The Mo Egger Radio Show -- 11/13/25

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wow, Hey, how you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's five minutes after three o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.
I have no idea why I still give out the time.
There's literally nobody listening right now who doesn't have access
to what time it is at this moment. Maybe that
should be a resolution for twenty twenty six. We're not
going to mention the time anymore. We'll see this is
ESPN fifteen thirty and you're listening to it. So thanks

(00:24):
very much. It's awesome to have you. Hope you're having
a great Thursday show. Preview is available right now on
Twitter and maybe next year we'll put it on stuff
like threads or blues is a blue Sky? I think
I have a Blue Sky account, but right now it's
on Twitter at mulager. Thanks to share facts credit Union,
Share facts credit Union. Quite simply, there's lots of credit

(00:46):
unions out there. Share facts. Credit Union is the greatest
credit union on the planet. I'm a member, so you
should become a member, and that way we'll have something
in common. Go to sharefacs dot org. We have a
lot of stuff to get to today, some reds issues
a little bit later on, some college basketball as well,
Bengals getting set to play the Pittsburgh Steelers. I have

(01:06):
a very I have a basic request for Al Golden,
one basic request because to me right now he's in
the crosshairs along with Duke Tobin, maybe to a degree
Zach Taylor, but I want to focus on Al Golden.
Chad Berendle's gonna join us later on this hour at
three forty five, and we're in the overlap season. We
have a lot to discuss with Chad. You see basketball

(01:28):
coming off that game where they played Dayton and won
the game, getting set for Mount Saint Mary's on Sunday,
and then the big game against Louisville a week from tomorrow,
and lots of good to the Bearricats right now, and
maybe some not so good with the Bearcats right now.
We'll discuss all with Chad and then the football. I
said this to Tony on and off air just a

(01:48):
few minutes ago. I think this game on Saturday should
not be overlooked. And you've heard this now for a while.
In fact, somebody texted me yesterday you think game day
will be here? Both UC and BYU are are win
this weekend? Do you think we'll have game Day and
I'm like, yeah, maybe, but beating BYU, worry about that,

(02:12):
playing BYU, worry about that later. Like, I think the
Bearcats have a tough challenge on their hands on Saturday.
An Arizona team with a quarterback who much like Brendan
Sorosby for much of the season, it doesn't turn it over.
They've played against a three three five before, They've got

(02:32):
a couple of good running backs, and Cincinnati's last game
hasn't yet proven to be an outlier.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
You see against Utah, we knew the Utes were going
to run it effectively, and they ran it to their
season average. They came into that game averaging two hundred
and sixty seven yards per game.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
You see.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
I'm not sure ever, properly adjusted to how Utah was
gonna play, that rushing average was best among all non
service academies going into that game two sixty seven. That's
exactly what Utah ran for. But what you were hoping
for was that UC wouldn't self destruct. Bearcats have been

(03:14):
a really good team since the first game, not turning
it over. They turned it over three times against Utah.
Brendan Sorosby had played very well to that point. By
his own admission, played terribly against the Utes. Special teams
play for weeks on end was a weapon for the Bearcats.
It was a liability against Utah. And so what I'm

(03:34):
interested in on Saturday, do we start to talk about
those things either being one offs and you know what,
against Utah was just a bad day, or do those
things snowball they haven't played since they had to buy
this past weekend. I think the Bearcats' biggest opponent against
Utah were the Bearcats. If that continues this Saturday, then

(03:57):
this game against Arizona is going to be far more
difficult than I think a lot of people are willing
to acknowledge. I think this game on Saturday is a challenge.
The good news is they go into the last three
games having a legitimate chance, legitimate chance to get to Dallas.
They control their own destiny. But before we talk about BYU,

(04:18):
and before we talk about all the hype that would
accompany a BYU game, take care of business on Saturday.
And I liked nothing about how UC played in its
last game. And let's be honest, you are your track
record until you're not in last year's team. I don't

(04:40):
think was as good as this year's team. I think
the Bearcats have just more big twelve dudes. I think
they're better on the outside, They're deeper on defense. They
have a very good offensive line, a better offensive line
than last year. But last season things started to go downhill,
and they at that point couldn't stop the snowball from

(05:00):
picking up steam and picking up snow. And I'm done
with using metaphors. When things started to go poorly, the
Bearcats couldn't get the season back on track. What happens
on Saturday, I cannot wait to find out. We'll talk
about it with Chad coming up here in just a bit.
Bengals play the Steelers on Sunday. Joe Flacco is throwing
today at practice, but not throwing nearly as much. The

(05:25):
Bengals have scored eighty points in their last two games combined.
I am not expecting Joe Flacco in the offense to
score forty. If they do, who knows if they win
the football game. So we've talked extensively now about Duke Tobin,
his job status, his role with the team. I thought
it was interesting yesterday on the show, we had Richard

(05:45):
Skinner with us and Skinny on Monday you know they
on a day would they did not expect any news
to be broken. The beat writers get told, hey, come
down to the venue originally known Paul Brown Stadium, and
we've got something for you, and Skinny acknowledge like he
thought it was. Duke Tobin ended up being the announcement

(06:07):
that Joe Burrow was cleared to practice, was gonna work out,
not count against the fifty three man roster for twenty
one days. But the fact that somebody like that, well
sourced who covers the team thought on Monday, at least
there's a possibility that Duke is gonna get the gate
I think is interesting. I'm interested in Al Golden. Al
Golden does not have a lot to work with. You

(06:29):
and I both know that Al Golden doesn't have a
lot to work with because Duke Tobin didn't give him
much to work with. But if the Bengals are gonna
pull this off and by this make a mad dash
to the postseason, defy logic, defy the odds, and not
even make the playoffs, make those last couple of games matter.
If they're gonna make it matter whether or not Joe

(06:51):
Burrow comes back, Al Golden's unit's gonna have to have
something to say about it. We are not looking for
a defense evolves from what it's been, which is maybe
the worst ever to one of the best in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
They're not going to turn into some unit that you go.
You know what.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
You have a hard time running against them, you have
a hard time throwing against them, you have a hard
time pass protecting against them. You have to outscheme them.
I'm just looking for Al Golden to fix one thing.
I don't really even care what that one thing is.
We talked about this a little bit last week. The

(07:29):
problem with talking about the Bengals defense is there's no
nuance to it. Everybody stinks every area of it is deficients.
There's like two good players and one of them probably
ain't gonna play on Sunday and Trey Hendrickson. Beyond that,
it's DJ Turner, DJ Turner and what else. Nobody either

(07:51):
veteran players who are underperforming or rookies who are showing
no promise.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
They're bad at everything.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
They're bad at getting after the pass, or they're bad
at stopping the run. They're bad at tackling, they're bad
in coverage, they're bad at covering short passes and not
letting the guy who catches the ball get a lot
of yak. And they're they're bad at giving up plays
downfield where the ball sails in the air for a
long time. They're they're literally they're bad at giving up

(08:18):
yards to running backs, tight ends, and wide receivers. They're
literally bad at everything. Can l Golden make them league
average or maybe slightly below league average at like one thing?
Pick pick one, stopping the run, putting pressure on the QB,
sacking the QB, covering dudes downfield, not giving up a

(08:42):
lot of yards after the catch. I mean to me,
like he's on notice here. I know what Zach Taylor
is pretty good at.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
I do.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
A lot of folks aren't gonna want to admit it.
By the way, if the Bengals defense had done its
job in both of the last two games, the Bengals
are a five and four football team, and Zach Taylor
is at least on the fringes of the coach in
the year conversation, which that's probably going to be Mike
Rabel and should be Mike Rabel, but instead they're three

(09:17):
and six. I think I could tell you what Zach
Taylor does a good job at as head coach. I
think I could tell you what Duke Tobin does a
good job at, even though what he is good at
is not something he can do move forward, but because
what he's good at is just throwing money at the defense,
and he's not going to be able to do that
this offseason. Al Golden as NFL defensive coordinator. I don't

(09:42):
need you to take this group of players and mold
them into the NFL's best defense. Can you take this
group of players and find something that your defense can
be somewhat okay at? If the answers are no, it
doesn't matter who plays quarterback Flacco Burrow, they could call
Carson Palmer.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
They can exume a corpse of a QB, they can
clone a guy.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
It literally doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
That's the storyline on Sunday, and by the way, against Pittsburgh,
the Bengals scored. Maybe not necessarily it will, but they
did a lot of really good things offensively. They're playing
well offensively. We'll see if Pittsburgh adjusts how they play.
Tony has talked about this a lot. That first game,
the Steelers just decided we're gonna play man and Chase
and Higgins torched them. Does that continue on Sunday? Can

(10:36):
Al Golden's unit do one thing well, one thing remotely
well again, pick whatever it is. If the answers are yes,
then maybe maybe you start to go okay. Maybe Al
Golden knows what he's doing until then you don't. And
until that happens, you just assume more good offensive outputs
and more good offensive performances are gonna be wasted, and

(11:00):
that this team is basically going nowhere.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
We will see, we will see.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Sixteen minutes after three o'clock five point three seven four nine,
fifteen thirty is our phone number. Phones I believe work
today like normal. This is good at Moegger on Twitter.
Thanks to Delta Dental. Delta Dental is building healthy, smart
and vibrant communities for all.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Go to Delta dentaloh dot com.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Lee Sterling is going to help us make some money
on pro and college football this weekend. Coming up at
the bottom of the hour, or like a normal person
would say it, three thirty five. Chad Brendle on the
Bearcats coming up at three forty five on ESPN fifteen
thirty Cincinnati Sports Station that was on Tuesday, and if
you missed that conversation, go listen to it right now
or later if you want. It's on the iHeartRadio app,

(11:45):
which is where we put our podcast. We had Rick
Buring yesterday to talk as Xavier and NKU basketball. Amy
Wagner from Dean Dorton on the show to talk about
the baseball sports betting scandal, which nobody seems to care about.
It's interesting the NBA has a sports wagering scandal and
everybody lost their mind over it. It happens in baseball,
and it's like okay. But Amy and I did talk

(12:06):
about it, and so did Richard Skinner. Richard Skinner did
not talk about the sports betting scandal. We talked about
the Bengals, and you could listen to that and all
the other stuff we do on the iHeartRadio app. Also
check out the podcast page of ESPN fifteen thirty dot com.
Podcasts of this show are a service of Long Neck
Sports Grill. There is no better place to watch the

(12:28):
Thursday night football game tonight Jets and Patriots, or any
of the good NFL games this weekend, including Bengals Steelers,
which I think is going to be entertaining as hell.
Say what you want about the Bengals, They're not unentertaining.
I don't know if unentertaining is a word. Anyway, you
can watch that game and so much more Long Neck Sports,

(12:50):
Grill Wilder, Hebron and Richwood Long Next is always a
good time. It's always a good time to talk with
our friend Lee Sterling from Paramount Sports. He is going
to join us, excuse me, and just under ten minutes.
Like it is, it is a very obvious thing to
say about Al Golden, right, like the coordinator of a
woefully underperforming defense is gonna get a lot of scrutiny.

(13:13):
But you know he's never been in this capacity before
at the NFL level. What the Bengals do with the
defense this offseason is gonna involve him coaching a lot
of younger players, getting a lot out of draft choices.
They're not gonna hand They may hand Al Golden a

(13:34):
lot of new players. They're not gonna hand Al Golden
a newer version of DJ Reider or a newer version
of Chadobiya Woozie, or a newer version of Trey Hendrickson.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
They may hand him like.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
The current version of Trey Hendrickson, He's probably gonna have
to get a lot out of young players next year.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I'm looking I just I want a sign one thing,
one thing.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
That by the end of the season, you can go,
you know what, How Golden got this unit to perform better,
or Al Golden squeezed just enough out of the defense
that it did this one thing better. It may be
something as simple as tackling, but it cannot. I think
Al to a degree, certainly feels like by Zach Taylor,
certainly feels like by the organization. But I think from

(14:17):
a lot of folks on the outside think Al has
gotten a little bit of a pass because Wow, he
inherited a bad defense and Duke Tobin gave him a
bad defense.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Okay, that's fine, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
But between now and the end of the season, with
the unit that aside from Trey Hendrickson and Shamar Stewart
largely healthy, and I know those are two big pieces,
especially Trey, I need something, man.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
I need something.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
That would make me feel like, all right, Al Golden
had a positive impact on the defense in this one area.
That might not be enough to make me feel like
he's the guy. And I made this comparison on Monday.
In two thousand and eight, the Bengals had one of
their most mis seasons ever. They started to eight, Carson
Palmer got hurt, tried to come back, then got hurt again.

(15:06):
Ryan Fitzpatrick had to play like whatever it was last
eleven or twelve games. Just a miserable season. But by
the end of the year, a defense which was not
very good for much of the season and where they
dealt with a lot of injuries by the end of
the season. In their last three games they allowed nineteen
points total. There was a shutout in there. And I

(15:31):
know it's been many, many years, but I remember at
the end of that year, nobody knew a lot about
Mike Zimmer. Mike Zimmer kind of became well known because
of hard knocks later that summer, and then with how
his defense performed the following year where they won ten games,
and unfortunately we became familiar with Mike's story when his
wife tragically and suddenly passed.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
But I remember at the end of.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Two thousand and eight, you went, you know what, they
might have something there because he made something out of nothing.
I'm not looking for Al Golden's defense to pitch shutouts
that would be that would be astounding. I'm looking for
Al Golden's defense to do things that are not ranked
among league the league's worst. And by the way, if
they do that, if the offense continues to perform at

(16:12):
the level that it has, which I don't think is likely,
you know, maybe they can make something of this season.
But like you know, folks talk about who's in the
hot seat, who's in the crosshairs. In the capacity that
he is in right now, Al Golden's very unproven. What
we have seen so far is not good. What we
have seen so far would would not make anybody think

(16:34):
that he should be the guy moving forward.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Can that change at all? Can it change? On Sunday
it's going to have to.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Twenty nine minutes after three o'clock, We're gonna make some money,
hopefully with our guy Lee Sterling. Paramount Sports next on
ESPN fifteen thirty. It's twenty five from for this is
ESPN fifteen thirty. Eger Sports headlines are a service of
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(17:03):
from their family to yours for life at kelseyshev dot Com.
I don't think there's there's any major sports headlines here
in the greater Cincinnati area. Nobody has gotten hurt, nobody
has gotten traded. Joe Flacco is doing some throwing at
Bengals practice today. Bengals and Steelers one o'clock Sunday Live
on ESPN fifteen thirty. Let's not make up other sports

(17:24):
headlines because our guy, Lee Sterling is waiting. Lee Sterling
is the greatest handicapper working in the United States of America.
His website is Paramount sports dot com. He's on Twitter
at Paramount Sports, and he joins us every single Thursday.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Hi, Lee, how are we doing?

Speaker 5 (17:40):
I'm doing good. I can't complain. So a lot of
close games last week. I don't think I've ever seen
more games, specially in college football, that ended on one
side a half a point either way or the other.
So linsmakers are pretty sharp these days.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
They are.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
I think this line is a little I'm worried about
this game you see hosting Arizona on Saturday at noon.
I worry about how the Bearcats played against Utah. I
worry about a slight look ahead factor with BYU come
into town. How do we feel about the Bearcats being
nearly a touchdown favorite against the Wildcats.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
And you're right, I think that Arizona's more dangerous as
an underdog. I mean they had to come back, I
mean last second drive to come back to win that
game last week. And they're a team that you know,
the only thing that has me on pause and maybe
releasing it to my clients is they earn their sixth
win beating Kansas last week to achieve bull eligibility. They

(18:41):
just seem like the urgency sometimes isn't there. So they
usually play down to the level of their competition when
they're the favorite, play up when they're the underdog. And
I do think that the look ahead factor is going
to be there a little bit for Cincinnati. So Cincinnati
has a couple guys, the running back Bodiers to transfer
from Texas State. They just don't run them enough. Sometimes

(19:04):
I think Cincinnati wins the game, but it's going to
be close here, something like thirty three to thirty one.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Right, Well, I'll take the victory. I understand what you're
doing with the points. Let's talk about the NFL. We've
got a couple of AFC North games. Baltimore rolling right now,
three straight wins. The defense has turned it around heavy
favorites against the Browns.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Yeah, and I think that the Browns have got a
problem because they can't stretch the defenses here. So until
Dylan Gabriel can push the ball down the field, they're
going to load the box here. Jets, Wow, what did
they do last week? They traded their top two defensive
players for that and Brown's only averaged four yards not

(19:49):
per carry, four yards per play. Browns already lost forty
one to seventeen to the Ravens. These are, you know,
a game, second game in a series here, and you
would think that the underdog would have the psychological edge,
know what they're going to do. But I think Baltimore
is just getting better and better. Look out here, the
four and five Ravens is going to be a five hundred.
I think they win this game here thirty four to eighteen.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, and odds on favorites to win the AFC North
after starting one in five. Lee Sterling is where this
Paramount sports dot com. All Right, the Bengals have beaten
the Steelers once. Now they go to Pittsburgh as five
and a half point dogs. What do we think about Sunday?

Speaker 5 (20:26):
Yeah, you know, if Joe Flacco can go. Playing through
that spained ac joint here in his shoulder makes him
even more fragile than your average forty year old quarterback
playing well. But the team is one and three in
the starts now, sole win and cover coming against DUS Steelers,
and you know, usually the second game in the series,
team that lost the first game has that edge here.

(20:47):
They know what to expect here. I just don't expect
lightning to strike twice here. So Steelers losing as he
did to the Chargers should serve as a wake up call.
They're one of these teams, are mediocre, middle of the row,
and they win one week and they lose one week.
Aaron Rodgers some of the worst football I've seen him
play since he came into the NFL. Here, and what's

(21:09):
going on with Chamar's Stewart This could be if he
didn't get a sack eleven straight games. I mean, he
is a dog here, and I'm not talking about a
junkyard dog, a sleeping dog. I like Pittsburgh here twenty
eighth to twenty.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, and add to that the fact that he's been
doubtful all. I don't know that Chamar is going to
be sacking anybody anytime soon. Let's talk about your talk
about your game of the week, big battle in the
AFC West. This feels like a must win for Ksey
Chiefs and three and a half point favorites against Denver.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
YEP. They want to get this game for free? Just
call eight hundred, four hundred nine to seven four to
one again the number, eight hundred, four hundred nine to seven,
four to one, give you the game for free. I
love one side of this great game, the Chiefs and Broncos.
What a schedule, way of going on NFL games, other
great games, the Rams in Seattle, Philly, in Detroit. Eight Uh,

(22:01):
you want to get this game, be one of the
first five callers eight hundred, four hundred nine seven four
to one. And how about this. We are now thirty
one and nine in the NFL. Last eight weeks. You
can get what's called Lee's NFL Sunday Golden Ticket, five
selections every single Sunday for four weeks, just one hundred
and ninety seven dollars one place Paramount sports.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Dot com eight hundred, four hundred and nine seven four
to one Paramount sports dot Com. Lee, You're the best man, Thanks.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
So much, Okay, sounds good.

Speaker 6 (22:30):
Mouth see it, but.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
That's our guy, Lee Sterling, Paramount Sports dot com. Tonight,
you got the Jets and Patriots Thursday night football. This
is not the kind of game you want to watch
by yourself, So join us at the Fandel Sportsbook inside
Bell Terra Park tonight. We've got prizes, We've got fun,
and really those are the only two things you need.
Prizes and fun plus beer, food, me wagering. Come on, perfect,

(22:56):
We'll see you there tonight, Fandel Sportsbook inside Bell Terra
Park on the east side of Cincinnati. We have football
and basketball to talk about with Chad Brendle.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Next he wants to see handed out at an award show.
That's what's happening in baseball. It's happening with the Bearcats.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
You got football taken on Arizona on Saturday, you got
men's basketball hosting Mount Saint Mary's on Sunday, and uh and.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Maybe maybe they could limit the turnovers to fewer than twenty.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
We will see all of this and so much more
covered at Bearcat Journal dot com, which is the domain
of Chad Brendel.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Who's with us now, Hi.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Chad him? How I'm doing well? Although I'm doing better
than I was watching much of that game on on
Tuesday Night with the the seven thousand turnovers committed by
the Bearcats.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Is that going to be a recurring theme all season?

Speaker 7 (23:50):
At times, I think it's it's probably gonna rear its
ugly head. I mean, the one thing that I, you know,
you feel pretty comfortable about is this is than a
trend for West Miller teams, So you would think it's
reasonable to expected they'll get it under control. We've had
these conversations after you know, a couple of games each

(24:14):
of the you know, every year we do it under
making as well. Oh my god, they turned it over
a ton today. If he had a history of his
teams being floppy with the ball, I'd be a little
bit more concerned. They are trying to play at a
much faster pace. But some of those the concern for
me was some of those were just unnecessary. Try going

(24:36):
from the left wing to the right corner with the
defense set. It was like they were trying to like
skip steps. Yeah, in the offense right, like the balls
supposed to go here than there, and they're trying to
like cut out the middleman. We haven't moved the defense
and there's a guy standing there waiting for the ball
before it gets to your guy. So some of that

(24:57):
stuff I think they'll be able to iron out. And
they don't have that history of being a turnover prone
team over the last four years, so I think it'll
get better.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
If that's not your biggest concern through three games, what is.

Speaker 7 (25:14):
That's definitely way up the list. I haven't been that
upset with much so far. I think they've got a
much better perimeter shooting team. I think they're they're doing
one of the main things we've had a big problem
with with West Miller teams. It's not getting to the
free throw line. They've gotten to the free throw line
and a much higher clip. I think the defense has

(25:37):
been okay. I had a little chuckle seeing them ranked
number two in the country and Ken palm because the
defense is not playing that well now. I think they
had the potential to do that, But really the turnover
stuff has been the biggest issue.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
For me so far.

Speaker 7 (25:57):
Fouling. I think they've they're still fouling too much, even
I thought, as is usually the case, Kip Kissing during
his crew had a terrible game the other night.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
It feels like every.

Speaker 7 (26:08):
Time his crew is on the game and you're right
there for it. There's so many like they huddle and
there's been used that aren't really that necessary, and like
there's so much weight. That game took two and a
half hours. What are we doing? But you know, I
think there are plenty of things they need to clean up.

(26:29):
But for the most part, I've been pretty happy with
the pace of play, getting to the foul line, the
defense being competent, Like, I think there's quite a bit
to build on.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
I think the thing that I've liked the most is,
with some exceptions in the second game, I think the
offense for the most part has worked. I think they've
taken good shots. I think some have been hurried, which
I think is going to be a byproduct of playing fast.
I wish they would shoot it more because that would
mean they're turning it over, turning it over less. But
I think I look at them offensively and I go,

(27:02):
if they can just keep it from throwing it to
the other guy, they're going to get looks and they'll
be fine. Like I've the non turnover possessions as weird
as it sounds, because there's been way too many, but
the non turnover possessions for the most part, I've been
pretty happy with.

Speaker 7 (27:20):
I mean, think about it, they turned it over twenty
four times and we're still just under a point of possession. Right.
Like the potential there. Offensively, they have a chance to
be pretty good. And I know it's not saying a
whole lot, they've got the potential to be the best
offense that Wes Miller has had. I don't know that

(27:41):
that's necessarily a referendum on on his coaching offense more
than it's they've got a lot more guys that can
put the ball in the basket. You know, you've got
four or five guys I think you can rely on
his three point shooters. You've got guys that can get downhill,
get to the rim, get to the pre throw line.
You've got a guy that, if he puts it all together,
and bobon Miller that I think can be the best

(28:03):
foreman we've seen here in quite a while, and certainly
one that I don't know that we've seen that type
of foreman here.

Speaker 6 (28:11):
A six to.

Speaker 7 (28:11):
Eleven guy that can handle the ball like he can,
that can provide the versatility that he provides. I like
the puzzle pieces so far. Now it's on the coaching
staff to make it all fit together.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Can they make them fit together against Louisville?

Speaker 7 (28:30):
Probably not. I mean, that team is really talented. You
got a bunch of guys that are you know, that
have some experience together that Pat Kelsey brought back. He
added really good pieces around them. I think they've got
an NBA point guard, They've got good complimentary pieces, They've

(28:52):
got some toughness inside. Cincinnati would have to play incredibly
well to to win that game. I hopefully they keep
it close, but you know, I don't know that. And
maybe this is the advantage of playing Michigan in Arkansas

(29:12):
is that Louisvill's athleticism isn't going to surprise them, maybe
the way arkansass did. Maybe you know, they're a little
bit more ready for it. So hopefully there's two exhibition games.
If they pay off, this would be the one to
see it pay often. But they're really good. I mean,
I think they are one of the best teams in

(29:33):
the country. Legitimately a top ten team that would be.
That would be a Butch Jones level. Great challenge.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, wow, I was not expecting to hear the name
Butch Jones Chad brindle Is with a Bearcat journal dot com.
Are folks overlooking the difficulty of the Arizona game on Saturday.

Speaker 7 (29:53):
Probably the concern with Arizona is the things that they
do well are the thing that we have talked about
Cincinnati not doing well. Right. They play man defense. They
play pretty sticky man defense on the outside. That has
given Brendan Soarsby some trouble. On the other side of
the football. Nolh Flafido is a very skilled veteran quarterback.

(30:18):
He does two things well. Though he does well from
a clean pocket, Cincinnati's gotten the least pressure. The pressure
rate is the lowest in the Big Twelve, and he
plays really well against zone. Cincinnati runs more zone defense
than anyone in the Big Twelve. So there are some
things that if you look at this game, you say, look,

(30:38):
it's gonna have to be Brendan Soarsby from the seven wins.
It can't be Brendan Soarsby from the two losses because
he's been great in the seven wins. He's been pretty
bad in the two losses, so there really hasn't been
any in between on that scale. So he's gonna have
to play well. The running backs are gonna have to
play well, and the defense is gonna have to get

(30:59):
a couple stops against the quarterback that is perfectly content
completing a very high percentage and methodically moving the ball
down the field. And they've got a sneaky good running game.
They maybe don't use it as much as they maybe should,
but you know, they're a balanced offense. They've got a

(31:23):
veteran quarterback. They're talented. Now if you look, I think
the one thing that might make you feel a little better,
the better teams that they've played, as good as their
defensive numbers are, the better teams that they played of
all scored thirty fluffs. So is Cincinnati going to step
up to that level and say, hey, we're one of

(31:45):
the better teams they played. If they do, and they
play well, I think they win the game. If the
offense struggles and we see a bunch of three and ounce,
it's going to be a rock fight in different stadium Saturday.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, you know, the Utah game, Utah did what we
thought they were going to do. They and the ball
ran it very effectively. But Cincinnati did a lot of
things that up until a week ago Saturday, they hadn't
done all season long, And but I'm interested in how
much of those how much of that game proves to
be an outlier, versus how much of that game proves
to be I don't know the beginning of the end.

(32:17):
As dramatic as that may.

Speaker 7 (32:18):
Sound, I think that, you know, the thing that I've
seen it compared a little bit to last year. But
even when they were five and two last year, there
was still stuff that was sloppy, there was still stuff
that it you know, they were they were winning a
couple of games. But I don't think UCF was good
last year. I don't think Houston was good last year.

(32:39):
Like they were just the better of two not so
great teams most of the time on the way to
those five wins. I don't think that's been the case
this year. And if you've looked they you know, they
dominated a lot of those teams. And if they can
get out quick and kind of dictate the terms of engagement,

(33:01):
which they weren't able to do in Arizona, they weren't
able to do in Nebraska, those are the two games
they started slow and it costs them. I think that's
important for this team is to jump out fast and
you can't have miss stield goal turnover in the first
quarter on back to back drives, and that just took
them out of the game. The special teams was shaky.

(33:24):
I've seen enough to not think that's going to become,
you know, a recurring problem for this team. But I
get when you look back to when things kind of
went off the tracks last year, that's the stuff that
really took over and they played a sloppy brand of football.
We have not seen that until the Utah game. Hopefully

(33:47):
they can get back to playing clean.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
I agree. We'll see you a Saturday. Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (33:53):
Sounds good.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Thanks ut That's our.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Man, Chad Brendel, Bearcatjournal dot com. It's coming up on
four o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, the Cincinnati sports station.
Robot Wintroub's going to be on the show in fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
I'm a leger. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Thanks for listening today and hopefully every day.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
It's awesome. Gonna have you.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Hope you're having an awesome Thursday. Awesome Thursday, I said. Also,
Dan Claskin's later on this hour on Fantasy Football. We
are looking forward to that. I made a slight mistake earlier.
It was doing the local sports headlines and I said,
there really wasn't a lot going on, no major sports headlines,

(34:35):
And that might have been a slight misnomer. Because the
Reds today announced that they have hired Oscar Marine as
their bullpen coach. Matt Tracy has been moved to assistant
pitching coach. He was the team's bullpen coach for the
last three years. You may know that a former assistant
pitching coach, Simon Matthews, left the Reds this week to

(34:56):
become the pitching coach of the Washington Nationals. Enters his
seventeenth season as a professional pitching coach and eighth as
a member of a major league coaching staff. He has
spent the last six years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, helping
to oversee a staff that includes a National League Cy
Young Award winner Paul Skeatns.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
So the Reds coaching staff includes the following. Terry Francone
is your manager, Kyle Arnsberg is coach slash coordinator of
advanced scouting. Freddy Benavite's retains his role as bench coach,
slash field coordinator Colin Calgill, first base coach Jose Duarte,

(35:42):
bullpen catcher Willie Harris is going to be the team's
new third base coach. Bill Hasselman will be the team's
catching coach. Derek Johnson back to be the pitching coach
slash director of pitching. James Keller will be the team's
bullpen coach. Matt Tracy now named assistant pitching coach. Oscar

(36:04):
Marine is the team's new bullpen coach. Mike Napoli is
back as the team's assistant bench coach. Alex Plaiez is
the team's assistant hitting coach. Will Remillard is also an
assistant hitting coach, and Chris Valaika is back as the

(36:27):
team's director of hitting slash hitting coach.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
This is.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
I know not everybody is in the dugout on game day.
They have twenty six players, they have fifteen coaches. The
player to coach ratio for the Reds has never been smaller.

(36:55):
The job market, there's lots lots in the news about
the current job market. Job market is pretty damn good
in the greater Cincinnati area. If you want to be
a baseball coach, the Rets have three hitting coaches. I
ask this somewhat tongue in cheek, but not entirely. What

(37:15):
does the other assistant hitting coach do?

Speaker 5 (37:21):
Like?

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Is he in charge of picking up the baseballs after
the other hitting coach puts it on the tee and workouts?

Speaker 1 (37:26):
What does the assistant bench coach do?

Speaker 2 (37:29):
This is a lot of brain trust, and I would
imagine that the Reds coaching staff, the size of it,
is comparable to the other teams.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
This is not a complaint.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Do whatever you gotta do to win, Do whatever you
gotta do to feel the best possible team. If that
means you have to have twelve hitting coaches, then every
every guy gets his own hitting coach. I don't know,
but growing up, the team at a manager and like
a first base and the first base coach might have
also been in charge of like the outfit, and a
third base coach who might have also been like in

(38:03):
charge of the infield, and a pitching coach, and maybe
a bench coach. And there's a bullpen coach, and no
one knew who the bullpen catcher was.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Staff sizes have increased.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Reds have an assistant bench like the bench coach has
always been like the right hand man for the manager,
right run stuff through, throw some ideas at the skipper,
you know that kind of thing. Does the bench coach
also need a right hand man? If so, bench coach
Freddy Benavitees will have Mike Napoli at his disposal. Team's

(38:42):
got fifteen coach. I wonder what their coach payroll is.
That's never made public. Baseball coaches, you know, don't make,
for the most part, seven figure salaries. I'm sure, I'm
sure there's not a one million dollar hitting coach. But
there you go. Fifteen coaches on the big leagues for
the Reds this year. I'm not even sure I know

(39:04):
what an assistant pitching coach does.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
But but that's so.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
There have been people much much smarter than me that
can explain three hitting coaches for that team last year
at free. The Reds last season had three hitting coaches.
None of them could figure out a way to work
with Matt McLean or christian In Karnassi on strand free
hitting coaches last year. They are good. Times are good

(39:29):
in the world of coaching baseball. At the big league level.
We got that press release today and I saw these names,
like that's like I thought a first glance was there's
fifteen dudes on the coaching staff. I don't know, awfully crowded.

(39:49):
The congratulations though, to Oscar Marine he is the Red's
new bullpen coach. Bullpen coach, what charts pitches? I mean legitimately,
And maybe we'll get Oscar on the show to ask
in the least mocking way possible what the bullpen coach

(40:14):
is responsible for, like making sure they're all behaving and
paying attention to the game and the bullpen like, is
it more like bullpen babysitter? Hey, get your head in
the game, come on, like run through situations with them
when the conversation drifts to something that's not necessarily baseball related.
Bullpen coaches are not new.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
I get it. I'm not entirely sure what they do.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
But the congratulations because the Reds have a new bullpen coach,
Oscar Marie Matt Tracy. When you go from bullpen coach
to assistant pitching coach, that is, I would assume a
promotion in the hierarchy of coaching staff in baseball, assistant
pitching coach ranks higher, higher rank than bullpen coach. We

(41:03):
think well penk coach is dressed for game day, though
I don't think the assistant pitching coaches. These are the
things I will find out it rats fast in a
couple of months, find out exactly what the deployment of
duties is going to be for Terry Francona and his staff.
Eleven away from eleven minutes after four o clock, I

(41:24):
should say Robert Wintrup is going to be on the
show to talk about Joe Burrow and the Bengals and
Trey Hendrickson and where the team kind of goes from here,
and like the game on Sunday is about a lot
of different things. We talked about Al Golden can Al's defense,
do anything anything better this year? If the Bengals are

(41:49):
free and eight, it's not only going to be hard
to be excited about Joe Burrow playing, I think it's
going to be hard to justify now. I expect Joe
Burrow to play in any game as long as he's
healthy and as long as he is where he needs
to be. I expect him to play in any game

(42:11):
in which the Bengals have a mathematical chance of making
the postseason last year, and they defied the odds. To
their credit, they got to the last day of the
season with a chance, but you could have made the
case realistically they had no chance of making the playoffs
weeks before they were actually eliminated. Joe played in every
single game and you could not have a problem with that.

(42:34):
As long as the Bengals are mathematically alive, I expect
Joe Burrow to play.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
And I think you should.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Too, and ideally, you know, they went on Sunday. I
feel less and less good about it with every passing minute.
It was about forty eight hours ago I said I
thought the Bengals will win on Sunday. That might have
been the cold medicine talking. I don't know. But if
they win the game on Sunday, we're going to not

(43:00):
talk so much about them being mathematically eliminated and whether
or not Joe Burrows should play in games that don't count,
because the Patriots game is gonna matter a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
It sounds really easy.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
There are certain things that sound nice during the week, Like,
you know, we talk about teams tanking, well they should tank.
Sounds great on Monday, ask players to tank on Sunday,
you can't. They care too much. If there was one
lesson you could learn from that day in twenty nineteen,
when the Bengals almost beat the Miami Dolphins, a game
that none of us wanted to win, wanted them to win,

(43:33):
that lesson was players and coaches care too much. Even
like watching I know folks who like during the week
are like, I'm gonna go rick By Leeves on Sunday,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna find something else to do
with my time on Sunday. And you know, by one
o'clock on Sunday where there will be they will be within.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Eyeshot of a television.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
It also sounds good on a Thursday in the middle
of November to go, you know what, Joe Burrow's healthy.
Players play, That's what he does for life, That's what
they do. I expect him to play. Players plays a
competitive guy. Sounds great, So did Joe Burrow should play
in the preseason? Sounded great in June. How'd you feel

(44:13):
watching it in August? And by the way, if you're
gonna say, well, players play, then Joe plays the way
he wants and the way he wants. Maybe not the
most conducive to protecting himself. That doesn't blame Joe Burrow
for getting hurt. It's not his fault that he gets hurt.
And then just imagine, you know how sickening it feels

(44:36):
when Joe Burrow walks off the field with an apparent injury.
Like I was in the stadium against the Jags and
he walked off the field and we had no idea
what was wrong with him? Right, it's sickening. That's the
meal ticket, that's the franchise. And like then you don't
know what he is. He is he got a cramp, Like,
what's the deal here? Is this gonna mean something that

(44:57):
has him not finishing the game? Is this going to
be a season long thing? Is it gonna be a
season ending thing?

Speaker 1 (45:03):
What is this?

Speaker 2 (45:05):
That's when he walks off the field in a game
that counts. You hate to do this, but it has
unfortunately become such a part of Joe Burrow's career that
you have to at least entertain it. The Bengals are
playing Week seventeen against the Arizona Cardinals and unfortunately, mathematically

(45:31):
they have no chance of making the postseason, and Joe
Burrow steps the wrong way. Joe Burrow takes a hit,
Joe Burrow does something and now not only does he
have to limp off the field, here comes the cart

(45:52):
Like you hate to go that route, but how do
you not understanding his importance to the franchise, understanding his
injury history. There's an inherent risk to any game. There's
an inherent risk that you just accept and you understand
with every single play, even the most important players put
themselves in harm's way. It's one thing when there's a tangible,

(46:16):
meaningful reward like winning a regular season game that matters.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's something else when.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
There's no real tangible reward like winning a regular season
game that matters. And so we're admittedly getting a little
ahead of ourselves, but I think it's where a lot
of people's minds went the moment they saw that Joe
is okay to practice. If he could play this Sunday,
I would want him to. If he can play on

(46:44):
Thanksgiving night, you want him to. But there's obviously a
world that exists where the season unfolds so poorly that
the Bengals are playing games with an ass at the
end of it. Multiple plural that have no bearing on
the postseason. Just imagine how it would feel to watch

(47:08):
Joe Burrow suffering injury in one of them players play.
Sounds great on.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Thursday.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
It's what they do for a living. They're competitive guys,
that's what they get paid for. Sounds great on Tuesday.
What makes sense on Sunday is protect your investments.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
There has never been a more.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Significant investment in Cincinnati sports than Joe Burrow. Robert wintrob
Cincinnati Magazine Bengals columnist Next.

Speaker 8 (47:46):
Inminnati, brought to you by Beltera Casino and Belterra Park
on ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home of the Cincinnati Bank.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
If you're an FC Cincinnati fan, you're gonna have to
like re arrange your entire life.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I'll explain in twelve minutes.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
That is a good old fashioned radio teas right there,
twenty three minutes after four o'clock. Now we're giving out
the time, we're playing blind Melon. We really are doing
a show like it's nineteen ninety four. Robert Wintraub is
with us. He writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine.
You could read it at Cincinnati Magazine dot com, and
he joins us every single Thursday.

Speaker 9 (48:24):
Hi, Robert, But in nineteen ninety four was a pretty good.

Speaker 7 (48:28):
Year for me.

Speaker 9 (48:28):
I'm not going to complain about your show going back
in time. It was the good old days when I
was young and bright, fresh in the world.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Bengals went three and fourteen in nineteen ninety four, Big
Daddy Dan Wilkinson was the number one overall pick. That
didn't work out for us.

Speaker 9 (48:42):
I like to think I had more to my life
than than just the Bengals. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore.
So yeah, begaining going off a cliff rapidly.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
For me, things have not changed one iota over the
last thirty one years. So I want to read a
small passage from your column this week about Joe Burrow.
Joe Burrow is back. So he's back at practice. He's
not doing eleven on eleven stuff, any of that, but
inching closer to what we hope is a return two
weeks from tonight against Baltimore. We will see, but you're right,

(49:12):
Burrow will surely push to be out there regardless of circumstances. Now,
if the Bengals are playing in games that matter at all,
either to them or even to the team, they're playing.
I don't think anybody should have any issue with Joe
Burrow playing. But if we put like a Z or
a Y or an ex ra, whatever letter goes next
to your team name when you've been eliminated, should the

(49:34):
Bengals tell him, Yeah, that's cool, you want to play, Joe,
but we're not gonna let you.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (49:38):
I like to use a p okay p for playoffs.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Yes.

Speaker 9 (49:43):
Well, let me put it this way. The Bengals have
forty six million or so reasons to not tell them
not to play, right. I mean, they don't like to
pay people not to work. More to the point, I mean,
if Zach Taylor and Duke Tobin go to him and say,
you know, in our wisdom, massive judgment here, we think
it's best that Joe you don't play. Joe's cana say,

(50:05):
who the.

Speaker 10 (50:05):
Hell you guys tell me anything.

Speaker 9 (50:07):
What have you guys proven that I should listen to
your judgment on anything. It's gonna be tough for them.
I think they want to establish you know, it's just
sort of the nature of football, and Burrow himself is
certainly gonna want to be out there regardless. Like I say,
of circumstances because he has to prove to himself that
he's ready to get back out there and be able

(50:28):
to play. And if you say no, you can't be
out there, we're out of it because we lost the
Steelers and the Pats and there's no chance.

Speaker 5 (50:35):
Of us coming back.

Speaker 9 (50:37):
Then you're going a whole year without him playing basically
in a real game. Does anybody want that? I don't
know that that's gonna be something we want to see.
There's a lot of nuance to it, and like you say,
it's kind of depending on the results, and if he's
really even medically ready to come back for that Thanksgiving
Day game, that's sort of up in the air as
well right now. But I think the Bengals kind of

(50:58):
want to establish a culture of guys, guys playing regardless,
and if you have to be carried out in your shields,
you know, like Burrow has three times already in six years,
that's just the nature of the sport. And you know
they can trieven wrap him and bubble wrap, but you
know then he can come back next year turning camp
and get hurt in that capacity.

Speaker 11 (51:16):
It's the NFL.

Speaker 9 (51:17):
These kind of things happen. I think all concerned within
the building, there are more than happy to get him
back out in the field, regardless of circumstances. Like I say,
and even if the Bengals, you know, in their sort
of secret minds, think to themselves it's not a good idea.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
I don't know that they're going to be able to
stop them. I fear you're right.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
I wish in any game that the Bengals are playing
where it doesn't count, that they would protect the investment.
But I find it hard to believe that if Joe
says I'm playing that they would tell him no. The
last few weeks, the offense has cooked. Joe Flacco should
be the best story in this sport. Instead, he's a
little bit of a footnote along with that.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
I don't know, man.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Look, you could say Joe Flacco is doing a great
job of getting rid of the football quickly needs making
this offensive line look good. My eyes tell me, and
I'm no expert by any stretch, I feel like this
unit has progressed nicely. Do analytics support that? And might
they actually be okay with their offensive line going into
next year?

Speaker 7 (52:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (52:16):
Well, they definitely support it in the run game, which
is where you can really isolate it, and remember how
the running attack was at the bottom of the barrel
in the first month of the season. Now they're up
to ninth in DVOA and rushing they're third typer third
and EPA per rush. Now they've run it fewer than
any other, fewer attempts than any other team in the league.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
That tends to help.

Speaker 9 (52:36):
And when we separate out, we have a stack called
adjusted lineyards that kind of separates the line from the
running back in terms of running plays. And they're, you know,
still down around twenty fourth in that sense the line,
so they're not great, but I think what you see
is that they've switched almost entirely. Now they're first in
the league and running man blocking schemes when they're running
the ball, and you know that when you have two

(52:58):
rookies on the line in a second year player are
getting rid of some of the complexity of those zone
schemes that they wanted to run. Is probably the best bet.
And we should give Scott Peterson credit for that. I mean,
he gets lost a lot. Talk about a guy he'd
never hear his name mentioned right now with Al Golden
and the defense sucking up all the oxygen, but He's
taking a unit that has a lot of young, inexperienced
guys that was struggling certainly with at the beginning of

(53:21):
the year, and it turned it into a decent unit.

Speaker 10 (53:23):
Are they great?

Speaker 9 (53:24):
No, But you know, I think there's reason to be
cautiously optimistic, if not unbridled enthusiasm about them going into
next year. Certainly, you know, we would have said about
Cordell Wolson after his rookie year that oh, things are
looking good, He's turning up, and then you know, he
went straight down the barrel. And that's what happens with
day three guys like a Jalen Rivers.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
So i'd be I.

Speaker 9 (53:45):
Would caution against saying that he's going to be an
answer for the long term future necessarily, But so far
he's looked okay. He's treading water. And obviously you have
the other rookie deal and Fairchild playing pretty well, Amarius
Nim's playing pretty well, and tech cares signed for next
year he'll be thirty three. But they know what they're
getting from him. Really, the question mark is Orlando Brown.
I think in a perfect world they would try and

(54:06):
look for his sort of long to medium term replacement
in this offseason, either in the draft or free agency.
But I don't know if they can do that given
the whole defense. They have to credit every every asset
they have toward that end of the balls. So they
may cross their fingers and hope as the injury that
he suffered last year bad one gets further into his

(54:26):
rear view that his.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Play takes another uptick.

Speaker 9 (54:30):
You can see that right now.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
It's still kind of affecting him.

Speaker 9 (54:32):
So hopefully had left tackle is not a position we're
worried about next year. By twenty twenty seven, we certainly will,
but hopefully they can hang on for another year there
because the defense needs all the attention right now.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Robert Wintrop is with U Rita's Bengals column at Cincinnati
Magazine dot com. You're right about Trey Hendrickson's presence being
sorely missed because time with this franchise is a flat circle.
We're kind of left wondering the same thing about the
Bengals and Trey Hendrickson this year we were last year,
which is can you really move on from him? To

(55:03):
not move on from him this coming off season would
likely involve the franchise tag. Is there a world war,
it would make sense to apply that to him.

Speaker 9 (55:12):
It's funny, you know, because I wrote it one breath
in the column. We may have seen his last down
as a Bengal already, right, I have no information about
how bad his injury is, but it certainly didn't look
good at the time, and you know, it certainly hasn't
improved over the last few weeks, so that would obviously
be bad. At the same time, it's almost like, because

(55:32):
he's injured, his value to the rest of the league
going into the offseason might be so depressed that and
his age obviously a consideration, and this is what happens
with older players. Kind of what the Bengals were, you know,
holding the line about all this time. They didn't want
to pay him because they were worried about just what
we've seen happen him getting hurt. And I guess it's
a possibility that they can be able to sign him

(55:55):
for next year and not even necessarily even invoke the
franchise tag. Maybe they can come down and then you know,
he's always said, Trey that he wants to remain a Bengal.
It's not entirely impossible that they find a calming ground
and just sign him to a slightly lesser deal that
you know both sides feel good about because he didn't
get to show his wares on the field this year

(56:16):
and he won't be able to get a huge contract elsewhere.
So I think there's no question that even if you're
Trey Hendrickson coming off a year that's kind of lost
in twenty twenty five, he'd still probably be their best
player defensively next year. They don't seem to be able
to find a pass rusher with his salt without him,
So I definitely think while it's entirely possible we've seen

(56:38):
the last of them, I think it's possible he's back
in stripes next year. Who would have said that that
a month ago or six weeks ago. It's hard to believe.
But as you say, things change so rapidly around the Bengals,
you have to have to have an airsick bag at
all times.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Trey Hendrickson has been an unending content machine. I'm not
ready to let it go. I need more, I need
more trade time.

Speaker 9 (57:00):
Listen, all of us would be digging deep for material.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
Of it without him.

Speaker 9 (57:04):
Try we definitely want him in stripes as long as possible.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Treasure Trove tray, no question.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Robert Wintrob Bengals column is Cincinnati Magazine dot com awesome
as always, Thank you.

Speaker 9 (57:14):
So much, Thank you, MO appreciate that's our guy.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Robert Wintrob read his column right now. Cincinnati Magazine dot
com MLS is like changing its entire calendar, and I
think this is a good thing because you know, my
opinion matters.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
We'll do that next.

Speaker 8 (57:27):
You've been listening to Football in the NATI on ESPN
fifteen thirty, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Mi's our service at Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime powertrain
protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours
for life. Kelseychef dot com. Bengals injury report is out.
Are you ready? I would have hit the post there.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Joe Flacco limited. He did some throwing, not a ton
of throwing. Here's the injury report. Second consecutive day. Trey
Hendrickson DNP, second consecutive day, Shamar Stewart DMP, second consecutive day,
Joe Burrow limited. Jermaine Burton's on the injury report. He
didn't go today with illness. Boy, hope he's back tomorrow.

(58:22):
Bengals and Steelers Sunday at one live on ESPN fifteen thirty.
Pregame coverage begins Sunday morning at nine o'clock. The Reds
have named Oscar Marine as the team's new bullpen coach.
He was with the Pirates last year and fans are
talking themselves into well, he must have been the reason
why Paul Skens was so good. Matt Tracy has been

(58:45):
moved from assistant no he's been moved from bullpen coach
to assistant pitching coach. And we only have an hour
and twenty minutes left in the show. I don't have
time to read for you the entire roster of Red's coaches.
We do have very significant Major League Soccer news. I
think this is good. So Major League Soccer has announced

(59:07):
within the last few minutes a shift in its competition calendar,
which will align the league's schedule with the world's top
soccer league. Starting in twenty twenty seven, Major League Soccer
will adopt a summer to spring season fourmat So you know.
The way it works now is the season basically begins

(59:29):
in late February early March. FC Cincinnati's first game was
in the Conka CAF Champions Cup, and I will not
forget this because I was there. They played that game
the day before the Reds played their first Cactus League game,
and then played like their first MLS game a couple
of like a week or so later. They're still in
their playoffs. The baseball season. The Reds haven't played in

(59:51):
a month and a half. How long the season goes anyway,
So what this means is starting in July of twenty seven,
the twenty twenty seven twenty twenty eight MLS regular season
instead of starting in like March, is going to start
in July, and what they will do is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Go until.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
The winter time, take a break from mid December through
early February, have no matches scheduled in January, and then
pick the season back up and have the season end
in May. So you would have your playoffs, which is
what they're in right now. I guess you would have
them during the spring. I guess this is how the

(01:00:40):
world's top leagues do it. I don't care about that.
From my perspective, this makes sense because what should be
the signature period on the MLS calendar is right now
your playoffs, which are happening while the NFL is taking play,

(01:01:00):
college football is taking place, the NBA is underway, hockey
is happening, college basketball is underway. Like FC Cincinnati is
gonna play this massive game a week from Sunday at
five o'clock in the afternoon. Number One, it might be
twenty five degrees at the soccer venue on the west

(01:01:22):
end of Cincinnati. Number two, it's gonna happen an hour
after a Bengals game just down the street.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Ends.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
It's gonna happen during this weekend where you have possibly
an immense UC football game, the UC Louisville basketball game,
a full NFL slate, full college football slate, a Bengals game.
You know, it's it's almost impossible, I guess if you're
soccer to avoid those things. But why have your signature

(01:01:48):
event happened while there's all this well, there's all this
other stuff going on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
What they're gonna do is have a transition season from
February to May twenty twenty seven, which will feature a
fourteen game regular season and then start it's twenty twenty
seven twenty twenty eight season. And I am probably confusing you,
but basically what they're gonna do is go summer to spring,
take a break in the winter and have their playoffs

(01:02:19):
when there's not as much stuff going on, which is
a good thing. Dan Klaskins will help us with fantasy football.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Next Saturday, we're.

Speaker 7 (01:02:31):
Off by Kentucky Football. The Cats are hungry for another
victory and they're ready to do some therd hunting. Tennessee
Tech Golden Eagles and your Kentucky Wildcats.

Speaker 12 (01:02:48):
UK coverage starts Saturday morning at eleven thirty on ESPN.

Speaker 9 (01:02:52):
And that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Kentucky football promo.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Are we actually promoting this stuff we carry on this
radio station. Wow, it is eleven away from five o'clock.
I'm sorry, I'm taking it back. Dan Klaskins joins us
every Thursday to talk fantasy football. He is the host
of Fantastics Insider Football on Sirius XM Fantasy. He is
on x at Dan Klaskins, and he's with us right now.

(01:03:22):
I look forward to this segment because it makes me
think of people who are having good fantasy football seasons,
unlike myself.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Well in this good football season in general, though, right,
I mean fantasy the reason that.

Speaker 6 (01:03:36):
Some of us have it down.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Yeah, you're right, you're right about that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
So last week, you kind of took a look at
favorable fantasy football schedules, or players who have favorable fantasy
football schedules. Let's talk about some players who have bad
schedules as we come down the stretch.

Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
Yeah, some struggles ahead for sure, and Patrick Mahomes could
be a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Top that list.

Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
He's really enjoyed that nice fantasy resurgence at this point
of the season, one of the top fantasy quarterbacks through
the first ten weeks, but that schedule gets brutal over
the next seven weeks. You're talking about He's got a
matchup with Denver at the beginning this weekend at the
end of the week seventeen, four tough matchups, and no
quarterback has more negative matchups and running back, the schedule

(01:04:23):
just is brutal for rookie Ashton jenty and he's only
finishes the top twelve running back three times this season
through the first ten weeks. And that beeat might be
even tougher to come in the week's ahead.

Speaker 11 (01:04:33):
So take advantage this week.

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
First Dallas on Monday night, because after that the Raiders
have four negative match the Browns, Chargers, Broncos, and Texans,
and their next five games. I think DeVante Adams has
also been looking pretty good here connective at Matthew Stanford
and I think they'll continue to produce.

Speaker 6 (01:04:49):
Down the stress and healthy. But you may win a
temper your.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Expectations a bit to ransomly have one game left. First
team's allowing in the top sixteen most fantasy points.

Speaker 6 (01:04:57):
A while out this season, so that's not very favorite one.

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
Dalton Schultz another guy, pretty steady back end tight end
one here in recent weeks, but after this week's matchup
with the Titans, didn't have another plus match up the
remaining remainder of this season at taxing schedule.

Speaker 6 (01:05:10):
Another one of those teams that is going to get covered.

Speaker 7 (01:05:12):
Down the streets.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
All right, we have two teams on buys this week,
Indy and the Saints, but we have a lot of
injuries to discuss.

Speaker 4 (01:05:20):
Yeah, well, it is nice to get a break from
the buys and only eight more buys after this week,
including no budes the week of Thanksgiving, so we're past that.

Speaker 6 (01:05:28):
But let's get to the injuries. Garret Wilson the biggest
one here.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
That the Jets wide out is sustained to knee injury
that placed him on ir within this past hour. He's
out for at least the next four games was little
to play for perhaps the season. So not that Wilson's
been living up to his draft capital, but still a
blow for his managers that have already been disappointed. Another
bloke for fantasy managers, Marvin Harrison Pendicitis has him sign

(01:05:53):
nine this week, perhaps even next week.

Speaker 11 (01:05:55):
It takes a while to recover from that, so we'll
have to monitor that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
Devonte Ads I meant about tomp He's also be able
to know league issue is limited in practice.

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
I expect him to play, and we.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Could also see the return of Ricky Piersoll this week.
The forty nine or second year Whiteout has been missing
an action for most of the season from a knee injury,
but all signs barring a setback, pointed him returning this week.

Speaker 6 (01:06:15):
He could be a wide receiver.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
Three running back Bucky Irving limited participants second straight table
to see how it goes on Friday, but the Bucks
might finally be getting there.

Speaker 6 (01:06:23):
RB one back JK.

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
Dobbins not placed on ir.

Speaker 11 (01:06:26):
But they're considering it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
He's gonna miss at least this week, maybe more with
the foot injury.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
R J.

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
Harvey the most likely candidate there, Isaiah Pacheco coming out
of the buy from the Chiefs. He's still sidelined for
the with the knee issue there, so I don't think he's.

Speaker 11 (01:06:39):
Playing a week eleven.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
We already know vermondre Stevenson isn't the plan again tonight,
so fire up Wentwood's graduate Traveon Henderson looking forward to
a big night perhaps from him on Thursday Night football.

Speaker 11 (01:06:51):
As reminder, Stevens still out at that time.

Speaker 6 (01:06:53):
Issue. We know about Joe Burrow.

Speaker 4 (01:06:55):
And his so you know what that means in fantasy.
Obviously you've been using Joe Plack go to the stream
that's going to hurt him. Honestly, by the way the
Thingles offense been goading on points, I don't think it's
going to have that big fan of Hampacks of the people
that I'm Berlwin Placo speaking at a quarterback and tow
issues brought perty also trending towards the return finally for
the forty.

Speaker 11 (01:07:13):
Nine ers, We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
A couple of quarterbacks that are can custom out of
action this week.

Speaker 6 (01:07:17):
Jackson Dart my favorite.

Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
Rookie QB the a sideline James Winston will get the
shot this week in New York where they have a
new coach.

Speaker 6 (01:07:25):
As well, and T J.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
Stroud he's still in concussion protocol. So a second week
of Davis Mill detections of course, score twenty six unanswered
in the fourth quarter to when last week can screw
about three of my parloat.

Speaker 6 (01:07:36):
So you're happy to see that. Roddy Jackson the second
with an e issues day to day.

Speaker 11 (01:07:41):
Good news there.

Speaker 6 (01:07:42):
But Sambla porta tight end you want to keep an
eye on.

Speaker 11 (01:07:45):
You have to practice all week with this back.

Speaker 6 (01:07:47):
As you have a crossing my fingers. He gets out
there tomorrow.

Speaker 11 (01:07:49):
The lines and the Eagles one of the biggest bats
up the head.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
Week eleven, Dan Klaskins is with this Fantastics Insider, Football
Serious XM Fantasy. Dana is on x AT Dan Klaskins,
give me your weekly Studs Dudgeon sleepers.

Speaker 4 (01:08:03):
I mean we got Bengals are off five mode, so
that always helps.

Speaker 6 (01:08:05):
The fantasy analyst b L A Z.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
But no, I really like Jalen Warren this week my
win you, I mean my Commons column for.

Speaker 6 (01:08:12):
A bigger workload.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Warren has looked a part and it's the Bengals defense
that it's not just the worst defense against fantasy running backs, no,
but even in standard league, we're we're on a counter receptions.
They're giving up almost five fantasy points more per game
than the next closest team, the Titans. Warren is locked in,
as is another James and Jalen's waddle. He gets the
second most fantasy points defense this week. As Miami said

(01:08:36):
to stake on Washington and that Madrid game on Sunday morning.
On the dud side of thing, I do like miss
Baker Mayfield, don't like him as much this week against
the Buffalo. I think it's tough Lettings outside my top
fift team for the first time that season. And I
also don't like zader Worthy. Since Russy Rice has come back,
he's been a little bit too hitter Mintcember one of
the stingier passing defenses in the league. Zader Worthy not

(01:08:59):
a guy that I'm wrecking this week. And a couple
of sleepers for you, Jacoby percent The only quarterback four
straight weeks it's finished at the QB one meeting in
the top twelve is Jacoby Perset. We look pretty good
there at Sampans defense and banged up back to like
the Cardinals will pull off the upset there and what
he marks, Uh haven't paid attention yet. The rookie is
starting to make a splash, taking over more of a

(01:09:19):
workload each week. The nation's way into my top twenty
five this week for the Texans dat Tennessee, where I
think you'll have a much larger workload than veteran nick jab.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Our guy Dan Klaskins joins us every single Thursday Fantastics
Insider Football on Sirius x Sam. I put this on
Twitter this week. Dan has two tremendous passions. One is
fantasy football, the other is helping out our nation's vets.
You talk about this on nearly a weekly basis the
Do Good Fantasy Salary Cap challenge. This is a great

(01:09:51):
way to get involved and to help our nation's vets.

Speaker 4 (01:09:55):
Yeah, I appreciate that moment and certainly helps them spread
the word.

Speaker 6 (01:09:58):
And we're doing it is our day match.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
It's been extended all week courtesy of a generous friend
here at dav after kickoff on Sunday, I've also lowered
the donation from thirty to twenty dollars. And what it
means is every week you can set a lineup. You
just pick against the salary cap. We have season long prizes,
over three thousand dollars worth of them, including some entries
into some fantasy games where you can bet big money,

(01:10:21):
and some.

Speaker 6 (01:10:21):
Great weekly prizes.

Speaker 11 (01:10:23):
More of those entries a T shirt as well.

Speaker 6 (01:10:26):
Really, you know, we need to say thanks to veterans
every day.

Speaker 4 (01:10:29):
I'm just on Veterans Day and there's no better way
to say thanks than by donating to dav We help
over a.

Speaker 6 (01:10:34):
Million veterans every year in life changing ways.

Speaker 4 (01:10:36):
You can play with me, Come set your fantasy lineup,
help our veterans do it all.

Speaker 6 (01:10:40):
Go to do Good Fantasy dot Com.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Do Good Fantasy dot Com a great cause and a
great week to get involved.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Dan, thanks as always.

Speaker 11 (01:10:49):
I appreciate him enjoying the gamesway ran.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Most definitely, that's our guy.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Dan Klaskin's Fantastics Insider Football on Serious XM Fantasy and
on Twitter. Taking your fantasy football questions at Dan Glaskins
couple away from five o'clock. We are We're guest reedal
five twenty mi evrow five point three seven four nine
fifteen thirty is our phone number. Our phones have worked.

(01:11:14):
Drub our phones have worked all day, right all day. Wow,
like a real live radio station. Couple away from five o'clock.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. What's up,
mullagg or ESPN fifteen thirty. It is finally here the
bud Light five o'clock happy hour. You know this is

(01:11:38):
our Friday. There's no we don't have a show tomorrow.
It's Bengals Pepper. Don't blame me by the way, at
Bengals bought the three hours and want me a part
of it. Which can you blame them? So I'm not
here tomorrow. So it's the weekend is almost here. When
the weekend is almost here, you could almost taste in
an ice cold bud light, grab a six pack on
your way home, or better yet, come and join ice

(01:11:59):
cold bud Light with me tonight at bell Terra Park.
As a matter of fact, speaking of which, I was
just handed during the break a clear cube with a
baseball signed by Johnny Bench that I am to give
away tonight. This is thanks to our friends at Sports Investments,
along with other prizes including a Cincy Shirts gift card

(01:12:22):
and I've got tickets to go see ac DC and
Columbus and the Trans Siberian Orchestra as well. To me,
this is this is the prize, all right? Then there
it is. You can hear me tap of the cube ever,
tap a cube? There it is right there, the Johnny
Bench signed baseball. I will have it in my possession
tonight at Bellterra Park.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
So come on out, you might win it and we'll watch.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Ah, I'm not even gonna try to say good Thursday
night football game, a football game between the Patriots and
Jets on top of whatever else is going on that
we could watch at the FanDuel Sportsbook inside Bell tra Park.
We'll be there tonight enjoying Giveaway's fellowship and a nice
cold bod light. Our guy Jay Morrison's going to join

(01:13:06):
us in just about twelve minutes. I said that, like
I was asking. In twelve minutes, Jay Morrison's going to
be on the show, and what to watch for from
Joe Burrow with one are the experts from Ortho Sinsey
coming up in just about thirty minutes. Between now and then,
chance for you and I to have a conversation about

(01:13:27):
whatever is happening in the ever interesting and always fun
world of sports. Mike you're on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
Hi Mike, Hi Moss.

Speaker 10 (01:13:39):
Thank you for let me read off.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
You're very welcome. What is what is on your mind today?
Besides the Orlando Magic?

Speaker 10 (01:13:47):
Dude, what happened the next was all the slow To.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
Me, they look slow second day of a back to back.
That's not an excuse. And the head coach Mike Brown
after the game set is much.

Speaker 10 (01:14:01):
I didn't hear that part, but I knew the Magic
were being talked about with a lot of uh of hope.
I guess you could call it. You know towards the
end of last year that they were certainly an up
and coming team. But what's your feeling about the Magic?
Not that anybody in Cincinnati kars, but you and I do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
I like Ben Caro for his sake. I hope he's
okay because he left the game last night. I think they,
along with Detroit, are two teams that have a chance
to take advantage of a little bit of a power
gap at the top of the Eastern Conference.

Speaker 10 (01:14:38):
Yeah, and that way, do you think that do you
think I don't know how to put this properly, do
you think that one by on, one by one bond
Because of his size and dexterity and his agility. Do

(01:14:59):
you think if he gets into the next couple of
years and probably be took maybe a hair, do you
think he's gonna it's almost gonna be on the opposite
side of what Shack was because of this brutal power.
Do you think his dominance will just come from his
height or his all around shooting ability or all of.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
It, just the all around skill. I mean, start with
the fact that he's seven foot four. You know, we
have talked about him for so long that I think
people tend to forget he is not even yet twenty
two years old. I don't think he turns twenty two
years old until sometime next year. He's played less than

(01:15:43):
he's played less than two full seasons, because you know,
his year last year was cut short about midway through.
He's like you talk about like NBA players that I
would kill to see in person right now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
He is at the top of the list.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
He can block shots, he's awesome on the boards, he's
good with the ball, he's a he's a better than
average shooter for a guy his size. There really isn't
much on a basketball floor he cannot do. He could
still be pushed around. I think a little bit more
than I'm sure he and his team would like. But
holy crap, like we've never seen anything like him. He

(01:16:18):
has moments of jest, Holy crap, did Jujesse. He's and
he's been on a team that over the last couple
of years hasn't been very good, so they don't get
shown a lot. They're off to a great start this year.
But for those who don't watch that league closely, if
you haven't given if you haven't given yourself a chance
to watch Victor Wembinata. When wembin Yama I always putting

(01:16:38):
an en at the end of his last name, you
owe it to yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
He is awes.

Speaker 10 (01:16:43):
He is. It's almost like a freak. It almost reminds
me of Kareem back in the day. That's when they
started talking about possibly raising the heights of the rim
and these kind of things. And these guys way more
talented than Kareem was, way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
More Yeah, I mean, just the natural evolution of that position, right,
Like dudes his size are now asked pretty routinely to
step out and shoot. He has larger range, he can
put it on the deck. I mean, he's very much
on the floor of that dude, can't do it again.
He's you know, he's twenty one years old. Had we
done this the old way, he would be, you know,

(01:17:18):
essentially the age of a college junior, maybe coming out
before his senior season. There's still some some some areas
of his game that I'm sure we haven't seen him
even come close to maxing out yet.

Speaker 7 (01:17:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:17:31):
I remember back when the Sonics were a pretty good
Basco and he wasn't even a seventh footer, but Jack
Sickmoul was one of the few big men that could
go outside and HI get a couple of jump shots.
I don't know if you recalled Jack sickmok Jack Sigma.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
I remember his name Milwaukee Buck.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
But you know, one of my all time favorite players
Mike is Patrick Ewing. And Patrick Ewing became a really
lethal outside shooter for a seven footer and when I
say outside, I mean twelve to fifteen feet And that
was kind of novel. Like it was like Keim Elijuan
sort of the same thing. Like they would talk about
bigs being able to step out and hit shots from outside,

(01:18:07):
and that meant from basically free throw range. Now we're
talking about dudes stepping out from not just behind the arc,
but even a foot or two behind. Not a foot
or two, but maybe a half foot behind the arc.

Speaker 10 (01:18:20):
And I can't wait for this UC Louisville game. I'm
so exciting Louisville. I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
I'm not looking I'm not looking forward to it. I'm
not looking forward to it, Mike, Yeah, I.

Speaker 7 (01:18:29):
Know you're not.

Speaker 10 (01:18:30):
Hey, real quick, I know they've made a little uh
mentioned on Tony's show today about the Revs picked up
the Norwork, that backup catcher from the Dodgers. Yeah, don't
get too excited. The guy's a great defensive catcher, but
don't get too excited about the bat. And that's why
they probably let him go. They got some young Mexican guy.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
Down there, whis on is gonna be on his third
team in less than a year, right.

Speaker 10 (01:18:56):
Yeah exactly, But yeah he is. He's a great defensive catcher,
but he just to hand hit. That's all I got all.
I'm pretty boring today, Sorry, Mike.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
You're never boring. Ever.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Do you call yourself a lot of things? You are
a lot of things, Mike, You are never boring.

Speaker 10 (01:19:11):
Yeah, thank you, Bill. You take care buddy, I'll do my.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
Best fourteen minutes after five o'clock. Not looking forward to
you see, and Louisville has more to do with Louisville
than the Bearcats. Chack kind of made me feel better talking.
They are playing at a faster pace. They're still trying
to figure out who can do it. If they turn
it over twenty four times against Louisville, they're gonna get destroyed.

(01:19:38):
Uh And I don't know that defensively they're ready for
m Mi cal Brown. But say what you want about
the track record that Wes Miller's teams at UC have had.
They have typically not been high turnover teams. I think
you saw from experienced players the other night some relatively
uncharacteristic turnovers. I was troubling that a lot of the

(01:20:01):
turnovers came without any sort of ball pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
But I do think a lot of the stuff was rectified.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
I think they were trying to make higher degree of
difficulty passes than were necessary. Sometimes it's okay to throw
the ball to the guy who's six feet away from
you instead of the guy who's, you know, fifteen feet
or twenty feet away from you. And it felt like
the other night they were collectively a little bit too
focused on doing that. We'll see they must play better.

(01:20:28):
I am looking forward to that game because you see
in Louisville should play on a regular basis. But if
you looked at each team's respective performance, Louisville was not perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
And Pat Kelsey said as much after the game. Louisville
feels better, Louisville.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
Feels further along, and Merkatt's got to stop turning the
ball over. Jay Morrison, who has a very good rad
on Andrey Yoshavas today, is going to join us next.

Speaker 8 (01:21:01):
This is Football Nady, brought to you in part by
Postman Law and Vice Skyline Chile on ESPN fifteen thirty,
the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
Thursdays.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
We spend a few minutes chatting with our friend from
Bengals Talk dot com, where he is a good piece
on Andre Yoshimas of today, Jay Morrison, who's on Twitter
at buy Jay.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
Morrison, Hi, j.

Speaker 7 (01:21:28):
Hey Moe.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
How much did Joe Flacco throw today?

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
He was listed as limited, so it wasn't a lot.
You don't really get a sense of how much exactly
if he does anything beyond the full amount it's listed
as limited, so it could have been ninety percent, it
could have been fifty percent.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
But the plan is.

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
The plan was for him to go limited today, just
like he did last week. He'll probably do very little
on the walkthrough on Friday, and he will walk out
on the field as the starter on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
Yeah, I'll walk out on the field. I just I
don't know. He has been awesome. He should be the
best story in the NFL right now. In many respects,
he is. But I've got an older quarterback with a
springed ac joint in his shoulder. The weather is getting colder.
I just I'm waiting for him to turn into a pumpkin.
Is that unfair?

Speaker 3 (01:22:22):
No, I don't think it's unfair, And I think it's
important to remember that for the first time since his
first game here, he's not playing at Pey Course Stadium.
It's gonna be a loud visiting crowd or a loud
crowd in Pittsburgh. That defensive line of the Steelers is
really good.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
They are going to be getting.

Speaker 3 (01:22:40):
Off the snap that the Bengals gonna go on the
silent count, and it's gonna be a real test that
the offensive line's played really well since since Blacko got here,
But this is gonna be a much different test with
a loud crowd. Act to sure a really really good
defensive line obviously had by Cameron Hayward and TJ. Watt,

(01:23:02):
this offensive line is going to have to keep him
clean because one shot could be all it takes for
Jake Browning to be forced into the game.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Yeah. I don't want to see that at all.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
You talked about though, the offensive line performing well, and
Joe Flacco has made them look good. But if there's
one thing I am clinging to and I can apply
this to next year, maybe as the next eight weeks
move forward, this offensive line is playing okay, and so
much so that you start to look at some of
the younger guys on it and start to feel good
about the future of that position group.

Speaker 3 (01:23:34):
No, yeah, I mean exactly. You think about, look at
what the defense looks like at linebacker because there's two
rookies in there, and then compare that with what the
offensive line looks like with two rookies in there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
It's night and day.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
And Dylan Fairchild has really kind of, you know, afforded
himself pretty well. I would say he's been physical, he
really looks the part. He's not an off ro anything
close to that yet, but for a rookie offensive lineman,
he's on his own. And and Jalen Rivers has had
his moments, but he's he's growing into that role too.
And he you know, he played tackle last year. He's
not only learning the NFL, he's learning a new position.

(01:24:09):
And you know, Ted is solid. Orlando's been okay. He
hasn't been great, but he's he's been serviceable for a
left tackle, and a Marius Mems continues to improve. So
I think when you went into this year, if you
look at the way this offensive line has played the
last couple of years, everybody would last couple of weeks,
everybody would have signed up for.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
That, no question about that. Jay Morrison is with US
Bengals Talk dot com. Is it time to consider Shamar
Stewart's rookie season a wash?

Speaker 6 (01:24:37):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
I don't think so. I mean, it's it's unfortunate. Everything
that's happened so far has been unfortunate, but you can
you you still have eight games left and I don't
know how long he's going to be out. He's week
to week, But you know, Joe Burrow says it all
the time. Every rep is a valuable rep. So if
he can get back and get healthy, whether they're in

(01:24:59):
the r or not, to have that guy out there
learning the position and learning to be physical and this
will not get put on his back way on the
other side of the defensive line.

Speaker 11 (01:25:10):
It's it's not lost.

Speaker 3 (01:25:13):
It's not what anybody wanted, what anybody hoped for. But
I don't think you should just write it off. There's
a real chance that he can make some growth in
the final two months of the season.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
Is it time to consider Miles Murphy's Bengals career awash?

Speaker 3 (01:25:28):
Yeah, it's been bad. I mean they just keep saying
it over and over. You know, it's time for him
to get going. It's time for him to get going,
and we just don't see it. And the opportunities are there.
This offense has been playing well and giving the team
leads in the fourth quarter, which is exactly what you
want for a young pass rusher to just be able
to tee off and go after the quarterback and you

(01:25:49):
know he's not there, and you know, all of a sudden,
here comes Cedric Johnson and and he's he's given them
a little de juice in the pass rush, and it's
he played sparingly last week because he had had one
padded practice since last year coming off the injury. I
think we're going to see a little bit more of him,
and if he continues to outplay Miles Murphy, then I

(01:26:11):
don't know if they cut ties with him as a
first round pick, but he certainly can move further back
on the depth check.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
How many players could I ask about their Bengals career
being a wash before you got tired of the question.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
We're almost there, maybe you want more, I will.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
I will spare both of us. Jay, thank you as always.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
All right, thanks Bob, that's our guy, Jay Morrison read
them Bengals Talk dot Com on Twitter at by Jay Morrison.
Bengals and Steelers at one o'clock on Sunday, you could
listen to the game on ESPN fifteen thirty. You could
also join me for the game at Smoke Justice and Covington.
I will be there with amazing prizes, life changing prizes.

(01:26:54):
And you got all the Smoke Justice smoked meat, and
you got the bourbon selection and you got beer, and.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
You got me.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
It's gonna be awesome. Sunday, one o'clock. Bengals Steelers. We
watched Bengal Steelers the game there last year and the
Bengals won, So they've won back to back games against Pittsburgh,
have a two game winning streak. Steelers fans love to
act like there's a Steelers a buddy. Mike Tumblin at
won a game since Barack Obama was president. All right,
So Bengals Steelers on Sunday. One team that's brand is

(01:27:27):
bigger than the actual team itself, and another team that's
gonna give up probably fifty points on Sunday. It's gonna
be a blast. Come to smoke Justice and watch the
game with me. Twenty nine minutes after five o'clock, All
eyes on Joe Burrow. What should we be watching for
from a medical perspective? Well, we're gonna chat with doctor

(01:27:48):
Nick Gates from Orthos Cincy about that very topic.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
Next. On ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 8 (01:27:52):
Thirty, you've been listening to Football in the NATI brought
to you by Cincinnati tax Resolution powered by Tafe Sheldon's
on ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 2 (01:28:07):
Sports headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet Home of
lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family
to yours for life Kelsey.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
Chev dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Trey Hendrickson again knows, Shamar Stewart again Limited go for
Joe Flacco, Limited for Joe Burrow Bengals Steelers Sunday at
one Live on ESPN fifteen thirty. There's a game tonight
Patriots and Jets. You can listen to that masterpiece on
Fox Sports thirteen sixty. Rats have hired Oscar Mareen to

(01:28:40):
be the team's new bullpen coach.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
He comes to Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (01:28:43):
Eve was with the Pirates, and Major League Soccer is
altering its scheduled to align with all the other leagues
around the globe.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
The twenty twenty seven twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
Eight season will begin this and basically what will happen
is they'll play starting in July, will take a break
off for a the winter, they'll come back and they'll
play in the spring. Decision day will be in April.
The MLS Cup playoffs will be in May. Right now,
the MLS Cup Playoffs, sorry November. FC Cincinnati hosts Miami
in ten days and we do this every week. We

(01:29:13):
talk injuries with one of the many experts from Ortho
Sincy orthopedics and sports medicine. The great thing about Ortho
Sincy is they have specialists, locations and services all over
the tri State, including walk in orthopedic urgent care at
five count them five locations with extended evening and weekend

(01:29:34):
hours in Edgewood and Anderson. Learn more at Orthosincy dot com.
That's orthos ci Ncy dot com. Doctor Nick Gates from
Orthosincy is with us. So Joe Burrow is back and
he's practicing. I have questions. Let's begin with the basics,
because it's been eight weeks. The injury he is coming
back from itself.

Speaker 3 (01:29:53):
What was it?

Speaker 12 (01:29:54):
So, injury is about eight weeks ago. Surgery is about
seven and a half weeks ago. The injury is analogous
to a near complete dislocation of your knee, but instead
it's a near complete dislocation of the joint at the
base of your big toe.

Speaker 7 (01:30:12):
So if you think of a.

Speaker 12 (01:30:13):
Knee injury, everybody kind of knows more about that. Tear
an ACL plus an MCL. You've torn two of the
ligaments to your knees. Kind of very unstable when you
tear these ligaments in your big toe joint. The big
toe joint is very unstable and will not stay in place.
So that's kind of the severity. So I would put
the severia up as a multiple ligament injury to the knee. Now,

(01:30:36):
what happens down the road and how that recurs in
what you need out of your toe is a little
bit different. That's the severity of it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
Let's talk about the timeline that E is on a
path for, and again this could change based on a
number of different variables. But we originally heard, you know what,
best case mid December. Now we're talking about late November.
So based on your experience with this injury, how surprising
is this?

Speaker 12 (01:31:01):
I don't think it's terribly surprising. I think a lot
of it's not a lot of it. Some of it's
coming out of some of the questions that the press
asked him about timeline. He's seven and a half weeks,
just getting out of his boot, starting to throw a
football with a shoe on. So while he is quote
unquote practicing, he's just tossing ball, tossing footballs this week

(01:31:23):
without doing eleven toll eleven drills at this point. So
he's definitely up a little bit ahead of schedule, but
in three weeks he's going to be out. He's done
this three week practice window, so that puts him at
ten and a half weeks at his latest point of
being on an active roster. So he's definitely he's on time,

(01:31:44):
if not early, for sure. That's a great sign.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
When he is doing what he's doing, throwing balls, that
sort of stuff. If you're monitoring him, what sort of
things are you looking for?

Speaker 12 (01:31:56):
I think you're watching how he walks. I just watched
a video this morning of him just walking out of
locker room onto the field with a pair of shoes on.
You're watching how he walks. First, you can't run without limping.
If you can't walk without limping, they're gonna watch how
he plants. Right now, he's throwing if mener standing is
his lead foot so kind of a good thing. He

(01:32:20):
doesn't have to bend the toe as much. And you're
walking for any head, you're looking for any hesitation. I
think we talked about this on a previous conversation about pain.
It's hard to do things when things hurt too much,
and you're making sure the pain he's not in so
much pain that it's modifying how he throws the football
or how he walks, and then the next step will

(01:32:41):
be how he jogs.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
What are some of the possible setbacks that we hopefully avoid.

Speaker 12 (01:32:46):
Here, I think you're you're really bad. Setback is repeat injury,
and I'll make that a little bit different than just
persistent pain. I think he's gonna have a sore toe
while he's doing these things, and that's okay. But if
he's having increasing amounts of pain as he accelerates his activities,

(01:33:09):
that the setback. He's got to have pain management.

Speaker 1 (01:33:11):
It's got to be.

Speaker 12 (01:33:12):
Healed and comfortable enough to do that. I think a
bigger issue that no one wants to think about is
repeat injury. Where he's feeling pretty good, he goes through
his recovery and he hits one of these timelines, whether
it's early December or this possibility that people are bringing
up about a Thanksgiving Day play, a sudden repeat significant

(01:33:36):
injury to the toe.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
Now, as you know, it's not a terribly.

Speaker 12 (01:33:40):
Common injury, right, but bad things happen, So a repeat,
really bad hard bend to that toe is his biggest setback.
Those are the two things I think that could persistent
pain flows him down, but I don't think it's a
long term issue. A repeat sudden injury is the biggest risk.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
This might be kind of a stupid question, but are
there is there an apparatus you could put in his shoe?
Is there a special design of a shoe that you
could sort of, I don't know, used to help mitigate
the potential risks of a recurrence.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
Of the injury one hundred percent.

Speaker 12 (01:34:15):
We've touched on this in previous conversations. There is an
orthotic device that can be fashioned to fit inside of
a typical shoe and even inside of a cleat, a
football cleat that protects the toe from It minimizes motion
and it minimizes stress. If there was an injury to

(01:34:36):
that area. If he comes down on that toe in
a similar fashion that he did with the original injury,
and the toe goes through a significant upward force, that
device inside the shoe minimizes that force. Very similar to
if you go back to play football after a knee
injury with a knee brace. The knee brace is going
to minimize the amount of force that's transmitted through those

(01:34:58):
recently repaired ligaments. The great news about the toe is
the it's really an up You can protect it from
an upward stress pretty well. The big toe is not
suspect to side to side stress, and athlete off football
field their knee tremendous risk of side to side impact
not so much in the toe. So you can do

(01:35:19):
a pretty good job of protecting it with this device
inside the shoe. And it's already been mentioned in a
couple of reports, so I'm sure they're doing that, hope.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
So that's our guy, doctor Nick Gates. Doctor Gates, we
appreciate the time Ortho Sincy. I say it every week
because I believe it. The great thing about Ortho Sincy
is they have specialists and locations all over the Tri State,
including walk in orthopedic urgent.

Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
Care weekdays nine a m.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
To nine pm and on Saturdays nine am to one
pm at both Edgewood and Anderson. It's easy because you
never need an appointment and it is most definitely cheaper
than going to an er. Whenever you have an urgent
orthopedic injury, go to Orthosinc. Dot com. That's Ortho ci
and dot com. It was about this time a year

(01:36:03):
ago that the folks at Orthos since he fixed my
neck doctor Angel Velasquez, and it was about two years
ago at this time that they helped my daughter's foot
and she broke her foot at Recess Orthosinc. Dot com.
That's Orthos ci Ncy dot com. Eighteen away from six o'clock.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station six. This

(01:36:25):
is the butt Light five o'clock Happy Hour on ESPN
fifteen thirty Moegor, thank you so much for listening. Tomorrow
on the show we Don't have One, Bengals pep Rally
will be on in our place from three to six
excuse me, starring Dan Horden Dave Lapham. But make sure
you do catch Tony Pike's Friday Football Frenzy from noon
to three, a show that in the past has included

(01:36:48):
Locks of the Night. We're still we're still waiting for
someone to save Locks of the Night, so I won't
be contributing to that. Nonetheless, make sure you're therefore from
noon to three tomorrow, and if you're looking for something
to do, will be at bell Terra Park for the
o Thursday night football game. I got Johnny Bench signed baseball.
I got ac DC tickets. I got a Cincy shirt
skift card. I got Trans Siberian Orchestra tickets. I'm loaded

(01:37:12):
for Bear and we'll be there tonight, Loaded for Bearrett
to bell Tarra Park inside the FanDuel Sportsbook. Excuse me,
we are looking forward to that. Don't forget while we're
plugging stuff. The next edition of the Tony Mo Football
Show will be Monday at Twin Peaks in Florence. Returning
to Florence for this week, obviously talking Bengals, Steelers and

(01:37:35):
Uce and Arizona and so much more. This game on
Saturday for the Bearcats concerns me. I think Arizona is
a little bit better than people might realize. I think
Texas Tech is the best team in this league. Then
I think there's a collection of schools that include Cincinnati

(01:37:57):
BYU Utah. I'm not putting Houston in there. Arizona would
be maybe a rung below, but a quarterback who doesn't
commit a lot of mistakes, a couple of good running backs.
They have played against the three three five this year,
you know, the time difference I think will be interesting.

(01:38:18):
This is one of those and I personally like day games.
I understand why people like Nip at Night. My guess
is is if you see in by you both win,
they'll play at night, we'll see. But if you're gonna
play a noon game, And honestly I'd apply this to
the BYU game as well well. Cool to have the

(01:38:40):
rest of the time difference advantage against the team coming
from the Mountain time zone, so that plays in the
Cincinnati's hands. I'm really interested the BYU game, not the Bay.
The Utah game could not have gone more poorly. Utah
had a lot to do with that really creative, all

(01:39:00):
good running game, terrific offensive line. I think we feared
the Utes were going to run the ball effectively. Best
team in the country at running the ball. That's not
a service academy. They averaged two sixty seven on the
ground coming in. They ran for two sixty seven against UC.

(01:39:20):
The troubling part that night for me was, first of all,
UC's defense got torched on second and long. More than anything, though,
is what they couldn't do offensively. Brendan Sorosby early in
the game, had a couple of passes knockdown at the
line of scrimmage.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
And it I.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Don't know if that got in his head. I don't
know what From that point he just he never he
never played well in that game. Joe Royer was a
non factor for a second consecutive week. You would like
for Evan Pryor to be healthy, but he gets nine
to ten touches a game. It's not like he's a
featured you know they'll feature him and give it to
him twenty times. Not an irreplaceable part in my opinion,

(01:40:02):
or at least I didn't think he was. The way
UC's offense played, including the turnovers, and then you add
to it, they gave up a punt return for a touchdown.
Steven Russknak, the field goal kicker, missed his first kick
of the season. Like it was just it was a
lot of things that have become kind of not emblematic

(01:40:23):
of what this year's team has been. So the other
team does what you expected to do, and then you
do a lot of things that are uncharacteristic for you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
You're going to lose, and you're going.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
To lose decisively, and that's what happened against Utah. Arizona
brings some problems to the table. What I'm more interested
in than anything is does the way that you see
played against Utah prove to be an outlier or do
we see are occurrence of a lot of the things

(01:40:53):
we saw against the you tonight, Tony and I talked
about this a lot on air and off. Joe Royer
is I think we all believe like a legitimate NFL
caliber tight end. The long stretches where he is just
not a factor offensively are mystifying. And maybe it's not

(01:41:16):
all on Brendan Soresmi, and maybe it's not all on
the offensive coaching staff. And by the way, for most
of the year, this has been a really good offense
with a really good quarterback. But in a game like
the one against Utah, and I'll make it about the
Nebraska game as well in late August, when you're looking
for high percentage completions, that's the first guy I look at.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
And yet for a.

Speaker 2 (01:41:39):
Dude is talented for as much of the matchup problem
as he can be, there are just these stretches where
he's not a part of the offense at all.

Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
So really curious to see.

Speaker 2 (01:41:51):
Is Arizona the biggest opponent for UC on Saturday or
are the Bearcats the biggest opponent for UC on Saturday.
From a wagering perspective, I have never bet against UC
in my life, I think I would otherwise though, be
comfortable taking the points. I am reasonably comfortable taking the

(01:42:15):
points with the Bengals on Sunday. I don't feel as
confident as I did on Tuesday, because the more I
think about it, the more you wonder, like, where's the
defensive stop gonna come from? They've lost their last two
and Joe Flacco has played otherworldly. I think Pittsburgh will
have a little bit of an answer from what happened
in the first game, where the Steelers just decided we're

(01:42:36):
playing man and Jamar Chase and t Higgins just had
awesome games. Where's the defensive stop gonna come from? Where's
the defensive improvement gonna come from? And that, to me
is the biggest question about the second half of the season.

Speaker 1 (01:42:52):
Yeah, Joe Burrow's gonna come back.

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
Cool. Yeah, we're gonna wonder if Duke Tobin's gonna get
fired at the end of the year and this defense
improve anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
Like legitimately any they're bad at everything.

Speaker 2 (01:43:05):
There is no like nuance to it where it's like, well,
you know, they're really good at this, and so they've
got to figure out a way to mask the fact
that they're bad at this over here, They're bad at everything.
That cannot continue if you expect me to believe that
Al Golden should be the guy next year. There has

(01:43:27):
to be improvement from somewhere. By the way, they're not
gonna give him a whole bunch of like high end
free agents this offseason.

Speaker 1 (01:43:34):
He's gonna have to.

Speaker 2 (01:43:35):
Figure out a way to make do with younger players,
unproven players, maybe players that other teams don't want. It's
gotta find a way to make this defense better somewhere.
Does that begin on Sunday? If so, I think they
got a shot. This is not a stealers team that
just overwhelms anybody in any capacity. But at the answer

(01:43:59):
by the end of the season is no. Then now
Golden ainate the guy, and you might not think he's
the guy right now, and that's totally fair.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
We will see again. We're watching the game on Sunday
at Smoke Justice. We hope you join us.

Speaker 2 (01:44:10):
We are done shows over my thanks to Drew wester
Heidi for producing the show and being there for me
as I've had no voice. Bengals pep rally in our
place tomorrow we're back for the Tony and Mo Football
Show at Twin Peaks and Florence Monday at three oh five.
Thank you so much for listening, Have a great weekend,

(01:44:31):
and have a great night. This is the official home
of the Bengals. ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station,

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