Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Sean. How you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
No, I'm doing well.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I think back to early in the season.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
You know, you were kind enough to have on after
the Patriots game. I wasn't sure what I was getting
into you. You extended me the the kind of invite
to come on every week. And now we're here after
you know, having four times were the Bengals loose, scoring
thirty or more points, tied for the most in NFL history.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It feels like a really crazy three months of this season.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, you know, we had you on.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
You were so good that I reached out to the
intermediary that got you on the first time and I said, man,
that's Sean Sayad.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Guy was was really good.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
I enjoyed reading this column, enjoyed having them on, and
I thought like, man, if we can con that guy
into coming on every week, this will be great. We'll
talk deep into February. And now here we are playing
at the string. This is not how I imagine that.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Oh yeah, we could have. We could have hung out
in New Orleans. You know, we could have done a lot.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I started person but but no, I won't say like nothing.
Nothing's gonna stamp every single week.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And I think the.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Nuggets them good, you know, as you look forward to
kind of the Bengals and they're just roster building looking forward.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yet there are some positive aspects.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, but they're all on offense. I mean like that.
That's the thing.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
So at the game on Sunday, I watched the I
watched it through that lens. Okay, this, this defense is
getting worked by not a great offense. And that's not
to take anything away from Russell Wilson and what they
were able to do. But Pittsburgh is a team that
came in in the last few games hadn't been all
that productive offensively, and so I'm watching the Bengals just
(01:36):
get absolutely worked up and down the field through the
lens of all right, let's look at this player.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Do I want this guy back next year? And very
rarely was the answer, yes. Like it.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It feels like the cupboard is. It's not entirely bare
moving forward, but pretty damn close. And that's frustrating.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It's incredibly frustrating. You know, it's really frustrating to watch
on film. I know it's frustrating for fans to be
watching at home as well.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I do think when you start looking ahead to the draft,
I hate.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
To do the Hey, you know, you got to start
looking ahead into the draft this sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
But you know, it is a draft loaded with strong
defensive players up front, and I think that you're you're
gonna hopefully be able to find some help on the
back end as well.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So and you look, defense is year to year, they
are so high variants.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Like when we think about the Eagles, who I think
have the best defense in the league, you could absolutely
argue that they were the worst defense in the league
last year. And look, maybe the Bangles got dump from
thirty second to first next year.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
But you just have to be an average defense. That's
all you have to do. You do not have to
be top five.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
You can be fifteen or sixteen or seventeen the way
that the offense.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Has continue to play.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And so you just hope that you know, the last
few drafts, I think some of the defensive players they
just have not panned out to be what you want
them to be. So if you're able to fix up
some of those personnel decisions, just got a hit on
a few pieces, you get to you know, you get
some turnover lock or maybe something in your direction a
little bit, and all of a sudden, you're just back
to the top of the AFC North.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
The player on this year's team, at least defensively, that
has incurred the most amount of wrath is Geno Stone,
and I will admit I was excited when the Bengals
signed him because I felt like that that's a player
who's still he's still as sending and every year the
Ravens asked him to do more, he rose to the challenge.
This year he's done the exact opposite. I look at
(03:24):
him through very untrained eyes and I see a guy
who takes bad angles when you watch him more critically.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Why has he been so bad?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I do think the angles is a really important thing,
and that's really a theme for the whole entire defense.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Like that not every miss ackle is created equally.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
So you have the situations where a player, you know,
maybe they stop their feet and they launch, or they're
taking have you mentioned like a bad angle where you're
going a little bit too inside, maybe you think you're
getting there faster than the player that's gonna get there.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So there's a lot of situations there.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And then you know in coverage, it just it's it's
kind of a bit of everyone like I'm trying to.
I always have a hard time point directly, Hey it
was this person like I wanted to touchdown, like it's you.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Know, Michaelton gets beat. So it's like all right, well,
Gino Stone.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Like as long as you're doing your aside, but you
know that's not fully on you. I just think that
you're just not getting the exit r like to play
up to the level of expectation and kind of what
you sign that player for, which which is really really tough.
You know, you can just considering the safeties that have
played for the Cincinnati Bengals that are close near and
dear to everyone's part listening, I know. So it's just
(04:27):
it feels like the personnel decisions like that that just
not in the right spot. I don't know how much
of it even is coaching, just as when I look
at it, it's just not the most talented unit. So
it feels like a combination of everything. Where like you
mentioned the covered is there. I mean, no, we need
to buy a new cupboard. We got to get like
a face the wall that it's covering, Like it really
is like a tear it down to the subs type
(04:48):
job to just kind of see what you can kind
of put together going forward.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I mean, this is not so much a question as
it is just a repeat of my biggest gripe maybe
of the season on Sunday. You know, late in the game,
they still have a chance, they get the ball back,
you know, Joe Burrow's got a shot. Justin Fields comes
onto the field third and third and four.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Everybody with a remote.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Passing interest in the game knew what the Steelers were
gonna do, and yet the Bengals couldn't stop it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Like that's mo is that coaching? Is that just? Is
that just the bad? What is that it?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Like?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I mean, my my nephews that that like don't even
know what football is because they're so young.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
They know that Fields is in there to keep the
ball like that think that it's just such a frustrating situation.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Where look the Steelers, I mean they get like two
tight ends to the right side. They're running kind of
like a zone read type play where Fields is kind
of working in the second level and that cornerback just
gets sucked in.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Like it's just it's just unacceptable at.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
That point, I know, you feel like it's at least
partially on you know, the coaches to make them away
are obviously on the player himself to be able to
execute that job. It's just so tough because you're right,
like the mango could have gotten the ball back and
it could have been at least having a little bit
more of a fun discussion.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You get the ball back.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
With whatever, even if it's like a minute twenty left.
I'm not sure everyone would be happy for Brow to
have that situation. So, I mean, we talked in Week
one against the Patriots about cornerbacks having trouble halfway running
backs on the outside, and now you know, you get
just sucked in, you have a missed assignment, you have
a little bit of a mentalier, and that execution aspect of
it is it's not.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
The one reason why you.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Lost, but obviously it's the microposit of just so many
issues where it's the combination of player, it's the combination
of just the coaching and kind of what's going on
there where like.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This you mentioned, I mean the Steelers offense.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's like it's not this like we're gonna set the
world on fire offense, but to turn in the day
or Russell Wilson has over four hundred passing yards I
think it was like two hundred of them, or after
the catch, he's not even throwing the ball deep downfield.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Just a lot of frustration. I think the still room.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Meetings with the coaches and that player may not be
the most fun place to be these weeks.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, and you know, like there's there's and I've said
this this week too, there's a difference between your defense
gets beat and your defense shows no resistance.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Right, it's professional football.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Sometimes the other quarterback is going to make a throw
and there's not a lot you can do. Or sometimes
he's going to make a play with his legs and
extend it and then somebody gets open on the back end,
and all right, it happens, you tip your cap, or
sometimes you know a guy, a receiver is covered well
and he still figures out a way to go get it.
Like the other team makes plays and you go, okay,
well that's what happened to a big deal and then
(07:39):
there's no resistance. And I think that was the sobering
thing about Sunday, And really, to me, the word that
I've brought up a lot this year, it's it's just
a defense. You don't have to do a lot to
beat them. You don't have to excel, you don't have
to go deep into your playbook. You don't need superlative
individual offensive efforts. When the opposing defense shows no resistance
(08:00):
in any area whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That's such a good point, and that game is just
to look something defense.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Then the Bengals, but like Burrow put up a great
performance against the Steelers defense. Still, though the Steelers provided
resistance right like, they did make it a little bit
harder on the Bengals. They obviously created a bunch of
big plays for themselves, so you don't have that, unfortunately
in this situation where it's like it's not like.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Oh there's issues with this scene.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Particularly, it's not like the Steelers had the.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Normal game plan.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
To have the bangles in some third unique it's just
like snap after snap, if not basing enough in multiple spots,
feel like the spots if they're setting the wrong hangle.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
For us not being the less in the castles, or
expecting to find any moves from in the opposite.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Direction to this.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
It's just it's wild things within the game now within
the weeks that unfortunately had over the entire.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
This was cathartic. I appreciate you coming on as always.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I wish the season would have gone better, but having
you joined me on Tuesdays has still been a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Thank you as always.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Appreciate him, always great to talk.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
You're the best.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Go listen to Shawn's podcast, it's informative, The Stats and
Scheme Podcast, and you can read them at summer sports
dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Look for the Monday Morning Mashup column.