9/9/26 -- The Mo Egger Show: From The Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate.

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Touchdown, Bengals!

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Bengals fans have waited all offseason for football, and it's
finally here. Can the Orange and Blacks start the season
fast and steal the win? Or will our beloved Bengals
be swashbuckled by the Buccaneers?

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Coverage begins Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Stream for free on the new and improved iHeartRadio app
or on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
It's the Bengals and Buccaneers.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yes, it will be the Bengals and Buccaneers. What's up?
Good afternoon.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Mo Egger, ESPN 1530. Hope you're having an awesome Wednesday.
Thank you so much for listening. We are having an
awesome Wednesday. Though we're usually here on a Thursday, but
we are doing one of my favorite shows of the year.
Our annual broadcast from the Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate
now in its ninth year.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
And we are honored to have been here for all
nine of them.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Uh, everything that happens here tonight in Westchester, it benefits the, uh, the,
the great work done by Anthony's foundation. And, uh, what
I love most about this is getting a chance to
spend some time at the top of the show every
year with the greatest Bengal of all time. It is
awesome to have you.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, thank you for being here. All nine. That's awesome.
It's awesome. You must've started like when you were in
high school. I was in high school.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I would get out of school early, come up here
and do the show. What's going on? Well, I appreciate
you being here. This is always a highlight. Uh, You know,
we do have our golf tournament in June, but it's
always nice to do a Topgolf event. You don't have
to be an avid golfer. You're a lot closer with
this one bay than you are, you know, scattered all
over the golf course, which we'll continue to do. But
this is fun. Topgolf here in Westchester has been a

(01:42):
great host. We've enjoyed it. You know, we've been able
to sell out the bays here. We'll just have a
fun night of some fellowship, and there'll be some serious golfers.

Speaker 5 (01:51):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
They're trying to win it, but then we'll have some
that are just coming out and have some fun, some
good food, drinks, and... Most importantly, they're supporting our cause
and believe in what we're doing with the foundation.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
If things go well tonight, this event, nine years running,
will have surpassed over a half million dollars in fundraising.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
That is remarkable. It is. Just this one event, and
of course, we can't do things. I mean, our staff
and interns and volunteers do an amazing job, but we
can't do anything like this without our corporate partners. Pete, Miranda, Ventura,
and of course this year it's Birdies. They're a nice
shop down in Nord, but They're always here every year
to support us, to really be here with us and

(02:31):
allow us to do this. So, yeah, I mean, that's
just one thing that we do with the foundation, and
we're celebrating 25 years. To be right at $ 500, 000 is just,
I mean, I'm very, very grateful. I say this to
you every year.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
There's lots of athletes and former athletes who do great
things in the community and add their name to events
and causes and contribute money. But the way that you're
so hands-on involved with everything that this foundation does, whether
it's fundraising or whether it's the work that you do
with young people in this part of the country, I

(03:07):
could talk about you for hours on end and not
mention how good you were at football, and that's the
reason why.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, you know, the amazing thing is people don't realize
we didn't start this until like eight years after I retired.
And I understand when you're playing and you start a foundation,
you know, you're relevant, you know, you have leverage. But,
and I say it all the time, as an NFL
football player, as a husband, as a father, I really
didn't have time to get totally engaged. So that's why

(03:33):
I waited until my kids were like junior, sophomore, juniors
in college. And then I, you know, when I put
my name on something, I want to be engaged. And
hopefully I'm not crazy engaged with my staff. They're an
amazing staff that we have, and they do a phenomenal job. But,
you know, I'm still, when we do a program, I'm there.
You know, I'm involved as much as I can. You know,
we have such a talented staff and they're smart and

(03:55):
creative and and they come up with some great ideas
and they present them to me and most of the
time i just say great job let's run with it
it's like so uh and that's what the fun thing
for me you know being around this for 25 years
and uh you know i think it might be good
for the staff that they don't see me as much
as they used to on a weekly basis you know
i come in uh maybe a day or two and

(04:16):
when i come in you know they have some work
for me and i get it done but uh again
it's the confidence i have in my staff and the
job they do and And that's why I do what
I do, because I love the impact that we have
as a foundation, as a team. I mean, yeah, my
name's on the foundation, but that's where it ends. We
have an amazing team that has been put together.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
The thing about like you and your staff, I see
the same people every year, which means like you're doing
legitimate work, right? I would say like the mark of
a good business is there's not a ton of turnover.
People love working there. They feel appreciated. And whether it's
your staff or the folks who come out and support
your events, I see some of the same folks every year,
which I think is a statement about you. Let's talk

(04:56):
about the work of the foundation itself because it is
so important.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Well, you know, we have eight programs, and we deal
with young people from kindergarten through 12th grade, everything from
mentoring young people to overnight character camps, we call them.
One is Impact for Eternity. Another one is a character camp.
We do, in addition to the two overnight camps, we
have a day camp. In the summer when we have
our golfing dinner, it's at Paycore Stadium. In that one,

(05:21):
unlike the overnight camp where we have just young men,
middle school young men, in that day camp, two-day day camp,
we have quite a few young ladies who go out
and show that they can hold their own on the
football field and the activities that we have, team building.
We have a leadership seminar that right now I believe
we're like at 80 high schools, a little over 80,
in October coming up next month at Mason Crossroads, and

(05:43):
we have We'll bring in motivational leadership speakers. They have
breakout sessions. And, you know, the young people get into
conversations that they might not, you know, on their high
school campuses, which we love. We have two types of scholarship.
We have a straight A scholarship that we give out
in April. It's 18, nine male, nine female, straight A, academics, athletics, achievement, attitude,

(06:04):
and a big criteria is overcoming adversity. And that's the
one-time scholarship. And then in the summer with our golf tournament,
The night before at our dinner, we give out $ 20, 000 scholarships.
This year, past April, we gave out, usually it's 18,
and we give out $ 2, 000 to all 18, and then
we pick a male or female winner, and we give
them an extra three, so they get five each. This year,

(06:24):
I just said, you know what? I was driving one day,
and I like to say that God spoke to me
and said, hey, Give them all $ 5, 000. So when I
got in there, I said, all 18 are getting $ 5, 000.
And then the neat thing about it, at our dinner
in June, usually we might give out four to six
$ 20, 000 scholarships. This year we gave out 20 $ 20, 000 scholarships,

(06:46):
and we had enough to give out another five. We
raised half a million. We put restricted to do that.
Not only is our 25th anniversary, we felt, let's get
25 kids. So that's what we do. It's a passion thing.
And then you mentioned our staff and they've been here
for a while. And to me, it says they love
doing what we're doing and they love young people. They
love the impact that we have on the young people.

(07:08):
And all you have to do is watch them when they,
you know, put together the programs and then watch them
interact with the young people that we're impacting.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
And you've done this long enough that you see adults
who have gone through your character education programs, who have,
you've mentored, who have taken advantage of scholarship opportunities and
I'm sure most of them are thriving because of it,
and I would imagine you get a chance to see
some of those people that you've impacted many.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Many years before.

Speaker 5 (07:33):
I have.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
I mean, everything from, you know, I heard a story
of my college, one of my college teammates out in Arizona,
who his daughter was getting a medical procedure, and the
anesthesiologist overheard them talking about USC football. I guess he
kind of looked at her dad and saw him much
older and kind of related his age with my age

(07:54):
to older guys, and I said, well, your dad played
football at USC. He said, yep. He said, does he
know Anthony Munoz? He goes, yeah. We just spent four
days with them this past weekend. And the guy said, well,
I was a scholarship recipient from the foundation. And I've
had over, I was in Iraq, Afghanistan back in 2011.
And we were at one, we visited seven bases. One
of the base, there was a young lady with two

(08:15):
guys eating dinner. I recognized her and she was one
of our scholarship recipients. So on the other side of
the world. And, you know, just the other day, I
saw two young men that, uh, One was a straight-A
scholarship winner, and the other one went to a camp
when he was a young man. And, you know, he
was married and had kids. So it's fun to see
those young people out in the community. And we were
just a small part of what they're doing now and

(08:37):
just an encouragement and help, maybe giving them a scholarship.
And it's the difference between them having to commute from home,
staying on campus, having a meal plan, and maybe providing
some money for books and stuff. So, you know, we
love doing that, and it's great to see that impact.
And I saw the young man the other day. I said,
don't be a stranger. Write to us and give us
an update on what you're doing. That's awesome. I mean,

(08:59):
that's it.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
I cannot imagine how gratifying that must feel. Well, you know,
I'm thankful. Again, I can't talk enough about our staff,
our board, our volunteers, our corporate partners, because they're giving
me a chance to do what people did in my
life as a young kid.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
I had organizations that gave me a chance to play
baseball in the summer with no price tag. They gave
me my first brand-new baseball glove. Let me do something
that I love to do. You know, I had a
coach who poured into not only my life, but other
young men that didn't have a dad. And then I
had a chance to go to college on a scholarship. So,
you know, we're doing, you know, hopefully we continue to

(09:33):
do what people did for me as a young man
growing up in Southern California. And really, that's what motivates me.
And that's what gives me a thrill watching a young
man get a scholarship. And he's just like, and then
to see we had a young man at our dinner
who was a scholarship recipient, had a bad stuttering problem,
didn't want to do a speech live. The girls talked
him into reading it. uh you know he graduated he

(09:56):
got his postgraduate and he's coaching college now i mean
it's just just unbelievable to see you know this young
man thrive and the the confidence build and uh you
know i thank my staff for saying no no you're
not going to videotape your speech you're going to write
it down we'd love for you to read it and
uh and he did that.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
I want to talk about the team and the season,
and we will in a second, but I want to
bring up Ted Karras because when I watch him, I
think of you because here's a guy, shows up in Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
He's not from here.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
He's not a star, though he's obviously had a very
good career, and he just instantly and organically wraps his
arms around the community, and he gets involved in mental
health initiatives, selling the sense he had, and you could
tell it's something that really matters to him, and it just.
Like that to me is like that's the descendant, if

(10:46):
you will, of Anthony Munoz. And it's got to be
really cool for you to see somebody.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
There are many others.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
But Ted stands out to me because the work that
he does and the kind of man that he is.
And trust me, we'll come back and I'll make fun
of you a little bit.

Speaker 6 (10:58):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
That's fine.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
I'm used to that.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
I have some teammates here tonight. But it reminds me
of you. Well, I appreciate that. And you say he's
not a star. He's an offensive lineman. He's always, you know,
they're all stars. We think about that. Sure, yes. No,
but he came into town right away, and there's a
guy with my relationship in him. I mean, right away
we kind of hit it off. He said, whatever I

(11:21):
can do to help you out with the foundation, just
let me know. And the guy's been phenomenal. And, you know,
it's one of those things that I've got to share
that a lot of people don't realize. But at our dinner,
I like to auction. Everybody auctions off items. You know,
they have trips here, golf here, blah, blah, blah. But
one of the things I've been fortunate enough to do
is put a lot of golf or a lot of–
live auction items together where there's not a lot of overhead.

(11:43):
You know, I like to get things donated, you know, so,
but so several years ago I was thinking, how can
I come up with, I said, you know what? I
have a lot of my former line mates who live
in town. Ted has said, whatever he can do, just
let him know. So I'm thinking, wouldn't it be great?
And I went to our staff, I said, I'm going
to auction off Dine with the O-Line. Oh yeah. We're

(12:04):
going to get a restaurant that's going to donate, you know,
and we're going to sell to a group of people
that want to go have dinner with The guys that
are playing now and the guys that played before, you know,
the Kaczerski, the Walter, the Lapham, the Montoya, the Blados,
the Moon. And so I think this will be our
third or fourth year that we've sold that packet. And
Ted has been phenomenal. In fact, the very first year
we did it, you know, the guys are in a

(12:25):
meeting down at the stadium and we're having it in Westchester,
a restaurant up there. And all of a sudden they
all come walking in. It looked like they just left
the meeting. And Ted says, yeah. I said, Frank. That's
when Frank Pollock, he goes, Frank, we're late. We've got
to end the meeting now. We've got to get to
the Munoz dinner. They all came to the dinner. But,
you know, so he gets it. I mean, he's done

(12:45):
a phenomenal job. Of course, you know, we pushed for
him to hopefully get the Man of the Year a
couple years ago, which didn't happen. The guy has had
a tremendous impact in this community, and we are very
grateful to have a lot of the guys, especially Karis.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, no question about that. The verbiage you used, he
gets it, and you can tell.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Hang tight.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
We're here at Topgolf in Westchester, the ninth annual Anthony
Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate. More with the Hall of Famer
when we come back. It is 19 after 3 o'clock.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
I'm Mo Egger.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
This is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 7 (13:22):
Cincinnati's.

Speaker 8 (13:23):
This is Dan Hoard. Join Dave Lapham and me for
Bengals game plan tonight starting at 6 on the official
home of the Bengals, Cincinnati's ESPN 1530.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
24 minutes after 3 o'clock, this is ESPN 1530. Moe
Egger broadcasting.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
From the Anthony Munoz Foundation.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
Top golf tailgate here in Westchester, the ninth year. of
this event, the Hall of Famer. By the way, going
to be busy. You've got the Bengals and Bucs, and
then you just told me you're going to be at
the UC game on Saturday.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Saturday night. It'd be great to have you there. Well,
I'm looking forward to it. I've had the fortunate opportunity
with the tradition of Coach Satterfield and his coaches. I
guess it started back in the App State days. On
Wednesday before the game, they have like a fireside chat
with the speaker. I don't know. This is my fourth
straight year that I've been able to speak to the coaches,

(14:12):
so hopefully they... They take it all the way. But
it was funny because it's usually in his backyard. The
fireplace is going, and they bring Wendy's in. That's been
the tradition for years. So my buddy who's picking me
up says, hey, they moved it into one of the
rooms at the facility. I said, thank God, because it
was like 100 degrees. I'm already sweating. I can't imagine
sitting there talking with the fireplace. But, yeah, so that

(14:37):
buddy who I went with said they reached out to
him and asked if I would. Would love to do it.
And I said, well, what's it all about? And I said, yeah,
we'll be there. So we'll be at the game Saturday night.
Very good.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
And then Bengals and Buccaneers. Who do you root for
when the Bengals play the Bucs? I mean, you spend
a camp with the Buccaneers.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Just a camp. But, you know, it's just like asking,
you know, when my kids were, you know, my son
was at Tennessee and my daughter was at Ohio State.
If they played, who would I root for? I said,
you know, Tennessee because my son's there. But my daughter
was asked that when she transferred to Ohio State. and
michael's at tennessee or her friends at ohio state he
said well if the buckeyes play the volunteers who do
you root for and she looked at him and said

(15:13):
are you serious that's my brother i'd root for him
but no i did i spent uh you know it's
funny because they still send a lot of emails about
you know camp and guys you know legends coming to
the camp and stuff but there's no question about it
uh you know there are photos of you there is
playing in the preseason i played i went i went
through all the camp yeah i mean i was ready
i was ready to start the season and Just dumb

(15:36):
thing like making the tackle ended it right away, and
I knew it was over for sure.

Speaker 9 (15:39):
But no, I'm orange and black all the way. Okay,
I'm just checking. This offseason was awesome. And then, you know,
you called two preseason games. And the way the preseason unfolded, like,
you know, sometimes those games can be a little bit
of a slog. But watching real competitive battles lower on
the depth chart, watching rookies take advantage of opportunities, watching

(16:02):
a guy– like Dante Myers, earn a spot on the
team and earn, I think, maybe a significant role on
the team. And then they won all three games and
they emerged from it healthy. Like it's the best preseason.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Of my life. No, it was good. You know, and
I tell people, I said, well, how hard is it
to do the preseason? I said, you know what? It
is tough because there's no starters. I said, but the
great thing about it, to your point, you see guys
that are backups. You see guys, Dante Myers, that are
coming in as rookies that want a roster spot. So
they're busting their tails. And because they don't make the team,
it's not because the effort's not there. Probably the talent

(16:35):
level isn't where it should be. But, I mean, there
was some good action preseason. Two games we did, the
Lions and the Bears. I mean, to watch the backups,
I mean, you had the backups. You know, defense against
the number one Bears offense against early in the but
they held their own and just see it wasn't a sloppy,
sloppy thing. I mean, you know, Josh Johnson, you know,

(16:57):
he's been playing that offense for quite a while, which
he had a while back. But no, it's exciting for me.
And we talked about it before we got on there.
Usually I'm excited, but I'm really excited about this season. Yeah,
the expectations are huge.

Speaker 4 (17:09):
I have to talk about the offensive line with you
because at the end of the season last year, that
group was playing at a pretty high level.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
And it's been a while since they've brought back all
five starters.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
So as somebody who was on what felt like the
same group of offense, the same offensive line every single year,
how can they benefit from that continuity?

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Well, continuity is huge. I mean, especially with free agency,
you know, guys moving, you know, from team to team.
The fact that you have the same guys coming back,
you know, with a couple young guys, you know, with
Mims and Fairchild, that helps when you have some veterans
mixed in. But I would say, you know, that's the group.
You know, when I was playing and we're playing against

(17:47):
a team and let's say, Mo, your performance really depends
on the outcome of the game. The coach would say, Mo,
the hat is on you because you've got it. I believe,
in my humble opinion, we have five hats that are
going to be on, and that's the offensive line. Yeah.
I think those guys have to continue and continue to
progress and trend upward in order for us to get

(18:08):
in the playoffs and go away. Because I am excited.
I mean, we're going to score points. Yes. We're going to,
you know, defense. I don't think we're going to have
to score 30 to 40 points and lose games. I
think if we score 30, 40 points, those are going
to be wins this year.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Because I'm excited. But the offensive line, we have some talent.
They just have to play defensively. at another higher level
than they were finishing up last year.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
And if Amarius Mims does that, he's got a chance
to be one of the best tackles in the sport.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I tell you what, there's a guy that has a
ceiling that is very, very high, and with his height,
he needs a high ceiling. And, no, he's, to watch
the kid, it's just, I mean, he continues to progress,
and I know that injury last year kind of, It'll
put a little wrench in it. But, yeah, to watch
him with his size and the way he moves, I'm

(18:54):
going to be excited every year to see how he progresses.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
They want to run under center more, which they want
to play action more. You played with the greatest play
action quarterback of all time as far as I'm concerned,
Boomer Esiason. And so as an offensive lineman, first of all,
like you gave me a look, do you think they
can run.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
Under center effectively? I'm saying that's something under center and
three-point stance is something I've been waiting to see. And
it's happening. So, yeah, I mean, I'm all for under center.
I think I never really played defense on this side,
but I think as a defensive player when you're under center,
it gives you more to think about. I mean, come

(19:30):
on now. When you're playing, I'm in a shotgun. You're
next to me here. Play action. You just do this.
I mean, you know, be under center a few times.
Come back, you know, fake it, and then give it
to them, don't give it to them, and they don't
know because your back's to them. And then the offensive
line's got to sell it, too. The thing we always
talked about was... the linebackers had to hear the run

(19:52):
on a play action. If you stand straight up, they're like,
you don't run block like that.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
Right.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
So you've got to come out somewhat aggressively, make it
look like a run, the quarterback. You know, I think
that still can be done these days, and I think
the Bengals can do it.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
This year, obviously, two more guys in the Ring of
Honor joining you and the others.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Give me something on James Brooks.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
I think the best player from that era that nobody
talks about.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
One of the toughest football players that I've ever played with. Yeah.
I mean, the guy, 185, 190 maybe, could run around you,
could run over you. If you wanted him to split
him out like a wide receiver, had the hands to
catch the football... And trash talk with the best. No,
you know, that trade we made, Pete Johnson for James

(20:41):
Brooks straight across, up until this year when we got
Dexter Lawrence, what we gave up and what we got, unbelievable.
I mean, the guy, you're right, one of the most underrated. And,
you know, with him and Icky in the backfield, it
was just a great one-two combination. But James Brooks was
a heck of a player. And, you know, he really
toasted us the year before we got him. Yeah, sure.

(21:03):
You know, we beat him twice in Super Bowl year.
Then they beat us. They scored like 50 out there.
And J.B. was a big part of that.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
He had, you know, the year that the record still stands,
most yards from scrimmage in the season, 86. You guys
had the best offense in the league. And I'm like
a 9-year-old kid and just falling in love. And now
as an adult, I think of, like, James Brooks in
today's offenses, dude. Like, people don't know.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Oh, it's crazy. How many yards would he have in combination?
It would be ridiculous. I mean, seriously, I know the
backers are quicker, but who would you match up with
to James Brooks coming out of backfield or lining him
up in the slot? I mean, it's like having another
Dante Myers out there along with T. Higgins and, you know,
Jamar and, you know, Yosef. I mean, yeah, he would

(21:49):
fit in nicely with this offense. You didn't play with him,
but I'm a nerd.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
And so I've listened to old Bob Trumpy tapes, including
him interviewing you after you were taken in the 1980 draft.
What's your relationship like with Trump?

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Great relationship. The guy, you know, it started out kind
of questioning who is this guy. Me too. I mean,
I loved listening to him on the broadcast. I mean,
the guy was amazing doing Super Bowls and, you know, Olympics.
I mean, you heard the draft day story. You must
have heard the comment he made.

Speaker 5 (22:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
And I was like, who is this guy? He got
the nerve to say, you know, Bengals made a mistake
by drafting me and not the other lineman. And, you know,
the other lineman and I are like brothers, so we
kind of looked at each other. That was in the
landline days. You know, he was on the phone, I
was on the phone. But it was great. By the way,
you handled it well. Well, I mean, you know, you
have to. You have to. You know, it's his opinion.

(22:42):
You know, not that anyone had to give me an
incentive to do well in the NFL because it was
just on my shoulders because I was the number three pick.
That was enough. I didn't have a chip on my
shoulder or blah, blah, blah, all this garbage that people say.
That's your job. I mean, you don't need a chip
on your shoulder. You go out and just do your job.
But we had some fun with that. It wasn't until
after I retired and Kenny Anderson came back to town

(23:05):
and Kenny started doing these Q & A round talks
with former players. And we were out at Weiler Chevrolet
in a big showroom. And Tom Kinder Jr. was emceeing.
It was Bob Johnson, Bob Trumpy, myself, Kenny Anderson. And
Kinder says, hey, you have any stories on Trump? I said, okay,
just set me up. Set me up and say, hey,
tell us about the draft day story. So I had
a chance to share this story. And Trump's kind of like,

(23:27):
but we were great. I mean, we were great. The
guy was an excellent friend. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
And a guy who's on field career. I'm glad it's
being celebrated because he's still like a record-setting tight end
50 years after he retired.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
I mean, he ran like a wide receiver.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
I mean, he caught the ball. I mean, he was
one of those guys that was like V-shaped. Yeah. You know,
the tight end and– You know, of course, growing up
watching Kenny Anderson, Bob Trump, Isaac Curtis, you know, before
I got here, I knew all about them. So, yeah,
I think those two guys deserve to be in it.
And it'll be fun celebrating on November 1st. I can't
thank you enough for having us. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
I know you get pulled in a thousand different directions.
And it's awesome to have you sit and chill out
and spend some time.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh, thank you. Appreciate you, man. Talking about a lot
of different things. You're number 10 next year.

Speaker 5 (24:09):
I know.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Got to do it. All right. Do it big. Something special.
I don't know what it is. I don't know, but
our staff will think of something. They're very creative. They'll
come up with something. All right, man.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
25 away from 4 o'clock. We're at the Anthony Munoz Foundation.
Top golf tailgate sports headlines are coming up on ESPN
1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 7 (24:28):
Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic.

Speaker 10 (24:33):
From the UCHealth Traffic Center, UCHealth has been helping Cincinnati
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Speaker 3 (24:45):
Down! Bengals!

Speaker 2 (24:47):
be swashbuckled by the Buccaneers? Coverage begins Sunday morning at
9 a.m. Stream for free on the new account. improved
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(25:09):
the Cincinnati Bengals. It's the Bengals and Buccaneers.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
Our service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home of Lifetime Powertrain Protection
and guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours for life.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
KelseyChev.com. Zach Taylor today.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Reiterated that both Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins are on
track to play on Sunday. The official injury report is
not out yet. Would not be surprising to see either
on it. Nonetheless, the hope is and the expectation, it seems,
is both will be good to go. Sunday at 1,
Bengals and Bucs live on ESPN 1530. Pre-game coverage starts
at 9. A lot more tonight on the Bengals Game

(25:48):
Plan Show. That starts at 6 on ESPN 1530. As
soon as that's over.
We've got the first game of the NFL season, Wednesday
night football from Seattle Seahawks and Patriots on ESPN 1530,
a rematch of last season's Super Bowl.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Meanwhile, the Reds are in L.A.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
To finish up their series against the Dodgers, looking to
avoid getting swept after the Ellie De La Cruz show
went for naught last night. Rhett Lowder and Yoshi Yamamoto
on the hill 10-10 tonight on 700 WLW. Florence, y'all's
playing game one of their best of three Frontier League
playoff series tonight. against the Washington Wild Things. Y'alls are
hosting in Florence. That game starts at 6.56. And FC

(26:28):
Cincinnati is on the road tonight against Philadelphia. That game
starts at 7.30. You can listen to radio coverage on
Fox Sports 1360. We're broadcasting from the Anthony Munoz Foundation
Topgolf Tailgate. And Anthony always goes out of his way
to mention some of the folks, some of the organizations
and companies that make this event what it is. And

(26:49):
at the top of that list, is our friend Pete Ventura,
who's with us now.

Speaker 12 (26:52):
Birdie's Coffee Company, what's up? Yeah, yeah, Birdie's Coffee. This
is the first year sponsoring for this business. We've sponsored
previous years with other businesses that I'm involved in.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
But this is the first year with Birdie's.

Speaker 12 (27:07):
This is a coffee shop we opened down in Norwood, Ohio,
kind of off the Rookwood exit there. Smith Edwards goes
straight into Norwood on Williams there.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Right.

Speaker 12 (27:17):
But super nice neighborhood down there. It's really booming. It's
been spreading. A ton of young families, kids walking around.
So we found a building there that was an old
pawn shop for about 20 or 30 years, Ted's Pawn Shop.
And it was empty for five or so, 10 years.
And then we took it over, kind of had a

(27:37):
vision for it, rehabbed it, didn't know how it would go.
Never really been in the coffee business ever. I didn't
even drink coffee at the time. Now I'm like five
a day, of course. But we rehabbed it. It's been
booming ever since. It'll be three years in October that
we've been open. But, yeah, we've got a ton of

(27:58):
walk-ups in the neighborhood. People are driving right off the exit.
Xavier University is kind of walking distance. So it's just
a great area right there.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
How does one just decide to randomly get in the
coffee games?

Speaker 12 (28:11):
Well, we saw the building and we're like, you know,
that would make a cool coffee shop. So then this
was even kind of pre-AI. I couldn't just hop on
there and be like, hey, how do I start a
coffee shop? But, yeah, just Googling stuff, figuring it out,
talking with local people, really sourcing. There's a local group
in town, La Terza Coffee. They really helped us out,

(28:32):
got us going, sold us beans initially, stuff like that.
So we've kind of morphed into roasting our own beans
and getting to that, sourcing them from different parts of
South America. So you kind of learn about it as
you go. And it's super interesting and the different blends
and where you're getting them and what elevations.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
And it's pretty neat.

Speaker 12 (28:51):
But I didn't realize how, I mean, almost everybody drinks
coffee and just how popular it is and how many
people are just diehard into it as well.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
And diehard into iced coffee. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (29:01):
Yeah, it's kind of funny because, I mean, we were
slammed this weekend. We got a line out the door
most of the day, and it's out of 100 coffees,
95 are iced.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah. You know, we're just ice, ice, ice.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
And I would not have guessed that 10 years ago.

Speaker 12 (29:13):
No, you never would have seen it, which is funny.
I'll go to Italy a few times, and over there
it's 99% espresso.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (29:22):
You know, if they'll look at you crazy if you've
got an ice cup. And over here, you know, you'll
never hear that order.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah. But yeah, the iced is, that's what I drink.
What do you drink? I'm a hot guy. You are?
I'm hot, yeah. You don't do it? Even on a
day like today.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
Really?

Speaker 5 (29:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Okay. No cold brew either? No.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
No.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
I mean, if you put one in front of me,
I drink it. But if I have a preference... Always hot.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
It's always hot. And like a drip, or do you
do a latte with milk and stuff? No, a drip.
Just a drip. Okay. But I love a good espresso
as well. Okay. But I'm a hot coffee guy. So
you're old school. I am old school.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
But again, if you put one of your iced coffees
in front of me.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
I'd inhale it. Right. You're going to suck it down.
But if I have a preference, and I always do,
I'm going hot. And I go to the same drink
every day.

Speaker 12 (30:06):
Once you get that, it's hard to deviate once you've
got that, what you know you like.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I'm really craving a cup of coffee right now. Talking about, yeah,
we should have brought some up here.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
How did you and your wife get involved with Anthony?

Speaker 3 (30:19):
So it was about 15 years ago at least.

Speaker 12 (30:24):
Uh, we were starting a logistics company at the time
and we were pretty young and I had, we were
doing a ribbon cutting. We didn't have many employees at all,
but we were trying to hype ourselves up at the time,
you know, and I reached out to him and he
didn't even really bat an eye and he had come out, uh,
to support us and was very gracious. Um, I actually
got to learn about the foundation at that point and
everything he does, you know, helping just not in the community,

(30:46):
but all the disadvantaged kids, which kind of his foundation
points to. kids that have to overcome something pretty large
in their lives a lot of times, kids that, you know,
have run through walls already.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Right. And he wants to help them to, you know, advance.

Speaker 12 (31:01):
So we found out about that and, you know, started to,
you know, donate at that time and kind of grown
from there. We've been sponsoring this event, they said, for nine.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Years now, I guess.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
Yeah, nine years.

Speaker 12 (31:13):
They're up over half a million that we've raised. So
you can imagine all the, you know. the help we've
hopefully had in these kids' lives as they've grown. But, yeah,
just learning who he is and what he does and
how he gives back. And, you know, he's not just
a top ten football player of all time. He's a
top ten human being of all time.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
That is the thing.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
Like, you could talk about Anthony's impact.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
And I've said this to him.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
You could talk about his impact and what he's meant
and the lives he's touched and never mention that he
played football, much less that he's maybe the greatest offensive
lineman ever.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (31:46):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yeah. Yeah. I just saw, like, a sporting news the
other day. I had him at seven. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (31:50):
He's still, like, playing in the 80s. Some of those guys,
they start, you know, the modern-day guys take over and
all that. But he's held there forever.

Speaker 5 (31:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (31:58):
You know, it's pretty cool. But, no, great dude, and
we're happy to be involved. Me and my wife, we've
been blessed with what we've had. Just kind of paying
it forward at the same time.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
As a regular coffee drinker. Sure. Right?

Speaker 4 (32:11):
I come in, and I want to try something. I
want to expand my horizons just a little bit. What
are you making for me?

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Okay.

Speaker 12 (32:17):
Well, you normally, you like it hot, you know, but
I'm going to still try to get you on the
ice phase, okay? So we have a really good cold
brew that we're known for, but we do like a
maple cream cold brew, we call it, okay? So there's
a little maple in it, and then like a roasted
hazelnut creamer just kind of sits on top, just a little.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
Bit, not much.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
I'm in. But you'll down it, yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
I mean, it's loaded with coffee and caffeine, but. I'm
really tasteful. Never wanted anything more, quite frankly. That sounds amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
It is awesome that you support this event every year.
We get a chance to spend some time with you.
And looking forward already to year number 10, it's going
to be fun. Sure.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
No. Yeah. I appreciate it. I appreciate you getting out here.
I know you, you know. Nine years.

Speaker 5 (33:01):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
It's always a beautiful day somehow. But, yeah, I appreciate
you getting me on.

Speaker 12 (33:06):
I want to also plug we're opening a second location
in Blue Ash coming up.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Oh, perfect.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Later this year.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
So we're really excited about that as well. So, like,
you know, Blue Ash is here.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
Norwood's here. Kenwood's right in the middle. So when I
need that sort of mid-afternoon punch, I can go in
either direction.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Either direction up 71.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Badly needed. All right, man. We'll stop up and see you. Yeah.
Appreciate it. Come on in. Pete Ventura, Birdie's Coffee Company.
Go see him.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
It's 10 away from 4 o'clock. Anthony Munoz Foundation, Topgolf, Tailgate.
The great Ken Anderson will join us after the top
of the hour on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 7 (33:42):
Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. traffic from the uc health trend did.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Some awesome stuff yesterday with our guy paul tainer jr
from the athletic and the growler podcast talking about uh
zach taylor eric all the pressure on one the expectations
for the other if you missed that conversation go get
it now on the iheart radio app plus you know
the uh the off season has been spent by a
lot of us talking about the bengals operating under center

(34:10):
how may it work how effective can they be Our guy,
Sean Syed from the Stats and Scheme newsletter, who is terrific.
He joined us yesterday as well. If you missed that conversation,
go listen to it now on the iHeartRadio app, as
well as back of the envelope bets, NFL Futures edition.
I didn't tally them up, but I got like between

(34:30):
20 and 25 NFL Futures that I love. Some of
them Bengals related. Go listen to that on the iHeartRadio app.
Podcasts of this show are a service. of Longneck's Sports Grill.
Three awesome locations in Northern Kentucky. Wilder, Hebron, and Richwood.
Great place to watch the Bengals or pretty much any
football team this upcoming season. We're at the Munoz Foundation

(34:53):
Topgolf Tailgate. It's coming up on 4 o'clock. The great
Ken Anderson will stop by in just a few minutes.
on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Haven't been to the Montgomery in a while. Bengals!

Speaker 2 (35:03):
fast and steal a win? Or will our beloved Bengals
be swashbuckled by the Buccaneers?

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Coverage begins Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Stream for free on the new and improved iHeartRadio app
or on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yes, sir, sure is. Good afternoon. I'm Mo Egger. This
is ESPN 1530. Thank you so much for listening today.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
It is awesome to be out and about here at
the Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate, our ninth year.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
And it's always.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
Awesome to get a chance to chat with legends like
Anthony and like the two men I'm on stage with
right now. Bengals Ring of Honor inductee, the great Ken Anderson,
and somebody whose name should one day be in that ring,
Joe Walter.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Wow, thanks, man. You thought I was going to come
heavy with a barb or something, didn't you? I did.

Speaker 5 (36:09):
I was waiting on it. I'm surprised.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah. No, I just knew season, knew me.

Speaker 5 (36:15):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (36:15):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
I don't believe that for a second. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:20):
I listen to you every day.

Speaker 13 (36:21):
You haven't changed a bit.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
You know what?

Speaker 4 (36:24):
That's the scary thing is you do listen because I'll
get a text from you occasionally and I'll be equally
flattered and terrified. Because when somebody like yourself weighs in
on something I'm saying, it's like, oh, boy, what am I? Well,
most of the time it's to correct you.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yes.

Speaker 8 (36:38):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
A lot of people like to do that.

Speaker 5 (36:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah. And then I go home. get more of that.
It's awesome to have you guys here. What is going on?
Knob Lodge is here to support Anthony.

Speaker 13 (36:48):
He does such a great job in the city and
his foundation does wonderful work and I think you'll see
a lot of former guys out here today to help
support him because he does such great work.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
That's what I always love about you guys is whether
it's your alliance, whether it's anything that anybody else is
involved in, like it feels like when one guy says,
I need you there, everybody shows up.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (37:08):
Joe's goodwill, golf out here.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:11):
Special Olympics back in the day.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (37:13):
So, yeah, we're all a brotherhood. We're always there for
each other.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
No matter what it is.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
Can you guys just tell stories about each other? Ken
and Joe, Joe and Ken.

Speaker 5 (37:22):
There's some we can't tell on air.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Okay. Well, give me one. Give me one that, like,
you almost couldn't tell on the air, but we can
get away with.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
Well, I think there was one.

Speaker 13 (37:32):
It was my last year, and Joe's rookie year, and
Brian Blados was a rookie, and Bruce Reimer was a rookie,
and I said one day, I said, why don't you
guys come over to my house for dinner tonight? And
we stopped at a little bar on the way home,
and I remember Blades was up on the bar dancing.

Speaker 5 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
This is before dinner. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 5 (37:56):
This is usually every day.

Speaker 13 (37:58):
Kenny's inviting us over to dinner.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Oh, this is great.

Speaker 13 (38:01):
So we get to the house, and I say, hey, listen,
before we eat, can you help me move some furniture?

Speaker 5 (38:07):
It wasn't just some.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
That's why you had them over.

Speaker 5 (38:09):
Yes. It was a couple of roomfuls, and then all
we got was lasagna. Could have asked for a better meal.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Wow. Quite gracious of you.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
I mean, you're thinking I would have gotten steak and
potatoes and all that.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
I bought your beer.

Speaker 5 (38:21):
It was lasagna.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
I bought your beer, and you guys drank a lot. Stouffer's,
I believe.

Speaker 5 (38:24):
It was Stouffer's lasagna.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
I've got to say, a story that starts with an
offensive lineman dancing on the bar I thought would have
had a little bit of a better payoff than just
moving furniture.

Speaker 5 (38:36):
Again, there's some stories we can't tell.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
Well, we'll podcast those, I guess.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Okay. Not put them on the air.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
What's fun about this event is it's always on the
first day of the NFL season. And there's always excitement.
The Bengals are back. But I think what makes tonight
even more fun is we're so excited about what's going
to happen starting on Sunday.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Oh, no question.

Speaker 13 (38:56):
I mean, I think, you know, the tone was set
by Joe Burrow right after the season that things had
to change. And I think, I don't know, as a
former player, I was shocked the way things changed. You know,
how they, you know. Signed both Jamar and T, you know,
before last season. And I never thought I'd see the
day the Bengals would trade the 10th pick in the

(39:18):
draft for a player.

Speaker 5 (39:20):
And what a trade.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 13 (39:22):
No, I think that's going to be one of the
key things as we look back on this year.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:26):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
You don't associate them with bold. and you don't associate
them with going all in, and you don't associate them
with trading cheap labor, 10th overall pick, in exchange for
expensive labor like Dexter Lawrence.

Speaker 5 (39:40):
And that's especially after they picked up Allen and Cook, right?
And then they go and make this blockbuster trade. And,
you know, quite frankly, you look at that draft, and
there really wasn't anybody on that board worthy of that
10th round draft pick, right, that we weren't going to
have to work with for two years or so to
get them ready. So that was a great pick and

(40:00):
a great trade, and, you know, it's going to do
a lot for us this year.

Speaker 13 (40:06):
Well, you know this better than I. You know, you
played on the outside at tackle, but when you've got
Dexter on the inside, one guy can't block him. You've
got to commit two, which means both of your outside
rushers are going to be singled up unless they want
to keep a tight end or a back end or
something like that. I think it's going to improve the
outside pass rush as well.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
Oh, big time. It's going to help the linebacker play.
It's going to free those guys up as well. I
don't think people really understand what a big pickup this
was getting Dexter.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
I mean.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
He's a guy that's going to get two players every
single play of the game, right? And so that's going
to be a big deal for Allen, Moffay, Murphy, Shemar Stewart.
If he's getting in the game, it's going to do
nothing but help those other guys in the line. Plus,
the linebackers are going to be freed up.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
And that was the thing about watching all those training
camp practices is every day I felt so bad for
Ted Karras because.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
They weren't helping him. And Ted's a good player.

Speaker 4 (41:02):
And every day, Ted, by his own admission, was getting
worked by Dexter Lawrence.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
And, you know, I thought to myself, boy, Dex, you know,
enjoy it now.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
Because come September, you're not going to be getting many
one-on-one opportunities.

Speaker 5 (41:13):
But you know the thing about that, too, is that's
helping the offensive line prepare for the season as well.
When you're Karras, you're a fair child, and you're– Reisner.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Reisner, thank you.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
If you're those three guys and you're getting to work
against Dexter every day and, you know, you watch some
of the films and some of the practice films and
the one-on-ones and they're getting work, that's doing nothing but
helping those guys get ready for the season because they've
gone against the best of the best.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
Would we consider you the second best right tackle in
Bengals history behind Willey?

Speaker 5 (41:51):
Yeah, I'll say that.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Do you think Amarius Mims will cause you to slide
down the list?

Speaker 5 (41:56):
I hope not, but I think so.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
His ceiling is absurd.

Speaker 5 (42:00):
He's really good.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
I mean, he's got a ways to go, but at
the end of the season last year, the offensive line
held up very well.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Right.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
And that started and ended with me with just watching
Amarius Mims erase whoever he was blocking.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
Right, right. You know, he's just a young kid figuring
it out, too. I mean, he's only going into year three, right? Right. Um,
the way he played last year and coming into this year,
he looks good. He looks fit. Um, and, and strong
as hell. And I, that kid has got just the
ceiling is so high for him. He could even surpass Willie. Yeah.

Speaker 13 (42:37):
And I think the other thing that's going to help
the offensive line is it seems like they're going to
be committed to the run game a little bit more
under center, a little bit more run the football play
action pass again. You know, it's hard for an offensive
line when, you know, uh, 70 snaps a game, you know,
the quarterback's back in shotgun.

Speaker 5 (42:54):
Yeah. Yeah, we've talked about that before. You know, when
Burrow was in shotgun all the time, what are you
telling the defense? It's either going to be a pass
or a draw. What are they going to do? They're
going to pin their ears back and come at you, right?
So going under center is going to do nothing but help.
I think it'll end up helping Burrow once he gets
comfortable with it because it's going to help the offensive line.
It's going to slow that defense down for that split second,

(43:16):
which is really all you need in this league. And,
you know, the linebackers have to hold, so that's going
to get your tight ends open a little bit more.
I think it's going to be a big, big deal
for us. But Burrow's got to get comfortable.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
The thought on that has always been, well, Burrow's not
comfortable under center. And, like, you know, generation of QBs
who have played exclusively in the shotgun coming up, how
do you coach somebody to be comfortable operating under center?

Speaker 13 (43:40):
Well, I think it's pretty easy with him because I
think he's bought into it. You know, and he's got
such great attention to detail and preparation. that when he
makes up his mind that he's going to do something,
he's going to do it as well as anybody. So
I think he's going to be very successful under center.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
Do you think it helped having– Flacco here to do
all that under center that he did during the season
to actually see it?

Speaker 13 (44:01):
Yeah, I think so. To see that it can be successful.
You know, we can run the football. You know, we
can play action to get chunks down the field. I
think that's one of the things that they wanted to
come into this year with and get more explosive plays.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
And, you know, one of the best ways to.

Speaker 13 (44:14):
Do it is with play action.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
I feel like with Joe Flacco, and heck, you could
have said this about Josh Johnson as well. You know, Joe's,
this is year seven. He has seen a lot. But
Joe Flacco has seen everything. How beneficial is it for
Joe to come off the field and just have a
guy like Joe Flacco, who nothing against Brandon Allen, Jacob Browning,
any of those other guys, but when you've got your

(44:36):
number two behind you, who knows his role but also
has seen everything in the NFL as sort of a
second coach on the sideline?

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (44:43):
No, I think it's very beneficial.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (44:45):
You know, experience, you know, is hard to come by. And,
you know, I was so excited when they signed him
back this offseason, you know, that he was going to
be the backup because– We know Joe has been hurt
in the past, and it's nice to have a guy
that you know can win football games sitting there, and
hopefully we don't need him.

Speaker 5 (45:03):
And they'll know the offense much better this.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Year, too.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
The Bengals' offensive line depth has been talked about a lot. Now,
I like what I saw from Brian Parker. Playing on
the inside, played some guard, played some center. Connor Liu,
I think there's high hopes for him. If they have
to play a backup tackle, though.

Speaker 5 (45:22):
Yeah, it's pretty scary, and I don't know who's... better
between Hinton and Javon right um you know Javon was
on the practice squad last year so I'm not really
sure where that's going to fall and how they're going
to handle that um that's if there's anything that's scary
that's the scariest part of the offensive line right now
is just that backup tackle.

Speaker 4 (45:42):
I think it's the biggest question I have about the
team which if that's the biggest question pretty good like
who the backup tackle is going to be right pretty
good yeah absolutely I asked Anthony about Ring of Honor.
So let's start with James Brooks. 40 years ago, he
established as a franchise record for most yards from scrimmage
in a season. You played with him at the tail

(46:07):
end of your career, but you certainly watched him a lot.
Give me some James Brooks.

Speaker 13 (46:11):
I mean, I think pound for pound, maybe the toughest
running back I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Wow.

Speaker 13 (46:16):
And he was not a big guy, but he was
effective running inside the tackle.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
He had the speed to go outside.

Speaker 13 (46:22):
And he was a tremendous route runner, you know, as
a running back coming out of the backfield that you
had to really be aware of.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Like blocking for James?

Speaker 5 (46:31):
Loved blocking for him. And he'd tell you if you
didn't block for him, right? He was not scared of
the big men at all.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Right.

Speaker 5 (46:38):
But just a tremendous running back. Great to watch. Couldn't
wait to watch him on film. And he would get
in your grill if he didn't like what you were doing.
I mean, he didn't hesitate.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
Really?

Speaker 5 (46:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Hmm. Bob Trumpy, threw a ton of passes to him,
still franchise all-time leader in receiving yards and receptions by
a tight end.

Speaker 13 (46:59):
I would say he was Gronk before Gronk. He was
a 6'5 tight end who was a great route runner,
great hands. You could split him out and run wide
receiver routes with him, and he was a very effective
blocker on the end of the line of scrimmage. So
I think he was really ahead of his time.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Would he talk trash to you like James Brooks did?

Speaker 4 (47:17):
No.

Speaker 13 (47:19):
Well, you know, Bob was the kind of guy, you know,
back in those days, it was different. You know, we
couldn't make a halftime adjustment until he and Coslett got
out of the shower smoking a cigarette.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Right, yeah. Different day and age.

Speaker 13 (47:35):
Every locker at Riverfront Stadium had an ashtray in front
of it.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 13 (47:41):
But, you know, Bob, for my entire career and still
to the day he passed away, he called me rookie.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 13 (47:49):
Because I was always going to be the rookie in
his eyes.

Speaker 5 (47:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
But was a tremendous champion of your candidacy for Canton,
which I've always appreciated.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Oh, no question.

Speaker 13 (47:59):
You know, and when you think not only what he
did on the field, but he was the first one
that had really had sports talk show in Cincinnati. In fact,
I remember going into his last year, and he wanted
to do that one night a week, you know, on
the off day. And Paul Brown says no.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 13 (48:18):
And he says, well, there's nothing in my contract that
says I can't. I'm going to do it. So it's
season start, and the first show comes around. He said, Kenny,
will you be my first guest? He says, you're the
only guy they can't touch. So I was his first guest.
But then, you know, the predecessor to, you know, what
he did here, you know, at LW with his call-in show.

(48:38):
And then, you know, his broadcasting at football ended up
the number one announcer for NBC.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 13 (48:45):
And, you know, and then he was in the 18th
tower to NBC Golf.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (48:50):
You know, he did I don't know how many Ryder Cups.
You know, he did Olympics. He was a versatile, you know,
wide receiver. And, you know, and I think he had
that great voice because.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
He was a smoker.

Speaker 5 (48:59):
Yeah, he had some chops, man.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
That deep, growly voice.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (49:04):
But he was really good and always prepared at what
he did.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yeah. The smoking, you know, when Bob... later in his career.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
Would come in and do stuff and tape stuff for
the pregame show, I would have to tape that stuff
with him and sit in a room with him and
sometimes wait for like two and a half hours for
his coach to call in, whether it was like Jeff
Fisher or Bill Gower. And the entire time he would smoke.
And then I would go home and my wife would say,
where the hell have you been? You're going to have
to take your clothes off in the garage before you

(49:33):
come in smelling like that.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
So thanks, Bob. Wonderful guy.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
I mean, just so kind to me early in my
career that I would always get a kick out of
it when he would come to the radio station.

Speaker 13 (49:45):
Well, I remember when I retired and I was with KRC.
You know, we were doing the games on the radio
and they wanted me to do a sports call-in show.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Right.

Speaker 13 (49:55):
And, of course, it was only an hour, but it
was at the same time Bob was on the air.
And the first person that called my show was Bob wishing.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Me good luck. Wow.

Speaker 13 (50:05):
So I'll never forget that.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
Pretty good you think about that like lineage of Cincinnati
sports talk from Bob Trumpy to now idiots like me
are filling these seats.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
See, Joe, I'm letting you comment on that.

Speaker 5 (50:17):
I'm not going to answer. I'm going to stay away
from that.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Just teach up.

Speaker 13 (50:23):
He kind of hit it on the head.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
He did. He called himself.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
There's no reason for me to talk about it. There's
nothing to elaborate on, is there? Gentlemen, I can't thank
you enough. It's awesome to share a stage with the
two of you. You both are always so kind to me.
I know Anthony appreciates your support. Great to have you here.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Well, our pleasure.

Speaker 13 (50:42):
And like I say, just, you know, when you're on
the air, I will let you know when you've made
a mistake.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Well, no, because that's every day. Well, no.

Speaker 13 (50:49):
The egregious ones.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Only the big ones. The truly dumb things I said.
That's fine.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
There's a long list of people in my life that
you fit in with who enjoy doing that.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
And you got that one wrong, Mo. There's a lot
of that.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
I'll do that every day before your show.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
He does. Yeah, he does it in the office every day.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
It's the sort of like pre-show morale boost you need
when you walk past where Joe sits and just let
you know how he.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Feels about you. Try to be good today.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Ken Anderson and Joe Walter, two Bengals legends here at
the Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate. We are broadcasting until
6 o'clock. It's 20 after 4.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
I'm Mo Egger. This is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 7 (51:30):

Speaker 10 (51:35):
From the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 7 (51:37):
It's football in the natty.

Speaker 14 (51:39):
Brought to you by Modern Office Methods on ESPN 1530.
The official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Set to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday
at 1 o'clock.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
The game live on ESPN 1530.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
Pre-game coverage from the Holy Grail with Ken Brew, Tony Pike,
and myself. Starts at 9 a.m. The Bengals' injury report
is not yet out. Tampa Bay's injury report is out.
Emeka Egbuka, full go today, had that toe issue that

(52:14):
lasted for a large chunk of training camp. Reuben Bain
set to make his NFL regular season debut on Sunday.
Limited in his participation with that shoulder issue. Zach Taylor
today indicated that the expectation is that Jamar Chase... And T.
Higgins go, report not out yet. I don't think anybody
would be surprised to see either on it. More tonight,

(52:36):
Bengals game plan. That's at 6 on ESPN 1530. Afterward,
you get the NFL season opener tonight. Super Bowl rematch
for the third time ever in a season opener. Seahawks
hosting the New England Patriots. Seattle a three and a
half point favorite.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
In that one.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
FC Cincinnati, after not playing this weekend because of the
weather issues on the West End, on the road tonight
against Philadelphia. And I guess the conversation about FC Cincinnati
hasn't changed relative to where we were last week, but
we'll get the thoughts of Carlos Mauricio Ramirez from Apple
TV on tonight's tilt when we come back on ESPN

(53:16):
1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 14 (53:18):
You've been listening to Football in the Natty, brought to
you by Red Key Express on ESPN 1530, the official
home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 7 (53:30):
Cincinnati's ESPN 1530.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Traffic.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
It's 26 from 5 o'clock. This is ESPN 1530. I'm
Mo Egger broadcasting from the Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate.
Midweek tilt tonight for FC Cincinnati is the orange and
blue after the postponement at home this weekend. Takes on
the Philadelphia Union. 745 is kick. You can watch it

(53:56):
on Apple TV. And it is awesome to get a
chance to spend some time with Carlos Mauricio Ramirez. bilingual
play-by-play announcer for Apple TV to talk about tonight's tilt.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
It's awesome to have you, Carlos. Good afternoon.

Speaker 15 (54:11):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Appreciate you doing this. FC Cincinnati, it is weird.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
Every time I have felt like this team is about
to take off, it feels like the rug gets pulled
out from underneath them. Every time it feels like I'm
about to count them out, they go ahead and get
three points or sometimes maybe just a point. So, I mean,
your guess is as good as mine as to what
you're going to see from the orange and blue tonight.
And the frustrating thing for me about that is that's
typically not something you say about this team in September.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 16 (54:42):
Um, I think they're in a kind of a weird
influx spot, uh, for many reasons.

Speaker 15 (54:48):
One, um, the fact that they lost the game, I mean.

Speaker 16 (54:51):
Lost by not played, they didn't play the DC United game. Um,
and then they actually didn't lose the game before that
against Nashville. Um, places them in a situation where even
though they have more rest than Philly does for tonight's game,
I don't think that Pat Noonan sees that as a positive.
I'm pretty sure that he would have much rather played

(55:14):
that game against D.C. and come up with a good
result to kind of wash away the sour taste in
your mouth from the Nashville game versus having extended rest
and facing a Philly team that is perhaps alongside Nashville
the hottest team in Major League Soccer post-World Cup break.
So from that angle, it is a weird spot for Cincinnati.

Speaker 15 (55:38):
You're asking me what do I expect from tonight's game.

Speaker 16 (55:41):
I would not be surprised if we see a very
much a team that is comfortable getting Philadelphia on the
football or the ball just to state their defensive performance
performance first to solidify the back and then spring with
either Echenique or Denke or whoever plays up top with Evander,

(56:04):
Bukov over the right side. But just make sure you
don't concede first. And then if you can find space
behind Feely's back line with a young and up-and-coming Nathan
Pierre in the back, maybe you can find some space
with that approach.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
In the middle of all this, they make some additions
at the back end of the transfer window and say
goodbye to Matt Miazga, which, boy, I think most fans
would have said they didn't see that coming. What do
you make of what Chris Albright has done with the
roster over the last couple of weeks?

Speaker 15 (56:37):
Yeah, the Miazga one is, I.

Speaker 16 (56:42):
Wouldn't say surprising because, again, I know there's been some
issues defensively with him and the stuff that he can
do or can't do anymore. Aside from that, you look
at what they've done on different fronts. Pavel Buka, he
said that he was home when he found out that

(57:04):
David Dodara.

Speaker 15 (57:05):
Messaged him saying that he was going to come over.

Speaker 16 (57:08):
So now you've got a couple of checks there and
the team, a permanent transfer coming over from F.C., from
Slavia Prague to join FC Cincinnati.

Speaker 15 (57:19):
So you have Buka, and then you have.

Speaker 16 (57:21):
Dodera also joining him. He's a great wingback, great experience.
I think that's a great move. He has Champions League experience,
which we just saw some games today.

Speaker 15 (57:34):
So I think not just the soccer side of it,
but the friendship side.

Speaker 16 (57:40):
It's always great to have someone who you know from
a cultural standpoint, what he can do, what he can
bring to the table. They were both, if I'm not mistaken,
they were both part of the Czech Republic U-21 side together.

Speaker 15 (57:53):
So there's a connection there.

Speaker 16 (57:54):
There's a familiarity there that's always good when you're going
to bring in someone new to a different country, a
different culture, different language, different everything. That's always helpful. So
that move, I'm curious to see what it brings for Cincinnati,
for sure.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
There's only two teams in this league who have given
up more goals. And you and I have talked here
about the issues that they're trying to rectify in not
allowing goals. But usually this time of year, we're used
to looking at the top of the Eastern Conference table,
and there's FC Cincinnati. We're used to talking about them
being in contention or winning goals. the supporters' shield, that

(58:35):
ain't going to happen. But they're obviously still in position
to get a playoff spot. But can they get good
enough defensively to make a run once the postseason gets here?

Speaker 15 (58:45):
Well, that's the question.

Speaker 16 (58:46):
And that's why I think that going back to today's game,
I think Pat's primary goal today is to not concede.

Speaker 15 (58:55):
He wants to Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 16 (58:57):
He needs and wants to bring back home the three points.
But I think today begins with not conceding first and
then that being the foundation to building a winning perspective
game today for the Seahawks.

Speaker 15 (59:10):
Cincinnati squad.

Speaker 16 (59:12):
When you allow 51.

Speaker 15 (59:16):
The good thing is they've scored 49 goals.

Speaker 16 (59:19):
So only Inter-Miami have scored more goals than they have
in the Eastern Conference.

Speaker 15 (59:24):
So that's the positive. If they can just... dial it
in on the defensive side.

Speaker 16 (59:30):
If they could just ratchet up the intensity, the concentration,
the focus, the tactics of everything, especially with the wingbacks.
I know that we had a conversation. As you know,
we have, when we call the games, we get access
to both coaches before the game. And I know that
Pat said he would love to see, not just tonight,

(59:52):
but overall, more of his wingbacks playing. their contribution on
defense and create perhaps more of a 5-3-2 shape than
the habitual 3-4-3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 shape that we might see tonight.
So you need more contributions from the wingbacks, whether it's

(01:00:12):
Buka and Echenique or whoever plays there.

Speaker 15 (01:00:15):
If they can solidify that line, I think they'll be
more than fine.

Speaker 16 (01:00:19):
They have enough, more than enough firepower up top with
Denke and Etunike and Evander and Buka and whoever plays
alongside Denke.

Speaker 15 (01:00:29):
They should be really fine. I think more than fine.

Speaker 16 (01:00:31):
Same with Philly, though. It's crazy that we're, what, September 9th?
And it's the first time that both Philly and Cincinnati
in what I call the Chris Albright Bowl here in Chester.
There's so many connections in tonight's game. As you know,
Chris is an uncle to both Quinn and Kevin Sullivan.

(01:00:51):
He is a cousin to their father, Brendan Sullivan. So
he worked for a ton of time here in Philadelphia,
so he knows the organization upside down. Pat has his
past with Philly as well.

Speaker 15 (01:01:02):
So a lot of familiarity in tonight's game, for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
Yeah, always a lot of connections between FC Cincinnati and Philadelphia.
The match tonight at 745 Apple TV. Carlos Mauricio Ramirez
on the call. Can't thank you enough, man. Now you've
got to prep for a game tonight. We'll let you run.
Thanks so much.

Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
Thank you.

Speaker 16 (01:01:18):
Appreciate it. 745 with the great Laura Lindsay. We'll see
you tonight on Apple TV.

Speaker 15 (01:01:22):
Thank you for the time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Looking forward to it. 745 tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
FC Cincinnati on the road against Philadelphia. If you're looking
for radio coverage, you can hear it tonight on Fox
Sports 1360. Sports headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet,
home of Lifetime Powertrain Protection and guaranteed credit approval from
their family to yours for life.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Kelsey Chevrolet.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
Bengals injury report is out and pretty clean. Jamar Chase, T. Higgins,
Jamar Stewart, the only players on it. Each guy a
full go today as the Bengals get set to take
on the Bucs on Sunday at 1. The game live
on ESPN 1530. Pre-game coverage from the Holy Grail starts
at 9 a.m. More tonight on the Bengals game plan show.
That's at 6 p.m. on ESPN 1530. After that, it's

(01:02:05):
the NFL season opener tonight in Seattle. Seahawks hosting the Patriots.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Meanwhile.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Reds and Dodgers again tonight. Cincinnati looking to avoid getting swept.
10-10 tonight's first pitch. 700 WLW. Rhett Lowder against Yoshi Yamamoto.
The Reds' tragic number four elimination in the National League
playoff race now down to seven. They're eight and a
half behind Arizona in the hunt for the last wild
card spot. The result last night, frankly, didn't seem to

(01:02:32):
matter all that much. The performance by Ellie De La
Cruz last night. And look, it's easy to default to this.
that Ellie was putting on a show in a ballpark
where he's going to be, you know, playing on a
regular basis here in a few years, and that's fair.
But what he has done over the last few weeks,
he is playing like a superstar. And Ellie has been,

(01:02:53):
Ellie's having a very.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Good year, a very good year.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
But over the last two and a half weeks or so,
he has played like a superstar. The throw he made
last night to nail Teoscar Hernandez at the plate, From
behind second base, he made that look routine. That throw
is not routine. That on top of the 440-plus-foot home

(01:03:19):
run that he hit last night. Ellie has been on fire.
He put on a show last night. But the Reds
are wasting Ellie's season. They're wasting Sal Stewart's season. They're
wasting Chase Burns' season. And they wasted Ellie's performance last night. Florence,
y'all's take on the Washington Wild Things in Game 1
of their Best of 3 Frontier League Playoff Series. 6.56
is tonight's first pitch, and you just heard us talk

(01:03:43):
about FC Cincinnati. They're on the road tonight against Philadelphia. Again,
starts at 7.45. Fox Sports, 13.60. Joe Burrow had some
comments that, boy, it's interesting. They don't go as viral
nearly as much as they do when, you know, he
has a frowny face on the sideline, but we'll spend
some time on that. Expected to be joined next hour
by David Fulcher, Max Montoya, Sam Hubbard as well. plus

(01:04:07):
Kelsey Conway on the day at the venue originally known
as Paul Brown Stadium. A lot to get to between
now and 6. I'm Mo Egger, broadcasting from the Anthony
Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 7 (01:04:23):

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
From 5, this is ESPN 1530.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
I'm Mo Egger. Thank you so much for listening. Chris
Canty of ESPN this morning said that Zach Taylor... is
going to be the first NFL head coach fired. I
actually have a slightly different proposition, and it's available on
this week's Back of the Envelope Bets, which is available
on the iHeartRadio app. Look, the expectations are massive, and

(01:04:53):
when a coach is on the hot seat, there's always questions, A,
about what the fallout is going to be for Zach
if the season doesn't turn out as expected. And I
think the expectation is, although it's tempered a little bit
because of the franchise that we are talking about here,
the expectation, I think, is if the Bengals aren't a
playoff team, that they will be looking for a new

(01:05:14):
head coach in 2027. And so when there's heightened expectation
and when there's a sense of ultimatum, basically, hot seat coach,
then if a team plays poorly at the outset of
the season, then the expectation is that that there's at
least a reasonable chance that the head coach is whacked

(01:05:35):
during the season. To the best of my recollection, the
only time the Bengals have fired a head coach during
the season, they did it with Dave Shula, 1996, after
they blew a 21-0 lead to the San Francisco 49ers,
and they did it after week three of the 2000 season,
firing Bruce Coslett after a memorable 37-0 road loss to

(01:05:57):
the eventual Super Bowl champion, Baltimore Ravens.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
I get it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
This team's got a track record of starting slowly, and
I am, you might argue, a little bit guilty of
drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit too much. We were
talking in the office this morning about just how abundantly optimistic.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
So many of us are.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
I find it hard to believe that even if the
season as a whole doesn't go well, that they're going
to sink to a point where they move on from
the coach during the season. Now, the reason I believe
that is I don't think they're going to start 0-3.
I don't think they're going to start 0-4. And the

(01:06:44):
Buccaneers are not going to be an easy opponent to
play against. Many, myself included, believe they're going to win
the NFC South. They're probably going to be slight dogs
against the Texans next week. They may be slight dogs,
depending on what the Steelers put on the field the
first two weeks. They may be slight dogs against Pittsburgh,
and I think they'll be favored against Jacksonville, though not

(01:07:06):
by a ton of points. They will be playing three
teams that made the playoffs last year in the first
four games. And we all understand this team's recent issues
with starting the season quickly. We've watched them offensively struggle
so much early in the season, and this includes last year.
I just don't think with the continuity on offense, with

(01:07:28):
the health this team has, which I keep pointing to,
and with the basic improvements on defense, I just....

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
I'll say 2-2 is worst case. And that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Again, I'm going to get some pushback to that. I'll
say 2-2 is worst case, and they're not going to
fire a head coach if he's 2-2. I do think
the conversations would be really interesting, though, if they did
what I don't expect, but what they've done... in the
Zach Taylor era, which is they're 0-2, and they're maybe
staring at 0-3, or maybe they go 0-3, or maybe

(01:08:03):
they're 1-3. Like, Joe Burrow's messaging has been about now,
now or never, got to win now, urgency, tired of
waiting for next year. When that's the overall tone of
the organization, you're a little bit more willing to pull
the trigger quickly if you get off to a slow start.

(01:08:23):
And I don't know that they're going to be swapping
out a lot of players. Zach Taylor's already had a
chance to swap out a bunch of assistant coaches. I
do think it would be fascinating to see what the
Bengals would do if this team started very poorly. Understanding
that Zach has a track record of, you know, digging
out of a hole and getting the Bengals to the
postseason despite a slow start or getting the Bengals back

(01:08:45):
into the postseason hunt despite a slow start. But A
season defined by urgency and a season defined by needing
to win now, if the team starts very poorly in the.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
First three or four games....

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
I don't know that I would bet on Zach Taylor
being given a chance to dig the Bengals out of
that hole we will see and so I first heard
that this morning Chris Canty said he believes Bengals Zach
Taylor is going to be the first coach fired I
don't think that's going to happen because I think they'll
avoid the slow start I think it's going to be
a 12 win team And if you think they're going
to go 12-5, I can't imagine you believe they're going

(01:09:22):
to start 1-3. But if they did, I don't think
the chances are zero that they would move on from
the head coach. More on that coming up in just
a bit. We've got to talk more about what Joe
Burrow had to say to Jeff Hobson yesterday. We'll do
that coming up in the next hour. Kelsey Conway is
going to join us. Right around 545, we are looking
forward to that. We'll also be joined here by Max Montoya,

(01:09:44):
who just walked in. David Fulcher is expected to be here.
Same for Sam Hubbard. We're broadcasting from the Anthony Munoz
Foundation Topgolf tailgate here at Topgolf in Westchester. Brennan and
Jones on baseball is next on ESPN 1530, Cincinnati's sports station.

Speaker 7 (01:10:00):
Listen up, people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Bengals!

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
be swashbuckled by the Buccaneers? Coverage begins Sunday morning at
9 a.m. Stream for free on the new and improved
iHeartRadio app or on ESPN 1530, the official home of

(01:10:24):
the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
What's up? Six after five. This is ESPN 1530 Mo Egger.
Thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
We're broadcasting from the Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate here
in Westchester at Topgolf. The ninth year of this event.
Everything tonight benefiting the Anthony Munoz Foundation. And this is
the ninth year we've been out here broadcasting. And it's
always awesome to get a chance to sit here and
chat with Bengals legends like the two gentlemen here. And

(01:10:58):
young child we have up here now. The great Max Montoya.
The great David Fulcher. And the great Braxton Fulcher.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Yeah. That's pretty good. Look at that, man. Size 9 shoe.
And he's only 19 months. So we're thinking like class
of what?

Speaker 11 (01:11:18):
I'd say the 20, 20, 20, 2041 first pick of
the Cincinnati Bengals, Braxton Fulcher.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
Yeah. Pretty good. Play anywhere. Well, first you got to
get that college in a hill money. Well, I think
he's getting that right now. We're working on that right now. Gentlemen,
what's going on? Nothing much, man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Nice to be out here.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
Hanging out.

Speaker 4 (01:11:36):
Great to be here. Great to be with you guys.
Great to be so excited about the start of the season.
I am.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
I'm excited.

Speaker 11 (01:11:43):
I think it's, you know, you look at some of
the comments, you know, people go now or never, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
Everybody wants to win.

Speaker 11 (01:11:51):
But I think they've put the... Put the defense in
place to make plays. We know the offenses should make plays.
If everybody does what they're supposed to do, we'll be
happy in February.

Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
I'll be happy watching defensive players make tackles. Didn't see
that a lot last year.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
And I think we've got some guys who can.

Speaker 6 (01:12:11):
That would be a big improvement. Really good to see
the defensive personnel bump it up a bit.

Speaker 11 (01:12:17):
Yeah, I think that defensive line, by bringing them in here,
will help. Those young linebackers? Because those young linebackers, when
they came in here as rookies, they were just happy
to be in the NFL, like we all were. And
all of a sudden, you start realizing, well, I just
can't run through that hole. I just can't take off
over there because I'm playing against the best. But I
think now that they've got those guys up front, it

(01:12:39):
will help them young players become better.

Speaker 6 (01:12:40):
More than anything, I want to see them get off
to a good start.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (01:12:45):
A really good start.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:12:46):
I'm talking 4-1 or 5-0.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
Playing from ahead.

Speaker 6 (01:12:50):
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 11 (01:12:51):
Yeah, when you're playing ahead, I mean, you can do
a lot of things. When you're playing behind, you're forced
to do one thing. Now you want number nine to
throw the ball 50 times in the game to try
to get back to even, and you don't want that.

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
And, you know, ideally for me, what they're trying to do,
what they've tried to do this offseason, plays itself out
during the regular season where they can have multiple identities,
have Joe operating under center, more play action, run it
more effectively, and then when they've got to put him
in the gun, we know what that looks like.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
Yeah. I don't, for me, I wish they didn't play
him in the gun.

Speaker 7 (01:13:22):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 11 (01:13:24):
Because I think when you're in the gun, you're trying
to run the football five yards deep because your tailback's
right there by the quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
And then everything else happens to bring that.

Speaker 11 (01:13:34):
Defense up because they're in the shotgun or defense is
going to drop back in the shotgun.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
They're not going to run the ball in shotgun. And
for me, you're starting at five yards deep.

Speaker 11 (01:13:42):
You know, when we when we had our offense and
the great offense that we had back in the 80s,
them guys, you know, Boomer was on in the center
and he turned around and Best play-action passer, I think,
in football.

Speaker 17 (01:13:54):
Ever.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
I'm thinking football. I didn't just say Bengals. I said football.

Speaker 11 (01:13:57):
And what it does, it creates space between the defender
and the offensive guy because they don't know or they
do know what you're doing. And in this case, when
Joe is on the center, they're going to hand the
ball off to Chase Brown in the backfield, and they
can play action from there. But I think when you
get inside that red zone, you've got to compact– things

(01:14:20):
and then make the defense play to your doing, not
their own doing, if that makes sense.

Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
It does.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
It does.

Speaker 6 (01:14:28):
But I'm old school. I like smash mouth football.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
Me too.

Speaker 6 (01:14:32):
So I think you really set it up with the run.
And then, like you say, you can do just about anything.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
Play action.

Speaker 6 (01:14:38):
Under center.

Speaker 5 (01:14:39):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (01:14:40):
But really, you've got to have some running backs. We
had James Brooks.

Speaker 5 (01:14:45):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (01:14:45):
Which is... Ring of Honor this year.

Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
Ring of Honor this year, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:14:48):
Congratulations to JB.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
Yeah, JB.

Speaker 6 (01:14:50):
We had Icky. We had some pretty good backs. Stanford Jennings. Stanford, oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Absolutely. And I'm not going to, you know, Stanley Wilson.
He was on the team. He was on the team. Yeah, productive.
We had some stuff. You know what else I thought
we had that was really good?

Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
We had good balance.

Speaker 3 (01:15:07):
The balance of players. Yes.

Speaker 11 (01:15:09):
You know, when Max came out of the game, the
guy that was taking Max's position, the only difference was
Montoya on the back of the jersey and a different number.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
So everybody had a job.

Speaker 11 (01:15:20):
So when you lost a guy or a guy moved,
the next guy in line knew what his job was.

Speaker 4 (01:15:25):
But I think that's what I liked about watching the
preseason play out was– Like, we didn't watch the starters
all that much. Did they play? First game, a little bit.
But you saw backups. You saw rookies. You saw draft picks.
You saw guys who were rookies that weren't draft picks. Like,
that was the fun thing to me. I think I
know the starters on this team are good. What I
was wondering about is, as the preseason plays out, do

(01:15:46):
we feel better about the depth?

Speaker 3 (01:15:48):
And the answer is yes.

Speaker 11 (01:15:49):
Yeah, the depth that we've got right now is pretty remarkable.
But as a former player, and I don't know how
Max felt about that, I wanted to play in preseason.

Speaker 5 (01:15:58):
Really?

Speaker 3 (01:15:59):
I used to ask. Yeah, because this is what I
saw during the week, Anthony and Max.

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:16:05):
All weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
I know I'm not going to go in there.

Speaker 11 (01:16:07):
And try to knock Max down or Max is going
to try to knock me down, but we still had
a job to do.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
But in preseason, you know, I'm not saying play the
whole game.

Speaker 4 (01:16:15):
No.

Speaker 11 (01:16:16):
Let me have a quarter or two, Coach. Design 10
plays and whatever happens. If it's a 10-play drive, I'm done.
If it's a three and out, I got seven more.

Speaker 6 (01:16:25):
You really have to have that live action.

Speaker 5 (01:16:27):
Yes. I believe.

Speaker 6 (01:16:28):
We're old school from way back.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
Way back.

Speaker 6 (01:16:32):
I think that's where you really develop your game and
your cohesiveness as an offense defense is during the preseason games.
If you can at least play a quarter, maybe two quarters.

Speaker 17 (01:16:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
It helps.

Speaker 6 (01:16:44):
And not only that, it helps you in game condition.

Speaker 3 (01:16:46):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (01:16:47):
Which is completely different than practice.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
What comes to mind when you watch how they practice
during camp now?

Speaker 6 (01:16:55):
Country club.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
I wish I was playing today. I'll say it.

Speaker 6 (01:16:58):
It's a country club.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
It is, man.

Speaker 11 (01:16:59):
I mean, you know, these guys are wearing shorts. You know,
no thigh pads or knee pads. They got on shoulder pads.
But there is no, you know, the initial O-line, D-line,
you get all that. For us, DBs and safeties and
those guys, I mean, I'm playing man-to-man on the tight end,
and I'm five yards off. So I'm not getting in
there trying to beat him up, you know, unless LeBow

(01:17:22):
wants us to get up there and choke him. But
I need to have that outside of doing it with
my own team. I want to do it with another team.

Speaker 6 (01:17:29):
Live action.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Live action.

Speaker 6 (01:17:30):
Nothing beats live action.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
I mean, you know, when I was a kid, I'd
go to Wilmington College to watch you guys with my dad.
And I remember watching the practice in the morning. And
going like, holy hell, that was unbelievable. My dad going, yeah, well,
they're coming back in three hours and they're doing it again.
And then you like relay that to the guys now.
And it's like, what?

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
Wait a minute. Did y'all really do that?

Speaker 6 (01:17:51):
I don't think they practiced more than three days in
a row.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Is that true?

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
So they'll do like practice, practice, walkthrough. So they will
be on the field three days in a row. And
the first two days, again, by today's standards, for us
being there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
Pretty physical. Again, not 1988. Full pads. Later in camp, yes.

Speaker 4 (01:18:11):
And then you would get to day three, and it
was a day off without being a day off.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Like a Saturday. Well, I thought every day was a
day off. We look at football today when they got
them shorts on. I saw T.

Speaker 11 (01:18:24):
Higgins running a pattern the other day, and I could
have swore he had on– it wasn't spandex, but I
thought maybe it was just.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
Some long, long johns, you know, long underwear.

Speaker 11 (01:18:32):
And I'm thinking– Man, one knee touched together, somebody fall
on the ground and hit that knee or whatever, and
now these guys are done. And you can't practice 50%.
It's got to go 100 miles an hour every time because.
You're subject to getting hurt when you don't practice hard.

(01:18:53):
And I would rather be fully geared, practicing hard where
I don't have anything happening to me.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Day one of camp this year, we had not even
a fight but a skirmish. Did you guys have a
lot of those?

Speaker 6 (01:19:03):
We had a few, especially with Tim Crumright.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Of course.

Speaker 6 (01:19:06):
In the interior line.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
It was crazy.

Speaker 11 (01:19:09):
Well, and not only just Timmy. I mean, we had
problems with Brooks and Icky coming through the line of scrimmage.
And we just kind of like relaxed. And JB puts
his helmet right in your chest and knocked you down.
And didn't want to laugh at you. So all of
a sudden, every practice became physical.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Yes.

Speaker 11 (01:19:24):
Because I did not want James Brooks to be pointing
at me or Icky to say something crazy. So we
had to practice physical not to hurt each other. But
I think it just got us prepared to play week one.

Speaker 3 (01:19:36):
I agree. I like the fights. I like to train again.

Speaker 6 (01:19:41):
Fights are okay. They don't really accomplish anything.

Speaker 4 (01:19:46):
It tells me that there's a heatedness, a spiritedness to it.
I don't want anybody to get hurt. I don't want
the team to be broken up. But I do think
that is a sign of intensity and competitiveness.

Speaker 6 (01:19:57):
A little feistiness is always good. But, yeah, it generally
doesn't accomplish anything but gets you tired because you're down
there wrestling each other and you still got to practice.

Speaker 11 (01:20:07):
I wasn't trying to fight in practice, man. I wasn't
trying to fight in games. We played the Indianapolis Colts
here with Eric Dickerson playing running back. And he come
through the line of scrimmage and Joe Kelly, one of
Joe Kelly's hits, boom, knocked Eric's helmet off.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
And he got up and he going to try to
get in Joe's face. And I went, hey, Eric, don't
do that, dude.

Speaker 11 (01:20:27):
Because that dude right there will punch you. And sure enough, Joe–
He went like this, hit him in the chin. Referee
didn't see it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
I said, ooh.

Speaker 6 (01:20:34):
Lucky he didn't get.

Speaker 3 (01:20:35):
I thought he was gone.

Speaker 11 (01:20:36):
They were really close, and Joe just kind of went
like that real quick, and you could see Eric's helmet
go back, and then Eric got mad.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
And I'm thinking. My money's on Joe. Why would these
guys try to fight with face masks on?

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
You know, you've addressed my biggest question about the sport itself.
Two guys will get into a fight. They're wearing helmets.
They hit each other in the face.

Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
That's why I don't fight. I mean, like, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:21:00):
Like the stereotype of, like, dumb football players, but that's
the one where you're like, man, I'm not sure those
guys were at the top of the class.

Speaker 6 (01:21:07):
Unless you're Lyle Alzado and pull the guy's helmet off,
you remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:21:12):
That guy was in a different universe.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
He was a psychopath.

Speaker 11 (01:21:16):
To answer that question on the fighting part of it,
it's called competing.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 11 (01:21:21):
You know, somebody got embarrassed or somebody got hit, somebody
got pushed, and they didn't like it. And then the
big guy who did it or the guy who did
it is laughing at you. And now when you go
back in the huddle, all I'm thinking about is, boy,
number 65. He shouldn't have never did that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
Dirty rat. And then when we went to L.A. down
at the Raiders, I mean, it was like night and day.

Speaker 11 (01:21:42):
You had to work out on your own for the
Raiders because we didn't do no gassers after practice. I
lined up for gassers, and these guys would look at
me like, what are you doing, dude? I said, we
can do some conditioning. No, dude, you're on your own.
I'm thinking, we didn't do that in Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):
We had gassers. We had work after practice. Is that
why you both ended up there? I don't know. I
don't know. Not just him, me, him, Ricky Dixon. Joe Kelly.
Joe Kelly, yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:22:05):
You know, those guys and the simple fact that I
think the, I think the Raiders is the Bengals' farm club.

Speaker 6 (01:22:13):
Well, you know, when you get there, I don't know
what Al Davis told you, but he told me, Max,
just give me a couple good years.

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
That's it.

Speaker 6 (01:22:19):
That was it.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
That's what he said.

Speaker 6 (01:22:20):
He said, just give me a couple good years. I
want a couple good years.

Speaker 11 (01:22:23):
Okay. I want to see David Fulcher, the guy I
played against when he was at Cincinnati with the Raiders.

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
And I said, you got it, coach.

Speaker 6 (01:22:29):
And I think that's his whole thought process. He's getting
a lot of older players that come there, retire, but
give me a couple good ones.

Speaker 5 (01:22:36):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:37):
But do you think about how cool that is that
you played for Paul Brown and Al Davis?

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
Like you can't tell the story of the league without
in the first like five paragraphs mentioning those two men.

Speaker 3 (01:22:49):
Exactly. You can't.

Speaker 11 (01:22:49):
I mean, and I tell people one of the stories, Max,
when I left, since I went to the Raiders, I
was in the locker room and I wanted to go
get me a Coke from the machine. Well, it said
25 cents. So I put a quarter in. And it
just kept coming through. Now, back in Cincinnati, you put
Porter in there. And I kept doing it. It asked
for another one. Yeah, Tim Brown comes up and just

(01:23:11):
hits it. Out comes the Coke. And I'm like, dude,
I've been standing there for five minutes, man.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
What are you doing? He said, we don't pay for
nothing around here. And I went, oh, did I just
make it to the NFL? Because in Cincinnati, we had
to pay for everything. Commitment to excellence. Commitment to excellence, man.
It's the Raiders, man. Well, you both are still Bengals
to me. Oh, no doubt. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you
guys very much. Thank you. How does it make you
feel to see the UCLA shirt? You guys aren't in

(01:23:36):
the same conference anymore.

Speaker 6 (01:23:37):
Well, yeah, way back.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
I got the same one at home that says Arizona State. Yeah.
And I almost wore it, and I said, no, I'm
going to wear this one.

Speaker 6 (01:23:44):
Well, I'm so old that I played when it was
a Pac-8.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
Pac-8, that's right.

Speaker 6 (01:23:48):
And then it became the Pac-10. Pac-10, then the 12. Yeah,
I was there at the Pac-10 conference.

Speaker 4 (01:23:54):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
And when they say Pac-8, I'm like, Pac-8?

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:23:57):
What the heck is the Pac-8?

Speaker 3 (01:23:58):
But I do remember that. But now the Pac-12.

Speaker 6 (01:24:01):
I don't even know.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
We're not even at 12 now. They canceled that, didn't they? Well,
they've revived it with other schools. They've revived it with
other schools.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
UCLA on the Pacific Ocean is in the Atlantic Coast Conference,
which makes all the sense in the world. Well, no,
there are schools, Stanford and Cal are in the ACC.

Speaker 3 (01:24:14):
You guys are in the Pac-10. Even I lose track. Yes. Yeah.
Big Ten country, Los Angeles. Gentlemen, thank you so much.
Thank you for having us, brother.

Speaker 4 (01:24:21):
Awesome to have the two of you with us. Anthony
Munoz Foundation, Topgolf Tailgate, Sam Hubbard, scheduled to join us
next on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 7 (01:24:30):
Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic. This is Football in the Natty,
brought to you.

Speaker 14 (01:24:39):
In part by Skyline Chili on ESPN 1530, the official
home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 4 (01:24:48):
Broadcasting from the Anthony Munoz Foundation Topgolf tailgate on ESPN 1530,
Mo Egger, and awesome to be joined by one of
the authors of One of the most iconic plays in
Bengals franchise history. Pride of Cincinnati, Moeller High School, Ohio State.
Sam Hubbard is here.

Speaker 3 (01:25:06):
What's up? How we doing?

Speaker 17 (01:25:07):
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
It's good to have you here. I just asked you
off air. Like today, it's the Wednesday. It's the Wednesday
before the opener. So it's like the first practice where
you guys are like specifically game planning for the opponent.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
A year ago, you were freshly retired. Now you're a
year removed. Are you feeling.

Speaker 4 (01:25:24):
different weird is it still bizarre to not be preparing
to play a game what's it like.

Speaker 17 (01:25:29):
I think last offseason was a bit more bizarre as
my body was gearing up you know 20 years of
summer prep to go into training camp doesn't just evaporate
in one year so last year I was feeling a
little bit weird this year I'm settled in I'm definitely
excited to watch I feel like a fan you know
I'm Uh, excited to see how the teams look week one,

(01:25:52):
excited to see the Bengals play.

Speaker 4 (01:25:54):
So, uh, now when you watch, can you just chill
out and relax or are you still watching it through
the lens of, of a player of an active player?

Speaker 17 (01:26:03):
Uh, I think the Bengals specifically, um, I'm very emotionally
invested because I still know a lot of the guys,
particularly the coaching staff, you know, Ted, Joe, defensive guys, uh,
But that kind of fades over time. You know, Ohio State,
when I knew everybody on the team, it feels a
little bit different. But I think I'll always be passionate

(01:26:24):
about the Buckeyes and the Bengals. But, you know, I
want to see my friends do well that are still playing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
They get Dexter Lawrence.

Speaker 4 (01:26:31):
And you know firsthand, having played with DJ, what it's
like to have a dude that the other team's got
to send two to block. So for guys like Miles Murphy,
Boye Mafe, on the edge, Cash's Howl is a rookie.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:26:44):
How do they stand to benefit beyond the obvious when
you got a guy like Dexter Lawrence in the middle?

Speaker 17 (01:26:49):
I think everybody benefits. That's the one thing that, you know,
you can hide a lot of patches and holes in
your roster, but especially in the AFC North, if you
can't stop A and B gap runs, I mean, you're
in trouble. So that's one thing, like, you know, you
can't make up for. And the fact that he's so

(01:27:10):
savvy and so smart and such a vet, I think that,
you know, Him knowing where the slides are going and
talking to those edge rushers and freeing up the backers,
there's just the advantages of him out there compound to
other players in ways that a lot of other positions,
it's not as big of an impact.

Speaker 4 (01:27:28):
You played with Miles Murphy, and his first two seasons
were a struggle. He's the first to admit that. Then
second half of the year last year, he looked like
a different player. Now, one of the things I'm excited
about is watching what year four may hold.

Speaker 3 (01:27:43):
What was it like watching him last year?

Speaker 17 (01:27:45):
Yeah, I thought that when Miles came in, the way
he moved, it was pretty wild to watch. And then
my last year, 2024, I think that was his second year.
Last year was his third year. He was really progressing
well throughout camp, and I thought he was going to
have a big year. And then right before our first game,

(01:28:05):
he had a really bad MCL injury. that when you
get those training camp injuries and you miss a lot
of time, it's really hard to get back in your
groove of conditioning and the skills you've built. So that
was a bit of a derail, but I'm excited for
him to have a healthy offseason, have that momentum from
last year. And I think he's on a really nice
trajectory to have a really good year.

Speaker 3 (01:28:26):
And they draft Cassius Howell.

Speaker 4 (01:28:28):
And, like, there's playing high major college football, which you did.
And there's going through your first NFL training camp. And
there's playing in your first preseason game. But is there
any substitute for what those first snaps? close to 1
o'clock on Sunday for a rookie are going to be like?

Speaker 17 (01:28:43):
No, there's nothing that can replicate it. I just remember
how fast everything is. I think that the advantage for
Cassius is that he's got some players in front of
him and that they can give him a dose here
and there, pass rush, get situational. here and there, and
that's how you get your feet wet. I had Michael
Johnson and Carlos Dunlap in front of me. All of

(01:29:06):
a sudden, Michael Johnson went down, and then I played
60 snaps after playing eight snaps week two. So you
never know what's going to happen, but that first game,
I think just getting that first one under your belt
with not having to do a full workload, you can
kind of build on that. And I'm sure he'll be
active in special teams, which is a whole other ballgame.

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
What do you remember, like the 2018, which you guys
got off to a good start. The season didn't unfold
the way any of us would have liked, but you
guys started 3-1. I remember our last second win at Atlanta.
What do you remember about those first couple of games
where you're a new NFL player?

Speaker 3 (01:29:41):
You're a rookie. Welcome to the NFL moments.

Speaker 17 (01:29:44):
Yeah, I've had a lot of welcome to the NFL moments.
I mean, I can take this any direction. My second game,
Michael Johnson gets hurt. Well, actually, the first game, I
didn't play until the very last drive. And I, you know,
everyone got tired on a two minute drive and they
ran out of bodies and I think they forgot and
threw me in there. So I got a few rushes.

(01:30:04):
We ended up winning the game. And then the next week,
you know, coach told me I was getting more snaps.
Michael Johnson gets hurt. And I ended up playing like
60 snaps and had a sack and thought I was
going to be, you know, this was easy. And the
week three, we go to Carolina and I was again,
going to have a big workload. And I, I missed

(01:30:25):
a fumble, I missed a blocked punt, and, like, didn't
play to my best, and I realized that the NFL
will humble you no matter what, and you need to
be on point every single week. And that's kind of, like,
the approach I took from then on, never getting too
high or too low because you're always going to be
brought down to be humbled by the NFL.

Speaker 4 (01:30:45):
There was, and you were among them, a group of
players who were here toward the end of Marvin's time
in Cincinnati and went through.

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):
A real rough stretch.

Speaker 4 (01:30:56):
But we're there for 2021 and 2022. Go back to, like,
year one or two for Zach Taylor when he's trying
to establish a culture, trying to establish a tone, and
needing the buy-in of guys who had been here prior
to him.

Speaker 3 (01:31:10):
What was that period of time like?

Speaker 17 (01:31:12):
Yeah, I mean, that was, you know, it's... Coach Taylor
came from the Rams. Lou came from the Giants and
the Dolphins. And, you know, they were both young coaches
developing their own playbooks. We had a young roster. We
had a lot of veterans at the same time. And
we kind of figured it out on the fly. I
think that the people that really embraced what they were

(01:31:34):
trying to build stuck around. And we were able to
have some great draft picks. Joe and Jamar coming in really–
really can help things. Uh, so, and the free agent signings,
you know, sometimes you just have a great mix of
guys getting Vaughn Bell, Trey Hendrickson, BJ Hill, last second trade,
like some of those trades and additions just meshed perfectly

(01:31:56):
at the right time. And you pair it with Zach's vision,
lose vision. And, uh, A bunch of guys that came
from winning programs, it really worked out. But it was
not easy, I'll say that.

Speaker 4 (01:32:08):
So we would admit it would be more fun to
be talking about this had you beaten the Rams. But
I so cherish that playoff run because you guys hadn't
won a playoff game since I was in the eighth grade.
Living here, you knew the drought. And you knew what
just winning a playoff game would mean to people. With
the benefit of some hindsight now, as you've reflected on

(01:32:29):
your career, what was that stretch in your life like
where you're a Cincinnatian helping the Bengals finally break through
and advance in the postseason and then remarkably get to.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
A Super Bowl?

Speaker 17 (01:32:39):
Yeah, I mean, I'm forever grateful for it. It's something
that I will forever cherish. You know, I still live
in Cincinnati. This is my home to be able to
do that. But going into even making the playoffs, I was,
you know, I felt like I carried an extra weight
on my shoulders, you know, knowing the history, being a fan,

(01:33:00):
when we were losing, everyone that I had known my
whole life saying, you know, what's going on. And then
to go to the Raiders week one of the playoffs and,
you know, win that game, I remember looking around and, like,
couldn't believe that this had happened and everyone else had
come from teams like the Saints where they won games

(01:33:20):
all the time. Joe just won a national championship. It
was business as usual. And I was trying to reiterate, like, no,
you guys don't understand what we just did. And, you know,
one thing led to another.

Speaker 3 (01:33:30):
We kept winning.

Speaker 17 (01:33:31):
But, you know, I have endless stories of anecdotes or whatever,
special encounters during that month, two months, you know, from
my grade school on Montgomery Road having– Every student put
a 94 sticker in the front yard, stuff like that.
It's just unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (01:33:50):
You know, the late Tom Browning, he and I would
talk about, like, you've probably met a half.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
Million people who are in attendance for your perfect game.

Speaker 4 (01:33:59):
So the rumble in the jungle or the Hubbard Yard
Dash or whatever we've decided it is, I don't know
what you like to call it. Obviously, it's still relatively recent,
but how many people have you met that have either
told you they were there or told you where they
were and who.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
They were with at that moment?

Speaker 17 (01:34:16):
I think it's the first thing people say to me.

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
I wonder what they would say to me. Every day?
Every day somebody's got a story? No, not every day.

Speaker 17 (01:34:23):
But when I meet a new person, they share what
that moment meant to them. It's really cool because they
were either, I was in the stands with my son.
It's our favorite moment in all football watching. But I
wonder what they would say if I never had that play.
I'm thankful that That was kind of just the football
gods smiling on the hometown kid. It's pretty wild to

(01:34:46):
think that that actually happened. I still go back and
watch it play from time to time.

Speaker 11 (01:34:48):
Do you?

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
I do, of course.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
What's the first thing that you think of when you
watch that?

Speaker 17 (01:34:55):
Probably everything that went into three weeks, four weeks before that.
I had a grade two calf, missed two games, wasn't
sure if I was going to play. Just by the
skin of my teeth came back. didn't play that well,
was just grinding it out, and then had enough in
the tank from years of training and conditioning and just

(01:35:19):
trying to do the right thing, be in the right
spot at the right time for it to pay off
like that. It's pretty wild.

Speaker 4 (01:35:23):
I'm sure it wasn't cool in real time, but now
that you're out of the game, is it cool that
your last play was catching a touchdown?

Speaker 3 (01:35:32):
Of course. Okay. In real time, that's not what you wanted. Yeah, right.

Speaker 17 (01:35:37):
I didn't know it was my... play at the time
but you know you're you're in the offseason you're like
I don't know if I can top that should I
go back out there you know it's like you go
out on a high I got Joe's jersey in my
basement from that game I got the ball I got it.

Speaker 4 (01:35:49):
All yeah like what went into calling that like is
that it's obviously something.

Speaker 17 (01:35:53):
You practice yeah right yeah no that was uh that
was a year of development how that play come about
and credit credit to Zach you know I dealt with
a lot of injuries my last year and Still felt
like I wanted to help the team. This was a
way I could help the team. We needed a tight end.
He had cooked this up. We were looking for the
right look for weeks. It finally lined up, and we

(01:36:17):
were down at the time. Joe, running that play in
pregame practice, or actually just practice, we would just go
out there. I'd run the route, and he would always
tell me, you got to run it. Running hard, you know,
there's going to be a guy on you. I don't
think you're going to catch it. So he would throw
me like a bullet in practice. And sure enough, in

(01:36:37):
the game, there was a guy on my back. I
caught it. I think it was most of anything a
special moment between Joe and I. I saw him grow
up from a college kid to now become the leader
of the team. and uh just a really special moment
between two friends.

Speaker 4 (01:36:53):
I i think of of players like you following in
the footsteps of anthony and it's it's cool that you're
here like to me anthony muñoz is the gold standard
of not just great players but guys who say um
i'm getting involved and i'm helping people and i'm using
my my fame my notoriety my platform to help people
and you've You have fallen to that with your foundation.

(01:37:13):
And so give folks an idea, sort of post-playing career,
what you're doing and what it's been like to not
just play for the Bengals as a Cincinnati kid, but
be a part of helping this community.

Speaker 17 (01:37:25):
Yeah, of course. Like you said, I'm from here. But
from the time I started playing for the Bengals, I
always viewed it if I was just remembered for what
I did on the field. When my time was over,
it had been a missed opportunity. So I had a
great team around me off the field and established my foundation.
We have our Hubbard's Cupboards program where we have physical

(01:37:48):
cupboards in schools. We're in 40 schools this year, serving
over 18,000 kids, giving them hygiene items, school supplies, healthy snacks,
and it's something I dedicate a lot of my free
time to now that, you know, I'm not playing anymore.
I do philanthropy and was a finance major and other
business stuff. But my real passion is to try to
give opportunities to people in Cincinnati, like, like I had and, uh,

(01:38:12):
hopefully inspire them and leverage the opportunities I was given
to do something that'll outlast the game.

Speaker 3 (01:38:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:38:18):
You're a credit to this town and, uh, a huge
part of Bengals history, but just a big part of
this community. And it's, uh, It's great that you're still here.
And there's a part of me that wishes you were
still here. playing because it was fun to watch you
with a good Bengals team.

Speaker 3 (01:38:34):
And I think they're going to be damn good this year.

Speaker 6 (01:38:35):
I think so, too.

Speaker 3 (01:38:36):
But you'll have fun watching it.

Speaker 4 (01:38:38):
Like a more educated fan, just like me.

Speaker 17 (01:38:40):
I'll be there week one.

Speaker 3 (01:38:41):
There you go. Sam, thanks so much.

Speaker 6 (01:38:43):
Yeah, thank you, man.

Speaker 3 (01:38:43):
The great Sam Hubbard with us. It's 21 from 6
this week.

Speaker 4 (01:38:48):
Is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 14 (01:38:52):
You've been listening to Football in the Natty on ESPN 1530,
the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 7 (01:39:02):

Speaker 10 (01:39:04):
Traffic. From the UC Health traffic.

Speaker 5 (01:39:09):
Stan Hoard.

Speaker 8 (01:39:09):
Join Dave Lapham and me for Bengals game plan. Tonight,
starting at 6 on the official home of the Bengals,

Speaker 3 (01:39:19):
Quarter to 6.

Speaker 4 (01:39:20):
This is ESPN 1530. Mo Egger broadcasting from the Anthony
Munoz Foundation Topgolf Tailgate. On Wednesdays, we chat with our
friend from the Enquirer and Cincinnati.com. Kelsey Conway covering the
Bengals host of Beyond Sunday.

Speaker 3 (01:39:36):
And with us now. What's going on?

Speaker 4 (01:39:39):
Hey, Mo.

Speaker 18 (01:39:40):
How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:39:41):
I'm well.

Speaker 4 (01:39:42):
I just read you and Pat and your bold predictions
for the season, and I would like to talk about them.

Speaker 18 (01:39:48):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:39:48):
What do you got?

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
I'm not going to give them all away. I want
folks to read it. But I want to talk about
two of them. One is yours. One is Pat's. One
I like. One I don't. Are you ready?

Speaker 11 (01:39:59):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Amarius Mims is going to be a pro bowler. I'll
one-up you. I think he's going to be all pro.

Speaker 16 (01:40:06):
Wow.

Speaker 18 (01:40:06):
Well, on Amarius Mims today, we actually had a chance
to talk to Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher. And at
the end, right before he was done talking about the
Bucs and the offense, I said, who has been the
most improved offensive player, including like the starters and the
players that see most of the reps from the conclusion

(01:40:29):
of the season last year to right now? And he
answered pretty quickly, and he said Amarius Mims. And he
said that he does it because of how highly he
thinks of him and just he likes the way that
he's attacked this camp. They like his mentality this year.
He's healthy. He's got a new level of confidence in

(01:40:50):
him because he knows who he's playing next to at
guard and across the board. When you talk to multiple
people here, everyone is glowing about Amarius Mims and what
he can be for the Bengals this year.

Speaker 4 (01:41:02):
I can't talk about a tackle without asking about the backups.
And the good news is, from a Bengals perspective, if
that's your most glaring question.

Speaker 3 (01:41:09):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:41:10):
Like, who's the backup tackle at the same time? Boy,
if either of those dudes has to miss even a snap,
I'm not sure I have any confidence in who charges
out on the field to replace them.

Speaker 3 (01:41:20):
Should I feel better than I do?

Speaker 18 (01:41:23):
No, I don't think you should. And we tried to
get an answer out of that. And, you know, I'm
not expecting the coaches to tell us who would be
the swing tackle at this point. But we did ask
and we got a no comment on who exactly is
going to be.

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
There.

Speaker 18 (01:41:39):
It'll either be Javon Foster or Jalen Rivers, in my opinion,
at this point, if it were to happen in game one.
I just don't think any of the new guys that
they have right now would necessarily be ready. So those
two names would be ones to keep an eye on
when I've asked about it. Those are two names that
I've repeatedly got when asked about that question.

Speaker 3 (01:41:59):
All right.

Speaker 4 (01:42:00):
Another bold prediction from the five that you and Pat
have right now at Cincinnati.com, and I believe this is Pat's,
that the Bengals linebackers aren't going to necessarily work out
to the degree.

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
That we would like. I don't want to believe this,
but I kind of do.

Speaker 18 (01:42:17):
That is, you know, of all of the questions, which,
as you kept saying, is a good problem to have, right?
The team has done so much on the defensive side
of the ball to eliminate questions at key positions. The
one real thing we haven't been able to gauge, and
you and I talked about this when I came on
your show before campus, was the limitations on what players

(01:42:38):
can do tackling-wise.

Speaker 3 (01:42:40):
It's just.

Speaker 18 (01:42:41):
Yes, you can see, are they moving faster? Is their recognition,
is their communication better? Are all of those things better?
You've heard that from Zach Sandler and Al Golden that
it is better. But at the end of the day,
all anybody wants to see is that those two are
tackling better and that those two are playing better. And
you can't see that until they take the field on
Sunday against the Bucs. So it remains the biggest question,

(01:43:04):
in my opinion, that this team faces at this point
in the season. And the good news is we'll find
out pretty quickly if that is going to be a
question that's answered and it has a positive answer or
if it's going to be the comment of the year, well,
we knew this was coming. Why didn't they do anything
to address that? And we won't be able to figure

(01:43:26):
that out until we see them try and tackle the
Bucs running backs and we see what they can do
out on the field. But As it was last year,
everything is all positive at this point, and you find
out some of these answers pretty quickly here when the
game actually starts to be played.

Speaker 4 (01:43:42):
Three players on the injury report, each of them full
go today, Shamar, Jamar Chase, and T.

Speaker 3 (01:43:49):
Higgins.

Speaker 4 (01:43:49):
Is this the healthiest they've been going into week one
since you started covering the teams? Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:43:55):
And I actually was just thinking that I didn't know
if Jamar and T and Jamar would be.

Speaker 7 (01:44:02):
Like limited on Wednesday.

Speaker 18 (01:44:03):
It's not uncommon the NFL for the first day of
the Wednesday to be when that's really their first install
day of the game plan for players to be limited
to Thursday is really their heavy day of practice. And
I think it's a really great sign that all three
players were full participants in practice today. It seems like
Jamar and Tee are going to be all good to go.

(01:44:25):
The only player that it seems that Dakar was unwilling
to really give an extreme vote of confidence as far
as their availability on Sunday right now is Jamar. He
said that they want to see how he responds throughout
the week. I think that if he is able to play,
it'd probably be in a limited role. I think that
Cassius Howell is going to be the player right now

(01:44:47):
who's really their rotational edge player that would probably get
the reps over Shamar just simply because he's only been
able to practice for a week. But I think it's
a really positive sign that he was a full participant
in practice today. And you're right, this is the healthiest
the Bengals have been. In addition to being healthy, this
is the most drama-free, well-cultured, top-notch leadership locker room that

(01:45:13):
I have seen this team have since 2021. It's giving,
and you've heard that from a lot of people, and Mo,
you were down here, you've interviewed these players every day
during training camp. This team has A lot of guys
of high character, and Zach Taylor even talked about it,
like the fact that the three players who didn't get

(01:45:33):
a contract extension, you didn't hear a peep out of them.
They practiced every day. Everything about this, from the injuries
to just the improved leadership, to the improved talent, to
just the camaraderie in the whole building, is just setting
things up for this to be a really special season
in Cincinnati. And it's just been a really, really positive
training camp and preseason.

Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
Yeah, it certainly was from my perspective as well. Can't
thank you enough. We'll talk to you next week, Kelsey.
Thanks so much.

Speaker 18 (01:45:59):
Thanks so much for having me on.

Speaker 4 (01:46:01):
Read Kelsey's work, Cincinnati.com. Check out the Beyond Sunday podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
And of course, read her. in the Cincinnati Inquirer. We
are done.

Speaker 4 (01:46:09):
A special thanks to the folks with the Anthony Munoz
Foundation for rolling out the red carpet for us. They
are always so awesome. All the former players we talked with,
absolute first class. Our thanks to Dave Abbott for producing
on site. Of course, Taryn Bland back in Kenwood. We're
back at it tomorrow in Studio 305.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
Have a great night. Bengals game plan is coming up next.

Speaker 4 (01:46:32):
After we're done and then the season opener tonight, Seahawks
and Patriots have a great night. This is ESPN 1530
Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):

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