calendar year has taken that away.
I think that's what you're referring to.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
To me, it's it's the hope that, like well with Burrow,
everybody will rise up. Everything has kind of has changed.
There is a new way of doing things, and that
it can feel there. I just think the benefit of
the doubt of it'll be okay with Burrow here Burrow
can help keep this franchise feeling different. It's been clear
that not only maybe he can't, but it could break
(14:53):
him trying.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
To do so.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
The highlight of the last calendar year was the t
and Jamar press conference, and even that came with it
this tinge of not regret, but okay, are they really
going to fix the other stuff? Why did this take
as long as it did? How much are they going
to be in peril because of the length of time
(15:17):
it took to get these two done? Like it the
high point of your calendar year. Can't be a press conference?
Yeah for two players who have been here for a while.
The Steelers game, okay, the Flacco that was fun.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah, like I'm a Flacoh.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Thursday night against the Steelers, I would say, was I'm
a Flaco fan for life.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, I'm a Flaco fan for life because of that
that was that was a blast. And the days right
after that when you were kind of like convincing yourself,
all right, you know, maybe maybe maybe they can buy
just enough time to mid December and the like the
cruel irony of it all is Burrow came back earlier,
earlier than we were into this is the week we
were targeting him coming back, like, oh, just keep it
(15:57):
afloat until the Miami game.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Well, no one could, including.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Joe, Yeah, no one could, including Joe.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
And and even Thanksgiving into that into that mix where
it was like rice is fun what a cool, feel
good story and and you know it's it's the week
to week of this league, and you got it. You
do have to come back and and look at it
through the whole picture at the end. And I just
you know, from my angle where I sit, I hope
that however they go forward, that there are real lessons
(16:29):
that enact change in the way that they operate. If
it is going to be the same people doing it,
that there can be change in the understanding what happened
off the field this year and the impact that it
had in the on field product, the airs that it created,
and how much of that lack of weather we're talking
(16:50):
about communication across everybody, which was the you know, the
word that of the of the year back in January,
February and March. Communication and all of that to the
mistakes that it ended up leading to of not having
a team that was built up well enough to handle it,
specifically defensively this year, that all sides learn something, whether
(17:11):
it's clarity, whether it's how to approach things, whether it's
the need to be far more aggressive in what they're doing,
that there can be some kind of lessons. That's where
the hope is going to have to live, because any
hope that you're talking about is not gonna it's not
gonna come from from anybody that's currently here now. It's
gonna have to come from people that are acquired in
(17:33):
free agency, making things feel different or something that sounds
and feels different other than what we've kind of gotten.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
This three fifteen less Sunday, the Bengals are in Buffalo,
leading by ten. Burrow has played great, and I'm like, dude,
like this this may happen. And exactly one week later,
at around three fifteen on Sunday, I'm watching a team
that looks like it's checked out and I barely finish
the game like it was. It was remarkable to me
(18:02):
how quickly I went just me. I went from all right, man,
like get a stop here, and they will have gone
to Buffalo and bad weather and beating the Bills again,
and the Ravens are coming, and boy, here we go
to four and ten, wondering if Burrough should play. There's
a disconnect and I feel nothing but despare.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Welcome to the margins in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Twenty four minutes after three o'clock. He's Paul Danner Junior.
I'm Moeger. He's here till four. I'm here till six.
We're at Oakley Greens in Oakley on ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Station twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
After three o'clock he ESPN fifteen thirty, we're broadcasting from
Oakley Greens. We went along that segment, so I got
to get back on time. We will talk about Joe Burrow.
We will talk about how the Bengals changed without firing people,
players who have stuff to prove over these last three games,
and what happened with Zach Moss because he called him
(18:56):
the worst franchise in sports, and I want to spend
some time on that. Paul Day and her juniors here
from the Growler podcast and the Athletic dot Com.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
He wrote a piece today that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It was well written and uh and insightful and comes
from a place of being very well sourced.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm not sure it's going to be received very well.
I'm sorry. I don't this is not I don't want
it to be like this, Like I don't want to
be the one that has to say this stuff. I
feel bad. I felt like I opened the podcast day
and I just said I'm sorry, like I don't.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, it's it's not my fault.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
You.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
The headline of the piece should have been well, actually,
well right, because that's what it was. Yeah, yeah, you're
you're the well actually Paul Damis, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Well actually I hate I hate to be the bearer
of bad news, which is you know, this is for
some people, very bad news. And that's just I'm sorry.
That's all I can say.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Go read that at the Athletic dot Com. We'll talk
about it when we come back to Oakley Greens three
thirty on ESPN fifteen thirty. Since at the sports station
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. U SE Cancer Center
offers advanced surgical options for complex liver and pancreas cancers,
and clinical trials you won't find anywhere else. Get a
second opinion now called five one, three, five eight five
UCCCE on Bypass four still got an accident over at
State Route one twenty nine, Emergency crews blocking all lanes.
(20:28):
Traffic being directed around the spot. Gonna be best to
find an alternate route. And on State Route thirty two,
an accident at Harold Road. I'm at ezelic with traffic.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
This report is sponsorble.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Sidelines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, Home of lifetime
powertrain protection and guarantee credit approval from They are family
to yours for life, kelseyshef dot com be reds Hall
of Fame class of twenty twenty six was announced a
short while ago. Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang, Reggie Sanders, and
the Great lou Panela will be inducted on the weekend
(21:02):
of February twenty four through twenty six. Weekend culminates with
the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at the Cincinnati Convention Center. Meanwhile,
college basketball tonight, the undefeated Miami RedHawks take on Wright State.
The Dayton Flyers have a game tonight against Florida State,
and hockey this evening, the Blue Jackets skate against the
Anaheim Ducks Paul Danner Juniors. Was any Bengals news anything happened?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Not that enough?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
What is the most responsible way to process and talk
about everything that has happened over the last half week
With Joe.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Burrow, I don't know. I mean, I think I think
having some perspective over where he's at in how hard
this year has been for him, like, I just think
understanding that these the end of long seasons that are
(22:06):
very challenging on multiple fronts leave you in weird places
that take time to recover from. And he has been
forced to speak to us when he is probably not
fully mentally recovered from what he's had to go through
(22:26):
in terms of obviously his incredible strain to get back
from the injury and then to come back to a
team that went one to eight without him and recognize
how steep the cline was going to be when he's like, man,
I got myself back and playing, and then and then
and then to lose a game in a way that
(22:46):
it felt like they lost every game in twenty twenty
four in Buffalo, and what.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
That does to you. I just feel like the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
He could probably have used an off season to come
back in April and be like rejuvenated in a better
head space, but he's had to because he's come back
kind of emote and go through it therapeutically a little
bit in front of us. And I think that's hard.
I think that's hard when you're dealing with a lot
of new feelings a little bit, you know what I mean.
(23:20):
I think he's coming to terms with a lot of
the stuff of where the cape's kind of been ripped
off of him a little bit, and how hard the
rehab must have been. And I just think perspective on
how hard this year has been on him, and some
grace that probably should be given to him because of
that is where I start.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Obviously a lot of folks have taken this conversation and
advanced it to places where Joe was going to request
to trade this offseason and which team should be, you know,
pushing the other ones out of the way to go
ahead and trade for him, And he's gonna pull a
car Center, He's gonna pull and Andrew Luck. All of
that stuff seem to me to be premature, right, Yes,
(24:04):
you agree, yes, But but I do understand why people
go there.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean, there's the reputation here over the law
Hall is earned, there's a history of it, and people
can literally reference another number one overall pick yeah, who's done.
Like I understand why it goes there, I also understand
that this is the NFL entertainment business. This is how
(24:30):
it goes. There is some preconceived notion, some thing that
that will fill airwaves and that has right. I mean,
it's like, why do people talk about Tim Tebow so much?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
One thing?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Why do people talk There's just there are certain things.
And since the day that Joe Burrow was potentially going
to become a bangle in twenty twenty, this has been
a thing of Joe Burrow doesn't want to be in Cincinnati,
And there is this idea that at every turn, whenever
(25:03):
it can feel like you can say it, it's gonna
be said loud, and it's by a lot of people,
is that Joe Burrow is never gonna want to be INSINCENTI.
He can't want to be in Cincinnati. I think that's
fueled by a lot of people with agendas across the
league that will help build that up. And whatever if
it's if it's networks, if it's shouty shows, if it's
(25:25):
whatever like that stuff that that does drive attention. He's
a star in a small market that has been forever criticized.
So yes, it's gonna be obvious people are gonna try
to plant that seat a little bit. And so I
just think that's that's where so much of this comes from.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yet Joe Burrow knows all that.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, and so when.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
He offers this demeanor that is different than what we see.
He knows that, he knows where that's gonna go, and
he knows how it's gonna be consumed. So I think
then people go, well, he's he's using that platform to
send a message.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Maybe, but that message can be misconstrued potentially. But I've said,
I feel like there's some version of smoke here obviously right.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
After the game.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't think that there's there's
anything like that.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But I also something's broken, Yes, like something between Wednesday
and Sunday. Your takeaway doesn't have to be he's going
to demand a trade or he's going to retire. My
takeaway is something's off, which, by the way, they're four
and ten, things are going to be off.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
But there is.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I think we first suspected it on Wednesday, and then
to me that game on Sunday, just how it looked,
not that they lost, how it looked like something's a miss,
something's fractured.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, I think I think it feels that way with
with where he's at and I and I think whatever
he was maybe trying to do on Wednesday maybe didn't
come across how he wanted or mean, he just wants
it to be clear that he's not happy, or maybe
he didn't like how people were contemplating that he lost
his edge because he was happy to play with his
(27:07):
friends and talked about that after both Thanksgiving and Buffalo. Yeah,
and maybe he wanted to make it clear that I'm
not happy with losing whatever, like you said, some version
of the calculated.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I mean, none of us can pretend to be inside
a jumps He's a very unique dude. Yeah, and so
I can't say what his thing was, but you know,
you do get the sense that he probably didn't like
the way that it came out, and I think it
was fitting or at least very notable. How he instantly
said this was not about Cincinnati on Sunday to make
(27:43):
it clear that, you know, I don't want this to
be about my teammates or the people in this building.
It's just whatever I'm going through. But yeah, I do
think he wants to make it clear I'm not happy
and that.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
It's it's it's.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Time and this is what I wrote. It's time for
this organization to build this dude back up. Yeah, like
they it is their responsibility. I'm not putting it on
Joe anymore. He has done enough carrying, okay, and this
dude has been through it. It is time for this
organization to finally really build this dude back up and
put a team around him that can allow him to
(28:17):
not feel like he has to be perfect all the
time and not feel like the weight of the world
is on him all the time. He may still put
it on himself to some degree, but they just have
to and if they can't do it this year, then
it's on them whatever hell happens next.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
You wrote last week about basically Joe Burrow the football genius,
good time, good time. I know, I know that one
didn't go so I read that in the fourth quarter
on sad It.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
I know, I know it was bad time.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Up to this point, up to this point, his ability
to set protections and and like diagnose everything that was
going and then he goes out and has maybe his
worst game in that regard that we've seen.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I don't know. It's my fault. I take this is
my fault. I'm sorry. This is why we just shouldn't
write anything.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Okay, It's like you just shouldn't write anything. You know,
like it's immediately gonna be proven wrong.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Apparently, when when you say you stuff on the radio,
it just sort of goes away.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
For the last part.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You put that on the Athletic that that bad boy
Liz forever.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I believe he will come back and still be good
at this. It was just a one off. It's just
a one off.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Like, all right, I got more to ask you. It's
quarter to four. Paul Danner, Junior, the Athletic dot Com
on the Growler Podcast. He's here till four at Oakley Greens.
We were here till six on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati
Sports Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center u See Cancer
Center offers advanced surgical options for complex liver and pancreas cancers,
and clinical trials you won't find anywhere else. Get a
second opinion now call five one three five eighty five.
UCCC five past four now reopened from an earlier accident
(29:56):
at State Route one twenty nine. However, expect some residual
delays on in through there southbound seventy five. It's an
accident on the left shoulder between Union Center Boulevard in
two seventy five and that he's like with traffic this.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Report thirty Paul Danner Junior for another few minutes.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
We've reached the point of the season.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Why I watched games from my fingers because Joe Burrow
is gonna play.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, anything that can change that, I don't know. It
seems like he's going to do they want him to,
he wants to, So I think he's gonna play.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
By te Higgins, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I mean, the fact that he was back kind of
even in any capacity in practice, makes you think that
it's it's possible. I don't love the idea of him
going back out there the rest of the year, but
you know, we don't. We don't know. It's hard. It's
hard to know right now with when you get into
concussion protocol stuff.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
But Jamar Stewart, Yeah, I think you're gonna see him soon.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah. I mean, if there's anything be kind of nice.
If there's anything to get out of these last three weeks,
it's that dude needs wraps.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah, and so just.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Put him out there and let him play a ton
and make mistakes and whatever, and just because the thing
that he's missing is he just doesn't have any experience
he did. He didn't get any hardly in the offseason.
He you know, he was limited with it. It really
been injured almost all year. Let him go play and
just what who the games won't matter anyway, Just get
(31:23):
him a bunch of snaps.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, speaking of letting guys play so they can make mistakes,
Genostone gonna be unchallenged last three games at this point,
what's the matter, right? I kind of want to watch
the last three games the Geno Stone players that.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
No?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Why not? Just let him?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Let him play?
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Zack Moss sounded off on the whole seat snow blowing thing.
He says, it's worse franchise in sports. Uh take us
back to how things end it with Zach Mows and
so should he have an axe to grind?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, I think he. I don't think he loved how
everything was handled with his next situation. I remember writing
that way, but it kind of feels like forever. Yeah,
it was back in the beginning of August. Wasn't that
long ago? But yeah, I mean, I don't think he
loved the way things were handled with his injury. And
(32:15):
now when he talked to me, he didn't go as
far as to go there. But you could tell that
he wasn't super thrilled with everything. But I think he
was also wrestling with like if his career was over
or not. And I also think that there was a
lot of stuff going on there. So yeah, I mean
when it ends weird, then yeah, you're gonna have some
(32:37):
kind of an extagrind. But I don't that that one
came out of left field for me. I didn't didn't
see I didn't see the Zach Moss.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
No, from the top, I didn't think Zach Moss would
be somebody I ever talked about again. And nothing against Zach,
but I just figured I'd shove him away forever and
that would be it.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
But back in our lives, back in our lives.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
No snow on the seats in the press box.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Everything was fine.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, it was great, actually really enjoyable experience for me.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, yeah, no issues, It must be must be nice.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It was nice that the chip ice off the seat
before you sit down and watch the game.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, that was a pretty stunning one to walk up to,
like just to just to sit down and just be like, wait, yeah,
everything is covered, yes, you know it looked. It was
pretty It looked gorgo actually was and it's very aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Uh, misopportunity.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I drove, I drove downtown. We did our show at
the Grail, you did yours. Next I saw you walking past.
You could not have looked more miserable and that cold,
and we talked about it on the air.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Oh I didn't. Well, I knew, I knew. So I
really wanted to go get a shot of the river
steaming because it looks cool. And I was like, I'm
gonna go get the shot. I don't care how cold
it is. And then as soon as I started walking
and I heard your guys voices to the grail we
saw you, I was like, oh, no, they're going to
say something. Yeah, And I was that fine, you know what,
say what they want. I don't care. I don't care.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
It is cold, so what.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
But anyway, so as coming down seventy five and turn
on to you know, second Street, you could see the
upper deck of the stadium and it looks like an
arena does when everybody gets a white T shirt at
their seats.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Yes, it looked cool. That was my first thought.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I said, Oh, are they doing like a white T shirt?
Playoff game? Truly, that was my number one my initial thought.
And then I looked close and I leaned in a
little bit, and I was like, that's all snow. Yeah,
how about that? All snow?
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Snow? How about that? Who knew? And then I had
the snarky tweet.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You getta push back for that? No, I don't know.
Maybe if there was, what are you gonna say?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a fact. They didn't blow
off the seat.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
It was just it was just a fact.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Here it is welcome we fans for coming to the game.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Here it is.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Here's you're coming in to the game. Here's your your
s sheets covered in sea.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Here's the thing, though, if you if you know that
that's going to be the case, you bring in like bourbon,
well Bourbon slush with snow on this. It's that's clean snow.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
At my house, whenever it snows like this and we're
stuck inside, my kids made snow cream. We go, we
get the ice cream, mix it up with like the
vanilla and the cream and everything, and you make like,
that's what they should have done. They should have had that. Yeah, everybody,
we we left it on your seat so that you
could have a free ice cream at your sea.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
We have flavored snow dye. Yeah, problem is we left
the flavored snow dye sit outside, so it also froze, yeah,
and thus was not usable. My daughter was taking one
of the bottles of flavored frozen snow dye and like
like trying to like beat it against the chairy what
you don't She's like, I'm trying to make it, you know,
liquid again.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah, Like that's that's really.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Not how it works. That's not how it works. Run
onto some hot water for you. All right, Well, thank
you as always. It was pleasure, It really was.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Thanks you for coming.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Paul Danner Junior the Athletic dot Com covering the Bengals
the Growl of podcast. Follow him at Paul Danner Junior
and uh eighty one degrees in Miami.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
On side going, I am going, all right, yes, I
have I have a book. Okay, I plan on being
near a pool. Oh I mean, and uh, I'm gonna
enjoy that and I'm gonna try to make the most
out of it. Nice. That's all I can do. And
then you know, obviously really gonna grind over the tape
of this game.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I will be in Greenville, South Carolina for UC versus
Clemson O game with major NCAA turn him.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Absolutely please absolutely Have you been? Have you been to Greenville?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
No? No, Well, I'm sure there'll be a great experience. Yeah,
it's not bad.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Paul Danner, junior at the Athletic dot Com. I'm sure
Greenville is lovely.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
It is.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
You talk about a team that has me salty. You
would do another hour? Huh No, No, you want to
do an you want to do a whole other hour.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
I don't think it would matter whether I was here.
We would just mention that team and then you would
just go off for an hour. So I'll just leave
and keep listening in.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
My life right now? Yeah, I know, all right, We're
at Oakley Greens. Paul's leaving. We're here till six. This
is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati sports station.
Mo Egger News
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