9-25-25 - Mo Egger with Robert Weintraub

Robert Weintraub writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine.  He joined us this week to discuss the Bengals and how they bounce back from last week's debacle in Minneapolis.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our guy, Robert wan Trump is with US Bengals column
for Cincinnati Magazine, writs one every week. He's got one
up right now at Cincinnati Magazine dot com. Robert, how
we doing well?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm great now As a long time Metch hater, I'm
all in for the Reds and well that's two nights
have been rough, but that almost makes up for it.
And of course my name is Rob. I'd love to
see the game ending on a robbed home run with
a spectacular way to intro me.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Thank you, very well done. All right, well, hopefully hopefully
the Cubs can help us tonight. You get the pleasure
I guess you get the assignment of being the latest
to try to fix the Bengals running game. The floor
is yours?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Do I get paid for this? I feel like I should.
I'm going to take over the Bengals running game. Lord knows,
nobody else has been able to make it happen. I mean, listen,
it's a combination of factors. If it was one easy fix,
they would have done it by now right. And I
still feel, you know, sort of counterintuitively, perhaps that the
real issue is that they got to make defenses respect

(01:01):
their passing game. And if Jake Browning can open the
field up by completing both downfield to Jamar and t
which he certainly is capable of doing and he's done
it in the past, you know that can only help
the running attack. It'll lighten up the boxes, it'll whit
the defenses not be so aggressive coming downhill. And you know,
it's terrible to see. We've seen it under Joe Burrow

(01:23):
and obviously he can make passes. They've struggled in this
for so long, and it's so unusual to see because
even when the Bengals were going through their terrible years,
they could always run the football. They always had great minds,
they always had running backs. Rip Rudy Johnson by the way,
terrible news for him, but that's just a perfect example.
They always found running backs, they always had running games.
It's really bizarre to see the fact that it's been

(01:45):
all these years of the Boroughware and they just can't
find any openings consistently. But you know, you still got
to pass the ball to winning this league. You run
to Berservia leads, but you get the leads by passing.
And I really think that if they can, you know,
be consistent, not turn the ball over every play like
they did in Minnesota, and you open up that passing attack,
they'll find at least a little bit of running or
for Chase Brown, maybe just enough to win some games.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
You you right about how Zach Taylor has a good
track record of making mid season adjustments. Adjusting midstream, I
think is how you put it. Run through that for me, well, yeah,
you go back.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Speaking a running attack, I mean, you go back to
his first year. It pre Joe Burrow when they were
a terrible team in twenty nineteen as we know, and
they had a lot of the same issues. The first
half of the season. They could not run the ball
at all, if you could remember, Joe Bixon was getting
pounded in the backfield three yards behind the line of
scrimmage almost on every play. And then they got to
the bye week ranked dead last in the league, and

(02:42):
rushing changed some things up. I don't want to get
too you know detailed and the blocking technology there, but
I mean they changed up the way they were attacking
defenses on the running attack, and they wound up averaging
I think four point six yards per carry and we're
eighth in the league in dboa over the second half
of the season. Then that's just a you know, typical
example we see. You know, we talk so much god

(03:04):
every year about how they couldn't win in September. You know,
what's Zach doing. He's terrible at to start the season,
and yet of course every year they were awesome down
to stretch. You know, a lot of the reason why
they had such great success in the second half of
the season. I know, we hate to give Zach Taylor
any credit, but a lot of it was because of
what he did, and his staff too, and adjusting to
what the team does well. Things that didn't work they

(03:27):
flushed out of there, and the team always improved under
him in the second half of the season. I think
we'll see that to a degree. It's obviously a lot
harder without Joe Burrow in there to make your carefully
laid plans look great on the field. But you know,
I think it's a track record he has now over
six years. That's that's you know, worthy of giving him
a chance to do it again, and I think we'll

(03:48):
see some of that to this point this season as well.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Robert windtrumb is with a Cincinnati magazine dot Com. Your
thoughts on those who use the performance on Sunday, Jake
Browning was not good. When I think of that that performance,
I think of a lot of independent factors or factors
independent of of Jake Browning, but a lot of that.
A lot of folks use that performance as a reason
to kind of go back and say that this is
why they should have traded for Kirk Cousins. So this

(04:11):
is why they should go trade for Kirk Cousins or
Jamis Winston or go get Russell Wilson. Your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Ground, Well, first of all, they do they know what
team they're rooting for. I mean, did the Bengals ever
do anything like that? I mean, come on, that's not likely.
And second of all, you really want that, you want
the corpse of Russell Wilson in their backfields. I live
in Atlanta. I saw Kirk Cousins up close. He couldn't
complete a path beyond the line of scrimmage last season.

(04:37):
And it says that the Falcons, you know, Michael Pennix
is not lighting up the league either for the first
three weeks. Who says they're even going to trade them?
I just think it's you know, it's it's fun talk,
it's it's content as we say in the modern day era,
and it's you know what you do best. Of course,
it's what you make it a living doing. But I
just don't think it's very realistic. And you know, Jake,

(04:59):
I think is as you said, it certainly wasn't his
fault that they fumbled the ball in three out of
six plays at the end of the half and put
that game away. You know, after thirty minutes last time,
they give the guy a chance, and you know, let's
not constantly be looking for outside sort of fixes to
what's really an internal problem the defense.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
And you wrote about this wasn't bad last week. I'd
stop well short of saying it was good, but it's
gonna have to be at some point this season because
of what's happening on offense. Have you seen anything over
these first three games that would indicate that that that
can happen.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, I know over in South Ben they're definitely missing
Al Golden. That's all they could talk about. So that's
at least something to keep them going. I guess, uh, yeah,
Like you said, it's not like Sunday's game had really
anything to do with the defense. It was untenable for
them basically they weren't great, but you know, through three games,
they're twentieth in the league in DVOA. Not awesome, but
what we sort of always have said, you know, it's like,

(05:58):
can they be just the top twenty defense that's good
enough with this offense, probably have to be a little
bit better than that now with Burrow out, but they're
certainly capable, and I think, you know, you have to
give Al Golden a chance to at least get these
guys going. And the players themselves, I think we've seen
flashes out of some of the guys. He was brought
in sort of specifically to light a fire under and

(06:20):
make those hot draft pay forth. While at Miles Murphy
or Chris Jenkins and the corners have played pretty well.
I mean, you know, it's a very small sample size,
but I haven't been discouraged by what we've seen so far.
And listen, well we've talked about it each week. They've
made the plays they had to make in crucial situations
over the first two weeks. Didn't really get a chance

(06:41):
to do that on Sunday, So it doesn't even really matter.
Let's see what they can do and playing Denver. Yet
you think it'll be a game a lot like the
one they played in twenty twenty one up there, which
was fifteen to ten, and you can remember Khalead Kareem
of all people, they play in that game for Cincinnati's win.
And you know, it could well be a situation where
we see something like that again, a tight game, and

(07:03):
whichever defense makes the big play in the crucial situation
will come out on top. Hopefully there'll be another unlikely
hero for Cincinnati. It'll be a tough ask. But you
know that I certainly haven't given up and throwing my
hands in the air at the defense. Yet. It's way
too early for that.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Well said, Go Cubs, go rob Thank you as always.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Let's play too, Let's play two.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Channel, Ernie Banks. There you go, our guy, Robert Win
Trubs since imagazine dot Com, you're the best. Thanks man,
Thank you. I am. I am watching the Noel Marte catch.
If the Reds get to the postseason, that's the play
I think that we're gonna remember when we talk about
the Reds run to the postseason in twenty twenty five,

(07:47):
That's the play. Noelve Marte today played his fifty first
game as a professional baseball player in right field. He
has had, He's had his ups and downs. Call it
what it is, as you would expect from a guy
who just got thrust into that position. He just made
the play of the season right, robbing Brian Reynolds of
what would have been a game tying home run. The

(08:08):
story of the game up until that point was Nicko Lodolo,
who was terrific. Today, we're gonna have some audio for
you from Great American Ballpark. The most important thing is
the Reds win. Nick got taken out of the game.
It looked like some sort of leg issue. We'll hear
from Terry Francona in just a bit. But the final
home game of the season, which the Reds had to
have Noelve Marte, and this wasn't one where you're looking

(08:31):
at it like, well, what would that have been a
home run? Would it have hit the top of the
that's a home run? And Noelve Marte made a great
play to record the second out and then made a
nice running catch to end the ballgame with Emelia Pegan
nailing down. We use air quotes to save It's four

(08:53):
point thirty Sports headlines reaction from gabp and Jake Zivin,
Who's a big Cubs fan on Fcsninnati and Orlando.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Next, you've been listening to football in the NATI on
ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
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Speaker 3 (09:50):
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