3/17/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Hi, there we go good at for noon on maleger
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank you for listening. Hope
you had like an awesome weekend. The weather's stunk. The
college basketball was phenomenal. There's my analysis as a college
basketball fan. You know you hear it a lot. The

(00:23):
transfer portal's ruining it. Nil is ruining it. Yeah, watch
the games. The games are still awesome and the drama
this weekend was awesome. The drama this weekend for a
school like Miami was heartbreaking unfortunately, and the RedHawks got
jobbed as it relates to the nit. But still so

(00:43):
much good college hoops this weekend. I look, I'm a
UC fan. My favorite two teams are the Bearcats and
the Flyers. Dayton choked away a game against Saint Joe's
on Friday night, which cost them any chance of even
sniffing the tournament. The Bearcats, god knows, we have talked
about their NCAA tournament chances forever and they really never

(01:03):
came close to the tournament either. I'm disappointed. I still
cannot wait. I cannot wait for this event to start.
The upper wrong of college basketball has been so good
and frankly yes, dominated by the SEC. I cannot wait,
so there's lots of that to get to throughout the afternoon.
Are our guy, the Bracketologist, the official bracketologist of the

(01:25):
Moeger Show. Hunter Sansom is going to be on this
show at four forty five. Also, Xavier head coach Sean Miller,
his team gets in. They play in Dayton on Wednesday.
Quick turnaround for the Musketeers. He and his staff very busy. Nonetheless,
the coach of the Muskies kind enough to give us
a few minutes at five oh five this afternoon. Entire
show rundown available on Twitter at Mullager thanks to Emery

(01:48):
Federal Credit Union your credit union with heart since nineteen
thirty nine. Go to Emery FCU dot org. Obviously, the
big story today, the big story today in Cincinnati, the
big story today in the NFL. It's done. It's done.
The Bengals themselves have not yet made it official. There

(02:09):
are rumors of a possible media availability tomorrow. We will see.
But it's done. We're finally there. Jamar Chase and t
Higgins have agreed to contract extensions that will keep them
here for the foreseeable future. I don't even want to
think about life beyond twenty twenty nine. But the extensions

(02:30):
are done. They both get a lot of guaranteed money.
More than anything. There's lots of different angles here. In fact,
my guy Tarren Bland has he has given me a
list of all of the national loudmouse talking Chase and
Higgins and we'll check off every single one throughout the

(02:50):
course of the afternoon. But the big takeaway for me,
number one is this, the Bengals wisely chose to not
go to war with Joe Burrow. If you think about it,
and like, there are lots of questions about what's next,
What's next as it relates to the roster of the

(03:11):
twenty twenty five Bengals, What's next as it relates to
the Bengals winning while they have the Big Three intact,
What's next as it relates to Trey Hendrickson. Lots of questions.
But just think for a second here, how remarkable this
moment in recent and even not so recent Bengals history
is three and a half months ago, mid November, three

(03:37):
and a half months ago. This was not the most
likely outcome. We were talking during the summer last year
about how the plan was T Higgins was gonna play
for the Bengals in twenty twenty four, and then he
was gonna walk. You don't have to look very far

(03:58):
to find reporting, legitimate reporting from like credible reporters. I
pulled up a piece last night, Jeremy Fowler of VESPN,
who's terrific at what he does, writing about how like T.
Higgins is not likely to be a Bengal in twenty
twenty five, the reporting done by the folks locally here
who you know, would report that T. Higgins is not

(04:20):
a part of the Bengals' long term plans. That wasn't.
That wasn't irresponsible speculation that that wasn't. That wasn't a
case of people who cover the NFL are covering the team,
throwing stuff against the wall, or just trying to get clicks.
They were reporting based on information, They were reporting based
on coming from a place of knowledge. Because the plan

(04:44):
was for T. Higgins to not return. On December ninth,
everything changed. Joe Burrows starts talking about T. And when
I say starts, he starts talking about T. And that
continued for two months. NS. It not only changed the conversation,

(05:05):
but it changed the direction the Bengals were going. In
add to it, the very savvy move by t Higgins
to get rid of his old agent, hire the guy
who represents Jamar Chase, and then plan with that guy
with that agent to let the Bengals know, if you
want one, you gotta keep both. And the Bengals did it.

(05:31):
If you understand anything about this franchise, that's significance. One
might even argue it's shocking the Bengals got pushed around here.
This is not a criticism because I think the outcome
that has been achieved is the outcome we all wanted.

(05:52):
We wanted the Bengals to keep these high end players here.
Most of us understand that it is it is doable
to do with the Bens now have to do. We'll
see if it's doable for Duke Tobin. But you can
pay your quarterback and your wide receivers and you could
you can have a lot of money aimed at that
one area of your team and still figure out a

(06:13):
way via cheap labor to make the rest of the
team better. Frankly, so far in free agency, they really
haven't done that. Hopefully they do so here in the draft,
but they got pushed around here. They got pushed around
by Joe Burrow. I mean they got pushed around by
Joe Burrow, who has millions of Bengals fans on his side.
They got pushed around by the agent for Jamari Chase

(06:34):
and t Higgins. But if you know anything about the Bengals,
you know that sometimes when they're getting pushed around, they
pretty much just stand. There. Could be in their negotiations
with the county for the stadium, could be in their
stance about something remotely controversial, could be in their stance
whether it comes to doing something that fans from outside

(06:55):
want to see them do. Could be as basic as
a simple contract negotiation. The Bengals do not budge. Whether
you think this is the most well run franchise in
the NFL, whether you think this is the worst run
franchise in the NFL. I think that's fair to say.
This is not a franchise that has become well known

(07:16):
for flexibility and for budging, for allowing themselves to be
pushed around, and for pivoting very suddenly from one direction
to the next. And yet they did. If you want
to credit them for that, go ahead and do it.
I will. I will. They wisely chose to not fight

(07:36):
and get into a war with Joe Burrow, and by extension,
they chose to not get into a war with their fans,
with their customers, with the people who care most. That's
the first takeaway for me. Number two is this, I
don't know. And we talked about this after the Bengals
beat the Denver Broncos that game at the end of
the year, the final home game. The game wore a

(07:57):
lot of us thought, you know what, that might be
T higgins last home game as a Bengal, the game
that kept their fading playoff hopes alive, And we talked
about this. I don't know that there are many more
beloved Bengals players than T Higgins. That's not to say
that Jamar Chase isn't beloved, of course he is. It's
not to say that Joe Burrow isn't beloved, of course
he is. But I think T Higgins, what has happened

(08:20):
with him over the last year, I think puts him
in a slightly separate category. I'm a fan of T
Higgins because if you're a Bengals fan, how are you not?
But over the last year, for me, I've I've come
away and you could tell me if you're the same.
I've come away impressed by how he has handled this

(08:40):
entire thing. Yes, he did request a trade about a
year ago. Yes, you can get caught up in vague
tweet season or emoji's. That sort of stuff is mostly
nonsensical as far as I'm concerned. Beyond that, here's what
I watched. I watched a player who I'm sure got

(09:02):
to a point where he was badly disappointed that the
Bengals didn't get a long term deal done with him,
especially when it was kind of acknowledged like one of
the reasons why they can't get the Jesse Bates thing
done is they got to pay Tee and a lot
of lip service was paid to that. But Penn never
came to paper, and so what happens. They franchised Tag him,

(09:24):
which you know, all right, fine, there are worse things
that can happen, But they franchised Tag him and they
never really negotiate. I mean, if you believe everybody who
has covered the Bengals of it the last couple of
years would tell you they franchised Tag t Higgins and
then never really seriously sat down to get a deal
done with him. And I'm sure that was disappointing, and

(09:45):
I'm sure to a degree that was that was hurtful.
He's you know, we're talking about a human being here.
And yet when we wondered, is is he going to
be difficult about signing the franchise tag? He signed it
in June? Okay, fine, But is he gonna hold out?
Is he not gonna come to practice? Nope, the guy
came to practice. Yeah, but he's he gonna play during

(10:08):
the preseason. Yeah, he played during the preseason. Okay, yeah,
but is he gonna make some business decisions once the
season starts? Don't recall any business decisions being made. And
when asked about whether or not he thought of holding
out or not showing up, he shot that down by
effectively saying, like, dude, I'm good. Man, Like I'm gonna

(10:30):
make twenty one plus mill this year, I'm fine, My
family's fine. We'll see what happens. I'm good. Add to
that that despite having a reputation that he's gonna have
to shake for missing a lot of games and being
hurt a lot, we've also watched this dude play hurt.
T Higgins has authored a lot of really cool moments

(10:52):
into Bengals uniform, including what we saw him do against
the Denver Broncos. But what I think of his time
in Cincinnati so far, and I think of a lot
of cool things. I think of the touchdown of the
Super Bowl against the Rams. I think of the iconic
play against the Vikings late in the twenty twenty three season.
But more than anything, I think of a guy two things,
one who has always been willing to play a certain role.

(11:18):
He's not the most highest paid wide receiver on his team.
He's not the best wide receiver on his team. He's
perhaps not the most famous wide receiver on his team.
He's not the most talked about wide receiver on his team. Now, again,
these are true first world problems, but we are dealing
with competitive people, and we are dealing with human beings.

(11:38):
He has never outwardly shown that this bothers him. He
has never allowed to compromise his play. He has always
struck me as a team first guy. And the thing
that I remember most about T Higgins in his first
five seasons in Cincinnati, this was the dude who on
December thirty first, twenty twenty three, with the Bengals their

(12:00):
way to make the postseason. T Higgins was hurt. T
Higgins for a while in that game, was sidelined and
he dragged himself onto the field unbeknownst to the time to
his coaches, like, that's a guy worth rooting for. That's
a guy here who has and again you could understand

(12:21):
why he is achieving a tremendous financial security here. And
you know, I think you can make an argument this
made more sense for T Higgins than to try to
hit free agency next year because over the next ten months,
who knows what's going to happen. At the same time,
he did have the carrot dangling in front of him. Okay,
wait a minute, my teammate's about to maybe reset the

(12:42):
market for wide receiver. If I could stay healthy, if
I could have a big season, I can still hit
free agency and maybe break the bank next year. Instead,
he did take less money than he might have been
able to get on the open market next year. He
did it to stay in Cincinnati. He did it to
be a number two wide receiver. That's pretty awesome, man,

(13:05):
That's that's really pretty awesome. That is a player, and
that is a person worth rooting for, and it is
a player and It is a person that you want
to be a part of your football team, and now
t Higgins for the foreseeable future, will be a part
of this football team, in large part because the Bengals
chose to not go to war. Five point three seven

(13:28):
four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. Eight sixty
six seven oh two three seven seven six works as well.
Kelsey Conway from The Inquirer in just about twenty five
minutes on this how we got to this point, what's next?
What's next for Trey Hendrickson and the onus right now
very squarely on Duke Tobin, which we'll talk about next

(13:50):
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

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This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Moeger thrilled that you are
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Speaker 5 (14:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
In a bit. It has often been said about the
Bengals that they care more about winning at the negotiating
table than on the football field. I think that is
often a misdirected claim or a slightly unfair claim, but
I mean that the bottom line is this is a
This is a team that has often driven a hard bargain,
often not budged, usually not catered to public pressure. Uh,

(15:04):
they've got the direction they're going in, they go in it.

Speaker 6 (15:09):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
The pivot here really is one of the more remarkable
things I've seen in following this football team. Again, Man,
it's it's awesome. They got this done. And you know, look,
there's there's a very obvious now spotlight on Duke Tobin,
which we're going to focus on here in just a second.
But like I just watching this unfold the way it

(15:33):
has this is, this is not how we thought this
was gonna go. And and again, this is not at
all a complaint. But this is not at all how
we thought this was gonna go, in large part because
the word stubborn is often used and it usually applies
they have their stance. You're not moving them off of it.

(15:55):
What I have talked to people who have negotiated with
the Cincinnati Bengals, in some cases regarding player contracts, in
some cases regarding business contracts, they do not budge. They
budged heavily here went out of bounds in regards to
their own parameters when it comes to the structure of

(16:17):
these two contracts. Decided to pivot in a different direction,
largely based on what Joe Burrow had to say. Were
put into a corner, reportedly by the agent for two players.
You typically put the Bengals in a corner, they just
they fight their way out. The opposite happened here. Good

(16:41):
for them, Good for them. I've got a rundown of
National Loudmouse talking about Chason Higgins. Will play some of
that audio for you here coming up in just about
ten minutes, Kelsey Conway from The Inquirer. We'll get to
more on the NCAA tournament here in a bit. I
am having a hard time feeling bad for West Virginia.
I am sorry. The question now for the Bengals is

(17:03):
are you going to be the Miami Dolphins or are
you going to be the Philadelphia Eagles? Like you know
to me from a public sentiment standpoint, one of the
things that took this conversation about T Higgins and Jamar
Chase and their contracts and kicked it into hyper drive
was when Joe Burrow after the Super Bowl made it

(17:25):
known that he has paid attention to how the Eagles
build their roster and essentially has said, like, the Eagles
do it this way. They have a lot of money
aimed at wide receiver, at quarterback. Heck, they have a
lot of money aimed at running back, and they still
figure out a way to do it. So this is
going to be really interesting, and it's you know, we
have an emotional stake in it here in Cincinnati, but

(17:47):
really around the NFL, this is going to be one
of the more interesting case studies because the Bengals have
nearly one hundred and twenty five million dollars per year
invested in three players, a quarterback, in two wideouts, more
than anybody in the NFL. Miami is number two at
just shy of one hundred and twelve million dollars, and

(18:09):
then the Philadelphia Eagles at one hundred and eight million dollars.
Many folks watched the Super Bowl and their instant reaction was, see,
you win in the trenches. You win with defense, You
win by getting after the passer, by taking the other
team out of what they're trying to do offensively. And

(18:30):
it was a very easy and accurate takeaway. But then
when you dove a little bit deeper, you're like, oh yeah,
wait a minute. On defense, They've had really smart free
agency signings, not a lot of overpays, and a lot
of really good draft choices, a lot of really good
cheap labor. Are the Bengals going to be the Miami
Dolphins or are they going to be the Philadelphia Eagles.

(18:56):
Duke Tobin has spent more than a quarter of a
decade working of the Cincinnati Bengals and oftentimes lurking in
the background. He's not made available all that often. He
talked a few weeks ago at the Combine. He always
does a hit during the preseason on their TV broadcast.
He's available one or two other times, but kind of

(19:16):
lurks in the background. So much so that whenever there's
any sort of big decision to be made, a lot
of people don't even talk about Duke Tobin. I'm not
sure he's ever been more high profile than he's about
to be, because, well, Duke, you got to go get
it done, You got to go approve this is going
to work, and the Bengals are going to be more

(19:37):
like the Philadelphia Eagles and less like the Miami Dolphins.
What do the Eagles do well? They draft well, They
draft well on the defensive line, they draft well and
acquire well on the offensive line. The focus for months
has been on Joe Burrow. It has been on I
think ownership more than Duke. Right, It's been on the
people controlling the purse strings, not so much the person

(19:59):
in charge of ther It's been on you know, upper
tier players and what they're getting financially versus what Jamar
Chase may get. Now, the spotlight is very much on
Duke Tobin in the draft. Go get it done. Now,
every GM, every personnel person has the draft well. But

(20:19):
one of the reasons why the Bengals kind of had
no choice but to do this is they've drafted very poorly.
There's nobody else that you could say right now is
really worth re signing Nobody else that you would look
at and go, man, you know what, instead of t Higgins,
why don't you bring back this guy and pay this
guy this. They need players in the draft this year,
and this is amplified because of what they haven't done

(20:41):
so far in free agency. This goes without saying they
need players in this year's draft who help this year,
especially on defense. And if they get those guys, that
this is going to work and the Bengals are going
to have a legitimate chance to win the whole thing.
I believe that a legitimate chance to win the whole thing.
If Duke Tobin does well in the draft moving forward,

(21:03):
especially on defense, They're gonna have a legitimate chance to
win a title in the absence of that, if recent
trends continue. And I think the jury is very much
still loud about the twenty twenty four class, I'm not
willing to hand down any conclusions about that group of players.
But if there are more drafts that look like twenty
twenty one top to bottom twenty twenty two top to bottom,

(21:25):
more first round draft choices like Miles Murphy who do
nothing in their first two years. More first round draft
choices like Dax Hill, who does nothing over his first
three years. If there's more guys like that, the ceiling
for this franchise is still going to be very, very low.
They'll be fun, they'll score a lot of points, they
won't compete for a title. It's on Duke Tobin to

(21:48):
figure out a way to ensure that the Bengals, trio,
the Big Three, the identity of this team, the backbone,
competes for a title. Duke Tobin has never been higher
profile than he is right now. Joe Burrow wanted. We
got what he wanted. But remember Duke Tobin said, he
wanted what Joe Burrow wants. Okay, you got it. No,
I'll go get to work. There's a part of the

(22:10):
draft dynamic that I think is worth talking about. We'll
do that coming up in the four o'clock hour.

Speaker 7 (22:16):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
I say the same thing every year. I'll say it
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Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Sports head lines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home
of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their
family of yours for life kelseyshev dot Com. Done deal.
Jamar Chase set to sign a four year contract extension
with the Bengals that'll make him the highest paid non
quarterback in NFL history one hundred and sixty one mil

(23:22):
over those four years, with one twelve mill guaranteed. Meanwhile,
t Higgins set to sign a four year deal for
one hundred and fifteen million dollars, reportedly with the first
two years of that contract guaranteed by the Way. Much
of this reported initially by our guy. James rapeine Reds
will play The Guardians tonight. Graham Ashcraft No Andrew Abbott

(23:42):
will start. Can't read my own writing, Abbot looks like Ashcraft.
Andrew Abbott will start that game tonight, which starts at
nine oh five on seven hundred WLW College Basketball. The
NCNAA tournament field is set. Xavier, excuse me as getting
set to play Texas in the first four and dayton
on Whins Day. Sean Miller's on this show at five
oh five. This morning, we found out that yes, you see,

(24:05):
Bearcats will compete in the first ever College Basketball Crown.
This tournament's taking place in Las Vegas, Cincinnati's first round matchup.
It's a sixteen team tournament. They'll take on to Paul
at three o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, April the
first hockey Tonight, the Blue Jacket skate and play hockey
against the New Jersey Devils.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Are you scaredled to work April first?

Speaker 2 (24:30):
I am scheduled to work April first. Oh boy, yeah.
The game will be on at three o'clock while we're
on the air. I say this every single year. I'm
not going to deviate from it. I would have said
it had Xavier been on the outside looking in. Fortunately
for the Musketeers, they were not I would say it
if the Bearcats were barely on the outside looking in.

(24:52):
They didn't even come close. I never feel bad for
teams that don't make the NCAA tournament. Now, if I
were on the committee and I had a vote, I
wouldn't have North Carolina in. But let's be honest, man,
I make this very very simple. West Virginia is on
the outside looking in. And they did finish ten and

(25:12):
ten in the Big Twelve, and they had five Q
one wins. Win more games like this is a very
forgiving process, especially if you come from a high major conference,
with which West Virginia does. I was sitting in this

(25:32):
room last Wednesday. You see, had just lost it's a
Big twelve tournament game to Iowa State. The second game
of the day pitted West Virginia versus Colorado. Colorado was

(25:53):
the sixteen seed the Buffaloes this year three Big Twelve games.
West Virginia led most of the way. Colorado won the
basketball game. You know, it might be unfair to boil

(26:13):
it down to one season, but when your resume is
otherwise not that overwhelmingly good, you put yourself at the
mercy of having that game maybe be what keeps you
from the tournament. You know, I've seen people allege conspiracy
because Carolina is a d is the chairperson of the
selection committee. Like my entire life, my entire life, the

(26:37):
chair people of the selection committee have been athletic directors
sitting athletic directors at schools that have a chance to
make the tournament. So that's not a new thing. Don't
put yourself at the mercy of the committee. We talk
about this with college football in the playoff. Now, I
talk about it with the NCAA tournament every year, and
he might go, MO, it's easy for you to say
your team, you know, didn't make it, but didn't come close.

(26:58):
You see got I thought, you know, for my money
in two thousand and six, nearly twenty years ago, they
should have made the tournament. My takeaway and my friends
all got mad at mutes before I had a radio show,
was you know what, win more games. Don't go to
Seaton Haul late in the season and lose by thirteen
points to a bad Seaton Hall team. Cincinnati did that
that year. Make your free throws against Syracuse. Don't put
yourself at the mercy of the selection committee. Make them seed.

(27:21):
You don't make them pick you, So you know again,
what I have picked West Virginia instead of Carolina. Sure,
but of all these teams that were around the bubble
that we spent a lot of time talking about, specifically
because Xavier was one of them, how many made an
emphatic case this week in their conference tournament to make

(27:44):
the field of sixty eight. Indiana did not, Ohio State
did not, Boise State did not. Frankly, they get in.
Xavier did not. Carolina loses in heartbreaking fashion because of
a lane violation against Duke, but you know, don't commit
a lane violation win the game. And you know this
is probably not even a discussion. It felt like nobody
came along to steal, to really make emphatically make a

(28:07):
case for a bit. Now, there were some projections that
had West Virginia as a nine or ten, and if
that's where you're projected to be, I guess you might
argue that school was in safely. But this is probably
a moot point. If they take care of business against
the worst team in the regular season, at least in
the Big twelve. I just I never feel sorry for

(28:29):
the teams that are on the outside looking in, and
I think way too much time is spent on them.
So you know, look, had Xavier been on the outside
looking in, I would have said the exact same thing.
Don't put yourself in a position where the committee now
has to make a choice about you, and then you're
left to every individual committee member's criteria, their own biases.

(28:49):
How some interpret the data of all the different metrics.
Some might favor this, Others might favor this, like win
win enough games so that it's not a discussion. West
Virginia did not do that this year. Neither did a
whole bunch of other schools. This is a very, very
very forgiving event. West Virginia lost thirteen games this season

(29:14):
and we were still talking about their candidacy. So I
had to pick West Virginia. But you know, I guess
the athletic direct the governor is now suing the NCAA,
which good luck with that. Win more games, say it,
every single year, Win more games. West Virginia did not.

(29:34):
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This report is sponsored by Hunt Extensions.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Kelsey Conway covers the Bengals for The Inquirer and Cincinnati
dot Com has covered this story for the years. It
has been dragging on and we have a resolution. Hi, Kelsey,
how you doing?

Speaker 9 (30:32):
Hi? I am so happy to be on and talking
about the Bengals finally getting a field done with Sea Higgins.
So then you just mentioned this has been a three
years saga that has consumed a lot of my time.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, no question about it. So now that we are
at the end, what is your biggest takeaway?

Speaker 9 (30:53):
My biggest takeaway is that if Sea Higgins didn't switch
his agent, this probably wouldn't have happened. Because from going
back to two years ago, and you know, we've talked
about this on your show, a bunch, just the difference
between the Bengals sentiment towards T Higgins. And you know

(31:18):
right now, I know Duke Coven's been asked that a
number of times and they said, you know, we've always
we've always wanted T Higgins. You can call it what
it is. Two years ago, they didn't even offer him
twenty million dollars. I reported that their first offer at
him didn't eclipse that, and here we are two years
later where he's getting twenty eight point five million per

(31:41):
year up to thirty with incentives like there is. There
was a big change there from the organization in terms
of how they viewed T Higgins. And a lot of
it has to do with Rocky Arseno, their agent, And
I'm not sure had Tea not switched to Rocky that
this would have gotten done because Jamar Chase played a

(32:03):
huge role in this getting done for T Higgins. So
I think that's my biggest takeaway, just how much things
have changed in regards to how the Bengals value T
Higgins from two years ago to now.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Do they deserve credit for getting this done? Meaning the
Bengals credit for getting this done or criticism for the
way in which it unfolded.

Speaker 9 (32:26):
You know, that's interesting. I haven't been asked that question,
and I think it's twofold. I do think that I
said last night on It'spien Radio that Bengals finn should
obviously be happy that this happened because it does, in
a way show a change. The way that they structured
these contracts is not something that they do, so I

(32:48):
think they definitely deserve credit for getting these two deals done.
But at the same time, they could have had this
deal done with Higgins t Higgins at a way lower rate.
You know, T Higgins would have taken a deal within
the twenty three to twenty five million range two years
ago and then you would have almost been coming up
on the end of his contract. So there's some criticism

(33:11):
deserves there. So I'm kind of on the fence of
it got done, so that obviously deserves credit, But they
cost themselves a lot of money, and I know people
don't really want to look at that because you want
to celebrate the positive and that if those deals got done,
them not getting them having to wait and pay more

(33:31):
one hundred percent is going to take away from someone
else or another position group. And we will see next
season how much of that they cost themselves, because if
they have this amazing offense and they make the playoffs
and they make a deep run, it'll be worth it.
But if they're dealing with some of the same issues,
then then you're going to look at it and say,

(33:52):
I wish we would have had some of that money
to address those other positions. So, you know, I go
both ways on it.

Speaker 5 (33:58):
Honestly, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Think there's room for multiple truths. This is great that
this got done right. I mean, the identity of this
team is set in stone for basically the rest of
the decade. They've got a core of really good players
intact that have had team and individual success. But I
do think it's fair to wonder what would the roster

(34:20):
look like, what would the salary cap situation look like,
and how many headaches could have been avoided had this
gotten done a while ago. And we're never going to
know the answer to that, but I think that's fair
to bring up what is your best guess as to
what's next with Trey Hendrickson?

Speaker 9 (34:37):
To that one's a tricky one, and I know that
there's a lot out there right now, and I would
just say this, I think Bengals fans should temper their
expectations on Trey Hendrickson because there's still a lot of
work to be done. And yes, there have been some
conversations of late, but they're still there's still some work

(35:00):
to be done there. So it's not just a matter
of oh, the Bengals got these done, Tray's just going
to fall into place and want to come back. They
were very far apart from the first offer the Bengals
made to right now. While there's been progress, there is
still and this is something that I don't think people

(35:21):
are talking about as much with Trey Hendrickson that I
find interesting. When you allowed him to go out and
seek the trade, and I know you've talked about how
you know you thought that was really smart played by
the Bengals. It also allowed Trey and his agent to
see what the market was going to be for him.
They thought they knew what it was going to be,

(35:42):
but it confirmed things that they didn't know because they
were able to talk to teams. And that's where that
could potentially hurt the Bengals, because if Trey and his
representation talked to seven or eight different teams and they
all said, hey, we'd be willing to pay you amount
and it's that far off from the Bengals. I have

(36:04):
a hard time believing he's going to be willing to
come back at the number that the Bengals started with.
I think that it is definitely gonna have to be
given stake on both sides, but it has to be
a respectable number, and to be honest, I think it's
going to be higher now because they did allow him
to go out and see what he could deserve, and

(36:25):
that's where I think it's going to get interesting because
he's definitely probably going to have to take somewhat of
a discount because of the situation he's in. He's under contract,
but I think they were able to learn more about
his market, and I think that doesn't work in the
bengals favor. But the whole thing goes back to the
Bengals for right now haven't been interested in conversations that

(36:48):
don't involve a first round pick for as far as trade,
and I'll be interested to see over these next couple
of weeks what happens, because, in my opinion, if they
do not deal Tray by the draft, then things could
get dicey because you lose out on potential value you
could get in return, and he becomes angry because he

(37:11):
at that point feels like they can't find an answer
here and now it almost feels like I'm being held
hostage type of situation. So I would keep your eye
on these next couple of weeks with Trey because I
think the Bengals are gonna have to make a decision
and it's either going to be we can close the
gap and get closer or yeah, we weren't really happy

(37:31):
with thinking about anything other than a first round pick,
but maybe it really is in our best interest by
the draft to get this done because if they allow
other teams to fill that need through the draft, they
could potentially lose out on anything that they could get.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, I mean, I guess the way a lot of
us look at it now is it's not like Dave.
They've addressed pass rushers so far here in free agency,
and yeah, they could take edge guys in the draft,
and I know Joseph Osiah's back and maybe Miles Murphy
figures things out. But I mean, to be, the time
to trade Trey Hendrickson was last week, because if you
did that, then you were going to also addressed edge Rusher.

(38:05):
They didn't do that, so then how do you trade them?

Speaker 9 (38:08):
But then this all goes back to the conversation I think,
and I know that had the Bengals initial offer then
at a number that was closer to what he and
his representation believed that they could get on the open market,
I don't think we'd be in this situation. I think that,

(38:29):
And you know it's been something that I've talked about
with you before, like sometimes that's what happens with the
Bengals is their number. They view it as Okay, this
is our starting point and we'll negotiate from here. But
I think had he been a little bit closer to
what had the Bengals offer been a little bit closer
to what he and his agent believed that they could
get on the open market, I think the deal would

(38:51):
have gotten done. I think it was just too far apart.
And now it's just awkward because it's like they allowed
you to go out and see what you're worth and
you've realized, oh wow, teams are gonna would be willing
to pay me even more than what I thought, and
now you have to come back and just awkwardly say, well,
I know X team would be willing to pay me

(39:13):
thirty four million per year, why should I have to
take a significant amount less? And that's where I think
things are going to get really interesting here with Trey,
because it's not just as easy as well. He just
needs to come back and just take the Bengals offer.
He learned his value, and that's where I think this

(39:33):
thing with Trey's got some time to get figured out,
and it'll be interesting to see what happens from it.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
All Right, I got like a minute here. This is
great that they have signed t Higgins. It's great that
the Jamar Chase thing has reached a good resolution. Beyond that,
free agency over the last week for the Bengals has
been very underwhelming. Why and what's next?

Speaker 9 (39:56):
I want to believe that it's because of the contracts
with Jamar and te, but they've known what those numbers,
for the most part, were going to look like for
a while now. It's honestly been really underwhelming and I
can't quite get my finger on what's going on there
because I did that interview with Duke Toobin at the

(40:18):
Senior Bowl and he admitted to me he regrets maybe
holding onto that core a year too long. That he
should have made some moves a year too long. We're
sitting here and Joseph Rosai is talking about wanting to
run it back again, and there's players like Jermaine Pratt
still on the roster. So I can't quite figure out

(40:38):
what's going on because on one end, you know, Duke
Tobin says, I think I held on to some of
these guys too long, which was great. He was honest
and open about it. But the Bengals haven't made any
moves on the defensive side of the ball other than
signing TJ. Slayton to make you feel like they're learning
from their mistake and holding guys for too long. So

(41:00):
I cannot put my finger on what's going on there.
And it's easy to say, well, they just needed these
deals to get done, but in my opinion, they have
known what those deals are going to look like for
a long time.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
It remains interesting. Thank you as always, we'll chat soon.

Speaker 9 (41:16):
Thanks so much for having me on.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
You're the best. Kelsey Conway, covering the Bengals for The
Inquirer and Cincinnati dot Com. We are way late, four
o'clock ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 9 (41:26):
Thirty, Cincinnati's sports station, ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
All right, that's six after four. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty on Moegar. Thank you, thank you so much for
joining us Zader head coach Sean Miller at five oh five,
one hour from right now. And our guy, the official
bracketologist of the Moegar Show. I think this is I
guess it is going to be the last time we

(41:53):
talked to him until next year. Hunter Sansom, the NKY
bracket guy, is going to join us in and just
about forty minutes to talk about what the tournament selection
committee got right and what the tournament selection committee got wrong.
That in just about forty minutes, phone lines are open
five one, three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty. The Bengals thing,

(42:15):
the big news around the NFL today, the big news here.
Chances are you know this, The Jamar Chase and T
Higgins things are done. I asked this question to Kelsey Conway,
and I think it's a fair one. There there's room
for multiple truths. It's great, it's great that the Bengals
got deals done with Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. I

(42:37):
am thrilled for T Higgins. I am thrilled for Joe Burrow.
I am thrilled for anybody who cares about this franchise.
I think this is the right approach. It's certainly not
guaranteed to work. There's a lot of pressure on Duke Tobin.
I do subscribe to the belief that you can throw

(42:58):
a lot of money at too wide receivers and a
quarterback and still figure out ways to build a good team,
build a good roster, and have a team that competes
for championships. We get to watch two absolute A listers
play with an MVP caliber quarterback for the bulk of
their prime years. It's awesome. The Bengals are an interesting team.

(43:22):
We can debate how good they're going to be. To
think about what Jamar Chase can accomplish statistically with Joe
Burrow as his quarterback is a lot of fun to
think about. To think about what t Higgins can accomplish here,
To think about what these three players can do together
like in this city. Can you even imagine if this

(43:44):
works and the Bengals win a Super Bowl and the
core of the team is essentially Joe, Jamar and t.
That's not to discount the role of anybody else, undermine
the role of d or anything like that. Like we're
talking about a trio of players, I mean this that

(44:05):
has a chance to be beloved for generations because of
what they could help bring to Cincinnati. I'm on board
with this. I think if you're a Bengals fan, you
should be on board with this, even if you acknowledge
they've got a lot of really hard work to do.
Duke Tobin has a lot of really hard work to do.

(44:26):
Oh and by the way, I don't think Joe Burrow
has done flexing his muscles that in just a second.
But at the same time, sure you cannot help, but
wonder had this been the approach with t Higgins all along,
what would it have cost? And you know, moving forward,

(44:48):
as long as there's a little bit of a lesson
learned here about paying your best players as soon and
as quickly as possible, I certainly think it's reasonable to wonder,
did Jamar Chase track this thing out more than we
are kind of giving him credit for and put himself
in a position where he was gonna make the kind
of money that he's getting right now, And to the
Bengals deserve as much criticism as they're getting for specifically

(45:10):
how the Jamar Chase thing went down. But yeah, I mean,
we're you can't help. But wonder had this been done
a year ago, what would these two players be getting
paid compared to what they are getting paid right now?
And you know, then you wonder would that difference have
been better off invested in the club somewhere else where?

(45:30):
Would that money be spent? Like it's there's room for
multiple truths. There's room for it is true that Jamar
Chase and T Higgins and Joe Burrow are a great trio.
There's room to acknowledge that this has a very good
chance of working, especially if T Higgins can stay healthy.
There's also room to acknowledge that this this has a

(45:52):
lower ceiling if Duke Tobin doesn't start figuring out ways
to build the defense through the draft, because he has
a been able to do that. And there's certainly room
to wonder. God, you know, what if what if this
would have gotten done a year ago? What if the
plan would with T Higgins all along would have been
go ahead and resign him. You heard Kelsey, and it's true.

(46:13):
I haven't found anybody, anybody close to this team or
who covers this team who has stated that when they franchise.
Taged T Higgins last year that that was done with
the intention of seriously sitting down and negotiating with him.
The approach here was different. Had the approach been what
it was this offseason last offseason? How many headaches are avoided?

(46:34):
How different does the team look last year? How much
better or worse is last year's team? How much better
or worse is this year's team moving forward? Maybe get
out in front of paying guys like this, especially Jamar Chase.
You can be thrilled that he has signed. You could
be thrilled that they have kept these players together. If

(46:55):
you're a Bengals fan, I don't know how you aren't,
but sure you know what kind of financial flexibility is
there now that maybe there's a little bit less of
because they waited. You can do both. I know. I
am twelve minutes after four o'clock. My first takeaway was
the Bengals have chosen to not go to war with

(47:17):
Joe Burrow, which good. They shouldn't go to war with
Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow gets what he wants. Joe Burrow
flexed his muscles and got what he wants and got
a lot of help from the same agent that Jamar
Chase and t Higgins have so good. We saw some
muscle flexing here, but this entire conversation changed when Joe
Burrow started talking about t Higgins. So now what, right, Well,

(47:41):
we talk about the onuses on Duke Tobin and it
is Duke, start drafting, well, start finding guys on defense
who can help week one, week one, when we are
breaking down the draft in five or six weeks, how
many of these guys can come in and make an
immediate impact. They don't need to be defensive players of
the year, but how many of these guys can do

(48:02):
what the younger players for the Philadelphia Eagles do, come
in and make an immediate impact.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
I don't know, And you know, Duke Tobin's gonna have
to figure out a way to answer that question once
we get to the draft. And you are being reasonable
if you look at Duke Tobin's recent draft record and
you're a little bit skeptical that he is going to
figure out the best way to do this with the
players they have on offense. So in an ideal world,
obviously Joe Burrow has an MVP caliber season, the Bengals

(48:34):
offense is untouchable, and they build a league average ish
defense that is good enough to support what Joe Burrow does.
They keep them up right, and this team is playing
deep into the playoffs, they're competing for super Bowls, and
they ultimately win one. But we just watched Joe Burrow
flex's muscle. We just watched him and Jamar Chase and

(48:58):
T Higgins agent kind of put the Bengals around here.
We watched Joe Burrow spends some capital. We watched him
do that and he gets what he wants. Do we
think he's done? Here's where I wouldn't want to be
if I'm Duke Tobin. Joe Burrow has just authored another

(49:18):
MVP caliber season and our team is still not close
to competing for a championship. Well, do we think Joe's
gonna take that sitting down? Do we think he's gonna
take that quietly? Do we think just because he made
a lot of noise about T Higgins and got what
he wanted, that he's not going to talk about what
he wants moving forward? Like the next thing that he

(49:42):
that he that he brings up, the next thing that
he kind of makes his cause. If we're on the
outside looking in if the Bengals are on the outside
looking in next year, or if they're not really close
to competing for a championship, the next thing that he
brings up has to be the person picking the players. Now.
He might not do it in the public manner. He

(50:04):
went on a crusade for t Higgins. He might not
do that, might not go in every Super Bowl radio,
row show or podcast to talk about the front office.
But if you're Joe Burrow, you just watched yourself flex
some muscle here, spend some capital however you want to
put it, and it worked. That's not going to be
in the back of your mind moving forward now Again.

(50:28):
Ideally here the Bengals go like thirteen and four, win
the AFC North, cruise to a division title, get a
high seed, storm their way through the AFC playoffs, win
the Super Bowl, have a parade, and we are good here.
But if I'm Joe Burrow and I just flex my
muscle and got the Bengals to do what I want,
if we lose again this year, I'm not done doing that.

(50:52):
I might flex my muscles a little bit more privately.
I might not be as publicly forthcoming with what I want,
But the people that I work for are going to
know that I'm not happy with whatever the reason is
why we are on the outside looking in again. And
if we are there, I wouldn't want to be Duke
Tobin like we talk about him being. He's in the

(51:15):
spotlight now, he's in the crosshairs. The pressure's on him,
and for obvious reasons, right like you got the QB
and the two wide receivers taken care of, Go fix
the rest of the roster. Do what you gotta do.
Take the money you have to spend, which is considerable,
Take the draft picks you have, go make the roster
better next year. If they don't do that. Understanding, Joe

(51:39):
Burrow understands his own clout in the organization. If you're
Duke Tobin, are you sure Joe's not going to go
to ownership to talk about you or the people who
work for you, or the folks in the front office.
I don't think Joe Burrow has done flexing his muscle

(52:01):
unless they win the whole thing. So it's up to
Duke Tobin. And we could also fold Zach Taylor into
the conversation, and Zach Taylor to ensure that happens seventeen
minutes after four o'clock. All Right, I have a list
here of national loudmouse talking Chase and Higgins. We will
play some of those loudmouths when we come back on

(52:23):
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (52:25):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. The University of
Cincinnati Cancer Center offers innovative clinical trials and the region's
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five eighty five UCCC northbound State Route three point eighty.
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(52:51):
southbound two seventy five down to one lane on the
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ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
This reporter is sponsored by.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
All right'm twenty one a half before this is ESD
at fifteen thirty, I'm oweger. Are you ready for a
collection of national loudmails talking about Jamar Chase and t Higgins.
Tarren Bland worked very hard today to compile this.

Speaker 7 (53:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
These are from a lot of those cable shows where
they yell at each other about sports. Let's begin first,
take Tarren, give it to me, Give me Jason mccordy
along with the one hundred million dollar man, Stephen A. Smith.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
What do you think of the deals that the Bengals made.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I didn't think they'd signed both of them.

Speaker 10 (53:39):
I didn't think I didn't think so either, And I
look at it at a DP perspective. You see these
two guys under contra and you start to say, my goodness,
I'm having nightmares. The issue is that includes the Cincinnati
Bengals DB's as well, because they're looking around and they
realize there is no help on the way because all
of the money is now being spent on the offensive.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Side of the ball.

Speaker 10 (53:58):
So there are question marks when you come to roster building,
but specifically to Jamar Chase and to T Higgins. Both
of these brothers deserve their money. They have been at
the top of the game. I fully expected the Bengals
to have to trade T Higgins to get something back
for him to build this team up strong enough for
Joe Burrow and them able to go out there and
actually compete for a Super Bowl. There's question marks around

(54:21):
this defense of what they did last year.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
So now you're running back.

Speaker 11 (54:24):
You bring these two receivers back.

Speaker 10 (54:25):
You have Joe Burrow, you have the offense that can
put up fifty points a game. The question mark is
can you stop the other side of the ball from
scoring fifty one?

Speaker 11 (54:33):
So as I look at this.

Speaker 10 (54:34):
As good as a movement, it is as nice as
it is to see the Cincinnati Bengals spend money to
keep their players, something that we've called them out about
for years. You love that fact of it, But from
a roster building standpoint, there is now a ton more
pressure on Joe Burrow to have to show up because
no one wants to hear the excuse that the defense
isn't good enough when you've paid the receivers that you
ask for to stay at home and have those weapons

(54:56):
to throw the ball to.

Speaker 12 (54:57):
I think this is a moment to applaud the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Let's do it.

Speaker 12 (55:02):
We understand that the quarterback position is the most important
position in the National Football League. You have a stud
in Joe Burrow who came on the record and has
been on the record in their face publicly.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Y'all need to handle this. Came on our.

Speaker 12 (55:16):
Show super Bowl Week, did not shy away one bit
made it very very clear what he wanted, and they
went out and did what he wanted.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Now, yeah, they.

Speaker 12 (55:26):
Lost four games last year where the Bengals scored thirty
three or more points, but Debit Day scored thirty three
or more points. And so when you look at it
from that standpoint, Okay, at the very least, Shannon, at
the very least Jay, you will be entertained. So even
though we got to look at them, and it's a
situation right now where I'm looking at their cap situation, guys,
and those three players alone are going to take up

(55:48):
about one hundred and twenty four million, and you, your
cap on your defensive side of the ball in terms
of the obligations runs around seventy nine million dollars. So
you look at it from that standpoint, this is a
team that ranked twenty fifth in both total defense and
scoring defense.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
They were third.

Speaker 12 (56:02):
Worst, worse than the red zone. We understand they got
work to do, but you got to take care of
the studs first, and that's what they did because at
least now you got a chance. You might lose, you
might win games giving up thirty five points, but at
least you know you can score it and you're gonna
entertain along the way you got You had to do
what Cincinnati did, and I'm not gonna knock them for it.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
I'm really not all right. There you go. So there's
Jason mccordy and Stephen A. Smith on first take. Let's
do another, Let's do another. This is from our show
on ESPN fifteen thirty on Sportsmanlike Weekday afternoons. Here is
your residence super Bowl champion Chris Canty.

Speaker 13 (56:45):
First and foremost, I'm happy for t Higgins and Jamar Chase.
The Cincinnati Bengal has been jerking those dudes around for
a couple of years now in terms of being able
to get there and gifted in their money, and they.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Finally got paid.

Speaker 13 (56:55):
So shout out to those guys because they are more
than deserving of the contracts that they just signed over
the weekend. Second thought was, Joe Burrow is no longer
be able to have the crutch of not having a
good defense as to why he can't win, why his
team can't get.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
To the playoffs.

Speaker 13 (57:11):
Because the Cincinnati Bengals have invested in the wide receiver
position more than any other franchise in the NFL in
terms of draft capital, but then also the contracts that
they just gave these guys. You're talking about having nearly
seventy million dollars tied up in two wide receivers. You
should be an elite passing game when you have that
type of weaponry at your disposal. So that was my

(57:33):
second thought. The third thought that I had, this is
a fascinating experiment that the Cincinnati Bengals are undertaking when
it comes to overall roster building. Right now, the Cincinnati
Bengals are third in cap spend on the offensive side
of the ball, in their twenty sixth in cap spend
on the defensive side of the ball, and we know

(57:55):
the defense was a sore spot for them last year.
And of course, they put Trey Hendrickson on the trading
block a couple of weeks ago. We'll see what ends
up happening if they actually end up moving him or
if they're able to resign him. But either way, it's
still fascinating because the Cincinnati Bengals need to fortify the
defensive side of the ball, or at least we think
in order for that team to get to where they
want to go. But Mike Brown and Duke Tobn the

(58:18):
general manager. They're saying, you know what, We're going to
lean into the strength of our team, which is the
offensive side of the ball, and allow that to be
the identity, allow that to be what wins the day
for us. And I just I don't know if you
can win a championship in the NFL in today's game
with that philosophy, But we.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Don't find out. Yeah, it is fascinating. Chris Canty, our
Residents Super Bowl Champion on on sportsman Like six to
ten weekday mornings on ESPN fifteen thirty. It's interesting because
you have you have this thing over here, which is Joe,
Jamar and Te that you can count on. You know

(59:00):
how good those guys are together. We know how good
the Bengals were this year when those three were on
the field together. We know what this offense can be.
You trust that explicitly. You trust Joe Burrow and you
trust this offense, and then you know you could throw
it to the mix Chase Brown, who's very good, and
Mike Kasiki, who just fits what they're looking for to

(59:20):
a to a T, no pun intended. I guess you
trust that over here. It's not just not trusting the defense.
It's not trusting trusting the architect of the defense. And
by the way, Al Golden's a huge part of this
as well. Right, Like it's it's a lot of the
same dudes, it's a lot of the same guys. It's

(59:40):
a lot a lot of the same cast of characters
with an entirely different defensive coordinator. But pay offense, draft defense.
Pay the guys on the offensive side, figure out a
way to find cheap labor on the defensive side. If
they can pull that off, this is going to work.
If it's if it's if it's something they can't pull off,
then this is not likely to work. But it is

(01:00:01):
fascinating what they're doing. It looked to a degree it
was referenced before, like Joe Burrow can no longer use
the defense as a crutch. I don't know that Joe does,
but like, this is what he wanted, this is what
he campaigned for. And so if you're gonna campaign, if
you're gonna say in any field, like this is what
I want, this is what I need, and you get it.

(01:00:23):
I mean, to a degree, you're more responsible for the
results you achieve than at any other point so that's
how it's gonna be portrayed. You and I heard folks
who criticized Joe Burrow this past season when he had
a remarkable year. So if there's a similar sort of
dynamic this year with the Bengals score a billion points
and they lose and they waste another MVP caliber season

(01:00:45):
and Joe puts up Gaudy's stats and they're still not
in the playoffs, so they're uh, they exit early from
the postseason, the fingers are gonna point right to Joe
Burrow where it's gonna be boy, not poor Joe Burrow.
He's never gonna get a chance to play behind a
team that doesn't have a good defense or play behind
a good offensive line. It's going to be they did
a Joe's way, it didn't work. That kind of reflects
on Joe. Nobody wants to go down that road now.

(01:01:09):
But that's how it will be portrayed. More loudmouse coming
up in the five o'clock hour. Sean Miller is not
a loud mouth. He will join us at five oh five.
Sports Headlines coming up next, ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from the UC.

Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
Health Traffic Center. The University of Cincinnati Cancer Center offers
innovative clinical trials and the region's only young onset colearectal
cancer program. Call five one three five eighty five UCCC
northbound seventy one at Montgomery Road. It's an accident on
the left shoulder southbound seventy five disabled semi off onto

(01:01:51):
the right shoulder that near Ronald Reagan Highway and on
Hamilton Avenue. It's an accident at Waycross Road. I'm at
Ezelek with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
This reporting spontarts headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevroline,
home of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from
their family to yours for life, kelseaschev dot Com. Done deal,
T Higgins Jamar Chase signed contract extensions, or they are

(01:02:21):
expected to, or they already have, or we're just waiting
for the team to make it official. But the good
news is Jamar with the team through the twenty twenty
nine season. Tea with the team through the twenty twenty
eight season. Jamar gets one hundred and sixty one mil.
He is now the highest paid non quarterback in NFL history.
That is a part of our football nomenclature that did

(01:02:42):
not exist three weeks ago, and it's uh, well, it's
it's it's now changed three times, first Max Crosby, then
Miles Garrett, now Jamar Chase soon to be someone else.
One hundred and twelve mil guaranteed with Higgins one fifteen
total value of the contract the first two years guaranteed. Meanwhile,
the Reds and Guardians played tonight in good Year nine

(01:03:03):
oh five First pitch. Gordon Wittmeyer The Inquirer has a
column about why Alexis Daz should be sent to the
minor leagues. Should be sent to minor league camp. He
has had another bad spring training. Six of the seven
batters he faced on Saturday reach base, three of them walked.
Two of those walks forced in runs. He was charged

(01:03:26):
with five runs given up. Terry Francona after the game
said quote, We've got to get it locked in. So
here's what I want to know. Alexis d As obviously
has had his share of successes as the Reds closer,
and I'm certainly not giving up on the idea of

(01:03:48):
Alexis being a big part of this team's bullpen this year.
That said, you know, I've heard and I've read the
word accountability a lot. Accountability. Tito's got to hold them accountable.
They've got to be held accountable. Uh when does when

(01:04:09):
does that start? Does it? Does it? Does it start
during spring training? Does it only start when the games
actually count? Do we do we start this in May
after they've played for a few weeks? Like holding someone
accountable is this? Dude's not getting it done and so
now we're gonna turn to somebody else who can get
it done. By the way, the Reds right before spring

(01:04:30):
training signed a couple of former closers. Scott Barlowe has
had a pretty decent spring training so far, and you
take Cactus League results with major grains of salt. Same
for Taylor Rogers. We're wondering, like, how strong is Alexis

(01:04:51):
das is stranglehold on the closer spot. They signed a
couple of guys they've pitched well, Alexis has not. Terry
Francona is the accountability guy. Why not hold Alexis dia
as accountable? Fair question. The NCNAA Tournament bracket came out
last night. We know Xavier is gonna play in Dayton tomorrow.
Night against Texas, not tomorrow night, Wednesday night against Texas,

(01:05:13):
the late game at Udy Arena. We found out this
morning that UC's season will continue with a game in
the Crown. The College Basketball Crown, a sixteen team tournament
that will be held in Las Vegas. The tournament itself
starts on March thirty first. UC will play Tuesday afternoon,
April first against the DePaul Blue Demons. That game will

(01:05:35):
start at three o'clock. Speaking of the n CNAA tournament,
so West Virginia is the team that everybody seems to
think God screwed. And again, like we can dive into
each school's resume, I would have picked West Virginia before
North Carolina. I very rarely view team number sixty nine

(01:05:56):
as having a slam dunk case or as just being
totally jobbed or screwed. They should have beaten Colorado, who
finished dead last in the Big twelve tournament last week.
But anyway, as a response to this, the governor of
North Carolina, who is someone named Patrick Morrissey. Patrick Morrissey

(01:06:18):
and the West Virginia Attorney General are launching an investigation
into the tournament committee because they want to see if
any backdoor deals were made to get North Carolina into
the postseason. Obviously, North Carolina's ad is the chairperson of
the attorney selection committee, so the West Virginia governor wants answers.
There was a press conference earlier today. Here is twenty

(01:06:41):
seven seconds of that, and.

Speaker 6 (01:06:44):
I've asked Attorney General McCuskey to launch an investigation into
the NCAA tournament selection committee to determine if any backdoor deals,
back room deals, corruption, bribes, or any fairy activity occur
during the selection process. I know that the Attorney General

(01:07:06):
and I are going to leave no stone.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Unturned during this process. When's when's this guy up for election?
When's When's when's he when's here for reelection? Not sure
we know? Is the up this this fall? Good luck
with that. Uh, the NKY bracket guy will tell us
what the committee got right and wrong. Next.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. The University of Cincinnati
Cancer Center offers innovative clinical trials and the region's only
young onset colarectal cancer program. Call five one three five
eighty five UCCC northbound seventy one at Montgomery Road. It's
an accident onto the left shoulder southbound seventy five near

(01:07:52):
Ronald Reagan Highway disabled semi there on the right shoulder
and seventh at Plum it's an accident involving a metro bus.
Lady zelk with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
This report is sponsored by Rocket teenaway from five o'clock.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Back to the Bengals and
t Higgins and Jamar and Chase coming up in the
next hour. Also we'll chat with Sean Miller over the course.
At the last what five or six weeks, we have
enjoyed having on our show the NKY Bracket Guy. This

(01:08:23):
guy has become the official bracketologist of The Moegger Show
and he's gained quite a following on social media at
bracket nky. His name is Hunter Sansomon, and this guy
has walked us through the process. He's offered different guesses
as to whether certain local teams might make the tournament.
And he was all over this on social media throughout

(01:08:45):
the course of a champ week. And instead of being
allowed to sit back and take a breath and now
just look ahead to the NCAA tournament, we're bothering him again.
It's good to have you. Congratulations on again. To me,
you're the break out start the college basketball season. So
good work, and thank you was always for joining.

Speaker 11 (01:09:03):
Us, Heym, thanks for having me. I greatly appreciate it. It's
been a lot of work, but it's been a rewarding
process this year.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
All right, relative to what the committee did, how close
did you come to guessing the entire sixty eighteen field
with all the seeds accurately guessed?

Speaker 11 (01:09:22):
So I had sixty six teams correctly picked. I did
miss on Indiana and West Virginia. Seed wise, I had
two teams that were more than one seed off, and
then about I think eleven teams that I was one
seed off on. Overall, we have a scoring system called
a Paymon score. I won't bore you with the details,

(01:09:42):
but I improved from last year. I went up seven points,
so I'll call that a win, especially with the curveball
the committee through us with West Virginia.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
All right, we'll talk about that in a second. Were
you better than some of the more well known bracketologists
like Joelnardi?

Speaker 11 (01:09:57):
Better than a couple of them? A couple love him
got me this year, So I'll have to I'll have
to recalibrate.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Apparently I understand, all right, well, you're still number one
in our book. Uh. The West Virginia thing, how egregious
is their exclusion from this event.

Speaker 11 (01:10:15):
If you remember last year when we complained about Indiana
State not getting in, Indiana State did not surprise me
last year when they got in. I my jaw genuinely
dropped when I realized they left West Virginia out. Initial reaction,
I was like, okay, whatever, they were close to the
eleven line. And then I looked back at it, and
I have no idea how any either of Texas, North Carolina,

(01:10:38):
or Zavier for that matter, got in the tournament over
West Virginia. They cited an injury that the guy only
played eight games. He did not just get hurt like
other people have he I can't wrap my mind around it.
I am genuinely just appalled.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Is is there an example in recent years at least
of a team that had a similar beef to the
one that West Virginia and the state's governor has.

Speaker 11 (01:11:07):
I don't know that there's a Honestly, I think this
is unprecedented. I think this is the worst miscalculation by
the committee i've ever seen and the governor getting involved.
I don't I don't love that, But at the same time,
I understand why they're here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
Uh, North Carolina was the last team in. Should they
have been the last team in relative relative to the
teams that got in quote more and more comfortably ahead
of them, like Xavier in Texas.

Speaker 11 (01:11:36):
I think that North Carolina should have been a head
of Texas behind Zeger personally.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
Is there? I guess a lot of folks are walking
away from the Carolina thing effectively feeling like the results
of games don't matter. That is that the takeaway here?
Do you think there's something nefarious in play here with
regard to their athletic director chairing the committee? Like, like,
what's the big takeaway specifically from Carolina getting in?

Speaker 11 (01:12:08):
We're letting computers select teams for North Carolina? That is,
I mean their metrics were good, they had good reds
and A metrics. Apparently scheduling really hard. Losing a ton
is okay. I I will say anytime that you're in
a group where the leader of your group has a
conflict and has to step out, there is still a

(01:12:28):
tendency by human nature to potentially and I don't know
that the committee actually did this. These are my thoughts.
Maybe make sure the committee's team got or the committee
members team got kind of bumped up a little bit.
I wouldn't be.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Shocked within the bracket itself. I'll give you mine and
you could give me yours. I was. I was surprised
that Louisville will get a chance if they advanced to
play a one seed in Lexington. At the same time,
I was surprised they were seated as low as they were.
I thought relative so what their net ranking was. Gonzaga
was under seated, and I was surprised, although I think

(01:13:06):
pleasantly surprised that Memphis was seated as high as the
Tigers were. Seen your take away, your thoughts, and those three.

Speaker 11 (01:13:13):
So I'll start with Memphis. I absolutely love what the
committee did. They rewarded them for playing a hard schedule
and beating good teams in the non conference. They didn't
punish the AAC. I love what they did for that.
I hate what they did to Louisville by way of seeding.
There's no way that I can get them to an
E seed. So I had Memphis as an eight seed

(01:13:33):
because I expected the committee to punish them for the
AAC like they like to do. They didn't do that.
They put Louisville there and punish them for their conference play.
I get it the ACC was bad, but I was
very surprised to see Louisville as an eight regarding them
being put in Auburn's region in Lexington. I think that's
in this calculation as well by the committee. That's a

(01:13:55):
geographical advantage to Louisville. So we're putting these they're supposed
to be protect seeds on the top four seed lines.
We put a protected seed at an unprotected site, and
by that I mean Louisville now has the geographical advantage.
That's going to be almost a home game for Louisville.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
If I had to guess, yeah, without a question, I've
I've watched Louisville play in the NCAA Tournament at rep
Arena before I could tell you that's going to be
a home court advantage. And so I think there's multiple
ways of looking at it. From a set perspective. If
they beat Duke, are they a seven? Like you and
I talked about this, I think two weeks ago that
I kind of felt like because of the relative weakness

(01:14:33):
of the conference, Like, there wasn't a lot of mobility
for Louisville, but they did get to the ACC title game.
They lost to Duke, Right, they didn't lose to a
lower tier ACC school that's snuck into the title game
if they beat Duke, Are they just a seven?

Speaker 14 (01:14:48):
No?

Speaker 11 (01:14:49):
I don't think so. If you look at what the
committee did to Michigan, they put them as a five seed,
which tells me they did not honor any of the
conference tournament's results. So I think Louisville was kind of
stuck into that eight line.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Wordless, what did Jamaica work in? Zaga was seated.

Speaker 11 (01:15:04):
I I don't hate it. I really like that we're
valuing resume over predictives. Again, I don't want to project
where a team should be. I want the results to
speak for themselves. So I'm not super upset with wegon
Zaga is. I was pleasantly surprised they put them.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
There based on the predictive. Michigan's net is a twenty three,
which puts them in the four or five line. They
were a five. I know they win the Big Ten tournament.
You and I have talked about how the committee doesn't
put as much stock in those conference tournaments as maybe
they should. And look, they played right into the last minute,
right They were the second and last game to end
yesterday afternoon, so it kind of made sense that Michigan

(01:15:42):
was seated where they were. What about you?

Speaker 11 (01:15:46):
I completely agree. I So I got in my head
right after that game ended and flipped them up to
four seed. And I tell myself every year, don't rely
on the conference or the committee to use conference tournaments
as a any sort of metric. So I shouldn't have
done it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
I did it.

Speaker 11 (01:16:00):
The Committee proved me right yet again, so I need
to next year. I'm going pencil down Sunday morning.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
All right, you mentioned you had two teams that ended
up being on the outside looking in, West Virginia being one.
Who was the other Indiana? All right? Uh, do you
think the Hoosiers got snubbed? Do you think their their
case is as emphatic as West Virginia is talk about
the talk about IU.

Speaker 11 (01:16:26):
For me, no, I don't think Indiana got snubbed. There
were a handful of reasons to leave them out. The committee, obviously,
by choosing North Carolina, really valued conference or non conference sleets,
and they punished Indiana because their best non conference win
was Providence is not good this year. It was not

(01:16:48):
even in the top hundred of the net. So I'm
I'm okay with them doing that. But again, I there
were a bunch of teams for that last spot that
I could have seen it. I just West Virginia just
such a good complaint.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Right now, What is your biggest sort of takeaway about
the overall selection of the field this year? That's different
than prior years.

Speaker 11 (01:17:10):
I think so looking at the eleven and twelve lines,
they have UC San Diego, VCU and Drake kind of
seated lower than I expected. I think really the committee
has kind of set a precedent this year that the
Power Conference teams are going to get the benefit of
the doubt a little bit more so than they already do.
So I think the biggest kind of takeaway is that,

(01:17:31):
and you need to make sure you're scheduling decent in
the non conference.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
Do you understand anything about how they choose the field
for the NIT this year?

Speaker 11 (01:17:41):
I will be fully honest with you. I know I
mentioned that I was going to try to put something
out for the NIT and the Crown. I at this point,
there are so many opt outs and so many people
not playing that I can't wrap my head around how
they do those things right now.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
So I agree with you. But I went to bet
on Saturday night after having watched Miami lose an absolute
heartbreaker game. They had a big lead in the first half.
They lose on a layup, essentially at the horn door,
a really good Acron team. I went to bed thinking,
at the very least Miami is going to compete in
the ni t they wanted to compete in the NIIT
and did not. As somebody who just follows the overall

(01:18:17):
tournament selection process closer than others, can you make that
make sense at all for me?

Speaker 11 (01:18:24):
Not really, I'm I just struggle with we're letting people like,
we're letting teams opt out of games. We now have
the new Crown or whatever it is, like they need
to have some sort of like clear criteria. In my opinion,
at this point, teams like Miami or to a lesser degree,
NKU or some of the smaller schools in the area

(01:18:44):
are just never going to be able to play in
the postseason unless they win the conference tournament. And we've
got to do something to give some of these every
school some sort of shot in the posts.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Well, I mean, look, they they they wanted to be
in right, They wanted to participate in this event. Ken
State made the event, Miami beat them head to head
three times, finished with a better record than them, played
him in the conference tournament, and beat them, finished higher,
finished three games better than them in the MAC regular season. Again,
it's it's one thing if if Miami University made it known, hey,

(01:19:15):
look we're good, we don't want to be in it.
That's what they wanted to be in it. I don't.
And again, it's the N I t At the end
of the day, I know nobody really cares. I felt
bad for Miami's team because they came this close to winning,
But for a school that wanted to play in that
event to not make it and have a team that
you beat three times that didn't finish as high as

(01:19:36):
you in your own league standings doesn't make any sense
to me.

Speaker 11 (01:19:39):
No, I completely agree. And when you asked about the NIT,
I knew you were headed straight from Miami because I
saw that earlier today and I was honestly frustrated by it.
I don't understand what they're doing with these postseason tournaments
right now, and it's really frustrating to see, especially like
a Kent State get in over Miami at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
Yeah, I won't even ask you about the composition of
the field for the Crown, which I'm really excited about.
When you see plays de.

Speaker 11 (01:20:05):
Paul, Hey, I am actually very excited to see that field.
It actually looks fun. I know some people aren't as
excited about it, but I think you see has a
good drawl and there's a chance they could win a
couple of games there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
I think the concept is fun, right. I think the
concept of we're gonna have a tournament that takes place
over the course of less than a week, all in
one city, and the players are gonna get paid on
the winning, I think that's fun. I think what's not
fun is the fact that you're gonna have a lot
of teams that put out there a skeleton roster, not
completely representative of and I know Bowl games worked this way,
but not completely representative of the team they had over

(01:20:38):
the course of four four and a half months.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
Yeah, it should be this week.

Speaker 11 (01:20:42):
They should be flying out to Vegas right now, and
they should go play that game this week and get
it done. Start it like this week and then end
it like Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
When Carolina would go really one more, really quick. I'm
sorrying when Carolina's When the name North Carolina popped up
on the screen yesterday, did you assumed that meant doom
for Xavier.

Speaker 11 (01:21:02):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (01:21:03):
So.

Speaker 11 (01:21:03):
I don't know if you know this, but my wife
and I are actually Xavier season ticket holders. And she
turned to me and said, and I quote, that just
screwed over Xavier, didn't it. And I said, yes, it did.
I was astonished when I saw Xavier's name pop up
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Yeah, I was in the same place. All right, Well,
you've been awesome to have on. I hope we can
do this often next year and and thanks again. It
was it was really cool having to do this for us.
We do appreciate it.

Speaker 11 (01:21:31):
Hey, absolutely no anytime.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
That's our guy. The official bracketologist of the Mueggers show,
Hunter Sandsum. Follow him on Twitter at bracket n K
why and like everybody else, he has a bracket game.
That's right, He's got a bracket game. He's taking on
all comers. It's pinned at the top of his feed

(01:21:54):
at bracket and K why so there you go. I
don't know he made the key. He made a hard
case for West Virginia. I just I default, and I
admit it's the laziest of all positions. Win more games.
It's not that hard. Sean Miller's team won enough games.
The head coach of the Musketeers joins us next on

(01:22:16):
ESPN fifteen thirty, ESPN fifteen thirty on Moeger, Thank you
so much for joining us today. Selection Sunday is my
favorite day on the American sports calendar. And the reason
why I love Selection Sunday is we find out at
the same time that the teams find out, and so

(01:22:36):
I think that's the best part of it. The best
part of that show on CBS are when you see
the teams that find out they're going, or even if
they're not shown on the selection show itself. You saw
the footage from Sean Miller's house last night. The Xavier
Musketeers find out they're in where they're going, which is
obviously Dayton to play Texas on Wednesday night. A euphoric site,

(01:22:59):
a euphoric feeling at Coach Miller's house, and I'm sure
that has given away to a lot of work in
the hour since x you getting set to take on
Texas on Wednesday night. The Musketeers back in the NCAA
tournament after a one year absence and during what I'm
sure is a very busy time for him. We're still
honor to be joined by the head coach of the
NCAA tournament, Bound Xavior Musketeer, Sean Miller is with us.

(01:23:22):
It's good to have you, coach. Congratulations on the berth
and thank you so much for joining us. How are
you my pleasure?

Speaker 5 (01:23:29):
Moe great, great talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
Glad to be on So you know, we talked about
the magical feeling you said you felt last night, unlike
anything you have felt in sports. Last night you get
done talking with the media, When did things pivot from
euphoria to the work that you and your staff and
your team have in front of you.

Speaker 5 (01:23:49):
You know, it switched right away. But I will tell
you the joy of being a part of the tournament,
and you know, really locking arms with the group of
players in our staff that we have in play here
is it's an amazing feeling. You know, it's quite a climb.
It's not easy to make the tournament at any level
right now, and you know, I think the work that

(01:24:10):
we see it begins like in May April, right when
you start to construct the new team. It goes all
the way through the summer months into the fall. And
when you reflect back of all the ups and downs adversity,
you know, the tough times, the great times, and you
finally get to that very end. You know, it's like
being at the top of the mountain mo like you

(01:24:30):
just you've been climbing. You've been climbing, and may you
finally are at the very top and and you share
it with these kids that it means every bit as
much to them as it means to you. You know,
watching the smile on Zach Fremantle's face Navy on McKnight,
a lot of guys on a team that are playing
in a tournament for the first time, you know, it'll
be I think something at least for me, I'll remember

(01:24:54):
for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Well, and you talked about him last night as well.
Ryan Conwell did everything he could do in New York
on Wednesday in that game against Marquette, and my first
thought was what he and his teammates in Indiana State
went through last year where I certainly felt like they
should have been in. They were fun to watch all
season long. They don't get in, and I'm thinking, man,

(01:25:15):
this can't happen to him for a second consecutive year,
and lo and behold, it doesn't. Yeah, you feel happy
for everybody, you talk about Zach Fremantle, who I'm gonna
ask you about, But you had to feel really happy
for a guy like Ryan.

Speaker 5 (01:25:26):
Conwell for sure. And you know, Ryan it was like
deja vu because a year earlier, like you had mentioned,
he watched the selection shows his fingers crossed and it
didn't work for him. And this year, you know, all
of us were hoping that what we did was enough,
and you know, just thrilled to be a part of

(01:25:47):
the tournament. And now the next part becomes you certainly
want to perform well now that you're in it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Let's talk about Zach Fremantle, because there's him getting a
chance to play in this event, which he didn't get
two years ago. But it's not just that, it's it's
how he has played down the stretch and he was
you know, he was terrific against Marquette, but the seven
game winning streak, you know, it's one thing to be
happy for him to have a chance to play in it.
It's something else when you have a guy who has

(01:26:13):
been so instrumental in you guys getting yourselves in the
position to play in the NCAA tournament. I'm sure that
for him and for you makes it all the more sweeter.

Speaker 5 (01:26:23):
No, for sure. You know, being a second team All
Big East player this year, you know, we had a
great group of players in our conference, and I think
for the ten other coaches devote him as one of
the top ten players in the league. Knowing that he
also missed three three of the games in the Big East,
is I think quite a statement, you know, mo he

(01:26:44):
is he has scored in double figures twenty eight times
in a row, twenty eight twenty eight. In all twenty
eight games that he's played in, he's been a double
figure scorer, which you know, Look, there aren't a lot
of players that can say that, especially playing in a
Power five type of conference.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
Uh. In the in the days leading up to selection Sunday,
we as fans were crunching numbers and all the data
the committee uses. It's public. We can all interpret it.
We could all use it to make our arguments about
certain teams. Uh, there's a billion people out there projecting
with the brackets should or will look like. How much
of that stuff, if any of it, do you pay

(01:27:25):
attention to?

Speaker 5 (01:27:27):
You know, I commend that myself. I did an amazing
job of not paying attention to any of it. I really,
you know now the madness and how I am while
not paying attention to it. You know, there's there's a
that's a whole other side of the story. But in
terms of just trying to ignore it, doing your job
is ignore it. I just tried to coax the team,

(01:27:50):
be with my staff and just control the things that
we could control. You know that right there is hard enough.
Then when you start letting the emotions of what you
can't control interfere with your process, and mo, you're just
a complete basket case. You're all over the place. So
I really wasn't up to date. I didn't even know
Memphis won. You know, Memphis. The big game before selection

(01:28:13):
show is you want Memphis to win their league championship
because we didn't want another big Steeler and heck, I
had no idea. I just tried to focus on and
let it all, let the chips fall. So again, that's
what makes it magical. I heard you say that, you know,
selection Sunday is a great day, it could also be
a devastating day. And I'm glad on our end that

(01:28:34):
we were on the good side of things.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
So you instantly turned your attention to Texas. And I'll
ask you about the Longhorns here in just a second.
But compare maybe, I don't know, we can do this
twenty years ago, thirty years ago, when you're on staff
at Miami in a less digital age. What is it
like gathering information in a short amount of time for
an opponent now compared to when you first started in
this business.

Speaker 5 (01:28:58):
Oh wow, it's it's so funny. Is night and day?

Speaker 6 (01:29:01):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:29:01):
Sad Mada and I were assistant coaches at Miami. Ironically,
we were getting ready to play Arizona in U d
Arena in the first round and him and I just
basically were drinking beer in the locker room throughout the
night with VHS tapes and just putting them in. You know,
you couldn't even rewind with a remote control. It just

(01:29:22):
took forever. And by the way, you couldn't get every
game because not every game was on TV. And then
how you would go about showing your team, and I
mean it's so archaic when you think about what we
do today. You know today, I mean, within fifteen minutes
of figuring out we're playing Texas, we had every game
of their season locked and loaded, and we had the

(01:29:43):
ability to watch and put things together in just a
rapid fire away. So yeah, complete, completely different for everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
As the head coach, you find out you're going to
play Texas, and you have a staff and right and
so a certain assistant might you might say, okay, you're
going to scout Texas and the others are going to
take the teams you may play in Milwaukee. How how
many of those games as the head coach are you
going to watch in the Longhorns.

Speaker 5 (01:30:09):
You know, I try to keep it consistent. I watched
several games. And then you know there's these edits that
you know to your earlier question, where you know, watching
every shot at their best player, just watching just their offense,
not their defense, watching just their defense and not their offense.
You know, you can pretty much do whatever you want. Well,
like if I said I want to see you know,

(01:30:29):
every May three point shot in the sec from Texas,
we can pull that up in five minutes. So you know,
those are more of the things that I do. And
then really I try to work directly with our staff.
They do an amazing job of preparing our team and
watching even more than I do. And then at the
end of the day, it's so much more about your
team and having a good practice and making sure guys

(01:30:51):
are confident and excited than it is, you know, trying
to master everything that Texas does.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
You had some time between last night night and last
Wednesday in New York? Did you guys go did you
guys practice? Were they light workouts to just say, look,
let's get away from each other and reconvene on Sunday.
What'd you guys do during that time away?

Speaker 5 (01:31:13):
Yeah, so we traveled back on Friday. That was a
tough day, a long day, so that was off. We
actually took Saturday off as well, which is good, you know,
coming off from conference tournaments late in the year. But
we practiced on both Sunday and we practiced obviously today.
And you know, my before the selection show is, you know,
my motto was just real simple with our team and

(01:31:33):
until somebody takes the coin from us, we're gonna keep
flipping it, you know, We're gonna keep working and be
the best that we can be, and we're gonna have
a great day today. And yesterday was a great day.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
I mentioned you guys played Wednesday, you played Thursday. I
don't know how to read a calendar. You were not
kind of enough to join me before the Creton game,
and we talked about how in the Big East, because
of the quality of the league, the size of the league,
its depth, you're gonna play every type of team imaginable.
Is there some body in the league that Texas reminds
you of?

Speaker 5 (01:32:05):
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know, per se,
I can just give you one. But you know, they
have an incredible freshman Johnson, who was the SEC Freshman
of the Year. Also led the SEC as good as
that league was in scoring, so you can imagine how
talented he is. He's a six foot six wing player.

(01:32:28):
They're very physical, they play a very good defense. Defensively,
they played Manda Man. They pride themselves and you know
they pushed the ball in transition. You know, they have
a little bit of Saint John's to them. I wouldn't
say they're completely like them, but with that marquee one player,
you know, I think they're They're obviously a terrific team

(01:32:49):
and it's going to be a great, great matchup for us.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
You guys were so good over the last eight or
nine games on the defensive end, and look, you would
have liked to have gotten stops in that game against Marquette.
I don't think there's any questioning that. But you have
to go into this pleased with what you guys have
been able to do off defensively. You talk about Trey Johnson,
who has obviously been terrific this year, But do you

(01:33:12):
feel like after such a long season where you came
so far on the defensive end, that you go into
this event with something with your defense being something that
you and your team can hang its out on.

Speaker 5 (01:33:25):
No, we talk a lot about it, you know. I
think the stat that really says everything you need to
know about our season MO is for a huge part
of our of our non conference year, well, I'll tell
you the entire non conference season, and for at least
half of the Big East season, we're the eleventh, the
eleventh best defensive rebounding team in an eleven team conference.

(01:33:49):
So how it felt was among the myriad of good
things that we were doing. We never could quite break through,
because if you can't defensive rebound, it gets a way
of all other things. Right now, we're the second best
defensive rebounding team in the Big East. We came so
far in a really short period of time. We corrected

(01:34:12):
something that oftentimes is almost incorrect, the bull and that
right there, going from eleven to two is the biggest
difference in our season. And I will also tell you
it will be one of the biggest stats for us
on Wednesday night when we play Texas. We have to
be able to rebound with him. If not, it'll be
it'll be a tough night for us.

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
You get one more practice and a home and then
bus up. How to the next forty eight hours or
so work.

Speaker 5 (01:34:40):
Yeah, we go early in the morning and then we
buss up and then we'll be in Dayton from that
point on and obviously a late night tip. I think
it's nine to five pm on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (01:34:50):
It's going to be a late night, but worth the
wait and congratulations back in the NCAA tournament. I hope
we're doing this next week because you guys have won
one in date to in Milwaukee, and we're talking about
what's next. I know you're not even gonna come close
to going there, but I will. Best of luck tomorrow
and congratulations on getting into the tournament. Hopefully your stay

(01:35:11):
is a long one. Thanks so much.

Speaker 5 (01:35:14):
Thank you, Moe, great great being all with you.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):
Always good to have you. Sean Miller, head coach of
the Xavier Musketeers. XU gets in. They will play Texas
tomorrow night at UNIERN. The game tomorrow is on a Wednesday.
Last week's game was on a Thursday, and if they win,
they'll play a Friday. They'll play on Friday. Yes, at
nine forty five. At nine forty five, You know I

(01:35:38):
there are days I could screw up a glass of water.
It is eighteen minutes after five o'clock. What the Cincinnati
Bengals have done is one of the most remarkable things
in the history of the franchise. That and they have
allowed Joe Burrow to live up to his name. And
your phone calls coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (01:35:56):
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Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
This report is Sponsorblay.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
All questions on this show are a service of United
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Go to uh i NS dot com. How do you
feel about the bengals chances of winning a Super Bowl
over the next four years? Will happen, should happen, could happen,
won't happen? Vote now at Malaga right now? Could happen

(01:36:56):
has a very very slight edge. Vote. Oh. By the way,
Bengals have announced they have a press conference scheduled for
two o'clock tomorrow. Gee, I wonder what it's going to
be about. This is one of the most remarkable things
that I think we have seen this franchise do really

(01:37:17):
in its history. And I know that sounds like a
hyperbolic statement. It's not meant to be. It's I think
it's accurate. They have pivoted away from the direction they
were going in into a completely different direction. That doesn't

(01:37:38):
happen with the Cincinnati Bengals. They have chosen to back
away from a fight. It is often said the Bengals
care more about winning at the negotiating table than on
the football field. I'm not sure how much I agree
with that, but it has been said often why because
they don't back down. Negotiating with the Bengals is like

(01:37:59):
negotiating with a brick wall, right historically, So they dig in.
They dig in for a fight. They've done this with
former players. They've done this with contracts. They've done this
with contracts that have nothing to do with players. They
dig in. They didn't dig in here. They showed some flexibility,

(01:38:22):
they pivoted in another direction. They they kind of got
bodied here a little bit. Joe Burrow beat them up.
Joe Burrow didn't just come out and say I want
T Higgins once he came out and said it about
a half dozen times. He made the comparison to what
the Philadelphia Eagles have done with their team, Like he
came out and put the Bengals in a corner. There

(01:38:45):
are many of us who wondered, are the Bengals going
to try to fight out of that corner or are
they going to drop the gloves, try to negotiate and
talk their themselves out of that corner and find some
common ground. They have found some common ground. They got
beaten up by an agent. They had an agent say

(01:39:05):
to them, want one got to take the other? Want
Jamar Tea's coming with them? Now it sounds obvious to
you and I, for the most part, that if they
say that, if an agent says, if you want T.
Higgins or if you want Jamar Chase, you got to
have T. Higgins. If you want Jamar Chase to sign
long term, then you've got to pay T. Higgins. Like

(01:39:25):
it sounds easy, right, Well, of course you would say yes.
But knowing what you know about how the Bengals have
historically operated, would it surprised you to find out that
the Bengals said, yeah, that's cool. We don't respond to ultimatums.
So guess what, Just because you want us to sign
both doesn't mean we will. Like the Bengals, historically speaking,
do not respond to ultimatums. So the fact that they

(01:39:47):
have done that here, the fact that they have avoided
war with Joe Burrow. By the way, there is history
of the Bengals going to war with a quarterback, right.
It's part of what has loomed over this entire thing.
How many times have you heard the comparison since Joe
Burrow Carson Palmer? Will Joe do what Carson did? Joe
Burrow in twenty twenty five? Is Carson Palmer two thousand
and eight. You don't want Joe Burrow twenty twenty seven

(01:40:09):
to be Carson Palmer twenty eleven. They are willing to
go to war, they are willing to stand their ground,
they are willing to dig in and fight. They are
willing to say f you to an ultimatum. They didn't
do any of those things. That's remarkable. It's also really
really good, But that is remarkable. This is and that,

(01:40:31):
to me is my biggest takeaway. We could talk about
Roster construction and Duke Tobin in the draft and what's
next and if this is gonna work, and god knows,
we have months to do that. But my first thought
last night, as I'm watching this unfold is I almost
can't believe. This is the Cincinnati Bengals, not digging in,
not putting their fists up, showing a willing to pivot

(01:40:53):
in a different direction, letting themselves be bullied a little
bit by an agent. Those things do not have And
by the way, good for them, because the outcome that
has been achieved is they get to keep together an
elite trio. Now, is the elite trio gonna be supplemented
by the front office by drafting good defensive players, by

(01:41:15):
upgrading the offensive line. Man, your guess is as good
as mine. If you are distrustful of Duke Tobin, that's earned.
If you are distrustful of this franchise to figure out
a way to put every piece in place, that's fine.
If you are skeptical that this is going to look
more like the Miami Dolphins and less like the Philadelphia Eagles,
I get it. But moving forward, because the Bengals showed

(01:41:36):
some flexibility, because they did what historically they do not do,
they get to keep together an elite trio. That makes
up for a great identity. You will not wonder what
the Cincinnati Bengals identity is this offseason. You and I
will not wonder what the Cincinnati Bengals identity is gonna
be this coming season. That's what it's gonna be for
a while. Can they take advantage of it? Your guess

(01:41:58):
is as good as mine. But at the we talk
about like things you can hang your hat on. Things
you know they'll do every single year for the next
four years, for the next five years. You should know
that what they do well is take advantage of high
end talent. It wide receiver and arguably the best quarterback
in the sport. By the way, speaking of that quarterback,

(01:42:22):
you know we've often said Joe Burrow is the most
important Cincinnati Bengal and not just most important Cincinnati Bengal player.
He is the most important person earning a paycheck from
the Cincinnati Bengals. He is more important than the coach.
He is more important than the director of player of personnel.
He is more important than anybody else. Is that just

(01:42:42):
something we say or is that something we mean? Because
if it's something you mean, then you give Joe what
he wants. By the way, Joe will be held accountable
if this doesn't work. There're gonna be a lot of
people who if three four years from now, the Bengals
still haven't won one. If Joe is still ringless, who go, well,
you know what it's on number nine. I don't believe

(01:43:03):
that to be entirely true, because Duke Tobin does have
a responsibility to draft better and Duke Tobin does have
a responsibility to figure out ways to make the rest
of the team better. And by the way, there is
cap space, there is financial flexibility. One of the reasons
why a lot of is want of the Bengals to
do what they have done is there's no one else
to pay. Like we could talk about not so much

(01:43:24):
twenty twenty five, the twenty twenty six and the twenty
twenty seven Bengals, which now Jamar Chase and Joe Burrow
and Ti Higgins are locked in to be a part
of is Are there many players on the twenty twenty
four Bengals that you're looking at going, God, you know what,
that guy's got to be here in two years, that
guy's got to be here in three years. The answer

(01:43:47):
is not, yes. That may change based on how things
unfold this season. You would like to think that at
some point one of these defensive backs could play well
enough that you want them to be a part of
what they're doing moving forward, But there's no nobody else
down the road way in the future. A Marius Mim
certainly looks like he can be one of those guys.
And yeah, Chase Brown too, but Chase Brown's a running back. Like,

(01:44:10):
there just aren't that many players that you're looking at,
going God, these guys got to be here in twenty
seven and in twenty eight. Nobody else some players TBD.
But if you're gonna say Joe is the franchise which
they have, if you're gonna pay Joe like he's the

(01:44:31):
franchise which they have, if you're going to acknowledge this
guy is uber important and we have to win while
we have him. He is the most important person in
the franchise. Earning a paycheck from the franchise, Well, you
undercut that a little bit if you don't go in
the direction he is publicly and i'm sure privately urging

(01:44:52):
you to go in. The Bengals, just let Joe Burrow
live up to his title. The title is a best
quarterback in the NFL. That's kind of subjective, be he
is the most important Cincinnati Bengal. Give him what he
wants and then let's see where things go from there,
and he will own his share of the blame or

(01:45:15):
the criticism if what they're trying to do doesn't work.
Like part of Joe saying, starting back in December, more
than three months ago, hey do it my way is
if you do it my way, I can win. Okay,
we did it your way, Now go win. And by

(01:45:38):
the way, Joe Burrow has earned that, he has earned
that trust, he has earned that amount of flexibility, that
amount of sway, that amount of clout, however you want
to put it. But if you ever wondered, we've done
this before, like he is the most important person who
earns a check from the Cincinnati Bengals. This proved it.
This absolutely proved it. Instead of picking a fight with

(01:46:02):
the person who is the most important Cincinnati Bengal, they
did it that guy's way. They did it Joe Burrows way.
Good for them. There's also, specifically the T Higgins part
of this. I don't think there are many players the
Bengals have had play for them who are as beloved
as T Higgins, and how he has played is obviously

(01:46:23):
a major reason why been a terrific player. Would we
all like for him to be available a little bit
more frequently, of course, so, but he's been a terrific player.
T Higgins has really won me over for reasons that
go beyond just how he has played over the last
year and a half. I thought T Higgins last year, look,

(01:46:45):
it's first world problems, right, But you know he, I'm
sure on some level was looking forward to hitting free agency.
Not only did he not hit free agency, the team
doesn't even really negotiate with him. Theranchise tag him. They
keep him from hitting free agency. A lot of us wondered,

(01:47:06):
what's that going to look like? When's he going to
sign the franchise tag? He signed it in June. Is
he going to show up on time for training camp?
Showed up on time for training camp, went through the practices,
played in the preseason, said all the right things. When
asked about the franchise tag, said effectively like dude, I'm
good man, I'm getting paid more than twenty one million dollars.

(01:47:28):
Like me and my family. We are okay, we are fine. Yes,
he did request a trade when he didn't get it,
there was no public stink made. They're no temper tantrum.
He never, at least from my vantage point allowed what
was happening from a business perspective, impact his preparation, impact

(01:47:53):
his play. Those are the sort of players and people
that you want to be a part of of the
most critical juncture in your franchise's history. Do do not
undersell that part of it. If this is going to work,
it's going to work in the next three or four years.
If this team is ever gonna win one, not that

(01:48:15):
you know it's guaranteed they'll never win one if they
don't hear, but if they're ever going to win one,
it feels like it's at some point over the next
three or four years. Right. He is the kind of guy,
he is the kind of player he has proven to be,
the kind of professional you want to be a part
of this, of what's next, of this attempt to do
what they have to do over the next three or
four years. I am. I am really happy for T

(01:48:38):
Higgins And by the way, he has taken a hometown
discount like I've wondered, and I'm not sure I would
have done the same thing if I was T Higgins.
You know what, I'm gonna go ball out this year,
have a great season, hopefully stay healthy. Hit free agency
next year. Most free agent lists in twenty twenty five
had me as the number one guy if I hit

(01:49:00):
free agency. So you know what, let's see if I
can hit free agency in twenty twenty six, and if
I'm the number one guy, I'm gonna get paid again.
He gets an extraordinary amount of money. He gets two
years of guaranteed salary. He's fine. He still has a
chance to hit free agency before he hits the age
thirty or the age of thirty. He's good. He is

(01:49:23):
getting some long term security here and again. The total
value of the contracts reportally one hundred and twelve million dollars.
But he has taken less. He has taken less than
Jamar Chase. He has chosen to sign up to continue
to serve in a complimentary role to Jamar Chase. We're
talking about a position where dudes are competitive, in a
sport where players are competitive, and this guy, for the

(01:49:46):
entirety of his time in Cincinnati has been willing to
kind of take a back seat and be the number two,
be the other guy. Now, you might argue, well, Mo,
he is a number two, But isn't there a part
of you that if you were t Higgins would be going.
You know what, I'd like to be one somewhere. I'd
like to prove that I could be a one, and
I'd like to be paid like I'm a one. Now,

(01:50:06):
you might argue, mo, he is kind of being paid
like a one. Well he's not anymore because Jamar Chase
has set that bar even higher. That's a one. T
Higgins has signed up at a rate less than he
would be able to get on the open market next year,
perhaps to be a number two. There are not many
football players. Hell, I'm not sure there are many people

(01:50:27):
that would do that. So I'm thrilled that this is over.
I'm optimistic that this can work. I certainly think it's
notable that the Bengals have done this because of their
recent and not so recent track record when it comes
to inflexibility and digging in for a negotiation and not
being willing to budge. I'm thrilled the Bengals get a

(01:50:49):
chance to keep a player in person like T. Higgins.
I'm also thrilled for and appreciative of T. Higgins. Your
phone calls are next on ESPN fifteen.

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Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
Show is tonight at six on ESPN fifteen thirty. Kentucky
in comfortably as most expected as a three seed. The
Wildcats will be in Milwaukee. They could conceivably play Xavier.
Could see if they do first up a tilt against

(01:51:59):
True on Friday night, that is a seven to ten
game on ESPN fifteen thirty. Kentucky would then take on
the winner of the Illinois game versus either Xavier or Texas,
so we could get a round two matchup. It's conceivable
Wildcats versus Musketeers. Thanks to those of you who have
waited patiently while I have babbled, Steve, You're on ESPN

(01:52:22):
fifteen thirty. Good afternoon, Steve. How are you all right, Mo?

Speaker 5 (01:52:26):
How you doing a long time since we've talked.

Speaker 2 (01:52:28):
Nice to have you. What's up?

Speaker 14 (01:52:30):
Well, No, you know, I'm.

Speaker 7 (01:52:32):
A big I'm an Mia Miami of Ohio alumni, and
I think it's just absolutely disrespectful that a twenty five
and nine program, and I'm only a cat I will,
I will admit I'm a very casual basketball fan, but

(01:52:53):
a twenty five and nine program on the year doesn't
get an invite to the NCAA or two. The n
I t for Peat State and they end up taking
tenth state out of the MAC instead of Miami, who
beat Kent State three times. I don't understand how this

(01:53:14):
works in this DAYNA.

Speaker 2 (01:53:15):
Well, the NCAA tournament discussion is yeah, I mean the
the n CNAA tournament discussion is a non starter. Miami's
in a one bid league. Their net rankings in the
one hundreds. They had one Quadrant three victory or one
one victory between Q one and Q two, and they
had multiple Q three losses. So unless they beat Acron,
which obviously they lost a heartbreaker on Saturday night, they

(01:53:38):
weren't going to make the tournament. Everybody understands that Travis
Steel would be the first to admit that the NIT
exclusion for me doesn't make sense because I know some
are gonna say, and I don't know to what degree
the NIT selection committee uses the metrics that the NCAA
Tournament selection committee uses. Kent State did have a better

(01:53:59):
net ranking by night team, but Miami played them three times.
The RedHawks won all three games. If you want to
include ken State in your field of thirty two, that's fine.
To tell Travis Steele's team that you finished a bucket
away from not making the NCAA Tournament and you don't
get the consolation prize of playing in the n I

(01:54:21):
t which the school wanted to participate in. Is I
will admit, a very tough pill to swallow.

Speaker 7 (01:54:29):
Yeah, it's just I mean, the program has the Miami's
basketball program has had a lot of downtime and it's
good to see them making the steps and taking the
strides to get back to being something of a competitive team.
You know, I am a lot of respect for what

(01:54:51):
Chuck Martin's done with the football team, and you know,
I'm just you know, as it, Like I said, I'm
a Miami alum, love my school, and I just you know,
I'm really heartbroken for those kids because they left it
out there on the floor. They did a fine job
this year and they're not getting any kind of kudos

(01:55:14):
to that.

Speaker 5 (01:55:14):
That just doesn't sit well with me.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
No, I mean to go from to go from losing
the way they did, which was heartbreaking, but they lost
to a really good Acron team. Okay, fine. I went
to bed on Saturday thinking Travis Steel's team is going
to play in the n i T and have a
chance to win games, and they want to be in
this event. They'll be motivated to be in this event,
and so that's terrific. That's obviously not the event you

(01:55:37):
want to be in, but you kind of understand that's
that's kind of how it goes in a one big league,
which the MAC has been now for a while. To
not be in the n i T and to see
Kent State get in when you finished three games better
than them in the Mid American Conference regular season standings
and you beat them had to head all three times,
which means once on their own floor and once on

(01:56:00):
a neutral floor. It's one thing if you've opted out,
it's one thing, if you've made it known, this is
something we don't want to be in. According to David Saylor,
the ad this is something they made it known they
wanted to be in and they don't get in is tough.
It's unfortunate, and I do feel bad for Travis Steel
and his and his players. That said, I was I

(01:56:21):
was more heartbroken on Saturday because they were in completion
and control of that game, and you just had a
sense midway through the second half against Akron that this
was about to slip away, and unfortunately it did.

Speaker 7 (01:56:32):
I agree with you.

Speaker 5 (01:56:33):
I agree with you one thousand percent.

Speaker 7 (01:56:35):
I listened to the first half and unfortunately I had
to take care of something on the second half.

Speaker 5 (01:56:41):
But I just felt it. I was like, Okay, they
have got their.

Speaker 7 (01:56:44):
Foot on the gas. Just keep going, guys, and they
didn't do that and it cost them.

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
No it, Steve, thank you, and I hope we're talking
about a different outcome next year. Travis Steel after the
game talked about how you know we're gonna be back,
We're gonna this is motivation. Well, obviously, as it is
the case with every program at college basketball, We'll see
what the composition of the team is Miami was a
bucket away for making the tournament for the first time
since two thousand and seven. And I was thinking about

(01:57:14):
this watching their semi final game on Friday, that if
they played on Saturday and they were gonna play Akron
and Akron beat him bad in the regular season, so
they were going to have to pull off an upset.
But at the very least we're talking about Miami basketball today.
I have been doing my show since the last year

(01:57:35):
Miami made the NCAA Tournament, which they did winning the
MAC Tournament in two thousand and seven. They have been,
I think, unfortunately in Tri State sports, the biggest non
entity for nearly two decades. Travis Steele is changing that.

(01:57:56):
You know, back in the nineties. We're just talking with
Sean Miller about this. He was on that staff nineteen
ninety five, where at the time I still think they
were the Redskins beat Arizona in the NCAA Tournament like
they were in the tournament on a pretty regular basis
in the mid to late nineties, ninety two, ninety five,
ninety seven, ninety nine, obviously Sweet sixteen with Wally's Irbiak.
Only one tournament since it feels like that's about to

(01:58:19):
change with Travis Steele in charge, and it came this
close to changing on Saturday night, Tarren, how are we
on time? One minute? Let's see, Tim, you can have
that one minute. You're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Go Hey, hey,
do it good? Tim? What's up? Hey?

Speaker 14 (01:58:40):
Uh, just gotta take a little umbrage with you. You
said that Joe Burrow is kind of on him because
they signed Jabar and team like you like. He said
that he wanted and in a couple of interviews I
heard he also mentioned Trey and Mike g Now they
signed they signed by G, but they have not signed Trey.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
Correct, correct, we'll see but but well, but but I
mean that's that's the nature of the position. I mean,
the quarterbacks have more attention and uh and and focus
on them than any position in the sport, especially when
you're as compensated as well as Joe is, especially when
you are getting the things you want to get the

(01:59:21):
way Joe has. And look, Trey Hendrickson is still in
a contract to play for the team this year, and frankly,
I don't see how they play without him. Also, he
talked also he talked a lot more emphatically about t
Higgins than he did, and more frequently about T Higgins
than he did Trey Hendrickson.

Speaker 14 (01:59:40):
Let me ask you this, could they could they redo
this contract again for like this from a year and say, hey,
you know, uh, we're gonna give you a ten million.
We're gonna give you that your ten million sure like
uh like cash and uh and that way it doesn't
go against the cap.

Speaker 7 (01:59:57):
Could they do that?

Speaker 2 (01:59:58):
They could pay him more this year? Sure? I guess
the question would be, do you want to pay more
to a player who's already under contract to play for
you or more to a player who plays a position
that you have to fill. I think it's a good question, Tim,
I got to run, man. Good to tear from you.
I can't. I can't talk today. Uh, we're done. Thanks

(02:00:18):
to Tarren Bland for producing, Thanks to you for listening.
And maybe tomorrow I'll show up a work show up
to work and know how to talk. Have a great night.
The Mark Pope Show is coming up next on ESPN
fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (02:00:30):
Nation Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (02:00:42):
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(02:01:03):
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