5/6/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 3 (00:05):
Happy.

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Speaker 2 (00:08):
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 5 (00:10):
I said, what's up? It's four after three. We have
an extra minute look at that. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
Mowak or.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Thank you for joining us, Thank for having an awesome
Tuesday afternoon.

Speaker 5 (00:21):
That Reds game last night has given us a lot
to discuss and we will.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Plus, I have a new current sports pet Peeve.

Speaker 5 (00:31):
I'll tell you what it is, and an extension of
the UC conversation I just had with Tony Pike. But first,
it's Tuesday. Paul Tanner Junior is here from the Athletic
in the Growler podcast. He is just back from what
would you call that today practice face cout Phase two.
We're just gonna call it phase two. It's its own,
it's its own level of nothingness.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Paul covers the Bengals. So phase one was what just
like working out.

Speaker 6 (00:54):
They can run around the field, no coaches, no football,
just working on the field, being around the building and
then face to.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
No actual ball. Yeah, no ball, they don't have.

Speaker 6 (01:03):
They were they were just working out. Phase one is
more of a ramp up workout. This is glorified. We
don't even let they don't know us watch their so
embarrassed by Yeah, it's like essentially this is more of
a there is footballs. They there's route running. You don't
have like the offense and the defense going against each
other or anything. But they're they're out there and there's

(01:26):
a little little bit more of the real thing happening.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
So then Phase three is what and when is that they.

Speaker 6 (01:31):
Can compete against each other a little bit, you know,
not like not like in ways where they can like
really touch each other much, but yeah, it's a little
bit more competitive. You can get out there and do
some of the seven and seven stuff and things like that,
and it's so you can be a little bit more football.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Ye.

Speaker 6 (01:45):
In the final phase, that's like that's like mini camp
and stuff like that. And then phase four is actual
training camp. Yeah, there is no phase four. Face, it's
just called training camp. Okay, they leave for a month
to come back. I kind of I lose track. So
I'm glad, Yeah, I'm glad. We guy, we could we
could tick the boxes here.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
Anything among the players who were there for Phase two
stand out today.

Speaker 6 (02:06):
BJ Hill had had a boot on his left leg.
He didn't have one last week. Well, now, granted he
was in the locker room, so so, I don't know.
Maybe it's something about the activity. I don't know that
was it, but I don't I don't think it's anything serious.
Joe Burrow wasn't there. That was probably always notable. If
that's the case.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, I guess he's still uh uh living living it
up in New York. Okay.

Speaker 5 (02:31):
I had to look up with the met Gala. Yes,
he was at the met Gala. I didn't know that
the met Gala was last night because I didn't know
the met Gala was a thing.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I had to look on the internet this morning.

Speaker 5 (02:47):
When I saw you folks tweeting from Phase two that
Joe was at the Met Gala last night. I legitimately
had no idea what that was. I read three or
four sentence of sentences of the Wikipedia page for the
metal I still am not sure what it is. Does
it matter what the met Gala is?

Speaker 6 (03:05):
No, it's something very high society hollywoody Broadway. Uh that
that you know? That area very much like the Paris
thing from last year. It's in that same box. Yeah,
you know, you're in that same world of people there,
you know. And I felt like it felt like because
you know, Justin Jefferson was in Paris last year for

(03:27):
the thing when Joe was there and Joe wore the
backless suit deal, and this time Justin Jefferson also there.
But I felt like it was like, Okay, last time
I had the weird wear the weird thing, you got
to wear the really weird thing this time because Justin
was in this like weird oversized suits deal, Joe was
in much more normal looking type type suit. So I

(03:48):
felt like that was maybe that that was the other
side of the Paris deal.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
So that was in New York last night, so that
precluded him from being at Phase two today.

Speaker 6 (03:57):
Yeah, I don't I think Burrow. Burrow's career arc will
probably survive.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
Uh do you think that this lands at the desk
of the producers of those shows that air on cable
TV during the day where they yell and scream a lot,
that this will be a topic.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
It feels it feels like something they'd love to yell over.
Some b roll of them standing there and ys that potential.
He does have that potential.

Speaker 6 (04:21):
This is the first time Wait, you know, you you
always on the injury your court. You have the names
and then their their ailment in parentheses right afterwards.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
You know.

Speaker 6 (04:30):
It's the first time I've ever had parentheses gala, which
I'm just.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
It was kind of fun to be able to do
that one. Gotta admit I'm not a big gala guy. Yeah,
to a lot of galas. How many galas have you
been to?

Speaker 7 (04:41):
You think?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Zero? Not one? Not one gala?

Speaker 6 (04:43):
So gala means like really nice clothes. It's like the
next not just going to an event. Yeah, it's bigger than.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
A stacks, even a lot of stacks. I've been to
a few receptions. Yeah, maybe a banquet. I've never been
to a gala. I feel like a gala always involves
a all that you stand in front of and somebody
takes her picture, and I've never been to one of those.

Speaker 6 (05:04):
It's definitely got to have a red carpet, right, Well, yeah,
you're not allowed. Yeah, yes, I would never even know where.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
To do we have gala's in Cincinnati. I'm sure there's
been one.

Speaker 6 (05:15):
Okay, Yeah, I feel like I feel like we might
have some probably not as money as they have in
other places, but I think we've gala.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Does Joe go to them here? That's a great question.

Speaker 6 (05:27):
Next time we talk to him, will ask him if
he's ever been to a gala before this one. I
want to know what happens when everybody in the ridiculous
clothes walks through the doors. Does anything happen in there?
Or do they all just then? Are there cars on
the other side and they just take off? Because I
don't feel like I ever know of what actually happens
when they go inside of there. It's always just about

(05:47):
the absurdity of what they're wearing they walk into this
big fashion event.

Speaker 5 (05:51):
Because I've never attended a gala, I couldn't tell you.
I've been a banquets, I know what happens. I've been stags. Oh,
I know what happens. I know what happens at a bank.
I've been the receptions. I know what happen up and
it's a gala? Is there like a silent auction?

Speaker 1 (06:04):
DJ does? Does Sean Casey get out and tell stories
a captain's call? Is what happens at a gala? I
don't know. I you ask Joe these things when you
guys get them.

Speaker 6 (06:15):
Yeah, I like the idea of like like the one
of the world's best auctioneers getting out there and like
really reeling it off and giving away.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
So that that sounds like that would make sense to me.
Probably not.

Speaker 6 (06:24):
I think people just sit around and talk about their
like I don't know, they're their jets and there their
yachts and things like you just talk about, like you know,
different ways that they get transported around.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Do they have a Phase two practice tomorrow?

Speaker 7 (06:37):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (06:37):
There is, it's a fate, Yes, there's face be there
for that. Or is the gala require a two day
APPS don't know. We won't.

Speaker 6 (06:43):
We're not allowed there tomorrow. We just get once a
week in there for an hour or want one practice.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
I just want to show you on the list of
things at the very bottom Burrow Met Gala, so I
can check it off.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
It was towards the bottom. But you know, I'm glad
we covered it.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
Was anybody else noteworthy for their absence Phase two? No
Trey Hendrickson obviously.

Speaker 6 (07:04):
Yeah, no, Trey Hendills, Yeah, no, Trey Hendrickson, No, Jermaine
Pratt obviously that that's not notable.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Those would be expected. No, I don't. I don't think so.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
Dax Hill obviously working out on the side that wasn't surprising.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
No, I don't.

Speaker 6 (07:20):
I don't think there was anything. I mean, unlike previous years.
Was kind of fun to see, Hey, there's Jamar Chase
and t Higgins doing things during Phase two, right, we
had no always gotten a lot of it.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
Did not get Met Gala invites or turned down the
invite because they wanted to come.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
To phase two.

Speaker 6 (07:35):
I gotta feel like maybe the new contract has them
dedicated to Phase two.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
Maybe it's workout bonuses, maybe it's just a desire to
be here, and maybe it was an invite thing.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I know.

Speaker 6 (07:43):
Again, more for us in the thirty for thirty about
the twenty twenty five Met Gala. I'm sure all you
all that information will be in there. Met Gala's once
a year.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Thing, I believe. So you're challenging my knowledge on this
now too.

Speaker 5 (07:56):
I want to make sure later in the show, when
I devote large swaths of airtime to the inevitable Joe
Burrow Met Gala take because now I feel like I
have to beat everybody to the punch tomorrow. All those
shows like on FS one at ESPN where they yell
at each other and talk passionately about things they really
don't care about. I feel like, now tomorrow there might

(08:16):
be you. Like you'll see the clip and it's got
the big chiron, the big graphic. Burrow skips phase two
for Gala. Is he all in? Is he sending a message?
Does he not want to play for the Bengals like you?
I have to beat ready, And so I'm just trying
to get as much background on this particular item as
I can get.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
No, I know you're in a great place.

Speaker 6 (08:37):
I think you've hit all the proper spots, and I
think that I'm sure you'll have a great take tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (08:43):
All right, Well, let's talk about some actual football star,
can we Yeah, So I read you've written a couple
of things since we last talked. One is about how
the Bengals kind of meshed Al Golden's vision with the
players they took in the draft. And here's what was
striking about this to me. I've been falling following this
team for forty plus years. I can never recall such
a heavy emphasis on the position of linebacker. If you

(09:06):
know anything about how the Bengals have historically valued that position.
This just reading this much less observing the off season
is noteworthy and to me.

Speaker 6 (09:17):
Striking the last time they spent a first or second
round pick on a linebacker was Ray mal Luga two
thousand and nine. Right, so you're going you're going back. Okay,
this is not you're right, this is not who they've been.
But I think they looked at what they had and said,
this what I want to do. I would how Golden
once to do. Cannot do it with this. We must

(09:41):
fix this. This, this must be a priority to overhaul
this linebacker. But not just you know, the interesting thing
to me in talking to people was not just with
a linebacker, not just don't just throw a linebacker at
the problem. There's a really specific type. They were really
looking more for versatility in their linebackers. Linebackers that can
do things like, you know, play as a stack or

(10:02):
drop down off the edge if they need to, and
they can blitz them and bring them outside more, but
also be able to do a little bit more of everything,
which is asking a lot more of them. And they
also kind of wanted to run through the linebackers. I
think in the past when the remote defense, I've done
a little bit more of running through the safeties. In
terms of the checks and all the everything that they
needed to be doing. And I'm sure we'll talk about

(10:22):
you know, Stone later in the show, but like you know,
his ability, their ability to do that is can be
challenging if you don't have the right guys in place there.
And I think they feel like, look, let's put the
right guys in place at linebacker.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
That's run it through this.

Speaker 6 (10:35):
That's where Al Golden's background is and was here and
and there was a very clear opinion that entering this
offseason that this is a big part of where this
needs to start and that maybe that was undervalued in
previous years and specific with what he wants to do.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Elaborate on something you just said, because I wrote it
down to something I want to ask you you wrote
in your piece and you just referenced that Al Golden
wants the defense to run through linebacker and not safety.
For a total idiot like myself, what does that mean?

Speaker 6 (11:05):
I think it means a lot of where the calls
and everything that you're trying to accomplish with the way
it goes is something that the linebackers do, and they
do well. They are the ones that are making sure
everybody's in the right place. They're the ones that are
seeing things. They're the ones that are kind of involved
with the more of the mental load, I guess you
should say, of what they're doing, and they need to

(11:26):
have a little bit more versatility in what they do
and they can be more weapons than just guys that
are behind the defensive lineman going.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
To tackle, you know.

Speaker 6 (11:35):
So, I think I think that's a bigger part of it,
where you know, before a lot of it, especially with
Jesse and Vaughn on the level that they were playing at,
they were the ones that were really doing a lot.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Of the dictating.

Speaker 6 (11:45):
It's still the case, I mean, safety safety, you still
have to be able to do that, but I do
think he sees it a little bit more through the
linebacker's eyes.

Speaker 5 (11:51):
Paul Dayner, Junior of the Athletic dot Com Will you
be compelled to write a piece about Joe not come
into phase two because of the met gala?

Speaker 1 (11:59):
I'm not competitors, editors going to make you chime in
on this.

Speaker 6 (12:02):
I feel like I've already given more time to it
than I ever thought that I would. Me and you here,
so I feel like, six man.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
What do I do?

Speaker 7 (12:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (12:08):
I mean, I mean, let's go on now.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
I will not you. I will not be writing about that.
I have other things that I will be writing about,
but I'm not quite there yet.

Speaker 5 (12:18):
I do want to ask you about something you have
coming out tomorrow. Yeah, and we have to talk about
your fifty three man roster outlook.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
You like that? I do. I do.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
And look ahead to next week when we're getting mock schedule. Oh,
you know what, you know, mock schedules coming up. I'm
already excited. I've already started thinking about it. All right, Well,
I have a question about mock schedule sixteen after three o'clock.
Paul's here for the hour. We're here till six. We'll
get to the Reds coming up in the four o'clock hour.
After getting one hit last night in a game that
kind of took a back seat to what happened with

(12:48):
Tyler Callahan. All that coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (12:52):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the UC.

Speaker 9 (12:58):
Health Traffic Center, and it comes to stroke every second.
Tun So that's why you See Health is the clear
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See help dot com. Stomp due to a fallen utility
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expect to that to reopen around five thirty later today

(13:20):
and once abound two seventy five down the one lane
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with traffic.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Twenty one after three ESPN. Fifteen to thirty more.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Paul Tanner is here from The Athletic and the Growler
podcast One more thing on the the Al Golden Piece,
talking about finding players who fit what he's looking for.
So and you and I have talked about this. Uh,
they have an addressed defensive tackle beyond TJ.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Slayton.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
And the response to that is, well, they're you know,
on passing down is gonna throw some guys inside, which
sounds great, and Shamar Stewart is good at that, fantastic.
This is a question that is maybe not that important,
but I can't help but wonder why was the previous
defensive coordinator so adverse to doing such a thing, taking
edge guys and kicking them inside.

Speaker 6 (14:10):
Well, I don't know how much it fit his what
he felt like his system was. You know, I think
you saw it on third down some I mean you
saw a lot of little bit like the side did
a decent amount of that.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
You know, there was I feel like a while ago,
a little bit with Sam there.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Was always talk about that.

Speaker 6 (14:27):
I was like, why don't you and the office he'son
always be like and say, oh, yeah, we're gonna try
to do that more. And then as the games came,
he felt like he didn't really see that much or
it would be you know, in clear third down packages.
I also think that, you know, the style of defense
when he would go to the like five down defensive
lineman stuff, it's a little different than if you go

(14:47):
to say more of just a three down with a
couple of linebacker types more on the outside. So I
just think he just didn't feel like it fit as
much and it just was more of a this is
kind of what they have, and.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
You know, I think they felt like they had had.
Oh we're Sheldon Rankins.

Speaker 6 (15:03):
He's gonna be a real three techniqueer and draft Chris
Jenkins and he's gonna help be a real three technique
and and some of that stuff. Maybe it just by
the way, Yeah, long term, Chris Jenkins, you buy Chris
Jenkins on term Chris Jenkins, what about it.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
I think he's gonna be good. Okay, I don't know
that he's going to be a pass rusher.

Speaker 6 (15:24):
No, like that I get, but I I mean, I
think they're hoping he's going to be good, but I don't.
I mean, you know, you're hoping. Again, that's hope. Is
a year year, one year, two jump you need. It's
got a little bit different than last year. I think
there was some stuff working against him last year, and
I think there's certainly a chance, but that's a that's
a hard that's a hard one to bank on because

(15:44):
I don't look in there and think I just look
in there and look for a pass rush right now. Yeah,
And maybe that's just because it doesn't feel like they
have any I just I don't know that you can
bank on it coming from him.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Maybe it does a little bit more, but maybe No,
he's not a pass rusher.

Speaker 7 (15:59):
No.

Speaker 5 (15:59):
I mean, I think as construction of the defensive line goes,
there's reason to be bullish about both guys they drafted
last year stopping the run, which they've emphasized.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
They certainly need them to be good. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
So, but if you knew that about Chris Jenkins, and
I kind of interrupted you there, But like, why would
you be opposed to throwing some of those guys inside?
Was it because they had children? Rankings barely played.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
They barely had children? Rancons?

Speaker 6 (16:21):
Now, I just think that situationally, they that wasn't a
part of what he wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
You know, I don't. It's hard to there's just.

Speaker 6 (16:28):
So there's so much and there's so much revisionist history
over last year, you know, where it's like we just
continue to go back to the same place where it's like, well,
everything ends the same way. Last five weeks, when we
just simplified everything, everything worked a lot better. And I
think that's kind of what all of last year's problems,

(16:48):
you know, come from, whether schematic or otherwise, is just
that Defense was not ready for what they lou was
trying to have them do.

Speaker 5 (16:58):
Gino Stone has apparently taken a pay cut. Yeah, one
point six mil. Talk with you guys today, Yeah, acknowledged
I'm taking a pay cut one point six mil. I
think said all the right things, right, yeah, yeah, Uh.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Can you help me understand.

Speaker 5 (17:14):
This because when I think of a player taking a
pay cut, I think of a situation like Joe Mixon
where it's take a pay cut or else, and it
was either take the pay cut or you're gone, because
we like we have at this position, they literally have
done nothing at safety.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yes, behind him.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
Are Dejon Anthony and Tyson Anderson who has played as
many safety snaps in the NFL as I have. So
what's what's the point of asking the guy to take
a pay cut? Because I can't imagine they would have
cut him had he said no. What are they doing?
It's a great question, though, what are they doing? What
are they doing to do? I mean, I think it's
weird to mix something that you mentioned.

Speaker 6 (17:50):
You do that, but that's a big, way bigger number
five mil, right, I mean you're a way bigger number
than what you're talking about. But you know, Stone one
point six I mean you're less than one percent of
yourself cap and you know, and and Geno Stone mentioned
sort of like, well, you know, if you're you're moving around.
They haven't said specifically if you're moving around trying to
pay tray. If there was just one point six million,
that was a difference between what you could do with

(18:12):
Trey and what you can't. What's going on here? There
are a million other ways that you can make one
point six million in cash or cap happen for yourself,
and they have plenty of cap right now. Uh So,
if that's it, I don't. The thing is, there's two
sides to this one. You're just we've talked often about
Genostone and how he did not play very well last year,
no question, Yeah that's so. But if you felt like

(18:36):
you felt so low of Genostone that you're like, let's
make him take a pay cut, okay, And honestly, one
point six just feels personal at that point. If you
you say let's make him take a pay cut, you
say that, well, okay, if you feel that low about him,
then why didn't you replace him? Why didn't you draft
somebody to play safety over him? Why didn't you sign somebody?
If you've but you say no, and okay, I'm here

(18:58):
to I'm here to believe that part.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
All right. We believe in Genostone.

Speaker 6 (19:02):
We think he sounds like he understands it better, He
played better, as things simplified, Al Golden has a vision
for him all things that he's really motivated by proving
himself again. He said, today, I've got this seventh round
pick mindset back again. All right, I'm here to believe
all of that, and then at the end you're gonna
degrease him with like, ah, yeah, but take take one

(19:22):
point six million dollars pay cut. We built yep, and
you're our plan. But you know, but we want you
to be our plan for one point six million dollars less.
It just feels it just doesn't feel like it meshes, man,
It just doesn't just doesn't make that part doesn't make
sense to me.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Why you would why you would do that?

Speaker 5 (19:38):
Well, what I don't understand is if Gino Stone would
have said, actually, no, I'm not taking a pay cut,
then what Yeah, this was my literal question.

Speaker 6 (19:48):
Like I'm just sort of listening to Geno talk and
he's talking, and I'm just like thinking, I don't I
don't mean to be captain obvious here, but why didn't
you just tell him no?

Speaker 1 (19:58):
And he kind of looked at.

Speaker 5 (19:58):
Me and smile, Oh, the kind of things like well, yeah,
we we we we thought about that, yeah, and but
we decided to do it's best for you.

Speaker 6 (20:07):
He's like, you get rid of your agent and let
me step into your world, buddy.

Speaker 5 (20:11):
They don't have another answer. If you say no to
this pay cut. They're literally not going to do anything.
So you know what I'm gonna say is I'm good.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, I'm cool. I'd like to make the money that that.

Speaker 6 (20:21):
You know, we we have all this talk of honoring
contracts right here, I really feel like this could be.
That's the other thing, like when when fans and people
hear about talks of honoring contracts, remember that, Yeah, remember
when the players do the things that the players do. Yes,
this is what happens. Yes, is that when the team
doesn't think you want to, they just come back and now.
And he could he could have said no, sure, and

(20:43):
they could have done whatever. But I'm just saying, you
remember that it has to go both ways. And it
just feels it just did this one didn't. Doesn't sit right.

Speaker 5 (20:50):
I don't understand the point. I can understand, Hey, we
need some coin to go get this done. They have
money to get stuff done this offseason, and as you said,
I cannot imagine that that money they're giving back to
the Bengals, that Genostone is giving back to the Bengals
is going to be what suddenly turns Trey Hendrickson into
a long term Bengal that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 6 (21:07):
Yeah, it was, It's what it was. He was at
thirty point Ford. It had to be thirty two. So
we're going to steal it from Geno's Stone. There's just
no I mean, that's just such a small amount for
it to really be about that.

Speaker 5 (21:18):
It just feels to me like they did this because
they could, and maybe they realized Geno's Stone is unpopular
among their fan base, and so hey, we could I
don't know, punish Geno Stone for having a bad.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Year, which he had a bad year like that year.
I've renamed my dog after him, But then.

Speaker 6 (21:35):
Cut him this is weak and get somebody else or
have have a plan B.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
And you could hold over his head and go, dude,
if you say no to this, here's the guy we're
putting it safety because sure as hell, ain't Tyson as.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Maybe and maybe it was.

Speaker 6 (21:48):
Maybe they sat there and they're like, we have Justin
Simmons online too. You take one point six pay cut
or the phone call goes to Justin Simmons. I don't
know there are there are I wrote this in the
fifty three Man. There are having safeties out there right now.
They played more than fifty percent of the snaps last year,
they are still on side.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
So there are players that had to be it. Then,
I mean it's the.

Speaker 6 (22:07):
Only and and it's just come on, man, but do
you want them to be your guy or not? Like
I just to me, it's it's not it's not it's
not even necessarily about the money. It's about what what
are you trying to do here? Are you trying to
say Geno's your guy and you're willing to go with it?
And if and if you felt that low of him,
why did you not do something to actually replace him

(22:29):
in the draft or in free agency or bring in
competition at the very least.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
That's the thing.

Speaker 5 (22:34):
It's those don't mesh with each other. I see better
than I hear. I hear we have confidence in Geno Stone.
And if I'm Geno Stone, I go, yeah, look at
my paycheck. I'm about one hundred grand light or per game. Like,
that's not showing confidence in me. If your boss says
we have all the confidence in the world and you're
you're the guy, and then says, but we needed you
to take a pretty big pay cut and not gonna

(22:55):
do anything else with the money, Hey man, that's not
a ton of confidence in you.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
I appreciate, you know.

Speaker 6 (23:01):
Kelsey Conway inquirer specifically, like, is it hard not to
take it personal when your employer does this, Well, it's
this point. He's like, yeah, I mean, obviously it is
no doubt. He's like, but I will credit Gino. He
stood up and said all the right right things and
admitted I didn't play great last year and there's a
lot of weight, so I understand.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
It's a business.

Speaker 6 (23:21):
And he's like, I've been you know, I've moved teams,
I've been played for different coordinators. I've I've had to
I've been in rooms with first round draft picks and
I've had to play certain roles. I get it, and
I've survived by having this seventh round mentality. And I'm
here to do that and do what's best for the team,
and that's all I care about. And I just want
to put my best games on tape and I and

(23:43):
I appreciate taking that attitude because this is an easy
opportunity to air the grievances.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
And I'm gonna.

Speaker 6 (23:50):
Guess if it were me, if it were you, I
don't know how good I'd be in front of my
locker today of saying the right things, So I credit
I credit Geno for that. He does seem to have
the right attitude about him, but the plan doesn't mesh.

Speaker 5 (24:05):
So he has one more year past twenty twenty five
in his current contract.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Correct, he's got this year.

Speaker 5 (24:11):
If if he goes and he has an all pro
caliber season, are they gonna give him the money back?

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I took it away from him because he's stunk last year.

Speaker 6 (24:20):
Yeah, give more guarantee, a slight guarantee involved to cover himself.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
But I mean it's it's like, no, there's there's no I.

Speaker 5 (24:27):
Feel bad for Genostone, this guy that I have mocked
and made fun of and renamed my dog after, because
he takes she takes terrible angles on the toys I throw, Yeah,
playing fetch now, Like I'm I'm all in on genos Stone, Dude,
go do it because I think this is crummy.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
Yeah, I agree, I think he I think there's it
feels that way, And I should have asked him today
if he heard about your your dog renaming and if
that was part of the process of frustration.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, if the answer is yes, that doesn't mean he
has to take a one point six million dollar pay
cut right, there's no doubt about it.

Speaker 5 (24:58):
I it's hey, we have all the confidence in you,
mad We think you're the ideal person for this position.
Just really quick, We're gonna need to cut your pay
by what's the percentage?

Speaker 1 (25:09):
What was he supposed to make of the total cap? Yeah? No,
for for GINO.

Speaker 6 (25:13):
What was gin gonna make this year that they subtracted from?
Oh yeah, so you're oh geez, what was it?

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Uh seven?

Speaker 6 (25:19):
It was two year fourteen? So yeah, So I mean,
I don't know what the percentage of I'm not doing
math in my head, right.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
So that's like twenty percent.

Speaker 5 (25:27):
Yeah, We're hey, we have all the confidence in the
world in you, except we're going to reduce your salary
by twenty percent.

Speaker 6 (25:33):
Yeah, whatever, pal, whatever sounds great, And I'm gonna go
give my all.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Who do you got behind me? Uh?

Speaker 7 (25:39):
No?

Speaker 1 (25:39):
One? Really? Yeah, yep, let me take that pay cut. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
I hope Genostone has a great year. It's twenty seven
away from four o'clock. I want to talk about the
lack of trades, which you're going.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
To write about.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
Yes, all right, we'll do that when we come back
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati, sports.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Station Sincy three sixty with Pike.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Do we want to move on? To keep going?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
And Boston Elmore.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
I think you continue?

Speaker 8 (26:05):
Let me keep going there, Sincy three sixty Tomorrow Which
twelve News on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 9 (26:18):
When it comes to stroke every second town. So that's
why you see health is the clear choice for rapid
life saving treatment. Learn more at u seehealth dot com.
Taylor Road remains closed off due to a fallen utility
pull both directions between Cluffpike and Armstrong Boulevard. Emilia Olive
Branch Road. Your Best alteredate in southbound twent seventy five

(26:41):
is down to one lane for repairs on the Carrol
Cropper Bridge on at Ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 5 (26:47):
This rebinds a service of Kelsey Chevrolet Home of Lifetime
powertrain protection and guarantee credit approval from their family to
Yours for life kelseyshow dot com reads continue their series
in Atlanta to tonight second of four with the Braves.
Red's now trying to break a three game losing streak.
Andrew Abbott and Lefty Chris Sayle on the Hill seven

(27:08):
fifteenth tonight on seven hundred WLW Tyler Callahan to the
injured list with that left fore arm fracture he suffered
during that ugly play trying to catch a ball down
a left field line last night. Also, Zululeda Zulueda god
Yaz Vszulueda has been sent to a Triple A Louisville.
Jacob Hurdabies is back for some reason, so is Ryan

(27:31):
Lyon Richardson and Rhet Lauder is off to the Arizona
Complex League for the start of a rehab assignment. Paul
Danner juniors here from the Athletic Geno Stone is getting
a pay cut. Bengals going through phase two of workouts.
Joe Burrow not there because he was at the Oscars
or something last night.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
I don't know what the met gala is.

Speaker 5 (27:51):
By this time next year, I will know what the
Met galleon is, Okay, just in case he goes and
has to miss another practice.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
I think there may be a number of different gala
that you need to learn about now that Joe Burrow
is in full Hollywood mode right now.

Speaker 5 (28:04):
I need Met gala for dummies. Yeah, so you explain
to me exactly what it is.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
How hard. Can it be all right?

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Well, when we come back, Oh, we've got some other
stuff here. I'll read for you the Wikipedia entry for
the Gala of Gala Gala Gala. I'll read you the
Wikipedia entry and you can tell me what it means.
You're a literary guy. You keep putting this on me
like literary guy, so I must know all about this. Okay,

(28:30):
I'll do my best. Paul Danner Junior with us for
the rest of the hour. You have a piece coming
out tomorrow about trades and from a Bengals perspective, a
recent lacked era.

Speaker 6 (28:40):
Yeah, mostly in the draft. I mean it's kind of
looking at what we just went through, uh, in the draft.
And you know, this is two straight years now that
you have had the Bengals surprisingly stick and pick sixteen
consecutive picks the last two years where they have done
they've not moved. They've just sat there and taking the

(29:00):
players that came to them. Last year it was, oh,
you'd think probably they would consolidate all those late picks
and maybe come up and find some targets.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
They didn't. They just took a bunch. This year.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
It was open before. We want more picks. We desire
to have more picks. They had opportunities to do so,
specifically in the second the third round, they passed on
those to take the Meetri Site and Dalan Fairchild and
sat still. Meanwhile, as anyone who watched the draft knows,
everyone is trade. Nick Cassario in four years has had

(29:33):
thirty five selections, thirty one of which were traded.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah, this is what you know.

Speaker 6 (29:39):
Howie Roseman is making a you know, a persona off
of this, off of all the movies, and this is
in there, and I love the league is taken over
now by all of these young or at very at
least if they're not young, just aggressive GM styles that
are happening. And the Bengals are, and I'm not saying
right or wrong they are they I have been conservative. Now,

(30:01):
it's not like they've never traded before in the past
they have, but in the last three years there have
been one hundred and seven trades on draft days. Just
on draft days last three years, one hundred and seven,
So that's two hundred and fourteen teams the Bengals have
been part of. One two hundred and fourteenth that was

(30:22):
Jordan Battle, moving back three spots for Jordan Battle a
couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
That's it. And so the thing is is that overrated?

Speaker 6 (30:30):
Is this GM saying look at me and all the wizardry,
when at the end of the day you just have
a player and you're judged by your player. Or is
the conservative nature of the Bengals specifically these last two
to three years what we talk about when we talk
about winning or losing in the margins in the NFL

(30:51):
adding a pick, Well, when you come out of this
and what's the thing that we we've all come out
of the saying.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Where's the Have you seen the defensive tackle around here?

Speaker 7 (31:00):
Anywhere?

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Where's the defensive tackle?

Speaker 7 (31:01):
Right?

Speaker 6 (31:02):
Sure could have used one more pick? Well, they had opportunities.
We had Mike Potts on our show last week and
we talked kind of specifically about this, and he's talking
about some other places too.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, they had offers. They were all putting them together.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
They are on the table and they you know, they
had conviction on Demetrious Night, they had conviction on Fairchild
and didn't think the move back was worth the risk
of adding. But they could have added and chose not
to do so. And when it's a pick where people say, ah,
maybe you could have gotten them later, and maybe they
couldn't have they that wasn't worth the risk to them,

(31:34):
and obviously it wasn't, or they would have made the
choice to make the move. But when you have these
opportunities and then you look at the big picture of
an entire league doing this all over the place, it's
I think that's one where you got to say, is
this conservative style? Is it hurting them? Or is this
just people making too big of a deal out of

(31:56):
all the trading and the moves that that happened.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Can the answer both?

Speaker 6 (32:02):
Yeah, I think too big of a deal is made
at it, but it's also it's probably never good to
be totally on any side of the spectrum. Yeah, I
probably want to be more right. So I certainly.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
Believe there are probably general managers who are making trades
just to make trades, Yeah, just to hey, let's show
how creative I am the wheeler dealer, uh and and
reap the immedia he r benefit from it. I certainly
do think watching this year's draft, and you wrote about
Al Golden and Demetrious Knight and mentioned like they could

(32:34):
have traded but that's who they wanted. There's a part
of me that I really can appreciate the oversimplification of like,
hey man, we want this guy. Let's just make sure
we get this guy. And you know what, maybe we
could still get this guy, but we really want this guy,
and so screw it, we're just taking him. I can
kind of appreciate that. At the same time, I guess
for me with the Bengals, I just I look at
recent drafts, and I look at the numbers with this

(32:55):
year's draft in particular, and I wish they would be
would have been a little bit more bold, bit more aggressive,
and I think I think you could do that without
gratuitously making trades just so Adam Schefter could tweet about
you on Draft.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Night, right, and and they have.

Speaker 6 (33:09):
It's just like when you're in a situation like they
have been the last couple of years, where it feels
like there's opportunity to make more out of these drafts
for yourself with movement and so much of the league
is doing so you can lose. But if it just
looked a little bit more like some of the drafts
where they just you know, here comes the Bengals second
round move back to AD picks or whatever, and it's

(33:30):
like it just feels like the reluctance to do that
and then also the same way. And I know they
finally made a trade at the deadline this past year,
but that's obviously been they've been reluctant to do over
the course of time. That plays into this too, the
reluctance to make trades there where you don't see as
much of that, and that usually can end up in
whether it's draft capital or a player or something like that,

(33:51):
just that you know, as the league becomes more trade heavy,
and this has been a trade a trend that's been
going on for a decade now, as it becomes more
and more that way, it sticks out even larger when
you have a couple of drafts and things like like
this where there's just where it's just the one team
we had.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I thought of it.

Speaker 6 (34:10):
I wanted to look further into it when Mike Sando
did a sort of anonymous execs story about their thoughts
on everybody's draft, and in it we had our little
graphics of and it was the graphic of everybody's draft,
and but next to it, in addition that they are
are fine graphic people, to this year, where they had
if the pick was traded and who with and all
of them are just this pick had moved, like almost

(34:33):
all of them, and you just see it on the
on down the line. Fifty three percent of this year's
picks were not the original pick of that team, three
percent of the entire draft when you had that, And
then there's the Bengals with nothing in that left side column.
Only Tampa Bay could say the same thing, and that

(34:54):
they just sat there and had their own picks most
of them have. The entire thing is just move picks
and trying to find a way to get an angle
here there. Again, I think you end up in this
same place where it's like, probably needs to be a
little bit more aggressive. It doesn't need to be full Casario, right,
but it's notable the last two to three years how

(35:17):
different they've.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Been operating than a majority of the league.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
I just would have liked to have had this year
as many picks as they had needs.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
And they were one away in my opinion, right, I
thought they were one away. That was I wanted.

Speaker 5 (35:30):
I may have said this to you before the draft,
I know I said it in this in this studio.
I want as many picks as they have needs.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
That's it. And to me.

Speaker 5 (35:40):
Getting that doesn't require some sort of huge, bold, you know,
uber aggressive strategy. It's just some deafness and identifying players
that are good plan bs for the players who are
plan A if you don't get them right. Yeah, that's
all I wish they would have done. And so the
way I look at the class is I'm all in

(36:02):
on most.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Of these guys. Yeah, Like, it's not about the players.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
It's not about the players, like the Shamar Stewart thing
I said on your podcast, Like I think the pressures
can translate, and I like drafting a twenty five year
old with two kids a linebacker, and Dylan Fairschild looks
the part God knows. After talking to his offensive line
coach at Georgia, I was all ready to go.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
And I'm big on Taje.

Speaker 5 (36:22):
Brooks and Barrett Carter looks like a guy who's kind
of the antithesis of what they've had at that position
in terms of just athleticism.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Like it's not about the players. I just wish they
would have.

Speaker 5 (36:32):
Had one more Yeah, And I don't think that's an
unreasonable take. And you get yelled at for being too
pessimistic if you're like, yeah, the players are fine, but
like I like these six, I would have liked to
have had a seventh because they had one more, at
least one more need and maybe one more beyond that.

Speaker 6 (36:48):
Yeah, and maybe you know, we're ripping them if they
have to move back ten or fifteen spots in round
two and Night goes away and they feel like now
they don't solve their linebacker problem, or they have to
overdraft Barrett Carter now and and and it falls the
wrong way for them, and then we'll rip them because
that fourth round pick ends up being you know, like

(37:10):
Tyler Shelvin or Khalid Kareem or or Renelle ren or
any number. But you know, sometimes that's a deep cut.
I'm just I'm just I just went through him today.
I was I had to do this line today in
my story going back. Hey, there's more, there's more Renel Wrens.
Then there's Carl Lawson's and Geno Atkins. Okay, they're easier
to find when you go down the list, But I'm

(37:30):
just saying you you you doesn't mean you stop swinging,
and you obviously have to keep adding. And they know
that that's a philosophy that they've lived by. And so
I just feel like it ends up where I'm with you.
It felt like a willing to play a little less
conservative could have helped them tick that one last box here.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
All right, last week, you were on the show with
me and we kind of made fun of Jermaine Burton
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
It's never happened before he was there.

Speaker 5 (37:56):
He was must have gotten a lead start, so he
was there doing his He was, you know what, good
he had in the right direction. So I want you
to write the piece this summer. Okay, what if Jermaine
Burton ends up getting it.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
I'm not writing that this summer because he's got to
get through more than a summer perforeming a right down.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
Okay, what if he makes the team? Can he make
the team? And then you write.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Because there's a lot of ways he makes the team. Okay, Well,
then go ahead and write it, and then.

Speaker 6 (38:27):
June, I'm gonna need to see it. I think he's
got to go execute beyond fake game in a preseason
game that's not in the fourth quarter against dudes who
are not going to play in the NFL. If he
can go through and play an entire preseason game without
running the wrong route, Look, you had.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
A picture of him in your thing. You know, I
didn't put that picture in there. Everything I don't write
in the mix for the Bengals after a tumultuous rookie year.
You can thank saving on that one. He picked that out.
So there's a reason why they took him.

Speaker 5 (39:00):
Okay, there's a reason to be skepticism, to be skeptical
about him. It's not has to do with his talent.
It's maturity, it's work ethic, it's having an alarm clock,
it's all these things. Okay, if he can fix all
that stuff, why then can I think about the tantalizing
athletic ability worked into an offense that is already tantalizing.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, there's a reason he's still here.

Speaker 6 (39:25):
There's a reason they put up with everything they just
put up with is because, yeah, that's tantalizing.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's also far off, mo. I know. The slot machines
are too right there.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
It's it's just it's just right down the road and
you can find them all over the place.

Speaker 10 (39:39):
I was.

Speaker 5 (39:39):
We did our show from bell Terra Park on Friday.
My show next to a slot machine, and you look around.
It'll be awesome. If Jermaine Burton sits down here just
as me in the middle of May as a glass
half full guy. That's a good place to be excitement
for this. Maybe he'll be the winner of the Moegger Award.
He's eligible. So Yosha vass is one of the consecutive years.

(40:02):
Take third year, and I was actually doing that. I
was looking at your roster breakdown. None of these I
don't even know who Michael Tinsley Mitchell Tinsley is, so
Jamoy Mays also would like to root for him too.
But if I'm handicapping the field, Jermaine Burton, I got
like five.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
To one to be the Muleger Award winner. Yeah, I
like that. I mean I think that.

Speaker 6 (40:23):
I think that there's a reason that he's still here,
and I just, ah, it's just too far off for.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Me to be considering that.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
There's it's when you have so much distrust and things
went so wrong, like I need, I need to see
a game plan executed. I need months and months of consistency. Okay,
No one's saying that he won't have he can't have flashes.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
He had flashes last year.

Speaker 6 (40:49):
Yeah, but I need I need to know that I
can trust you to show up the day before week
three against the Patriots, or you're.

Speaker 5 (40:58):
Gonna throw this in my face like he doesn't show
up for a day of training camp.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
I'm not throwing anything in your face.

Speaker 6 (41:04):
You're asking me to write a story that I'm not
gonna write until I see something that's a little more substantial.
That's all I'm saying. The first start answering questions. You're
asked me questions, and I'm answering them. I'm telling you
my answer to your question about why I'm not writing
a piece or in one of my what do you
call my little articles?

Speaker 5 (41:20):
Your little article, there's a big picture theatre in this
entire roster breakdown.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
You know much color ain't got used here at the
radio station. I'm just happy you're still printing.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
The met Gala, formally called the Costume Institute Benefit, is
the annual Hot Cuture fundraising festival. Right there is when
I kind of lost interest, Like when I started looking
at this out this morning.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Okay, what's the Metcala.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
It's an annual hot culture fundraising I don't know what
hot Cuture is. Right there, I kind of lost interest,
but I kept going hell for the benefit of the
Metropolitan Museum of Arts costume Institute in Manhattan, Like we
have Capitals downtown. Is that what that is? It's a
costume store.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
It's very very similar, very similar.

Speaker 6 (42:07):
Just like like does pop up Halloween series show? This
should be you know, everybody wants some publicity. I think
this is a great opportunity for Capitals to be like, hey,
we're gonna have our own little Cincinnati met Gala and
and invite mister Burrow.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
So you know how like deserted malls come September will
pop up those Halloween stores.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, this is yeah Halloween spirit.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
The MET Gala is often regarded as the world's most
prestigious and glamorous fashion events. Uh it costs seventy five
thousand dollars per seaed Wow, yeah, how about that because
it says here a genre of fundraising gala contribution of
seventy five thousand dollars per seed to enter last.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Year's Met Gala, Why so you should go? I don't know,
this is.

Speaker 6 (42:52):
Up your alley afford to get in, and I'm sure
I'm not going to be invited tougher ticket Met Gala
or salstack.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Salstak's a tough time. I know it is. I've been Yeah,
it's awesome.

Speaker 6 (43:02):
I was the I went the year that they had
all the former Bengals of the eighty eight team.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
It was awesome. Uh that was the that was the
Samwisch tribute. Yeah, yeah, that was cool. Yeah, it was
really cool.

Speaker 5 (43:12):
Well, I've hosted a bunch of the house sports tags.
I'm likely not going to MC. I assume this thing
has an MC. Maybe the Wikipedia page is quite large.
There's a lot there, all right, so you keep going
through it to be fine. Uh, thank you as always.
This was great, it was I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
I enjoyed it. Got mad at me for suggesting you
write stuff. It was no.

Speaker 6 (43:33):
I answered your question, you did.

Speaker 5 (43:37):
I didn't get mad. You were belaboring the point it was. Buddy,
it's May sixth I know we had a long way
to go. Read Paul Danner Junior at the Athletic dot
com and catch the Growler podcast.

Speaker 7 (43:50):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
We'll get into what happened last night in suburban Atlanta
and more next on ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Thirty Cincinnatis, ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 9 (44:01):
Traffic from the UCE Health Traffic Center. When it comes
to stroke every second, tun so that's why you see
health is the clear choice for rapid life saving treatment.
Learn more at u see health dot com. Taylor Road
is closed off due to a fallen utility pole between
Cluff Pike and Armstrong Boulevard that is estimated to reopen

(44:22):
around five thirty later today. Northbound seventy five traffic is
slow between Mitchell and Paddock. Looking at a five minute
delay in through there. I'm at ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
This report is sponsored y all right, what's up?

Speaker 5 (44:37):
It's five minutes after four o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty on Molgar. Thank you for listening. Awesome stuff from
Paul Damer Junior, and we're guest free the rest of
the way quickly.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Here.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
One of our most loyal listeners is a woman by
the name of Lisa Moran who comes to a lot
of events that we do and remote broadcast we do.
Her and her husband Mark huge Bengals fans, huge Cincinnati
sports fans, and she was listening, which we thank her for.
To Paul and I talk about, you know, Joe Burrow
and the Met Gala, And I am being completely honest

(45:14):
with you when I tell you that until this morning
I had no idea what the Met Gala it was
what the met Gala is, that it existed, that's that's
just not a slice of American culture that I'm at
all interested in. So I didn't know, so I mentioned
I had to look up what it is, and what

(45:35):
it is is according to Wikipedia, it's a night dedicated
to hot couture h a U t e c o
U t u r e. This is not a term
that I am familiar with. Lisa clarifies for us and
informs us that hot couture is French for high fashion.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
So now you know. Now.

Speaker 5 (46:00):
What I do kind of wonder with this is why
can't we just call it high fashion? Like why can't
the met Gala be the annual high fashion fundraising festival
instead of the annual hot couture, which I guess is
not how you pronounce it. I don't care enough to
learn how to. But anyway, now we know it's high fashion.

(46:22):
Thank you, Lisa, very very much. More on the Bengals
in a bit, because the Genostone thing is one of
the more bizarre, one of the more bizarre I'm trying
to think of the right word here, one of the
more bizarre transactions I've seen the Bengals and a player

(46:46):
go through is getting his salary cut by one point
six million bucks. And I expect no one to feel
sorry for Ginostone, but I still kind of do. And
I know he wasn't good last year. More on that
coming up a little bit later on. Last night was
a tough one for the Reds. Let's start with the
game itself. A one hitter. A one hitter last night,

(47:08):
and I said to a buddy of mine texting as
soon as the game ended, they lose the game for nothing. Frankly,
that game felt like it was fourteen nothing. A J.
Smith Shaver looked like Greg Maddox last night. And for
the seventh time this season they've played thirty six games,
the Reds had fewer than five hits, just one last night.

(47:31):
Brady Singer pitched credibly. The Reds have lost three consecutive games.
They were nearly no hit their back to five hundred.
I think the thing that anybody is going to remember
from last night is, unfortunately the inside the park job.
Matt Olsen, the beneficiary of what happened to Tyler Callahan,
which I'm sure you've seen it by now, runs into

(47:55):
the wall down the left field line and ended up
breaking his forearm, and in real time it looked like
he made the catch. On replay, he certainly does catch
the ball and possess the ball in the pocket of
his glove, but as his wrist is being cracked and

(48:17):
as he writhes in pain, the ball comes out.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Of his glove. The ball remained live to run scored.

Speaker 5 (48:25):
It went from a two to nothing game to a
four nothing game, and Tyler Callahan is put on the
injured list, which completely and totally stinks. And so there's
a few different things here as it relates to that
play last night. First of all, there's the human part
of this, which that looks scary just in real time.
I think we would all agree with that that looked

(48:45):
just scary, and you feared the worst. And I don't
know if if broken left forearm is the worst outcome
or among the worst outcomes, but it's certainly not good.
And you feel for Tyler Callahan because he just got
caught up. He's just getting a crack at it, and
you know he has had such an injury interrupted professional
baseball career that this is just the latest and you

(49:09):
certainly hope he recovers, and you certainly hope he comes back,
and you certainly hope he goes on to have a
successful big league career.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
We all hope that he is okay. There is the
play itself.

Speaker 7 (49:20):
Now.

Speaker 5 (49:21):
I used to say this all the time about when
we would not know what a catch was in the NFL,
and my response was always I ought to be able
to sit next to a kid and explain that that's
a catch. So last night, I'm watching the game. I'm
going I'm watching the Reds and Braves, I'm watching the
Nickson Celtics. I've got my seven year old daughter with
me and we're watching the ballgame, and she sees what

(49:42):
happens to Tyler Callahan, and she's like a normal kid.
So she's like, man, I hope he's okay. And then
you know, I was explaining, like, well, I hope he's
okay too. Also, that's gonna be two runs for the
Braves because they say it wasn't a catch.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
And she looks at me like, Dad, are you nuts?

Speaker 5 (49:58):
Like he caught the ball, the ball was and his glove,
and so I had to explain to her, yeah, I know,
but according to the letter of the rule, it wasn't
a catch. I know, all common sense would say it
was a catch. You saw the ball go into his glove.
I saw the ball go into his glove, but unfortunately
that's not a catch. There was a very good explanation
last night offered by Chris Welsh on the radio broadcast.

(50:20):
He was doing the game along with Tommy Thrall on
the REDS Radio network and a seven hundred WLW. And
I heard this explanation, and I've read a few others
and I understand it. I don't like it. It doesn't
jive with common sense. But I think when you listen
to this, you will understand that the correct ruling was

(50:41):
made according to the letter of the law, the letter
of the rule. So Tarren, go ahead and play that.

Speaker 4 (50:47):
There's a couple of things in play. The question is
was he in fair fouth territory when he touched the baseball?

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Not where the patter or the fielder is, but where
the ball is.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
That's one thing they're going to review. The other thing
is the voluntary release. A few years ago, Major League
Baseball changed the rule, so do you no longer have
to reach in with your bare hand and pull the
ball out?

Speaker 1 (51:09):
That's the transfer. Now they've said you have to show complete.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
Control of the ball and voluntarily open your glove in
order to release it. And another part of it, Tommy,
is that TJ. Friedo was calling time out. But you
can't call time out in the middle of a play
like that, even when the player is incapacitated. So the
ball laid there right next to Callahan as the runner

(51:33):
goes around the basis.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
That's Chris Welsh with Rihanna in the background on the
Reds Radio Network in seven hundred WLW And unfortunately it
makes sense. So look, they were down to nothing, they
got one hit. The result of the play may not
have had any bearing on the game's final outcome. But
if you're like me, and I think, if you're a
Reds fan, you're watching that last night going dude, that's
a catch. And according to common sense, I agree, that's

(51:59):
a catch. But you hear that explanation. Brian Gaesan's log,
who's obviously the host of Reds Live on the FanDuel
Sports Network, talked about it on the postgame show, but
also offered this explanation on his social media And I'll
read this verbatim. I'm not going to read all four
of his tweets, but I'll read this part verbatim that
he writes from the MLB Replay Center on the Callahan

(52:21):
no catch the replay official definitely determined or definitively determined,
I should say that the fielder release of the ball
was not voluntary or intentional. Per official baseball rule five
point ZHO nine A one A catches the act of
a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or
glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it,

(52:43):
providing he does not use his cat protector, pocket, or
any other part of his uniform in getting possession, It
is not a catch. However, if simultaneously or immediately following
his contact with the ball, he collides with a player
or with a wall, or if he falls down, and
as a result of such collision or falling drops the ball,
which is what happened here.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Now you feel awful for.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
Tyler Callahan because you talk about like a ten percent effort.
He could have held up, he could have let the
ball fall. He could wait, he could have waited to
see if it fell foul. Like, There's a lot of
things he could have done. Instead, he chose to make
a play, and he chose to make a play at
his own peril, and there's a discussion there to be
had about dude, like we want you to go all out,
we don't want you to be reckless. We used to

(53:26):
talk about this all the time as it related to
remember the late Ryan Freel, Like we love it when
you dive for balls, and we love it when you
play all out. We don't need you running into walls.
And so I feel awful for Tyler Callahan. There's a
part of me that wants to say to him, like, dude,
next time, regular season game number thirty six, Like I

(53:46):
don't know, man, Like we love, we love the all
out effort. Let's not border into recklessness. I don't know
that that did last night. But moving forward, would it
be better if you're available to the team then if
you're not, Probably, And if that means you let a
ball drop that drops and a run scores or a
picture has to get out of a jam, then maybe
that's the case.

Speaker 7 (54:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
But you feel bad for Tyler a he got hurt.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
Be his effort well kind of wasted it because it
ended up not being ruled a catch.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
And again, like common.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
Sense, and I understand it, can't you use common sense
as the official rule right, it can't say in the
rule book, well, hey, if common sense dictates it's a catch,
it's a catch, because common sense differs for everybody. God
knows the current climate in the United States of America
would be evidence of that. According to the rule that

(54:38):
was not a catch. I hate to say it, I
hate to admit it. I rant it about it on
social media last night. I tried to explain it to
my daughter. But by the explanation by people who are
offering the actual rule itself, I can't argue with that
it was a catch. A couple of other issues here,

(54:59):
Matt Olson circle the basis, and this is one of
those instances where I'm not sure if social media really
reflects real life, because on social media you can find
people who are mad at everything, and like I understand there.
If you're a fan, you're pissed that the ball that
was this close to being an out turns into two

(55:20):
runs for the other team. You're upset for Tyler Callahan,
you're upset for his teammates.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
It stinks.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
And so oftentimes you will find people who can't just say, man,
that's stinks. We have to yell at someone, we have
to get mad at someone. You're not gonna get mad
at Tyler Callahan. You're not gonna get mad at the
Reds once you hear and understand the explanation for why
that was rule to catch. You're not going to get

(55:47):
mad at Major League Baseball at the umpires. Got to
get mad at somebody. There were some on social media
last night getting mad at Matt Olsen. I'm sorry that
the play turned into two runs for the Atlanta Braves.
Matt Olsen did exactly what he was supposed to do,

(56:08):
which is play until the ball is dead, play until
the play stops. In baseball, obviously we don't have whistles,
but we say it in sports that do play through
the whistle, play until someone i e. An umpire says
stop playing. I don't know that anybody in real life
is mad at Matt Olson for doing what he did

(56:30):
last night. The ball is live. You heard Chris Welsh
mentioned TJ. Friede was trying to call time out. You
can't do that. You can't call time out of the
middle of a play. Can you imagine if we allowed
that in baseball, like guys trying to score from first
and we have just a random field time time out
he's gotta stop running. It doesn't work that way. So
you can be mad at and a lot of things.
You can be mad at just the circumstance. You could

(56:52):
be mad at the play. If you want to be
mad at Tyler Callahan, I guess I certainly wouldn't be.
I feel awful for the guy.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
You can't get.

Speaker 5 (57:00):
Added a baseball player for playing baseball when the ball
is live. And by the way, it'd be one thing
if it's fourteen nothing in the eighth inning, maybe, But
do you expect a guy who's just hit a ball
trying to figure out, hey, if it's fair or foul.
He's running the bases, he's paying attention to his bass coach,
he's watching the runner in front of him. He's supposed
to stop and go out there and go is Is

(57:21):
he hurt? Hang on, I'm not going to run to
third yet he is he okay? Can he get up
and throw the ball in?

Speaker 7 (57:27):
Is he?

Speaker 5 (57:29):
I mean, legitimately in real life? Please tell me we're
not getting mad at Matt Olsen. Unfortunate circumstances less than ideal.
Matt Olson after the game last night, admitted as much
like nobody wants to see that happen in a bizarre,
quirky play, and you hate it for the Reds, and

(57:49):
you hate it for Brady's singer, and you certainly hate
it for Tyler Callahan. But if the search for someone
to be mad at ends with Matt Olson for simply
playing while the ball is live, I can't join you.
I can't join you. Five point three seven four nine,
fifteen thirty. We might make a bunch of pole questions

(58:10):
just about that play last night.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Then the other.

Speaker 5 (58:15):
Part of it is what they've done today, which we
had a question on this show yesterday. I think the
Reds answered it. How they do that, we'll tell you
next on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnatis. I got a lot
going on in here. I got like five four maybe
five pole questions we'll throw out on Twitter. Uh during

(58:37):
the next break. Our pole questions come your way thanks
to United Heartland Insurance, go to uh I NS dot com.
Uh So, the the other part of the Tyler Callahan thing,
I think there were actually two. So the other one
was with last night Terry Francona got an explanation and

(58:59):
did not get ejected. Terry Francona is not a huge
ejection guy for somebody who has managed, and I had
jotted down the number here completely disorganized thirty seven hundred
and thirty six regular season in postseason games, he has
just fifty ejections, which is pretty low you think of
like all that David Bell had the team record like

(59:22):
in the thirties, managed a fraction of the time as
Terry Francona. I think it's a manager's job to have
the temperature of his team, to understand the mood of
his team, to understand what makes his team tick.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Now, I will admit.

Speaker 5 (59:39):
To you last night, just watching on TV, once Tyler
Callahan got hurt, you could feel the air coming out
of the balloon, and you know, to a degree understandably
so they're human beings, that's their teammate. They feel bad
for the guy. At the same time, you do have
a job to do. You hate to say it. Players
do get hurt. You're gonna have to fight through stuff.
You can't be non competitive. It felt like for much

(01:00:00):
of the game last night the Reds were non competitive.
We've done a lot of deferring to Terry Francona, I
haven't done it with everything. It makes no sense to
have Matt McLain batting second right now. But if there's
one area I'll defer to Terry Francona, it's he's gonna
know when and when not to light up the umpires.

(01:00:22):
Sometimes there's every reason in the world to light up
the umpire if you genuinely think your team is being screwed,
or if you genuinely think the umpire is not doing
his job, or if you feel like me losing my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Is going to light a fuse on my team.

Speaker 5 (01:00:39):
It's gonna get my team going, it's gonna send a
jolt of energy through the dugout. Terry Francona last night
did not feel like that was necessary. I'm not sure
I entirely agree, because they did look sort of stuck
in the mud for basically the rest of the game.
But I think the way they performed last night had

(01:00:59):
a lot to do with aj Smith Shawver and not
so much the Tyler Callahan injury or even Terry Francone.
I guess my point being is this, I'm gonna defer
to Terry Francone here. I've seen some folks criticize. I'm like, well,
that's an area where you've got to show you have
your players back, well because this player got hurt, like

(01:01:22):
but because the Umps made the correct call. Certainly, there
are millions of times where managers have known I'm gonna
yell and scream at the Umps, I'm not going to
get my way, but maybe there's going to be some
kind of emotional benefit. I think when you've managed as
long as Tito has and had the success that he
has had, which is going to be in Cooperstown one day,

(01:01:43):
you know when that may work, and you know when
it's not necessary. He determined last night it's not necessary.
As much as I love it when a manager loses
his mind, and let's admit it, man, it's the one
part of the replay era that we don't like. I
don't like most of the replay era, but I do
miss having a lot of like confrontations where a grown

(01:02:04):
man throws a temper tantrum. We used to talk about
this with David Bell all the time. Watching a grown
man throw a temper tantrum is entertaining. It's a lot
more entertaining than watching a little kid throw a temper tantrum.
So we missed last night an opportunity to watch Terry
francona throw one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
But if he decided once not needed here, I trust
him now. The other part of this is what the
Reds have done today.

Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
So Tyler Callahan has to go on the injured list
with a broken forearm. They have not the Reds have
not yet offered a real timetable for how long he'll
be out. Hopefully he's back as soon as possible. To
replace him in the outfield on the roster, the Reds
have recalled Jacob herd Abese. Now, Jacob hurd Abast was

(01:02:56):
up earlier this year, and you might remember he made
a really nice catch to end the game on that
Monday in San Francisco where Hunter Green nearly threw a
complete game shot out. Santien came in and Herdbest made
a really nice sliding catch, unfortunately in a Reds uniform.
That's pretty much all he has ever done in a

(01:03:17):
very limited amount of playing time. Admittedly limited amount of
playing time, the twenty seven year old Herdabes has put
up an ops of five forty. He's batted one eighty.
He has struck out twenty two times in sixty one
at bats. He may end up being a terrific major
league player. You would see no evidence at the major

(01:03:40):
league level that that is going to be the case.
And I don't gather that he is regarded as one
of those cornerstone pieces to what the Reds are doing
moving forward. But you might be going, well, yeah, but
surely he had to have been tearing it up at Louisville. Well,
if a one ninety four batting average and a sixty
twenty eight OPS is tearing it up, I guess he

(01:04:04):
was tearing it up. That wouldn't be my definition of
tearing it up. I would look elsewhere on the Louisville
roster to a guy like a well, let's just say
Reese Hines, who has got an OPS of eight fifty nine,
seven home runs, leads the team in runs driven in,

(01:04:24):
he has stolen twelve bags, he's slugging at an over
five to twenty clip. He's batting two seventy four. Are
they other worldly numbers? No, but they're better than those
being put up by Jacob herdabees. Or if Reese Hines
uh done do it for you, how about like a

(01:04:45):
like a Will Benson who's had some big league success,
who in Louisville this year has an ops of eight
seventy three batting to eighty two. He's had six home
runs one hundred and ten at bats. Again, we're not
talking about Barry Bonds type numbers at Triple A. Pretty

(01:05:08):
good numbers, nonetheless, and certainly numbers that exceed those being
put up by Jacob Hrdebes. So number one, it's just
fair to look at that and go, dude, the Reds
are calling up the wrong guy. Like when they called
up Tyler Callahan, it made sense. Tyler Callahan was raking
at the time, no issue with that whatsoever. And I

(01:05:31):
wish to God that he hadn't got hurt last night
and was playing tonight, and you know, could could figure
things out at the big league level and stick, or
maybe not figure things out and not stick, but have
his career move forward instead of having to spend more
time on the injured list. In the absence of that,
I give you three options. Let's just make it about

(01:05:51):
the most simple basic batting statistic. We have batting average outdated, sure,
but everybody understands it. Herd A Bees batting a buck
ninety four, zero home runs. Yes, he has walked a bunch.
His on base percentage in Louisville is four thirty four.

(01:06:11):
Or do you want the dude hitting two seventy four
with seven homers with an ops of eight fifty nine
or the guy with six homers hitting two eighty two
with an ops of eight seventy three.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
You tell me.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
Yesterday we were asked, why don't the Reds call up
re Signs and Will Benson. It has to be just
because they don't think those guys are very good. Well,
it's easy to say that when no transaction is necessary.
But late last night, a transaction was necessary. They called

(01:06:44):
up the other guy, Jacob Herdabes the other guy. You
are being completely fair if you think this is bs.
You are being completely fair if you are skeptical that
this is going to work.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
But if you've been wondering, well, how.

Speaker 5 (01:07:04):
Come they don't like Resigns and Will Benson, it's because
they just don't like Resigns and Will Benson.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
And I'm not sure what other conclusion you can.

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
Draw when you have a chance to bring up one
of those dudes and you bring up the guy batting
one ninety four. Sports headlines are next on ESPN fifteen
thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 8 (01:07:21):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 9 (01:07:28):
When it comes to stroke every second town So that's
why you see Health is the clear choice for rampid
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Southbound seventy one seventy five, It is an accident on
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(01:07:49):
delay there and Taylor Road remains closed between Cluff Pike
and Armstrong Boulevard. I'm at ezelk with traffic. This report
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Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
Gues ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's sports station.

Speaker 5 (01:08:04):
Sports Headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home of
lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family
to yours for life, kelseyshev dot com, Reds and Braves
again Cincinnati, All of a sudden, trying to end a
three game losing streak. Andrew Abbott will pitch tonight. Chris

(01:08:28):
Sale will throw for the Braves. Seven point fifteen is
tonight's first pitch on seven hundred WLW. Red's got one
hit last night. You want a starting lineup? Of course
you do here. It is get it ready. The unsponsored
Red starting lineup Freedom and center, mcclaan at second. For
some reason, Dela Cruz is playing short. Stevenson is dhing. Look,
they're gonna put him in the two hole every night,

(01:08:50):
and one night he's gonna have a huge game and
you're gonna be able to say, see, maybe Terry Francona
himself does that right now now, it really sort of
defies logic using Matt McClain in the two hole. More
on that in the next hour. Where was I Stevenson's
dhing and batting fourth? Espinalen left, Steers at first, Marte

(01:09:11):
is playing third base, batting seventh, Travino is behind the dish,
and Blake dun in right field bats ninth. Tyler Callahan
sent to the injured list because of that left forearm
fracture suffered last night. Yaz Varzuelta has been sent to
Triple A Louisville as well. Jacob Herdebes is back, so
is Lyone Richardson and Rhet Lauder, taking a step toward

(01:09:31):
getting back to the big leagues. He is being sent
on a rehab assignment to the Arizona Complex League Bengals
had an offseason Phase two practice ish thing today. Joe
Burrow wasn't there because he was at something called the
met Gala last night. Gino Stone has agreed to a
pay cut for the upcoming season. His number he was

(01:09:53):
gonna make this year was six point four to seven
to five mil. That number dropped to four point nine
mil for the upcoming season. Confirmed maybe not the dollar amount,
but confirmed by Geno Stone himself today.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
That genostone thing is.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
Bizarre and we're going to spend some time on that
in the next hour. Right now, though, we have pole
questions on Twitter, four of them at Moegger thanks to
United Heartland Insurance. If you need something insured, the pros
that United Heartland Insurance can help. And I mean this,
these people are awesome. Office in Hamilton, one in Cincinnati,

(01:10:31):
one in Burlington. Check out uhi ands dot com. I
got four of them today. Four pole questions. Vote now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
Number one.

Speaker 5 (01:10:41):
Joe Burrow did not attend a voluntary sort of practice
because he attended something called the met Gala last night.
No big deal or bad luck? Vote now. Question number two.
Would you rather attend a sort of football practice or
whatever the met Gala is? Question number three, We're not
really mad at Matt Olson to the Braves for circling

(01:11:03):
the bases as Tyler Callahan lay writhing in pain while
the ball was live?

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
Are we vote now? And finally, this.

Speaker 5 (01:11:10):
Speaks to my current biggest sports pet peeve. It is
replaced announcers or basketball fans or coaches or players who
refer to sides of the ball in basketball. My new
biggest sports pet peeve is when an athlete's jersey number

(01:11:35):
is retired and someone still asks to wear it. Abdul Carter,
Penn State, drafted by the New York Giants terrific edge
rusher prospect. He has had his request to wear Lawrence
Taylor's number fifty six. Lawrence Taylor is one of the

(01:11:56):
two best football players I ever watched. Lawrence Taylor's number
fifty six. Abdul Carter asked, could I wear number fifty six,
and Lawrence Taylor understandably said no. He then moved on,
abduall Carter did to asking if he could wear Phil
Simms number eleven. Now, Phil Simms and the pantheon of

(01:12:18):
the NFL is not at the same level of Lawrence Taylor.
Lawrence Taylor's in the Hall of Fame. Phil Simms is not,
but Phil Simms still a legendary New York Giant Super
Bowl MVP. Apparently he said yeah, he could wear the
number eleven, and then phil Simms family stepped in and said, no,
this is my new current biggest sports pet peeve, asking

(01:12:43):
to wear the jersey number that has been retired. I mean,
can you imagine somebody joins the Cincinnati Reds and they say, yeah,
I really want to wear number five. Bro ain't happening.
It's out of circulation.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
You know what.

Speaker 5 (01:13:03):
I wore number fourteen in college. Really would like to
wear fourteen the Cincinnati Reds, I would hope. And maybe
they've encountered this, maybe they have not. Remember this was
the thing when King Griffith Junior got traded here right
because he wanted to wear the number twenty four. It
never should get to the athlete. It never should get

(01:13:24):
to the point where the athlete has to make an
awkward and uncomfortable decision. The answer should be no, like
you're allowed to say no to new employees. Would be
like if like when I started working here in nineteen
ninety seven, yeah, hey, you know what I want to
be on from three to six on the sports station. No, yeah,

(01:13:45):
I'm the new guy. Give me that corner office. Yeah,
we're not doing that either. The player who wore the
retired jersey number has earned that honor. It's one of
the biggest in all of sports. Some teams, some schools
are more liberal when it comes to retiring jersey numbers.

(01:14:07):
Some are kind of stingy. It bothers me, as a
UC basketball fan, a diehard UC basketball fan, that school
is stingy when it comes to retiring men's basketball jersey numbers.
And there's no real criteria. And don't let anybody tell
you there ever has been one. Other schools a little
bit more liberal. Some professional sports teams are going to

(01:14:28):
retire a lot of jersey numbers. Some aren't going to
retire any. The Bengals have retired one. But once you
do that, it's out of circulation. I just cannot imagine
having the nerve as a new guy as a rookie. Yeah,
you know what, I want to wear Lawrence Taylor's number.

(01:14:49):
I mean, can you imagine new guy is drafted by
the Bengals, Dylan Fairchild. The Bengals have not retired Anthony
Munio's number, which I'm really frankly not sure why not.
I know they put him in the Ring of honor.
I don't know why there's not an Anthony Munio statue.
But can you imagine Dylan Fairchild shows up and goes,

(01:15:11):
I gotta be number seventy eight and it's retired, Like,
are you out of your mind? Uh uh, not happening.
I saw a great rant on this yesterday by Colin Cowhard,
whose show I do not listen to, because I listened
to since he three sixty and I know, you know
it's a New York Giants topic. I couldn't care less
about the New York Giants. But this is my current
biggest sports pet peeve. When we have retired jersey numbers

(01:15:36):
in the past, they're retired. Retire means taken out of circulation,
and to honor the athlete, to honor the player, to
honor the person.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Nobody will ever wear it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:48):
Not no one's ever gonna wear it unless some kid
decide he wants to wear it. Look, man, there's lots
of different ways you could pay tribute to whoever wore
that number.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
And by the way, LT's thing with Abdul.

Speaker 5 (01:15:59):
Carter was blaze your own path, be your own guy,
make another number famous, maybe one day have it retired.
So the final poll question that I have a retired jersey.
Numbers should be permanently taken out of circulation, even if
one of the current players would like to wear it.

(01:16:19):
Right vote now at Muegger this I do not know.
I just I can't imagine. I cannot imagine the nerve
like I've I've seen some I've seen some younger employees
have some nerve before man, I've seen that. Now I
cannot imagine new guy drafted. Yeah, I want to be

(01:16:41):
fifty six. Some like localize it, dude. Somebody gets called
up to the red system.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:16:48):
Uh, I wore number eight in college, so I know
Joe Morgan wore it, but I got to be number eight.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Uh huh.

Speaker 5 (01:16:56):
And it doesn't even get to the Morgan family. No,
it's out of circulation. That's Joe Morgan's number. Get your own,
and if you're as good as Joe Morgan, we'll retire
it for you two.

Speaker 7 (01:17:09):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:17:10):
I need someone to help me understand what the Bengals
have done with genostone. I will maybe get out in
front of what they're going to scream about on Cable
TV tomorrow, and uh, the Tyler Callahan thing last night
just sucked. I mean, there's I don't have a more

(01:17:31):
semantically responsible way to put it. It did sort of
deflect away from something that we'll talk about coming up
in the five o'clock hour. Breniman and Jones on Baseball
Just ahead on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (01:17:45):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 9 (01:17:50):
Traffic from the UCE Health Traffic Center. When it comes
to stroke, every second count. So that's why you see
Health is the clear choice for rapid life saving treatment.

Speaker 10 (01:18:00):
Learn more at U see help dot com.

Speaker 9 (01:18:03):
Taylor Road remains shut down due to a fallen utility
pole between Cluffpike and Armstrong Boulevard. Cruz believe that is.
We're going to reopen around five point thirty pm later today.
We'll keep you updated. And East found two seventy five
slow traffic from Lebanon to Montgomery Road. I'm at exelic
with traffic.

Speaker 5 (01:18:22):
This report is for ESPN dot com. Predicts MLB megadeals,
who's going to be the next to get to one
hundred million, Who's going to be the next to get
to three hundred million, what about six hundred million?

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
What about a billion?

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
And a lot of us have looked at what happened
with the Mets and Juan Soto and have speculated that maybe, maybe, maybe,
just maybe Alidela Cruz could surpass him in total value
of contract and maybe even be Baseball's first one billion
dollar player.

Speaker 1 (01:18:51):
Passing throws cold water on that idea.

Speaker 5 (01:18:55):
We'll get to that coming up in the next hour,
But first, Brendiman and Jones on Baseball that's to.

Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
Win a thousand entered this nationwide keyword on our website, bills.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
That's bills. Enter it now. Yeah, it's so sorry, Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 5 (01:19:09):
What's up?

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
Three after five, ESB.

Speaker 5 (01:19:10):
I'm fifteen thirty. Thanks for listening. It is the Mikeelo
Ultra five o'clock Happy Hour. I celebrated the michelob Ultra
at five o'clock Happy Hour at about ten o'clock last
night after the.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Overtime Mix victory in Boston.

Speaker 5 (01:19:27):
Regardless if your team wins, loses, if you don't have
a team, it's no dog in the hunt. Enjoy an
ice cold Miculture. It's a great beer for excuse me,
it's a great beer for celebrating. It's it's a great
beer for commissioner rating that matter. Superior life beer, superior taste,
ice cold mic ultra. I say this every day. One

(01:19:48):
sounds amazing. Right now, maybe the rain will hold off
and have a cigar to micculture. Watching the ball game tonight,
we will see I wanna get it's the Geno Stone thing,
which is kind of confusing here. In just a bit,
and I just in case Joe Burrow becomes the subject
of the shouty shows on cable TV, which I'm gonna

(01:20:11):
have to hire somebody to watch for me, because I
would rather light myself on fire than watch some of
those shows where they just scream at each other about
sports all day. But in the event that Joe Burrow
becomes a topic of conversation for not showing up at
the Bengals voluntary practice today, I've got to get out
in front of a few things. We'll do that a
little bit later on Red's Embraves tonight. Coming off last night,

(01:20:35):
the Reds got one hit offensively, very feeble. You know,
if you go back to last year, the Reds got
in a game four hits or less twenty one percent
of the time. Twenty one percent of the time, so
about one out of every five games they had four

(01:20:56):
hits or fewer thirty five times. In one hundred and
sixty two games this year, after last night's one hit output,
the Reds have recorded four hits are fewer in a
game seven times. That's just about nineteen percent. Last year
the number was twenty one percent. This year nineteen percent.

(01:21:17):
Very negligible difference. So basically one out of every five
times the Reds get four hits or fewer. That's got
a change the way the Reds didn't hit last night,
and to a large degree, the result of the game
itself took a backseat to the Tyler Callahan thing, which
has a lot of different angles, and we talked about
a bunch of them earlier in the four o'clock hour.

(01:21:42):
The one that I think matters most right now. Look
the Callahan play. It wasn't a catch. I hate that
that's the case. I think it defies common sense, But
the letter of the rule defies common sense. It wasn't
a catch. Matt Olsen ran around the bases. You should
have no issue with that. Terry Frankclona decided to not
get kicked out, no issue with that. What you should

(01:22:04):
have an issue with is calling up Jacob Hurdibest. Now,
I understand, man. If you're skeptical that Will Benson's going
to be a productive big league player, that's earned. If
you're a skeptical that Reese Hines is going to be
a productive big league player, that's earned. But you send
these guys to Louisville, and Reese Hines and Will Benson
were both cut very early in camp. Benson got a

(01:22:26):
cup of coffee back up Ears struck out four times.
Both guys are hitting well in Louisville. Jacob Hurdibes is not.
I'll simply ask you this, does Jacob Hurdabes represent among
healthy players right now the Red's best twenty six? It
doesn't feel like the answer is yes. Speaking of the
minor leagues, Matt McLean's rough go of it continued last night.

(01:22:52):
Zero for three, he did walk. He struck out twice.
Since his brief injured list stint, He's batting one thirty
six with an ops A four sixty. He has struck
out twenty six times in eighty six played appearances.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
The numbers aren't good.

Speaker 5 (01:23:10):
He has one extra base hit, so there's a few
things here, like I've seen and read a lot of like,
it's not time to worry about Matt McLain. It's not
time to panic about Matt McClain. Okay, fine, but is
it time to at least think about what his role is? Like?

(01:23:32):
Can you do that without worrying or panicking. I'm trying
to win ball games. If I'm Terry Francona, if you're
the Reds, you're a Reds fan, you want him to
win ball games. Does using Matt McClain in the tool
hole every night represents the best plan with him with

(01:23:52):
the second spot in the batting order and with second base.
If the idea is to win ball games, this isn't
about panic and it's not about concern. It's about maybe
changing some things up to help Matt McClain and help
the team. And there's a lot of things you can do.
One on the admittedly extreme end of it is send

(01:24:14):
him to Louisville. I'll be honest with you, if they
did that, I don't know that I would think it
was the first step that I would take, but I
would certainly understand why dudes batting a buck sixty you
can throw at me. All the other metrics you want.
I'm a pro analytics guy. Let's just make it about that.
Dudes batting a buck sixty, you know what often happens

(01:24:37):
the guys who are batting one sixty, they get sent
to triple A. But okay, maybe there are steps in between.
There's moving him down in the batting order. By the way,
there are a lot of hitters, promising hitters, hitters who
have accomplished a lot more than Matt McLain has, who
when they're batting one sixty, they get moved down in

(01:24:59):
the batting word. There's you know, giving him a couple
of days off. David Bell a few years ago benched
Joey Vado for a couple of days. If David Bell
not going to the Hall of Fame can bench Joey
Vado going to the Hall of Fame, then Terry Francona

(01:25:20):
going to the Hall of Fame can bench Matt McClain
probably not going to the Hall of fame.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
Benching doesn't mean permanent.

Speaker 5 (01:25:31):
Benching is in banishment, benching is dude, you're not helping
us right now. We're gonna try someone else and maybe
some time away will help you out and you'll come
back from this and you'll be a better hitter. You're
still taking batting practice, you're still working on the side,
but in the short term, we're gonna try something else.

(01:25:53):
The conversation that is interesting to me, I will admit this,
and it's not. I don't think it's the first approach
I would take if they if they send him to Louisville,
kind of go like you, could you have shelved him
for a day or two, or could you have slid
him down in the batting order, But all right, you're
moving him to Louisville.

Speaker 1 (01:26:12):
I think it's an interesting discussion. It's not.

Speaker 5 (01:26:15):
Maybe the step that I would take. What's interesting to
me is when you bring it up to some it's
just not a discussion. I made this comparison before, and
obviously one is a closer, one is a reliever, and
the other is.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
A second baseman. But it's interesting to me.

Speaker 5 (01:26:30):
So, like Alexis Diaz last week gets shelled against the Cardinals,
my reaction was, if you're gonna ask him to just
pitch through what he's dealing with, can he do that
at a level where the results don't matter, Like do
we have to watch him pitch through stuff in high
leverage situations. Do we have to watch him pitch through

(01:26:53):
stuff and have it come at the expense of results
that do matter at the major league level. No, like,
let's send to Louisville and not send him to Louisville
to punish him or to banish him, or to hope
we never see him again, but send him to Louisville
where hopefully he can work on some stuff, figure some
things out, come back eventually, and help the team. I

(01:27:16):
cannot think of any other lens through which to look
at Alexis Diaz. You hope he comes back a better picture,
more polished pitcher, a more confident picture. Uh, maybe has
fixed some mechanical stuff, maybe has fixed some mental stuff,
whatever it is, Hopefully.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
He comes back.

Speaker 5 (01:27:32):
It doesn't do anybody any good for him to go
to Louisville and never come back.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
The idea behind demoting.

Speaker 5 (01:27:40):
A player, certainly a former All Star, clearly a guy
who's supposed to be in his prime, is not to
never see them again. The idea is to see them
reasonably soon, or at least some part at some point
in the not so distant future. Why if that's brought
up as it relates to Matt McLain is the topic

(01:28:03):
like a non starter?

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
Oh, you can send him to Louisville. Why, Like, what
has Matt McClain done that makes him immune to a demotion?
I think it depends on how you look at the demotion. Again,
if you look at it simply to the lens of
giving up on You're not sending players to Louisville to
give up on them.

Speaker 5 (01:28:26):
You're not sending them to Louisville to punish them. You're
sending them to Louisville to perfect their craft. Take some time,
figure some stuff out, but in the interim, not get
in the way of winning games at the level that matters.
I mean, it's like when my daughter is doing her

(01:28:47):
subtraction homework, which he's not great at, and she'll get
seven out of ten correct, and I'll say, go work
on the other three. It's not a punishment, it's go
work on that stuff. Might not be the most fair comparison.
I don't understand why the idea that you send dude
is batting a buck sixty. Oh he was really good

(01:29:09):
two years ago. Yeah, you know who else was? Alexis
d As He was an All star? Oh yeah, but
I mean he at one point, Matt McClain. He was
fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting. Uh huh,
you know who at one point was fifth in the
Rookie of the Year voting Alexis d As the year before. Now,
it doesn't have to be about Alexis versus Matt McClain.
Matt McLain is dealt with injuries. Alexis ds is dealt

(01:29:31):
with injuries. Matt McClain is dealt with lack of production.
Kate perhaps tied to the injuries. Alexis ds is dealt
with lack of production, perhaps tied to the injuries, or
also maybe not being in great shape. But I'm looking
for the best twenty six. I'm trying to win a
Pennant this year. Again, I'm going to make this abundantly clear.
I would be in favor of, you know, putting Matt

(01:29:52):
McClain on the bench for a game or two, or hey,
you know what, tonight, we're gonna hit you eighth.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
Why not, right? What's the dude? You're batting a bucks?

Speaker 5 (01:30:01):
You know who would probably understand why he was moved
to seventh or eighth or ninth. Matt McClain, You think
he's unaware of what he's batting right now. By the way,
you know who I would imagine would be unsurprised if
they were sent to the minor leagues.

Speaker 1 (01:30:15):
Matt McClain. You know why.

Speaker 5 (01:30:17):
Matt mcclan could tell you since I returned from the
injury list, I'm hitting one thirty nine. Dudes who are
batting one thirty nine gets sent to the minor leagues.
I don't understand why this is a non starter. You're
not giving up on him. Nobody is giving up on
Matt McLain. It would be foolish, just like it would

(01:30:37):
have been foolish to give up on Hunter Green. Elie
de la Cruz would have been foolish to give up
on twelve Marte. Would be foolish to give up on
a lot of different people. By the way, They've had
other guys adjust their roles. Graham Ashcraft not too long
ago was one of the Big three. Now he's in
the bullpen. I don't know if we get so emotionally
attached to certain players that it's like, uh, I cannot

(01:30:58):
send him down. I thought you were a fan of
the team winning. If a player who has options is
not helping the team win, we should just take the
option to send him to Louisville off the table. I
owe mam McLean's and I goes four for four, it
would be awesome. The only way this conversation stops is
if he, you know, starts hitting and starts producing, and

(01:31:21):
you know, to a degree, he does get talked about
more because a lot of expectations for Mam McLean. He
is a cornerstone, and I still feel that he is.
He can still be, He can still have a great
year this year. I just I find it interesting that
with some players it's the only option, send them to
the minor leagues, and with some players it's not an

(01:31:41):
option at all. Guys batting a buck sixty, you may
be a proponent of he's gonna play his way out
of this. Okay, I'm in it's May sixth. He could
play his way out of it. If the numbers look
the same in three weeks, what happens, then play his

(01:32:03):
way out of it? Like, where's where's the point that
you go?

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
Dude?

Speaker 5 (01:32:08):
We love you, man, I like everything about you, But
my guy, look at the numbers, got a baseball reference, pal,
it ain't working. We got to do something else. And
on the table when we talk about something else is
sending you to the level that you get instruction where
your performance doesn't matter because your performance up here is
getting in the way of us winning five one, three, seven, four, nine,

(01:32:31):
fifteen thirty eight six six, seven oh two three seven
seven six. I think we we develop a certain attachment
to some players, and then once we decide with other
players we dislike them. We just we're we're immobile, we're
not moving. Alexis Diaz, I think got to a point
with a lot of folks he could have done no
right now again, man, I was the guy. There's a

(01:32:53):
social media clip on me out there saying send him
to Louisville. No issue with that whatsoever. But with other
it's like, I can't even bring it up. When you
change someone's role, you're not panicking. You're trying to help them,
and you're trying to help the team. And when you
demot a player, you're not punishing them, you're not banishing them,

(01:33:14):
and god knows, you're not giving up on them. You're
trying to do what's right for them and the team.
Seventeen minutes after five o'clock. Genostone had a terrible year
last year. We know that the Bengals have said, though
we believe in genostone, so then why did they cut

(01:33:36):
his pay? Next on ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 8 (01:33:38):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.

Speaker 9 (01:33:44):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. When it comes to
stroke every second, toun. So that's why you see health
as the clear choice for rapid life saving treatment.

Speaker 10 (01:33:53):
Learn more at u see health dot com.

Speaker 9 (01:33:55):
Westbound two seventy five accident off on the left shoulder
after level An in Road west abound seventy four. It's
a disabled vehicle that is on the exit ramp to
North Bend Road and Taylor Road remains closed off for
a fallen utility pole between Cluff Pike and Armstrong Boulevard
on that ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 11 (01:34:15):
This report is sponsored by Dairy Queen get big Summer
Flavor in Everybody with a new DQ Summer Blizzard treat
menu featuring new mixing bowl mashup.

Speaker 5 (01:34:25):
Fan voted small. From Smoke Justice from six until nine o'clock.
We'll go up and down the schedule and so much
more so be there at Smoke Justice next Wednesday, that
is the fourteenth. From A six to nine On ESPN
fifteen thirty five point three, seven four nine fifteen thirty
is our phone number. We'll grab some phone calls here

(01:34:45):
and just a bit. We also have to update our
poll questions. Geno Stone had a really bad year last year,
and I said often during free agency and even during
the draft, I think I would have been okay, and
I think many of us, maybe most, would have been
okay with the Bengals moving on from Genostone.

Speaker 1 (01:35:04):
He was awful last.

Speaker 5 (01:35:05):
Season, and I'll admit man, like a year ago, at
this time, I was excited about the prospect of him
solving their safety problem because I saw an ascending player
that in Baltimore, every time they gave him more responsibility,
he rose to the occasion. And instead, what the Bengals
got was a dude who did next to nothing. And

(01:35:25):
I know he, like a lot of guys in the
secondary and on the defense as a whole, performed better
toward the end of the season when they were playing
crappy quarterbacks. But Geno Stone's first season in Cincinnati went very,
very poorly. I've not seen a safety take poorer angles
than I saw Geno Stone take last year trying to
make tackles.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
He was awful.

Speaker 5 (01:35:46):
And so when we were kind of doing the accounting
for twenty twenty five, what should the roster look like?
How could they save some money? You can count me
among those who are ready to move on from Genostone.
But they and what they have done is they have
expressed confidence in Genostone and the people on the coaching
staff have said really nice things about Genostone. Duke Tobin

(01:36:08):
as well, and so he's the guy and they've shown
some confidence in him. They have signed no safety in
free agency. They didn't draft any safety. They make Genostone
the guy, which we'll see how it works. We'll see
if Al Golden can get more out of Genostone than
Lewin Romo could, we'll see. I'm certainly open to the idea.

(01:36:31):
What's interesting, though, is they asked him to take a
one point six million dollar pay cut. So a couple
of things here. Number one, if your boss tells you
we have total confidence in you, we believe in you,

(01:36:54):
we think you are perfect for our organization, and then
they ask you to take about a twenty percent pay cut,
are you going to believe all the things they told you?
Now you're gonna see better than you hear you hear, hey,
we have confidence in you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
What you see is your pasteub with the pay cut
reflected by it.

Speaker 5 (01:37:23):
So if I'm Genostone, if you're a Genostone, you could
tell me you got confidence in me. But you just
cut my pay by one point six million dollars. So
there's that, and I will acknowledge Genostone is an easy target.
I know some people saw this news today and I'm

(01:37:43):
sure they said, well, he stunk last year, so he
should get a pay cut.

Speaker 1 (01:37:51):
Well should he have, especially if they didn't offer him
an ultimatum?

Speaker 5 (01:37:57):
Now, who knows, right, maybe one of the other free
agents out there would have been a Bengal had Genostone
said no. But it is interesting to me they've expressed
confidence in him this entire time. They've asked him to
take a pay cut, which that they really have confidence
in him would suggest that if he said no to

(01:38:18):
a pay cut, they wouldn't have cut him like they
asked Joe Mixon a couple of years ago to take
a pay cut that came with an ultimatum. It was
also five million dollars, a significant amount of money, or
at least a more significant amount of money than the
one point six that Gino is out here with Joe Mixon.
I think there was an ultimatum, take the pay cut
or we're moving on. We've got someone behind you. With

(01:38:41):
Geno Stone, there's no one behind him, I mean right
now behind him at safety are Dejon Anthony and Tyson Anderson.
Tyson Anderson played as many snaps on defense last year
as I did.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
At the safety position.

Speaker 5 (01:39:01):
Right now, they have Tyson, they have Dejon, and they
have someone named PJ. Jewles and a guy named Jalen Key.
None of those names would suggest that if Geno Stone
says no to the pay cut, they're moving on from
him to use one of them. You might go, well,

(01:39:21):
he could have said no to the pay cut and
then the Bengals would just sign one of those other guys. Well,
then why don't you just go sign one of those
other guys? If you don't have confidence in Geno's Stone,
you mean to tell me you have more confidence in
him making four point nine million dollars than you would

(01:39:44):
with him making six point five million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:39:49):
How does that work?

Speaker 5 (01:39:51):
If you just think there's a better option out there
and you're gonna hold the one point six over Gino's head.
And if he says no, you're gonna sign and one
of those other safeties out there, just go sign the
other safety, or hell, go sign the other safety, and
at least that safety's in the mix with Genostone, who
you clearly don't have complete and total confidence in, because

(01:40:12):
if you did, you wouldn't be asking him to take
a pay cut. Now, the other part of this, you
might be saying to yourself, well, they can pay Trey Hendrickson.
And fine, maybe they pay Trey Hendrickson, right, But I
don't know, man, is one point six million dollars of

(01:40:33):
Geno Stone's money gonna be the difference between paying and
not paying Trey Hendrickson? And if the answer is yes,
if you're a Geno Stone, aren't you gonna go try
to fight Trey Hendrickson. You may lose, But how's that
gonna sit?

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
Well?

Speaker 5 (01:40:51):
Like it's it's one thing. And again, I know Genostone
was bad last year. He admitted that today to his credit.

Speaker 1 (01:41:00):
It's one thing.

Speaker 5 (01:41:01):
If you go to Joe Burrow, right, two hundred and
seventy million bucks, all sorts of off the field earning opportunities,
probably gonna get another contract in the NFL hopefully by
the Bengals.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Who knows.

Speaker 5 (01:41:13):
If you got to Joe Burrow and go hey, hey,
we need one point six and Joe reaches in his
pocket and goes here, that's one thing. As bad as
Gino's stone was last year, to go to him his
one point six is the difference between keeping and not
keeping Trey Hendrickson long term. Really, look, man, you might

(01:41:38):
not like Genostone because he played poorly last year. That
would not sit well with you. It wouldn't sit well
with me. What they're doing here is weird. What they're
doing here seems punitive and I can't help but wonder
what would have happened had Genostone said, yeah, actually, I've
got a contract for six point four to seven five
million bucks, so this year I'm gonna make six point

(01:41:58):
four to seven five million buck. They may have cut
them right now on the roster. It doesn't look like
there's a fallback. And if the fallback is not on
the roster right now, and it's somebody you just would
have gone and signed. Had Genostone said no, why don't.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
You sign them anyway? Especially now that you have an extra.

Speaker 5 (01:42:19):
One point six million dollars and maybe that's what they
do next. Like Genostone, unfortunately for him, is low hanging
fruit and he might be the Bengals player I made
fun of most last year. But this doesn't This is wrong.
I'm sorry man, this unless unless there's like another another
layer to this, which I'll admit maybe there is. Based

(01:42:40):
on what we know right now, which is all we
can comment on, this feels weird. And to be honest
with you, I think if as Genostone, I'd have gone like,
all right, uh, calling your bluff. My contract says six
point four seventy five mili. That's what I expect to
be paid this year.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
What you got?

Speaker 5 (01:43:02):
And you know, maybe the Bengals would have said, what
we got is somebody else were cutting you and okay,
you lose.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
But this one's there's plenty of cab space.

Speaker 5 (01:43:14):
I mean, James Opene has a piece today outlining some
of the options the Bengals can go get in free agency,
including its safety, Like there's there's money if the Bengals
want to go sign a guard, if the Bengals want
a corner, like if there's dudes out there, they might
not be the upper crust guys A listers, but but
there's they didn't need one point six mil to go
find someone to fill out the roster in mid May,

(01:43:36):
like there's there's there's something about this that's just strange.
I could be dead wrong about this would not be
the first time. I cannot imagine the difference between getting
a trade deal done and not getting a trade deal done.
Is Geno Stone And if you're gonna do that and
you really have faith in the guy, he's the guy
you target. Hey, Gino, we need one point six million dollars.

(01:43:58):
We're not gonna ask the richest guy on the team.
We want it from you. And again, I know we're
talking about dollar figures here that do not relate to
any of us. We should all have such problems. Oh
darn Instead, I'm only gonna make four point nine mel
this year. Like I do understand that. But this is
the kind of move Like the Bengals get criticized for

(01:44:19):
a lot of things that they do financially and with players,
and I think a lot of those criticisms are really unfair.
This is one that if I'm a player from outside,
I'm going, huh, huh, what's the extra money needed for?

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
Why are you taking his coin again? The answer might be, well,
he was bad last year.

Speaker 5 (01:44:48):
To be honest, if you're making every player who was
bad last year take a pay cut, there's a lot
of guys who are given money back. There's also a
lot of guys who aren't gonna want to play for you.
It doesn't make sense. Phone calls from next twenty seven
from six will update our poll questions as well. On
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (01:45:08):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

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Yours for life.

Speaker 5 (01:45:59):
Kelsey CHEVD Reds and Braves again tonight in Atlanta with
Andrew Abbott on the hill for Cincinnati Red's trying to
break a three game losing streak. Seven fifteen is tonight's
first pitch on seven hundred w wel W raining National
League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale will get the

(01:46:20):
ball for the Braves. Your starting lineup tonight, are you ready?
I'm sure you are. What you hear in the background
is me clicking madly through all my tabs so I
can pull up the Red starting lineter. I have a
lot of tabs open during the show.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
Here we go.

Speaker 5 (01:46:35):
Freedo, McClain, de la Cruz, Stevenson's DHD, Espinal's and left
Steers at first base, Marte at third, Travino at catcher,
Blake Done is in right field. Tyler Callahan unfortunately to
the injured list. We saw this last night left forearm
fracture after running into the wall down the left field
line last night. Osfol also Yaser's U Lanta has been
sent to a Triple A. Jacob Herdabies is back for

(01:46:57):
some reason, so is Lyon Richardson and louder is going
to begin a rehab assignment in the Arizona Complex League.
Our pole questions are a service of United Heartland Insurance.
Make sure you go to uhi ands dot com and
let him ensure you. We have four today four. As
you may have heard, Joe Burrow Bengals had a voluntary

(01:47:18):
workout that was not mandatory Phase two of their off
season program, which is not mandatory. Joe Burrow was not
there today because he attended the met Gala last night.
I'm still not completely sure I know what the met
gala is. Is this no big deal or a bad look?
Seventy nine point four percent of you correctly say no

(01:47:40):
big deal. Here's a rule in life, man, Special people
get special privileges. Joe Burrow is a special person, and
by the way, privilege is it's not even mandatory, but
he gets a pass. I'm sure from his coaches. He
certainly gets one for me and for all Bengals fans

(01:48:01):
and his teammates. Because Joe Burrow's reputation speaks for itself.
Jim Ratt, hard worker, winning is all that matters, will
do everything he can. Special people get special privileges. Joe
Burrow gets to go to the met gala and take
the next day off. Jermaine Burton does not. Rookie trying

(01:48:24):
to make the team does not. If this is Jamar Chase,
Jamar Chase is special. Special people get special privileges. The
person at work who always gets their work done, goes
above and beyond, probably can take some days off that
don't count as vacation days. The guy who never hits
his number, doesn't show up on time all the time doesn't.

(01:48:48):
Along those lines, would you rather attend a football practice
or whatever the met gala is? I'm voting football practice
met gala does not look like my scene pretty much.
If the event is a gala, count me out. Reception, yes,
stag absolutely, Banquet, perhaps, gala.

Speaker 7 (01:49:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49:10):
Ball. If it's a ball or a gala, I'm not going.

Speaker 5 (01:49:14):
Not that I get invited to balls or galas, but
still the other one. As it relates to the Tyler
Callahan play last night, some on social media where people
get mad on social media, because that's what you do
on social media, you get mad at stuff. So Matt
Olson to the Braves hit the ball last night that
Callahan caught, but they rolled dropped and they ruled correctly.
But common sense says he caught the ball. Matt Olson

(01:49:37):
continued to round the bases so much so that it
was an inside the park home run. Some got mad
at him for doing this. I'm not among them.

Speaker 1 (01:49:43):
Ball was live. Should we be mad? In fact, I
phrased it this way.

Speaker 5 (01:49:49):
We're not really mad at Matt Olson for circling the bases,
of course not?

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
Or a yep?

Speaker 5 (01:49:54):
Eighty nine point five percent say of course not. And
then the other one is just based on my current
sports pet peeve retire jersey numbers and athletes who ask
to have them taken out of circulation so they can
wear them. Latest example of Dual Carter or the Giants
wanted to wear LT's number fifty six and then when

(01:50:15):
he was told no, Phil Simms number eleven. A retired
jersey number should be permanently taken out of circulation, even
if one of the current players would like to wear it. Right,
ninety percent of you correctly say yes, All right, I
have taken up too much of our time. Let's talk
to other people. Bob, you're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Bob,

(01:50:39):
good afternoon, How are you.

Speaker 7 (01:50:41):
I'm good, Ma, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (01:50:42):
I'm all right, what's up? Hey?

Speaker 7 (01:50:45):
I heard your discussion about Matt McClain, and I'm happy
to report that Sunday night, after the Blues played a
fifty nine minute, fifty seven second great game.

Speaker 5 (01:50:58):
What a heartbreaking law for your beloved Saint Louis Blues.

Speaker 1 (01:51:02):
That was some kind of game.

Speaker 5 (01:51:03):
I watched that, Bob, thinking of you last night, double overtime,
Winnipeg scores with what one point six seconds to go.
Incredible game. I felt for you and your your beloved Blues.

Speaker 7 (01:51:16):
Yeah, well, thank you, moo. We appreciate that. But you
know what, what it has allowed me to do because
of my rule, when my teams are knocked down in
a sport, that sport no longer exists for the rest
of that season. So it has now allowed me to
concentrate on baseball again. Okay, And for that reason, I'm

(01:51:37):
able to talk about your Matt McClain discussion.

Speaker 1 (01:51:40):
Go ahead.

Speaker 7 (01:51:42):
Last year, the Cardinals sent Jordan Walker to the minor leagues.
Later in the year, they sent Nolan Gorman to the
major leagues. Both of those guys, who I would dare
say had much more success than Matt McClain has had.
So far as a Major leaguer, And you know what,
I think it was absolutely the right thing to do.

(01:52:05):
And both those guys are the majors this year. Gorman
playing okay, Jordan doing all right. But the guy that
they set down last year that wasn't ready to be
in the major leagues was Victor Scott and he's come
back and he's playing great this year.

Speaker 1 (01:52:23):
He's playing well.

Speaker 7 (01:52:23):
Yeah, yeah, And you know what, yeah, there is absolutely
nothing wrong with that. And I, to your point earlier,
would almost say that if you ask Matt McClain, or
if they do it and someone asked him, then I
would say, he'd tell you it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 5 (01:52:45):
I think sometimes we don't give the athlete credit for
knowing how they're performing and maybe what could they could
use to get better, which in this case could mean
a demotion. I just think sometimes we frame sending a
player down like they're giving up on him, that he's
never going to come back, that he's banished there forever.

Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
That's not the idea. The idea is to send him
to Louisville noelve.

Speaker 5 (01:53:09):
Marte has been called up by the Reds and after
he started the season in Louisville and then came up
for three games and got sent back. He went down there,
he had, by all accounts, the right attitude, worked on
some stuff, and he's been pretty good here when they
sent him down, and they sent him down in the
early in spring training, it wasn't so we never see
him again. It was, hey, look, you're not ready. You

(01:53:30):
have to work through some stuff. The big league level
for now is not where you're going to work through
some stuff. And so do what you got to do
at Louisville, come back a better player, and hopefully you
can help us.

Speaker 1 (01:53:39):
And that's happened. Why can't that happen with the Matt McLean.

Speaker 7 (01:53:42):
Hey, well, the Cardinals right now have a guy named
Michael McGreevey who's the starting pitcher, who pitched great last
year in a very limited timespan, was not brought up
with the team this year and absolutely deserved to be here.
He got to win the other day against the Mets.

(01:54:03):
And what this whole thing is about is about Miles.
Michaelis and at the tree and deadline, he's going to
be going somewhere, and at that point this guy will
be up here. If he doesn't wind up staying now,
which he probably should. So you know, it's one of

(01:54:24):
those things that guys that have been around baseball for
a while can see these things, know what's going on,
and the pitcher knows what's going on. Michael, Michael McGreevy
is a smart guy. He can see what's happening. And
you know what's sometimes the best thing to do is
is stay in Memphis in his case, pitch very well,

(01:54:46):
which he's done, and your time's coming and you're going
to make a boatload of money in this sport. So
you know, I just think the attitude is every bit
as important as any anything else, and in his case,
I think he's got a good one.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
So yeah, I think, Bob, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:55:07):
I think there's a pretty healthy list of players who
ended up having successful big league careers that got called up,
maybe had some success, maybe struggled immediately, got sent down,
came back and ended up being great again. Man, I
want to be clear about this me specifically, I would

(01:55:30):
be open to other ideas, you know, two game benching,
three game benching, come off the bench, slide him down
in the batting order, that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
Sort of thing.

Speaker 5 (01:55:40):
But I certainly understand why a discussion about sending him down,
would and at least should be on the table. Have
been far better players than it. Sounds like I'm down
on Matt McClay. Mam McLain's, dude's playing one hundred and
twenty big league games. Like, there are far better players
than Mam McLain who have been sent to the minor leagues,

(01:56:02):
Far better players than ma McLain who have been benched.

Speaker 1 (01:56:05):
Uh, let's see here. Thanks for hanging on, Chris.

Speaker 5 (01:56:08):
You're on ESPN fifteen thirty, has a going How you
doing awesome?

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
So you're talking about Joe Burrow being special. It's Trey
Hendrickson special.

Speaker 1 (01:56:19):
Yes he is? Yeah, Why, he's an elite pass rusher?

Speaker 3 (01:56:27):
Oh okay? How many? How many times can he tackle
the running back?

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
He's not good at the running game. I said he's
an elite pass rusher.

Speaker 3 (01:56:35):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So he's under contract for his coming year, correct?

Speaker 7 (01:56:42):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:56:43):
Yeah. So if Gino Stone has one point seven million
dollars to give it to Trey Henderson, I mean that
guy should be sitting fat and happy with that.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
Yeah okay, yeah, but I don't think it is the case.

Speaker 5 (01:56:55):
I don't think Geno Stone got a pay cut so
they could pay Trey Henderson.

Speaker 3 (01:57:00):
Okay, so what does Trey Henderson need then?

Speaker 5 (01:57:08):
I would imagine so, yeah, I would imagine that's what
I would I would imagine that's what he's asking for.

Speaker 3 (01:57:12):
Yeah, I mean he can't even fall into a running back.
I mean he had what some heap sacks and third
and Greek tackles.

Speaker 1 (01:57:21):
I am with you there, Chris.

Speaker 5 (01:57:23):
That's why I can understand why the Bengals don't want
to pay him high end edg rusher money. But I
would find it hard to believe that this impasse between
the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson is going to be solved
because Geno Stone gave up one point six million dollars.
And if that's the case, if I'm Geno Stone, I
go to Trey Hendrickson and go really really and I

(01:57:43):
go to the Bengals and I go really like, they
they have one point six million dollars laying around if
they were wanted to give they wanted to come up
with an extra one point six for Trey, they didn't
need to ask Geno Stone to take a pay cut.

Speaker 3 (01:57:58):
Yeah, I just I don't think if God deserves anything.
I mean, you're under a contract.

Speaker 1 (01:58:05):
Who are you referring to, Trey or Gino?

Speaker 3 (01:58:08):
Trey Trey.

Speaker 2 (01:58:09):
Oh, we're on.

Speaker 5 (01:58:10):
The same page there. I mean, I have no problem
with what the Bengals have done with him. He's under
contract for one more year. I understand their belief. Hey,
your best years are probably behind you. We're not willing
to pay you thirty two to thirty four million bucks.
If you have another great year, hit free agency and
if you're still interested in coming here and talk to us, Like,
we're on the same page there, And.

Speaker 3 (01:58:32):
If I'm not mistaken. Once they first signed him, they
gave him a bump as well on a contract extension
with more money too, right.

Speaker 5 (01:58:41):
Yeah, they gave him a contract for the twenty twenty
five season, which I'm sure he now regrets signing.

Speaker 1 (01:58:47):
Yeah, well, you know, yeah, no, dude.

Speaker 5 (01:58:49):
He signed it. I mean, I don't feel bad for
Trey Hendrickson.

Speaker 7 (01:58:53):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:58:53):
Do I think he's a special player, think he's a
special pass rusher. Sure, but I can certainly understand looking
at him and going, guy's gonna be thirty one by
the end of the season.

Speaker 1 (01:59:04):
We have him for this year.

Speaker 5 (01:59:05):
We don't think he's capable of putting up the kind
of numbers that he's already put up, and so why
pay him more long term? Like, I don't think that
is right now, at least an incorrect position. It may
be proven to be incorrect if Trey continues to play
at a really high level, specifically elsewhere. But I think
what the Bengals are doing with Trey Hendrickson, I don't
disagree with their position. My point is if you saw

(01:59:27):
the Geno Stone thing happen today and you thought that's
what's gonna keep Trey Hendrickson here. I again, if I
was Geno Stone, I would go really like the difference
from you staying here a long term and not staying
here's my one point six million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:59:40):
I just I find that hard to believe.

Speaker 5 (01:59:42):
I think there's money out there that they can go
ahead and get the trade deal done without asking a
player like Genostone to take a pay cut.

Speaker 3 (01:59:49):
I mean, the guy's thirty years old, right, I mean
I wouldn't sign him after this contract ever, let alone
give him a pay raise.

Speaker 1 (01:59:57):
Yeah, they don't have to.

Speaker 5 (01:59:59):
I mean again, I think I think Chris, you and
I are an agreement as it relates to Trey Hendrickson.

Speaker 1 (02:00:03):
Again.

Speaker 5 (02:00:04):
If the guy goes out and has another great year
and he still wants to stay in Cincinnati, let's talk
about it. But I have no issue with looking at
him through the lens of a player whose best seasons
are behind him. So why do I want to pay
him in twenty twenty six for what he did in
twenty twenty four?

Speaker 1 (02:00:21):
Correct, Chris, We're an agreement.

Speaker 3 (02:00:24):
Have a good night, Thank you?

Speaker 5 (02:00:26):
Yeah, I just the Geno Stone thing for me, I
think is one of the more bizarre things I've ever seen.
There may be another layer to it, but if you
really believe in Geno Stone, then you believe in Geno Stone.
You don't believe in Geno Stone unless he takes a
pay cut. And if there are other safeties available, just
go ahead and sign one of those safeties and add

(02:00:49):
them to a mix that already includes Geno Stone.

Speaker 1 (02:00:53):
We'll see. I gotta go, so do you?

Speaker 5 (02:00:56):
So?

Speaker 1 (02:00:56):
Just tearor we're done?

Speaker 5 (02:00:57):
Shows over Thanks to Michael Abultro, first Mind entering the
michelob Ultra five o'clock Happy Hour, Have an awesome night.
We return tomorrow at three oh five. Uh, and don't
forget since three sixty at noon tomorrow as well on
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 8 (02:01:12):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 9 (02:01:23):
From the UC Health Traffic Center when it comes to
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is the clear choice for rapid life saving treatment. Learn
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I'm at eazelic with traffic.

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