12/5/25: Mo Egger with Eric Wood, on Bengals/Bills

Elder High School alumnus Eric Wood is the color analyst on the Buffalo Bills Radio Network. He joined us to talk about Sunday's Bengals/Bills game on ESPN1530. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eric Wood, the former Elder Panther and Louisville Cardinal is
the color analyst on the Buffalo Bills Radio network and
kind enough to join us. It's awesome to have you,
as always love having you whenever the Bengals played the Bills.
Buffalo is eight and four. How would you describe the
season to this point?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's been a roller coaster ride.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
You come into the season with a lot of expectations,
high expectations at that to.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Start off the season four to oh.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
And then with injuries and a lack of a passing
game at times and turnover issues that are rearing a
tad this year, find ourselves at eight and four, but
still a long way to go in this season, and
there's still plenty of optimism around the franchise. But with
the injuries, especially at receiver in them including Dalton k

(00:49):
Kdar tight end in that and on the defensive side
of the ball, it's led to some more struggles this
year than we're probably anticipated.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
So obviously, James Cook has been a savior. He's been
awesome this year. I'm not sure the Bengals are equipped
to take him away. But when teams do take him away,
where does Buffalo find more consistency in the passing game.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Against the Ravens early on in the season and against
the Buccaneers, those are the two games the passing game
really came a lot this year.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
It's spreading the ball around.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
They have this philosophy of everybody eats and they want
to spread the ball around to all their different playmakers.
The backs out of the backfield will catch the ball.
The most consistent pass catcher on the season has been
Dalton Kinkaid, the tight end who was drafted as more
or less a receiver, not necessarily an inline blocker in
the first round out of Utah, and so when he's

(01:39):
been healthy, which has now been a consistent thing this year,
he's been the main focal point of the offense in
the passing game. We hope to get him back this week.
Josh Palmer was brought in a free agency and he
was likely going to be our top receiving threat on
the outside beyond Khalil Shakir, but he's been dinged up
for a majority of this season and doesn't sound great

(02:02):
for him to return this week.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Josh Allen, when he's at his best, he's an MVP.
I've seen him at his best at times this year,
not all season long. We've talked about the injuries. How
would you grade his play this season.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, I think it's been up and down.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
And you know a lot of what the Bills have
done this year is if you can't stop the run,
they'll simply run it into submission. And so there's games
where he doesn't have to do a whole lot. The
design runs for him have been down this year. I
think that's by design. Where As he progresses throughout his career,
you want to use him less like a battering ram
out there, but they will turn to it, especially in

(02:38):
the red zone. But they're trying to get away from
that as much as possible and lean into more of
a traditional run game to quite frankly, extend his career.
This is an organization that you know, the leadership within
our organization in the front office and head coach, we're
around for Cam Newton in Carolina and the last thing
they want to do is break him down in similar

(02:59):
ways that they did to what the Panthers did with
Cam Newton in Carolina. So that being said, I think
he's had some great performances this year. They haven't had
to rely on him a ton this year. But I
will say this, the passing game has been one of
our weaknesses this year. At times it looks great and

(03:21):
then there's other times where he misses a couple throws,
there's a couple penalties, there's a turnover to and a
lack of separation on the outside and it doesn't look great.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
We all watched the Bills play the Steelers on Sunday,
rooting for Buffalo. Pittsburgh's offense seemed broken. It did feel
like a step in the right direction for the Bills.
On defense, it'd be great from your perspective if you
had Joey Bosa moving forward.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
We will see.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
But what's the strength of his Buffalo defense?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, I would say the strength of the defense is
the pass defense. Christian Benford's our lockdown corner. I would
expect him to travel a bunch with Jamar Chase throughout
the game. And this is one of the top ranked
secondaries as far as the statistics go in the league,
and we've gotten younger and more athletic in the secondary
at a few different spots. Cole Disho of second year

(04:12):
safety is playing great on the back end of the defense.
The tackling has improved. That's been an issue at times
this year where you've seen some of these monster rushing
performances against this defense.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
That has seemed to improve.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
In Shaq Thompson filling in that linebacker this season, which
I would expect him to start again this week against
the Bengals, he has been a boost to this defense.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
So we'll see.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
You know, this is a defense that kind of similar
to the offense, has been on a little bit of
a roller coaster rode. That's where you see us at
eight and four.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Sean McDermott has been there for what feels like forever
and in NFL terms, since twenty seventeen. That is an eternity.
What's the biggest strength of Sean McDermott as a head coach?

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, I got I was fortunate enough to play for
him for one season and remain friends with him to
this day. I would say the consistency that he brings
from his leadership that permeates into the team where he
doesn't get too high, he doesn't get too low. He
generally gets this team peaking towards the end of the season.
In the last since twenty twenty, I believe from the

(05:17):
last week in November through the end of the regular season,
the Bills are twenty eight and five since twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
One of those is.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
A meaningless game where we didn't play our starters, and
two of those are overtime losses, and so he generally
gets this team to peak towards the end of the season.
But I would say his strength is just the consistency
that he brings each and every day, modeling it by example,
but then that permeating into the team.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Awesome stuff. Eric, It's got to be fun when you
call a game between your team and your hometown team.
Should be an interesting game on Sunday. We appreciate the
time as always. Thanks so much.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, for sure, it's always fun to call this matchup.
It was fun to play in these matchups and always
look forward to see him.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
My man, Dave Lapham, you know, one.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Of the biggest personalities in the broadcast uh booth area.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Whenever I get to see him, so always enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Ring of Honor inductee Dave Lapham. You got to make
sure you mentioned that when you see him on Sunday.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Okay, absolutely, I need to bring him a note and
congratulate him.