10/6/26 -- The Mo Egger Show: Zac Taylor Turns In His Work, and Gets an "F."

00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Bengals and Dolphins meet up in Miami for a South Beach showdown. Speaking of the beach, my swimsuit of choice is a Speedo, European style. I don't like those pesky tan lines. The Bengals duel the Dolphins. The game kicks off at 1 p.m. Coverage begins Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Stream for free on the new edition of Improved iHeartRadio app. Or on ESPN 1530. The official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, I'm Moe Edgar. This is ESPN 1530. Thank you for listening today. Hopefully you're having an awesome Tuesday. It is gorgeous outside. We are, this is a good setup. I like a setup where you can do a show on a couch. I feel like I'm at the therapist's office, which as a Bengals fan, I feel like I need therapy. We're at the Transet, the Transet, which is right across the street from Washington Park, right in OTR. An absolutely awesome venue for any kind of party you would want to have. wedding, whatever it is, this is a great venue. Was lucky enough to get a tour of it earlier this summer. Run by the folks at Delightmore. By the way, Delightmore this weekend, the place to be for Blank. If you're coming downtown for Blank, don't forget, they've got the Charlie Harper live exhibit at the Mercantile Immersive during Blank. You can get tickets. They're free. It's open to the public. Tickets are limited, but they are available at delightmore.com. This is one of four event venues around the city. Soon, not too far from where we are downtown, the legendary Phoenix on Ray Street will be reopened. The transept is awesome here. Parties, if you think ahead a few months, holiday parties, corporate gatherings, social occasions, whatever it is, learn more at delightmore.com. Our friend Paul Daner Jr. from The Athletic and The Growler Podcast will be hosting his next live show on Thursday at 50 West on Worcester Pike. He is here, and we have a lot to discuss. How's it going?
00:02:12
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. There is a lot to discuss.
00:02:14
Speaker 2: There is.
00:02:16
Speaker 3: Week five. This is actually, no, this is truthfully one of my favorite times.
00:02:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:02:23
Speaker 3: Because once the first month is in the books, you can really start making the judgments and casting out the sinners.
00:02:31
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
00:02:32
Speaker 3: Yeah. Everything before this still feels a little small sample size-y. But now I feel like this is always a time of year where you can really start.
00:02:41
Speaker 2: To see, okay, who's at fault? So I feel similar because I feel like the Bengals, the 2026 Bengals, we had this long honeymoon. And then we moved in with each other week one.
00:02:51
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
00:02:52
Speaker 2: And now it's like, you kind of leave your stuff around and you pass gas at the dinner table. And I still love you, but I'm starting to see the warts. And now it's like, okay, we're really in this for the long haul together. And I'm going to have to find ways to tolerate what I don't like about you because I like most of what there is about you. But now the warts are here. And that's how I feel about the Bengals.
00:03:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, Pittsburgh was a little bit of passing gas at the dinner table, wasn't it?
00:03:19
Speaker 2: It was like that first, like, oh, hey! Where was that during the courtship process? Yeah, I was not expecting that. Yeah, these are the problems, right? So this is the beauty.
00:03:33
Speaker 3: This time of year. We've now seen here are the problems, and the teams that separate themselves, the good teams... are the ones that can problem solve, are the ones that can take whatever this year's issues are and work them out the quickest. Previous editions, recent editions of the Cincinnati Bengals have been poor at working out the problems at this time of year, at this stage of the season. We've seen them snowball. We've seen them get worse.
00:04:03
Speaker 2: We've seen them be historically bad.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: And so I think this is kind of an interesting juxtaposition for this particular group that fancies itself nimble at being able, at being built to handle the problems and adjust and win different ways and all of these things that we've heard about over the course.
00:04:23
Speaker 2: Of the offseason, and now we'll see if they can go prove it. You're a little younger than me, so I don't know if you remember New Coke.
00:04:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember New Coke.
00:04:32
Speaker 2: New Coke. I mean, a little bit.
00:04:33
Speaker 3: I wasn't into Coca-Cola at that point.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: So as like a seven-year-old, they have this huge, massive, multimillion-dollar marketing campaign. It's going to be sweeter. It's going to be better. It's going to be awesome. And then after like 10 weeks, Coke's like, yeah, we're getting rid of that. I feel like that's the Bengals under center.
00:04:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, New Coke.
00:04:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, New Coke. I'm calling it the New Coke offense. Yeah, we're just– forget we even mentioned it, okay? That's the New Coke offense. Yeah. I think– You can write that on one of your little articles.
00:05:04
Speaker 3: One of my little articles, yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: I'll get on that.
00:05:08
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's– similarly to New Coke, I think there were a lot of people that predicted the downfall of New Coke before it happened.
00:05:15
Speaker 6: Sure.
00:05:15
Speaker 3: Here's what's going to happen, okay? Oh, this is going to suck. They're going to try this, and then we're going to be right back to Old Coke. Everybody knows– this is where this is going to end. And I think there was a lot of doubters of whether it was going to actually take, we'll see. I think that there is, there's obviously still proponents in the building for it. I think there's still.
00:05:37
Speaker 2: New Coke had its, had its proponents still. And I, yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. And maybe they're still sitting there right now saying, you know, we should really try new Coke.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: It would have worked. Yeah.
00:05:46
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker 3: And maybe, maybe, maybe this will get going here. There was clearly a lot of frustration in the building yesterday. I talked to Drew Sample, and we talked to Ted Karras, and Dan Pitcher, and then Zach.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: Taylor was on the podium.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: The tone was the same with all of them. The offensive line in particular, the run game stuff, protection, all of it was worse than we thought it was. The fact is, if they would have won that game, it actually would have clouded the fact that this all needs to be addressed. And like a really, a much harsher tone than I anticipated and that I've heard all season long in terms of it. So I, it does seem like, I don't know that the change is necessarily a new Coke.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:06:39
Speaker 3: See you later. I don't know that that's it. I do know that there's frustration with the way things were executed, particularly in upfront, I think from all involved, And it was certainly a wake-up call.
00:06:53
Speaker 2: We'll see.
00:06:53
Speaker 3: I can't say. I don't think we know for sure what direction they're going to go next other than it sounds like there's going to be some kind of an alteration to what they're doing.
00:07:02
Speaker 2: Well, the quarterback says just throw it more.
00:07:04
Speaker 8: Right.
00:07:04
Speaker 2: So that's good.
00:07:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, that feels.
00:07:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, of course, you can always say... I actually.
00:07:12
Speaker 3: I don't disagree with him in a one-game situation like... No, I don't have an issue. I don't have an issue with what they did Sunday. Outside of you don't want to see Joe take that many hits. I mean, that was not ideal.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: No, they adjusted to how the game was being played.
00:07:31
Speaker 3: What are you going to do? You clearly can't run the ball at all. You're getting nothing in there. There is a path to victory, and that was the path to victory. And so I don't know, but it is, as Dan Pitcher said, it is not... sustainable long-term. And I think they're trying to find a way they're not, don't feel forced into that ever again.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: I had other comparisons.
00:07:54
Speaker 9: Please.
00:07:55
Speaker 2: Would you like to hear them?
00:07:56
Speaker 3: Of course I would.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: Al Capone's vaults. So there was this hype in 1986, they were going to broadcast like them breaking into his vaults and they found basically nothing, some old bottles, I think a roadmap or two. And so like a lot of hype for Al Capone's vaults, Geraldo egg on his face, similar to Zach Taylor vaults. Who's had eight months to work on this project and gets an F there's the Y2K bug. Remember that?
00:08:20
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: And it was like, I think we were disappointed that it wasn't catastrophic. I remember that new year's Eve, like, Oh, we're still here. Like eight, eight months of, of hype for that big dud. There's the Seinfeld finale, right? Which even still, when I watch it, it's like, yeah, I wish they could go back and redo that. There's a more recently the fire festival. Remember that was going to be a big thing.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: Oh, well.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: Hey, Ja Rule. This was not the Firefest. The Bengals' offense was not the Firefest. Promoted on social media by top-tier models and influencers as a luxury music festival on a private Bahamian island. Have you seen the documentary? Have you seen the Firefest documentary?
00:08:54
Speaker 7: I have.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: It reminded me a lot of being at the Bengals game on Sunday. That's why I put it on the list. Also, Quibi. Backed by nearly $ 1. 75 billion in venture capital and industry heavyweights, this short-term streaming app was hyped as the revolution of mobile entertainment. It failed to find an audience and shut down completely just six months after launching. So should we call this the New Coke offense, the Al Capone's Vault offense, the Y2K bug offense, the Seinfeld finale offense, the Fyre Festival offense, or the Quibi offense?
00:09:25
Speaker 3: So do I get a chance to guess your chat GPT query that you put in there?
00:09:30
Speaker 2: First time I've ever used Google AI. That's what I thought. That's what it sounds like. So I typed in... Over-hype events in American culture. Yeah, that feels right. And there they were.
00:09:40
Speaker 3: And there they were.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: And the one that I put in bold, the one that I liked the most, was New Coke. I like New Coke.
00:09:46
Speaker 3: I think it also properly dates you.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: Yes, I remember that.
00:09:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, right. But I appreciate you trying to reach out to a young audience with New Coke, though. Y2K, I think, touches just about everybody. Everybody heard about Y2K. Everybody knew about it. I think that would be the one that I would... It just kind of happened and we were all just left looking at each other and that was it. Right now, I feel like I look around and we're all sort of like, well, When is it happening?
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Did it even happen yet? Like, we're still waiting on it.
00:10:22
Speaker 3: I mean, we're still staring at them 32nd in the league under center. yards per play.
00:10:26
Speaker 2: There are people who don't follow the Bengals closely who could tell you that they spent the last eight months talking about their stupid under center offense. That's how much this became a thing.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: That's how much also that the NFL offseason is just, we just have to fill time. It again continues to boost my theory that I have had ever since the Jamar Chase preseason. and training camp that I should stop working in August. It's not necessary. All the things that we talk about end up being silly. I should have showed up, done one Dante Myers feature, and gone on vacation.
00:11:00
Speaker 2: I'm going to have them scrub all the training camp shows from the website so you can't go back and listen to Tony and I groaning on about the under center offense. Is there one reason that stands out more than the others as to why it hasn't worked?
00:11:16
Speaker 5: Um.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: I wonder how built for it they are. I wonder how much a line that is... I think they're more nimble with the interior.
00:11:31
Speaker 2: Guys that they have brought in.
00:11:33
Speaker 3: I think Reisner, Fairchild, Karras. But the giant... often tackles like Orlando Brown, like, or are they, are they built to run this properly or is it better or are they just better built to be downhill gun run team? Like, is that maybe that that was where they've had success. We haven't really had to see them do as much of, of this type of stuff.
00:12:01
Speaker 2: So perhaps that's what it's, that's what it is.
00:12:04
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's something to the fact that they didn't, They didn't build this line with under center and this type of a run scheme in mind. That said, it feels like something they should be able to execute. It doesn't feel like it's something that's a problem, but clearly it is. Clearly it's been a problem for them.
00:12:22
Speaker 2: There's like a round peg in a square hole or whatever that thing is. So, I mean, you kind of answered my question, which was going to be like, well, we're still trying to figure out what they can do, and yet continuity was the buzzword beyond running. under center of the offseason.
00:12:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think we know one thing they can do, and they've done that consistently through four games.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: They've thrown the ball through four games. Sometimes to the other team.
00:12:47
Speaker 3: Sometimes to the other team. We can talk about that. But I think the things they have, we've known, the continuity shows... that they've done well, I think they've done well. I think they've been fine. I mean, they've been who they are. I mean, Jamar and T have been great. Gasicki, like, all the members of the Los Angeles throwing session this summer have all been great. Like, honestly. Yeah.
00:13:14
Speaker 2: And so the continuity, I think, shows itself. The problem is.
00:13:17
Speaker 3: The stuff that isn't– that is the new stuff and trying to figure out what works. I think that stuff works itself out. I think– a big deal has been made of this because of the trends of the league and that the Bengals should be part of it. And I think it's true. I think their ceiling is partially dependent on this becoming a way that they can get more explosive and beat teams in different ways. But if they can't do it, I still think they can be the same level of offense that they have been in the past, which is really good. Yes, sure. They've never been top three. They've never been number one. And I think being able to do a little bit of everything probably does require them getting better at that. We'll see if they give it a full chance.
00:14:04
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been thinking a lot about the history of the NFL. Peter King's going to be on my show.
00:14:08
Speaker 3: There you go.
00:14:09
Speaker 2: And we're having him at 4 o'clock. And he's written a book about what it was like to have a front row seat for the evolution of the National Football League. I'm pretty sure back when he started covering the league, teams were going under center. Yes. We talk about this offense like it's, boy, you put the quarterback right under, have his hands right underneath the center's posterior. This is some revolutionary stuff. Like, why ain't Tittle ran that offense? Maybe they need why ain't Tittle. Maybe that's the problem. Someone touched him off. The frustrating thing for me is this. I've spent the majority of my life watching games where the quarterback has mostly been under center. And so for decades, we've had teams that have figured out a way to do this, and yet for the Bengals, it's hieroglyphics.
00:14:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, maybe if you can find a hotel room, you bring Boomer back.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: Okay. And the greatest at the play action.
00:14:59
Speaker 3: Yes. The greatest play action fake we've ever seen. And get him to just do a couple of days. That should be it, right? Yeah. And just go talk about how it worked in the 80s in New Coke. We can do both of these things at the same time. We can cover all of this stuff all at once. I do think, though, it's not about where you're lined up. Obviously, it's about the movement. It's about the side-to-side. It's about the longer developing plays. It's about turning your back to the play versus being able to just stand there and manipulate players with your eyes and process what's in front of you. I think one of them is... it seems pretty obvious that Burrow views one of those more as his strength. There has never been any indication that he hasn't been on board with trying to make this happen. Never once from anybody I've ever talked to, he has been on board with whatever they need to do to win games, as far as I've ever heard, on or off the record. And so I don't think he's standing up in the room saying this stinks. I think he wants to do stuff that works and win games. And that if he feels like right now, that's him moving this guy with his eyes rather than trying to move everything with a whole scheme and having it blow up in his face. I understand that there's frustration with that.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: All right, it's 20 minutes after 3 o'clock. Paul Daner, Jr. from The Athletic and The Growler Podcast. Live show Thursday night.
00:16:23
Speaker 3: Yes, live show Thursday night. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're pumped about it.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: 50 West.
00:16:27
Speaker 3: 50 West on Worcester Pike. We start at 7 o'clock. We'll lead right up until the Thursday night football game. We'll be hanging out in the beer garden all night.
00:16:35
Speaker 2: Very good. That's Thursday night. Paul's here at Toll 4. I'm here at Toll 6, broadcasting from the transept downtown. I'm Mo Egger. This is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
00:16:46
Speaker 11: WCKY Cincinnati, an iHeartRadio station. Guaranteed human. ESPN 1530. iHeartRadio.
00:16:57
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530.
00:17:01
Speaker 13: Traffic from the.
00:17:02
Speaker 14: Uc hill free no one covers the bingles like espn 1530 cincinnati sports station.
00:17:11
Speaker 2: Five minutes after three o'clock this is espn 1530 bo egger broadcasting from the transept downtown an absolutely beautiful uh venue for any sort of event you want to have if you're getting married just get married here and have the party here at the transept and invite me too because i'm I'm a lot of fun at weddings. Paul Diener Jr. is here from the Athletic and the Growler podcast.
00:17:34
Speaker 3: You're not a dancer, right?
00:17:37
Speaker 2: I'm not really a dancer.
00:17:38
Speaker 3: At a wedding?
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Depends.
00:17:41
Speaker 3: You're in the circle, right? Not in the middle of the circle, but join the circle. If everyone's out there, you're not going to be still sitting or standing on the side. Or would you just duck outside and smoke a cigar with a couple people?
00:17:54
Speaker 2: That's always a good exit strategy. My wife's not a dancer. So she'd rather hang out outside while I smoke a cigar and talk to the people who aren't dancing.
00:18:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: But if she were a dancer, yes, I would.
00:18:06
Speaker 3: I was pre pre back surgery. I was a let the anticipation build and then boom, hit the dance floor like hard, like right at the, at a, at a, at a big moment. And then that builds wedding to when you were in wedding younger and in wedding season that builds from wedding to wedding. I actually, at one point, Ended up in, which I'm sure your listeners are excited to hear about this. At one point, I was.
00:18:28
Speaker 2: You want to hear me make new Coke references?
00:18:32
Speaker 3: Maybe Y2K again. At one point, I ended up in a lot of dance-offs at weddings.
00:18:37
Speaker 2: Really?
00:18:38
Speaker 3: They happen, right? It's just kind of a thing. People want that. And my record was 14, 2, and 1 career. That many?
00:18:44
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:18:47
Speaker 3: Incredible. Those weren't all at weddings. That was just where my career record was. Maybe a few that I won, you'd call them undercards that I shouldn't have had issue with in certain spots. But yeah, I had a bit of a reputation, and then my knees all fell apart.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: Age has caught up to you. Age has caught up to my game.
00:19:06
Speaker 3: I'm the retired lineman or running back or whatever.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: Lots of comparisons we can make.
00:19:13
Speaker 4: There, too.
00:19:14
Speaker 3: I'm like the Joe Mixon of dance-offs.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: I guess it didn't work out for old Joe in Seattle. I guess not.
00:19:21
Speaker 3: Sounds like an injury issue there, which I'm disappointed on because I really wanted to have reporters ask him what happened.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: Yes. Still want to know. Still really interested to know.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: I mean, I would love to know what is going on.
00:19:35
Speaker 2: Speaking of injuries, do you have a gut feeling about Jamar and Tee for Sunday?
00:19:40
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, we've seen enough concussions to know that it's a coin flip and that it's like a 30% to 40%. That he would play.
00:19:48
Speaker 2: That he would play.
00:19:50
Speaker 3: Not play.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: That he would not play.
00:19:51
Speaker 3: It feels like he's not going to play is what I'm trying to say. But again, we've seen some concussions where the guy plays the next week, but it feels like most of them they don't. But if he clears, he'll play and he'll be fine. It's just a matter of you know, it's a, it's a murky process and you never, I believe the word Marvin Lewis used to use about the concussion protocol was nebulous, uh, to us when we would ask about it. So it's hard to know for sure, but it's T is the one where I think you look at and say, okay, maybe it's best to look at the big picture here on an, you know, an adductor, your, your chance of aggravation of injury of making it worse. Can you go beat Miami? And then have with the bye right after.
00:20:41
Speaker 2: That's where my head would be if Jamar were healthy.
00:20:44
Speaker 3: Yes. If you're missing both of them, you're okay.
00:20:48
Speaker 2: And Yoshibas.
00:20:49
Speaker 8: Yeah.
00:20:49
Speaker 2: And Colby Young.
00:20:51
Speaker 15: Right.
00:20:51
Speaker 2: Dante Myers and Mitch Tinsley.
00:20:53
Speaker 7: Right.
00:20:53
Speaker 3: And Gesicki playing receiver. And I guess maybe Noah Thomas. I still think that's more than enough to go beat Miami.
00:21:03
Speaker 2: Right.
00:21:04
Speaker 3: But Miami, it's not a pushover. Like, if you've watched.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: Defensively, they're.
00:21:08
Speaker 3: Yeah. Defensively, they can present problems. I mean, they have pushed a perfect Kansas City team. They were right there with Minnesota. Both of those teams are foreign. I mean, they've had a gauntlet in their own respect that they've had to play. But, yeah, I think there's a real chance that you're going down there without Tee and Jamar. You know, just I never have a good read on concussions. You just never know.
00:21:34
Speaker 2: Should there be suspensions resulting from that hit? I mean, in this era, player safety, and maybe this shouldn't matter, but player safety where the central figure is a star. Yeah. I mean, that was, there were two different things that happened there. I can't believe the helmet to helmet hit wasn't flagged. You have an egregious face mask and then you have what followed. That was like two guys on a tag team on one guy. It, That was quintessential defenseless.
00:22:05
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: Well, yes.
00:22:08
Speaker 3: It feels a little, like, fine. It feels like a fine to me.
00:22:12
Speaker 2: I'd be floored if there was no fine, but.
00:22:16
Speaker 3: I wouldn't. I mean, on 51, I think I could see them coming away and saying that, look, he was just. When Jamar went down, he went into his level. He was accelerating through a tackle.
00:22:28
Speaker 9: I could.
00:22:29
Speaker 3: I'm just saying I've been surprised at some of the things that have not been fined this year.
00:22:34
Speaker 2: I think he will be fined. Well, you get fined when you stick your arm out. You get fined when you pretend you're chugging a beer. Yeah, well, they don't care about that. We got a dude trying to decapitate Jamar Chase, and we're not going to do anything to him?
00:22:49
Speaker 3: I think there will be a fine. I think he should be a fine. I could hear there not being a fine, though. I think there's a better chance of there not being a fine. than there is of anybody being suspended. That's not happening. I think that you'll see a final. I'll be curious how much it is.
00:23:08
Speaker 2: They can't run under center, but then they don't have their top four receivers. They obviously have good pass catchers. Chase Brown caught 11 of them on Sunday. Mike Kosicki's obviously been productive, but what do they do at wide receiver specifically if those two guys were to miss this week?
00:23:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think Dante and Mitch, and I think Noah Thomas.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker 3: Or maybe Keyshawn. I didn't even get mentioned yesterday when they were talking about him. I think Noah Thomas would have a possibility. He's more of an outside guy.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: In a normal year, he's maybe the Mo Eggershow award winner. Maybe, yeah, exactly.
00:23:50
Speaker 3: I mean, he showed up in some camp and some preseason games for sure at a touchdown, so... I think you could get Noah Thomas ready to go out there and run some of the T type of stuff, some of the outside receiver stuff, and then Dante not have to do a little bit of everything. Yeah, I mean, that's just where it is. And I think Gesicki is basically transitioning his receiver. You're going to get probably Gesicki more time running the T routes this week. rather than drawing it up on the sideline before he has to go out there and do it with the game on the line. And that can go– I mean, that's– people forget– I mean, when T has gotten hurt in the past, the primary replacement and the person that's had huge games has been Mike G. Like, he has been T insurance since he's been here, really. And so I could see them really leaning harder into that when they have a full week to kind of properly prepare for that a little bit more, and you can run him and then still have all and sample. I mean, they're still fully healthy at tight end. I think at some point you have to lean into that.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: I think the marketing budget for Crystal Pepsi actually exceeded. So maybe it's the Crystal Pepsi offense.
00:25:06
Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
00:25:09
Speaker 3: Sure. Why not?
00:25:10
Speaker 2: Crystal Pepsi's not bad. In the early 90s, they decided to make a version of Pepsi that looked like water.
00:25:15
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:25:15
Speaker 2: And it didn't take.
00:25:18
Speaker 3: SNL did one that was like a gravy.
00:25:20
Speaker 2: It was like a clear gravy. If I remember correctly. I remember that more than I remember Crystal Pepsi. 26 away from 4 o'clock. Paul Daynor Jr. from The Athletic and The Growler Podcast with his live show on Thursday night at 50 West on Worcester Pike. Sports headlines and more with Paul after this from the Transcep downtown. ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
00:25:43
Speaker 6: Not just talk. This is sports with soul, sweat, and swagger. Tony Pike Cincy 360. Tomorrow at 12 noon on ESPN 1530.
00:25:56
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic.
00:26:00
Speaker 9: From the UC Health traffic.
00:26:02
Speaker 14: Bengals like ESPN 1530. Cincinnati Sports Station.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: Sports headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, home of Lifetime Powertrain Protection, a guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours for life, KelseyChev.com. Bengals players off today. Coaches hard at work trying to unlock the secrets to having the quarterback take the snap from directly under center and be productive. Bengals and Dolphins Sunday at 1, live on ESPN 1530. Joe Mixon apparently is not going to sign with the Seattle Seahawks, so sorry, Joe. Is that my car?
00:26:38
Speaker 7: Is that yours?
00:26:39
Speaker 3: Hope it's not me.
00:26:40
Speaker 2: We're at the Trance up downtown. Baseball, National League Division Series game three at six. Atlanta hosting L.A. Chris Sale and Yoshi Yamamoto on the hill. Later tonight, Milwaukee's at San Diego. Brewers up two games tonight in that series with Dustin May opposing Nick Pavetta. And the Cincinnati Cyclones have started training camp today. Paul Diener Jr. from The Athletic and The Growler podcast. I thought for a second I was getting a ticket. I parked right outside the door. I'm a free throw away from my car. Parked on the street. But I'm trying to beat the man. And I didn't go on the app and fill the thing out. I'm trying to save six bucks.
00:27:19
Speaker 3: I have been... eagerly anticipating getting to do play-by-play of you trying to get out of a ticket this entire time. So I've never been rooting for anything more than to see somebody come up and start writing.
00:27:30
Speaker 2: That gentleman's got two cameras. Is he taking pictures of my car and then going to, like, ticket me? Like, what's going on? He doesn't look very official.
00:27:38
Speaker 3: He does not look official enough, I'm willing to say. Perhaps he's just a sightseer in our beautiful downtown next to Washington Park.
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Maybe. We were talking before about Mike Kosicki.
00:27:49
Speaker 15: Yeah.
00:27:50
Speaker 2: Was I wrong about Eric Hall? No.
00:27:53
Speaker 3: I don't think so. He's like the marketing executive who came up with New Coke, I guess, maybe. He's at the center of this. He's supposed to be the perfect type of player to take advantage of what they want to do. And the fact that it's not working, I think, is... is partially a part of the fact that.
00:28:18
Speaker 2: His role was falling a little bit by the way.
00:28:20
Speaker 3: So I think there's ways to involve him more, but yeah, I think that's been, I mean, that's been surprising that they haven't been able to kind of truly unlock him, even in a blocking way. Like, it's not like we've seen the consistency of those just crushing blocks that he makes. And in fact, I feel like I've, when you watch the tape, you see more of it feeling like, did Eric mess that up? Like, yeah, something comes through a hole or he just goes, runs past it or can't quite finish.
00:28:51
Speaker 2: You're kind of wondering what's going on there.
00:28:55
Speaker 3: I just think that whole thing, he's in the mix of all that trying to get it figured out. That would be a big give it time for me before we start writing off Eric Hall. I just think it's taking a little more time than we may be anticipating.
00:29:10
Speaker 2: You had me on the growler this morning and we talked for about 35 minutes about Joe Burrow. I don't know if that episode is up.
00:29:17
Speaker 3: It is up, yes. It is up.
00:29:19
Speaker 2: So I'll just leave it at this. Is Joe Burrow a choke artist? That's what's supposed to be across the thumbnail, right?
00:29:28
Speaker 3: And then it's you and I both just angrily staring and pictures next to us.
00:29:34
Speaker 2: And looking aghast at each other for takes. Gator, Burrow chokes again.
00:29:40
Speaker 3: Burrow chokes again. I do not think Joe Burrow is a choke artist. I think that the thing that has been the case in the past is that these types of issues that we've now seen three times in the first four games later in these games.
00:29:59
Speaker 2: have happened, but they've.
00:30:01
Speaker 3: Been more rare. They've felt more rare. You can look at his turnover-worthy plays over the course of an entire season and just see them sporadically mixed in. Or there's been an unluckiness to some of them. That is not what the first month has felt like. The first month has had consistent bad decisions in very untimely spots.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: So that accentuates.
00:30:27
Speaker 3: I think some of these things that we've seen throughout his career without going 1-34 and.
00:30:32
Speaker 2: All that stuff. It's 1-35 now.
00:30:35
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. You're right. The number has changed. But I do think what has happened here has accentuated some of the stuff that has been an issue throughout his career. The number that I've been talking about this week, and I think I had it in the podcast today, In the first three quarters of games the last four years, he is number one in the NFL in best in turnover percentage. Like, he's just tops of the top, right? But when you look at the fourth quarter and when games are within two scores, he's 34th out of 38 top qualifiers. You've seen this. It just brings that back up. A lot of times it hasn't been as devastating as it's felt like. They've just been so critical here. I... I don't think he's a choke artist. I think they're not in any of these games without him. But I do think that there's a real discussion of what's happening differently in these fourth quarters, whether it's play calling, his approach to it, execution, whatever that is. I think there's got to be a real conversation about what is different about these spots compared to the first three quarters of the game where he so consistently tends to play almost flawless brands of football.
00:31:55
Speaker 2: I think it's this. This would go in the chyron. Fourth quarter, doesn't have that dog in him.
00:32:01
Speaker 3: No dog.
00:32:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. Dogless Joe, is that what you're, I mean.
00:32:04
Speaker 8: Sure.
00:32:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, that's a good one.
00:32:08
Speaker 2: Why is Jordan Battle not good? I think, I think he's who he is. I think he's partially hurt. Was on the report last week.
00:32:25
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think he's playing through stuff right now. I mean, I think last week you had in the list of injuries and severity, you had Duggar, you had Cook, and then right below them you had Battle. And I think it was probably a smaller gap than you would think.
00:32:45
Speaker 2: Somebody had to play. So get off his back because he tried to cut it out.
00:32:49
Speaker 3: No. Okay. If you're out there, you're out there, right? But I don't see– I felt like he was– the first two weeks before he got hurt in Pittsburgh a little better.
00:32:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:33:00
Speaker 3: He's not traditionally been, he's never been a great, hasn't been a great tackler, but he's not been a terrible tackler. And he's made some big plays to make up for it where you, I feel like you see him like pop in, whether it's running downhill to get somebody in the backfield or whatever, but like, you know, the one where I think James had it, where it looks like he's pulling his flag.
00:33:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker 3: Like, and a couple of the ones from like, where it's just, that ability to strain and really get after it doesn't seem like he has that gear right now yeah i'm not making an excuse for him i'm saying he looks like a guy who's playing but playing hurt right now and and jordan he's been a roller coaster man his whole career has been ups and downs where you feel like you have a month and a half where he looks like the worst player on the planet And then he'll have another month's stretch where you're like, here it is, the arrival. He figured it out.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: It's just who he's been.
00:33:54
Speaker 3: It just seems like it's always up and down and up and down with him. So this is probably part of that.
00:34:00
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:34:01
Speaker 2: Maybe Geno Stone being in the backfield with him was masking a lot of the Jordan Battle warts.
00:34:06
Speaker 3: Yeah. You were always directing it towards the other guy rather than the fact that maybe some of these deserve to go to both safeties.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: Are the Cleveland Browns good?
00:34:19
Speaker 3: Maybe.
00:34:20
Speaker 2: Good maybe is a strong word.
00:34:22
Speaker 3: I think they'll be okay.
00:34:23
Speaker 2: Pesky.
00:34:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, pesky. Pesky, plucky. I think that the Cleveland Browns have maybe answered the most important question. I think they got a head coach.
00:34:38
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:34:39
Speaker 3: I like Todd Monken.
00:34:40
Speaker 2: Feels like it.
00:34:40
Speaker 3: I think he was what they needed.
00:34:42
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:34:42
Speaker 3: They needed a no-nonsense dude to come in and just be like, I'm not tolerating any of the junk. And this is not a Kevin Stefanski tweet, right?
00:34:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. I watched Kevin Stefanski's team last night. Pretty good.
00:34:56
Speaker 3: This is about Cleveland organization needed somebody who's going to come in there and just be a Todd Monken type guy. And I think that has helped them play a cleaner brand of football and have the energy that you see them playing with. And I thought the thing about Cleveland that we said the whole time was like, God, you love their collection of players. They just had any semblance of a quarterback. And I think what Watson has been to this point, love him or hate him, has been any semblance of a quarterback. He's been okay enough the way he has played that it can allow the rest of the players– to be enough to win some games. It's certainly going to be a lot tougher game on the schedule. I'm not willing to go give it they're going to be good or they're going to be above 500 or they're a real contender. But I think that they certainly have been brought to a level of serviceability by Munkin and the rest of them.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Will, I have to have all my notifications on for breaking news on Monday if the Bengals lose to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. No.
00:36:05
Speaker 3: I mean, you might want to just turn all your notifications off and go get in line to the therapist.
00:36:15
Speaker 2: Because everyone's going to be on the edge. This is not.
00:36:21
Speaker 3: This is a fireable offense game.
00:36:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker 3: I hear you.
00:36:24
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:36:25
Speaker 3: That's not what's going to happen.
00:36:27
Speaker 2: But it's fireable offense losing to the Dolphins after you've lost the previous two, going into a bye with the season still salvageable and the overriding theme of the last eight months aside from new Coke offense being we got to win now, urgency, let's go. And so I think when you combine all those things in, I certainly don't believe Zach Taylor is going to get bounced if they lose to the Dolphins. But in a lot of cities, like that's, That's where it's ripe to wonder if the coach is going to get picked off during the season.
00:36:55
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:36:56
Speaker 3: In a lot of cities, that is the case.
00:36:57
Speaker 2: Not so much here.
00:36:58
Speaker 3: I don't think you need to have your notifications on.
00:37:00
Speaker 2: No?
00:37:01
Speaker 8: No.
00:37:02
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:37:02
Speaker 3: But, I mean, yeah, this is one of those that.
00:37:07
Speaker 2: You can't lose. You just can't lose situationally. I believe this opponent they're playing is not a pushover. I also know they haven't scored more than 13 points in a game. I also know that if we went within a, I don't know, 300-foot radius of where we are right now, we wouldn't find anybody who can aim a Miami Dolphins wide receiver. If you're 3-1 and you lose to the Dolphins, bad, but you kind of shrug your shoulders and go, that's the NFL. If you're 4-0 and you go to Miami and lose, it's, all right, maybe they overlooked them, regroup, come back, beat Baltimore after the bye. Lose three straight, Baltimore looming. I don't know, man. I know what the conversation is going to sound like on the outside. No doubt.
00:37:50
Speaker 3: I mean, it's going to be. No, I would like if Joe stood up to the podium and said, well, this is Armageddon. I know before it wasn't. Before there was no Liv Tyler.
00:38:02
Speaker 2: We weren't doing the song.
00:38:04
Speaker 3: We weren't doing the song.
00:38:05
Speaker 2: He just shows up and he just starts singing. Yeah, he should just start singing. Yeah, don't do it. Do it.
00:38:12
Speaker 3: That would be great.
00:38:14
Speaker 2: Now I know what my tweet's going to be at 4 o'clock on Sunday. It's Armageddon. Yes, it's going to be that song. It might be the movie poster. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one, I think so. Along with a can of New Coke superimposed.
00:38:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Liv Tyler holding a can of New Coke.
00:38:32
Speaker 2: One more thing. It's still the shovel pass at the top of my biggest pet peeves, but midfield, try to get the other team to jump, is closing the gap.
00:38:45
Speaker 3: You hate it.
00:38:47
Speaker 2: I despise it.
00:38:49
Speaker 3: I think tactically I'm okay with it. Like, if you're just going to keep, if you have the time out to burn, if you're in a situation where you might as well try it, what's the difference? The yard doesn't mean anything. Like, Rico, you just want the space anyway, right? Or whatever it is. But if you're just, rather than just go out there and punt, Might as well go out there and see if you can get the yards knowing that you're just going to punt anyway.
00:39:15
Speaker 2: Counterpoint, run an offensive play.
00:39:17
Speaker 3: Now, that wasn't what you were talking about.
00:39:20
Speaker 2: No, I hate the, and I have seen it work, and I understand, but it doesn't work enough. Well, you know what? though?
00:39:30
Speaker 3: It does set you up for when you do want to go out there, and I don't know why more teams, when they are going to go for it, don't do like, 20 seconds of shifts and everything, and then all of a sudden go do it when they're not ready for it.
00:39:48
Speaker 2: That is what you should be setting up for. Put a lot of eye candy out there.
00:39:51
Speaker 3: Everyone on the other side is all celebrating, thinking they didn't jump, and then you hit them with it. That's what this is perfectly setting up for. Maybe that's what will happen. Maybe it'll be a huge fourth down spot, and they'll do it, and they'll point up to your spot. Up to be 346. 346 up there.
00:40:05
Speaker 2: That's for you.
00:40:05
Speaker 7: I do not.
00:40:10
Speaker 2: Use profanity at professional sporting events. But at the end of the first drive of the game, I was operating on like 90 minutes sleep. You were cranky. I was cranky. They do that. The game unfolded the way it did.
00:40:23
Speaker 3: All right.
00:40:24
Speaker 2: Thursday night, 50 West.
00:40:25
Speaker 3: Thursday night. 50 West, Spangles special guests, all our crew. It's going to be a big time down there. We're going to have a lot of fun. 7 p.m.? Yep, giveaways, all that stuff.
00:40:34
Speaker 2: All right, make sure you read Paul Daner's work in The Athletic. Go to theathletic.com and check out the Growler podcast. We talked about Joe Burrow for 30 minutes.
00:40:42
Speaker 3: It was great, actually. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I always appreciate those conversations.
00:40:47
Speaker 2: A little cathartic, yeah. Six away from 4 o'clock, the great Peter King will join us coming up after the top of the hour. We're broadcasting today from the transept downtown. Learn more about this place at delightmore.com. This is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
00:41:03
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic.
00:41:08
Speaker 8: This is Dave Lapper, and you're listening to the home of the Bengals, ESPN 1530.
00:41:12
Speaker 2: Sure are. What's up? Good afternoon, Mo Egger, ESPN 1530. Thank you so much for listening today. We got a lot of ground to cover our sports legal expert, attorney Stuart W. Penrose in 30 minutes. I am stoked for our next conversation. In all the years we've been doing this show, there's a handful of guests that I could tell you exactly how many times we had them on. And for the most part, the circumstances under which we had them on. And probably at the top of that list is the great Peter King. Long time of Sports Illustrated, later on of NBC Sports and Football News. Pro Football Talk and Football Morning in America, his Monday morning column, the day after all the NFL games on Sunday for years, absolutely must read. He is now retired from that, but his book, which I devoured while on the UC road trip this weekend, is called The Game. It is filled with reflections from a lifetime covering a sport, having a front row seat for its growth, for its evolution. both the good and bad of it. Peter will be signing and discussing the book on Saturday evening at Joseph Beth Booksellers. That event's going to start at 7 o'clock. You can learn all about that at josephbeth.com. Get the book there. It is a pleasure to bring in one of my all-time favorites, Peter King. Awesome to have you. I can't thank you enough for doing this, and good afternoon.
00:42:38
Speaker 15: Mo, great, great to be on with you. And you left one thing out of that incredibly flattering.
00:42:45
Speaker 7: Bio, and that is.
00:42:47
Speaker 15: that I cut my teeth right in your backyard. The first five years of my career in Cincinnati, and it could not have been a better opportunity for me, working at the Enquirer, covering high schools and colleges, and then the Bengals, and also covering Aaron Pryor and Buddy LaRosa and Tommy Ayers and and just really covering Bob Trumpy and the radio TV sports beat.
00:43:18
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:43:19
Speaker 15: I just, I had the time of my life working for those five years in Cincinnati.
00:43:25
Speaker 7: So I am.
00:43:27
Speaker 15: Ecstatic to be coming back to Cincinnati Saturday night to, uh, sign books and to talk to people. I'm going to be talking at the bookstore with Paul Docherty, good friend of mine. And so I'm really, really looking forward to that. But anyway, thanks a lot for having me on.
00:43:45
Speaker 2: I appreciate you doing this. And I was going to go there first, because here's what I liked most about the book. It's like your favorite band playing your favorite song at the top of the set list, because the very first chapter, you're writing about the Bengals and covering Paul Brown and covering Sam Weiss. So like, I didn't have to wait. Not that I didn't devour it. I didn't have to read a few hundred pages before you got to the stuff that I wanted to read about the most.
00:44:09
Speaker 15: Well, and, you know, look, the craziest thing about, you know, the NFL four decades ago is how approachable it was, where Sam Weitsch, the rookie coach of the Bengals, me, the rookie beat guy, I've never covered the NFL before. One of the first interviews I ever had with an NFL person is with Sam. And he opened the interview by saying, do you want to know who we're going to draft? Because this happened obviously right before the NFL draft.
00:44:39
Speaker 7: I said, of course I do.
00:44:41
Speaker 15: And so you're, you know, you're very, very, you're a little bit worried that the guy is trying to, uh, take you down the wrong path. But turns out he was absolutely right. He told me a bunch of the guys who they were going to draft and, and including Boomer science and picked up Boomer and Pete Koch at the airport in my two door Volkswagen rabbit hatchback.
00:45:05
Speaker 7: And just, I don't know. It was a different time, different date. I, I.
00:45:10
Speaker 15: Lived on the ground floor of the dorm at Wilmington College in training camp with Mike Brown catty-corner across the hall, Paul Brown down the hall, with Sam Weitsch in the R.A.
00:45:22
Speaker 7: 's quarters.
00:45:24
Speaker 15: In that dorm basically saying, if you ever need, have any questions or need me, just come knocking at my door after night meetings. So probably six or eight times that summer, 945 at night. Indeed, I went and knocked on the door of Sam White and said, hey, what is this no huddle thing that you're practicing? So it was the absolute perfect time team to break in with, players, coaches. Anthony Munoz, what a great person, great guy he was. Boomer, Ken Anderson was fantastic. Collinsworth, all of these guys. It was just a treat and a blessing for me to be able to have that as my first year covering the NFL.
00:46:14
Speaker 2: How do you begin to describe, because when you think of Bengals and you think of Paul Brown, you think conservative. When you think of Sam Weish, that's not the word that comes to mind. And you capture a lot of that in the opening parts of the book. But how do you describe to folks who might not be familiar with those characters and what they meant to football here? How do you describe to folks what that working dynamic was like since you had such a front row seat for it?
00:46:44
Speaker 15: Well, first of all, Paul Brown was an arch-conservative guy, but that really didn't matter. If he could win a football game, he was for it. And so he loved Sam's imagination. Sometimes he thought that Sam tilted at windmills and fought the wrong battles, which I did too. But Paul Brown wanted Sam Weitsch's imagination.
00:47:10
Speaker 7: On his team. And it was, I think the players loved it too. Boomer loved it.
00:47:17
Speaker 15: You know, as he grew into that job and began playing more and more, he absolutely loved the fact that he could go to Sam and Sam would be explaining, you know, a play to him. And one really sticks in my mind. There was a, There was a play that had the number 61 in there, and Sam was big on visualization. He was big instead of just having a number. How can a guy remember a number? Sam was big on a term that would make a guy remember the number, and so he had a play that had the number 61 in it.
00:47:58
Speaker 7: It was a running play. And so he told Boomer, OK, listen.
00:48:03
Speaker 15: We're going to have one of the words we're going to have in here is mantle for 61.
00:48:10
Speaker 7: And Boomer goes, why mantle?
00:48:12
Speaker 15: And Sam goes, well, you know, Boomer wants to know, why are we putting Mantle in there?
00:48:18
Speaker 7: What's 61? He goes, well, Mantle had 61 home runs. He goes, no, he didn't.
00:48:22
Speaker 15: That was Roger Merritt. Mickey Mantle didn't hit 61 homers. And Sam goes, ah, those guys will never know. So Mantle became, you know, the name of this play that had 61 in there. But I think Sam's idea was, if I make football not like coming to work, my guys are going to love coming to work.
00:48:50
Speaker 7: And I think in many ways he was.
00:48:52
Speaker 15: Absolutely correct because those guys, so many of them just loved coming to work every day.
00:48:59
Speaker 2: Peter King is with us Saturday night. Joseph Beth Bookseller starts at seven o'clock signing and discussing the game, his new book, which is absolutely terrific. it's a real journey through and I'm 49 years old. So you're, you're writing about, you know, my formative years as an NFL fan, you're writing about things that I remember, but maybe not that well as a kid. And, I developed in reading this a more favorable view of Paul Tagliabue and not that I had a bad opinion of him but I think just it's been so long since he's been the commissioner when he took over as the commissioner I was a kid I don't really think I was as as cognizant of how influential and In a positive way, but also, and I think what I like about what you write about a lot of figures is you don't just glorify them. You write about some things that maybe are a little bit more on the regrettable side. I'm curious, who is like the most misunderstood figure in the 40 years that you were covering the NFL that folks have maybe the wrong perception of?
00:50:00
Speaker 15: I think you brought him up tagliabue, but I've got to start by telling you that the commissioner who preceded him, Pete Rozelle, is known as the greatest commissioner in the history of sports. And I don't think that that's wrong necessarily, but I do think that some of Rozelle's weaknesses have really been glossed over. His last seven years were a debacle. He lorded over two player strikes and also a tremendous loss in a lawsuit against Al Davis that basically allowed teams to move almost at will. And so, you know, Pete Rozelle stayed too long at the party. But understand that when Paul Tagliabue took over, Pete Rozelle also, you know, when he was the commissioner of this game... Pete Roselle believed that, basically, absence makes the heart grow fonder. He wanted the NFL to disappear in the offseason. That first year I covered the NFL, 1984, there was one event in the offseason. It was the NFL draft. It started at 8 a.m. in New York City, and it ended after midnight in New York. They had all 12 rounds of that draft in one day. And that was it. After that, Roselle was content with making football disappear because what he thought was that everybody will come back and they will really be eager to embrace football this fall.
00:51:41
Speaker 7: And, of course, they were. But Tagliabue said, hang on a minute.
00:51:45
Speaker 15: I'm going to get people into football in the offseason. We're going to have some events in the offseason. The draft got a lot bigger. It became a multi-day event. Not only did the draft get bigger, but free agency, which was forced on the league by a judge in Minnesota named David Doty, it became in 1993 a huge news event. I covered the Reggie White stakes, which ended with him signing with Green Bay. And I will never forget how excited they were at Sports Illustrated that we were going to put the NFL on the cover in the offseason because NFL on newsstands at any time, always sold a lot more copies. So the business people at SI love that. And so we put Reggie White on the cover in the middle of March 1993 and sold a boatload of copies. And so it became a big deal. Tagliabue got the draft going. He got the scouting combine became more of a bigger deal. NFL Network was born. International football games began in 2005, all under Tagliabue. And then Goodell came along and he just, he went even crazier with the offseason to the point that in 2009, he had the special events department in the NFL create this thing called the calendar wheel.
00:53:13
Speaker 7: And I write about this in the book.
00:53:15
Speaker 15: Nobody's ever heard of it, but they wanted to make the NFL a year round event. That is why with, with tentpole events throughout the off season.
00:53:25
Speaker 7: So they did.
00:53:26
Speaker 15: And that is why in 1985, when Americans were asked, what's your favorite sport? Pro football edged baseball 24 to 23 percent. And when they were asked the year after I quit doing the job 2024, when they were asked the same question, football, you know, by a margin of four to one out distance baseball. That is because they made football a year round event.
00:53:56
Speaker 2: I think the part of the book that I enjoy the most, aside from you writing about the Bengals, is the oral history of how the Combine came to be. The event that it's turned into, where it was this closeted thing with a handful of teams gathering intel, and now it's one of those tentpole events. How would you describe your relationship with the game and the league right now?
00:54:20
Speaker 7: Oh, I love football.
00:54:21
Speaker 15: I watch Scott Hanson every Sunday afternoon for six and a half hours, like I'm sure a lot of people in America do. But I also see its warts. You know, the gambling aspect really, really bothers me. There's going to be more people in Gamblers Anonymous in five years than Alcoholics Anonymous. And not only that, but You know, how is the NFL going to feel down the road when it looks back and sees a generation, you know, thousands and thousands of.
00:54:53
Speaker 4: Young people, high school, college kids?
00:54:58
Speaker 15: Who use the NFL and gambling on the NFL as basically a gateway to spending too much of their life and too much of their money on gambling, which I'm sorry, you're just not going to win.
00:55:12
Speaker 7: I think that bothers me.
00:55:15
Speaker 15: What really bothers me the most probably is this insatiable appetite.
00:55:20
Speaker 7: For more and more and more. Stop expanding the schedule.
00:55:25
Speaker 15: You're asking players already players who are subject to too many head hits. You're asking them in 2021 when the schedule went to 17 regular season games per team. You're asking starters. to play 60 to 65 more snaps a year. Now, on top of that, in what year, 28, 29, whenever it happens, you're going to be asking players to have more, you know, even more snaps than that. And so that really bothers me. It's never enough for the NFL.
00:56:03
Speaker 7: You know, ever.
00:56:04
Speaker 15: And at some point after you get 18 games, you're going to have whoever the next Jerry Jones is in the league.
00:56:10
Speaker 7: Jerry's in his eighties.
00:56:11
Speaker 15: Now, whoever the next Jerry Jones is going to be thinking about the.
00:56:14
Speaker 7: 20 game schedule.
00:56:16
Speaker 10: Stop, stop.
00:56:18
Speaker 15: If you are serious about the health of your players, stop pushing them to do more.
00:56:25
Speaker 2: Who are the people that you miss covering and interacting with on.
00:56:29
Speaker 15: A probably number one is Andy Reed because Andy Reed, uh, who, who thought, uh, when he went to college, that if he had a choice, one choice in life, it was not going to be to be a coach.
00:56:46
Speaker 7: It was going to be to succeed.
00:56:49
Speaker 15: Paul Zimmerman is writing about the NFL for Sports Illustrated. And so over the years, he has really been a go-to guy and understands exactly what I love to do and what.
00:57:01
Speaker 7: I need to do, which is to get.
00:57:05
Speaker 15: To go down every rabbit, to go down the rabbit hole of every huge play in a Super Bowl or in a playoff game. And Andy Reid loved, loved it.
00:57:19
Speaker 16: One day, that's what he wanted to do. And he didn't end up doing it, but I think turned out... It worked out. Yeah. It.
00:57:33
Speaker 16: There's a bunch of players who, over the years, they got to know and who I miss. But, I mean, I miss Mahomes because I think it's easier to break in the NFL. It's kind of missed. Do we still have Peter?
00:57:50
Speaker 4: Is Peter still with us?
00:58:02
Speaker 2: I believe we had a spotty connection. Peter, you hear me okay?
00:58:09
Speaker 3: I try to reconnect.
00:58:10
Speaker 2: Peter King is going to be at Joseph Beth Booksellers on Saturday evening signing the game. He'll discuss it. Paul Docherty is going to be there. Starts at 7 o'clock. You can go to josephbeth.com and get more information on the event. It's not ticketed or anything, but you can RSVP. So again, go to josephbeth.com, Peter King. It is a wonderful read if you care at all about some of the inner workings of the NFL, some of the key figures over the last 40 years. I'm telling you, you will love this book. And heavy on the Bengals because of Peter's time covering the Cincinnati Bengals for the Inquirer. Peter, you back with me for another minute?
00:58:49
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm back.
00:58:50
Speaker 2: Sorry about that.
00:58:51
Speaker 3: I apologize.
00:58:51
Speaker 2: No problem. No problem. I wanted to go back to your time working for the Enquirer because we could talk about covering the Bengals. Because I'm a nerd, I have a newspapers.com account. And what I spend some of my free time doing is I read old newspapers. So I have seen your sports radio and TV. columns. I'm thankful you're not covering that beat here now because you would probably crush me. What was your favorite non-Cincinnati Bengal thing, game, event, or person to cover when you were at the Enquirer?
00:59:25
Speaker 15: You know.
00:59:27
Speaker 15: I got to say, even though I'm not the biggest boxing fan anymore, because, man, I set ringside at Aaron Pryor versus Alexis Arguello.
00:59:37
Speaker 7: And all I can say is that was.
00:59:43
Speaker 15: That was really blood sport at its best, so much so that Mark Purdy and I, the columnist, I know that I looked down at my pad at the end of that fight after sitting at ringside, and quite literally, there were nine splotches of blood on my reporter's notebook.
01:00:01
Speaker 7: I mean, it was a brutal, brutal thing.
01:00:03
Speaker 15: I miss covering boxing because I one time wrote a story that I didn't think was too bad, but Aaron Pryor thought it was not complimentary. Aaron Pryor stormed into the Inquirer offices on Vine Street at 8 o'clock in the morning, the morning that the paper came out. And he said, where's King? Where's King?
01:00:23
Speaker 7: And I'm happy.
01:00:24
Speaker 15: I was probably still asleep out in my home in Mount Washington, just off Beachmont Avenue.
01:00:30
Speaker 7: But Anyway, I.
01:00:34
Speaker 15: Saw him later in the day, and he had calmed down by then. But I love covering boxing because, man, that is the base of great sport because you can see everything. I went to Nicaragua to interview Alexis Arguello before the prior Arguello fight. It was so cool. But anyway, there were so many things. at the inquirer that you could do that just, you can't, you just can't do anymore. I mean, I went to Bloomington, Indiana to cover a, an Indiana Purdue basketball game in three hours before the game. I'm sitting there in his office with Bobby Knight, spending 45 minutes with him. I, you know, in those days, the Cincinnati inquirer was a big deal going around the Midwest and, Going up and doing games at Ohio State and going down and covering Dickie Beal as the point guard of the U.K.
01:01:37
Speaker 7: Basketball team.
01:01:39
Speaker 4: You know what?
01:01:39
Speaker 15: I'll never forget this one time. I covered the SEC basketball tournament. It was at Vanderbilt in Nashville. And I will never forget this. There was this enormous power forward team. For Auburn named Charles Barkley and Charles Barkley got, you know, he was subbed out sitting on the bench in the second half and Charles Barkley is there on the bench eating Google cluster candy bars.
01:02:09
Speaker 7: And I just said to myself, man, this is great.
01:02:12
Speaker 15: In college basketball, you've got.
01:02:14
Speaker 7: To eat in candy bars. It's unbelievable. But I don't know.
01:02:19
Speaker 15: I felt like that was so fantastic, those five years I spent in Cincinnati.
01:02:26
Speaker 7: Loved every minute of it.
01:02:28
Speaker 2: Uh, you could maybe, maybe that's your next book, you know, just write about, uh, your, your time here in town. Uh, you'll be here Saturday night, Joseph Beth, uh, seven o'clock Paul Doherty joining you. And, uh, it's going to be awesome. I can't thank you enough for doing this. I'll never forget the first time we got you on the show. I had my producer at the time, Lindsay Amble up to you at a Bengals training camp practice, uh, And I'm like, Linz, if you get him on, you'll be my hero, and you join me that afternoon. And I've never forgotten. So I can't thank you enough for doing that. Hey, no problem, Mo.
01:03:00
Speaker 7: Thanks for carrying on the mission, Mo. Really appreciate it.
01:03:04
Speaker 2: You got it. Peter King, the legendary Peter King. The name of the book is The Game. And I'm telling you, fantastic read. Saturday night, Joseph Beth, 7 p.m. Go see Peter King. Listen to him tell stories. You will not be sorry. We are way late, 26 after 4. We're broadcasting today from the transept downtown on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
01:03:28
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic.
01:03:32
Speaker 11: KY Cincinnati, an iHeartRadio station. Guaranteed human.
01:03:37
Speaker 3: ESPN 1530. iHeartRadio.
01:03:43
Speaker 17: This is Football in the Natty, brought to you by Belterra Casino and Belterra Park on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
01:03:56
Speaker 2: Football in the Natty seems to be a real, real distinct possibility. The Bengals could be without their top four wide receivers on Sunday. But hey, they'll figure out that whole under center thing in no time. I don't know why this is like advanced calculus for this coaching staff and this talent they have. With over 75 years of experience, including high attention to detail, service, and quality, there's nothing better than Delightmore. We are at one of the four Delightmore event venues around the city, soon to be a fifth, opening the Phoenix on Ray Street. We are at the Transept today. Don't forget, with Blink happening this weekend, the Charlie Harper Live exhibit at Mercantile Immersive is open to the public, but it is a ticketed event. Learn more at delightmore.com. And don't forget, Mercantile Immersive will have a Bengals Ravens watch party on October the 25th. Open to the public. Tickets available at delightmore.com. Delightmore.com, our sports legal expert on a handful of issues. Attorney Stewart W. Penrose, next.
01:04:56
Speaker 17: You've been listening to Football in the Natty, brought to you by Kingdom Built Exteriors on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
01:05:08
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic.
01:05:13
Speaker 9: From the UC home.
01:05:14
Speaker 13: ESPN 1530.
01:05:15
Speaker 2: Taryn, did you play that commercial intentionally? Since we're going to have our sports legal expert attorney, Stuart W. Penrose, on with us right now.
01:05:24
Speaker 9: I did not.
01:05:25
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I trust our guy, Stuart, more than I do that dude, the timeshare guy. Stuart is our sports legal expert. He's with the Manillo Law Group, and he joins us every single Tuesday to talk about sports legal issues. Hello, Stuart.
01:05:42
Speaker 5: Hey, Mo.
01:05:42
Speaker 2: How you doing, man? I am really well. I will be better as a UC basketball fan if MJ Collins is eligible to play for UC this year. Xavier fans feel the same way about Philip Borovitchin and they remain ineligible as a result of an Ohio First District Court of Appeals ruling on October the 2nd. I know obviously not the first time we've talked about these two players, but like what's next for them?
01:06:11
Speaker 18: Well, I mean, I'm a UC season ticket holder as well, Mo. I'd love to see him out there. I think the team would be a lot better if he's eligible. But don't hold your breath. You know, this ruling feels like they might be out of runway. As I said, things change all the time in terms of eligibility. But, you know, this could be the final nail in the coffin. You know, unless we get some higher court that has some, you know, some different ruling that could come in at the last minute, You know, they're not out of court necessarily here in Hamilton County. The case has not been ruled on the merits, but they're about out of calendar here. You know, the preseason starts tomorrow. I believe you're working that game tomorrow at the tennis center, which is going to be an awesome setup.
01:06:55
Speaker 10: And the regular season starts.
01:06:56
Speaker 4: In a month.
01:06:57
Speaker 18: So, you know, court cases don't resolve quickly. And, you know, they're not giving them an injunction here. That's pretty clear.
01:07:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's unfortunate from a basketball perspective. Speaking of basketball, so I was curious as to your take on this. So the Portland Trailblazers hired a new TV announcer. And then on the same day, they fired their new TV announcer because a local television station unearthed some derogatory tweets from this guy from when he was like 14, 15 years old. Now, the tweets are derogatory. He is owned up to them. Um, but I, I have questions like he has retained counsel. He wants his job back. What can he do legally to get it back?
01:07:43
Speaker 7: Well, it's hard to say.
01:07:44
Speaker 18: We don't know enough to say, um, you know, he certainly can sue the trailblazers, uh, being able to sue and being able to win are two very different things. Oregon is not a right-to-work state. It's an at-will employment state, which means that, barring a few exceptions, you can be fired essentially at any time for any reason. People are fired fairly and unfairly every day, Mo. Just because something is highly unfair doesn't necessarily mean it's illegal. If he has a contract and there are some contract provisions that say that he can't be sued, can't be fired for certain things, perhaps there could be a breach of contract action. Otherwise, it seems like it's a situation that is.
01:08:28
Speaker 4: Deeply unfair.
01:08:29
Speaker 18: You know, it's not the first time I've seen old tweets from someone's childhood or teen years or whatever put out there.
01:08:38
Speaker 4: To get them fired.
01:08:39
Speaker 18: It seems deeply unfair and ridiculous to hold an adult to something that happened when they were a kid, much less something that wasn't criminal conduct. It's not necessarily illegal.
01:08:50
Speaker 7: And that's what we're looking at here.
01:08:53
Speaker 2: And look, I grew up before social media, and I'm thankful for that, but it just, it feels like if we're going to go zero tolerance on, on a, a child's internet history, not an adult, but at the time the tweets in question were when this guy was a child, that just feels like it, it sets a dangerous workplace precedent.
01:09:15
Speaker 8: No.
01:09:17
Speaker 18: It absolutely is. I don't know if it necessarily creates any sort of legal precedent here, but it doesn't meet the smell test. It's ridiculous that you have folks that dig into people's Internet histories just to get them fired or dox them or ruin something of their lives. But that is prevalent these days. And, you know, everybody, I don't care who you are, you got to be careful what you put out there on the Internet and what might be lingering out there on the Internet. you know, this could happen to anybody, Mo. And there's not always going to be a law that protects you there, even if it's deeply unfair.
01:09:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad the first time I ever saw the internet, I was in college. That's probably better for me. All right, one more. You and I have talked about prediction markets, which aren't, you know, there's a lot of states that don't allow for, you know, traditional, for lack of a better way of putting it, legalized sports gambling and prediction markets, which are Not regulated as closely, prevalent everywhere. They found loopholes in states where sports wagering is illegal. The Ohio Casino Control Commission, though, has sent 10 cease and desist letters to prediction markets. It says, are illegally offering, facilitating, or participating in sports event contracts in the state. So from a legal perspective, how... How can a platform like Polymarket, for instance, claim it is a legitimate financial market when the underlying asset is a sporting event, a football game or a basketball game?
01:10:50
Speaker 18: Because certain federal courts have allowed them to do so.
01:10:52
Speaker 7: It's as simple as that.
01:10:53
Speaker 18: You know, you just had the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled with Ohio and Tennessee that, you know, It is not– their event contracts don't fall under federal jurisdiction or the Commodities Future Trading Commission. But you have different circuits that have rules completely differently, Mo. So you're stuck with this quagmire with it. So, you know, this is another thing that, you know, you look at it and say– This is nothing but sports gambling, just with a different term in front of it to get around state gaming laws. And, you know, common sense would tell you that, but some courts have allowed it. So this appears like it's going to have to, you know, for the Supreme Court. And how can it not?
01:11:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was glad you answered my next question was going to be, am I going to be reading about this? You know, this this case being heard by the Supreme Court, it feels like that's inevitable.
01:11:46
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
01:11:47
Speaker 18: I mean, you have several federal circuit courts that have completely contradictory rulings on the same thing. This is exactly the type of issue that the Supreme Court would review, and it's going to get a lot of notoriety as well, and that's only going to ramp up. The Supreme Court absolutely would want to hear a case like this.
01:12:08
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you're going to see this.
01:12:10
Speaker 2: If I need a judge to hear a case like mine, not that I have one yet, how do I get a hold of you?
01:12:17
Speaker 18: Well, I'm not a judge of anybody's case. I haven't run for judge yet. I don't plan on it anytime soon. But if you're in an auto accident, Mo, anybody who's in any sort of auto accident to the fault of another, I want you to give us a call at the Manila Law Group at 513-723-1600. Mo, I'm seeing a lot of these commercial trucking accidents, you know, come through my desk these days. People getting in accidents with 18-wheelers, really catastrophic cases with that. We're seeing a lot of that. Um, these days we've had a lot of success helping people with those. So if there's anybody out there that's in one of those situations, give me a call. I can help you with that. 5 1 3 7 2 3 1600. The Manila law group.
01:12:57
Speaker 2: Uh, awesome stuff as always. We will, uh, talk next week.
01:13:02
Speaker 10: Thank you both.
01:13:03
Speaker 2: You're the best. That's our sports legal expert attorney, Stuart W. Penrose from the Manila law group quarter to five ESPN, 1530. You know what that means? We are guest-free the rest of the way. We have been loaded today. Awesome stuff from Peter King. Terrific stuff, as always, from Stuart W. Penrose. A top-notch first hour with our friend Paul Daner Jr. But now it's a chance for you and I to have a conversation about whatever's on our mind in the fun world of sports. That's maybe the most cliché thing I've ever said on this show. 513. I'm thrown at the phone number, and the idea is you're supposed to say something to get people to react to. I haven't done that, but hell, phone number's 513- 749-1530. We are broadcasting from the transept, which is on the corner of Elm and 12th. I believe this is 12th Street. I should know. I used to live right off the street. Right across from Washington Park and just up the street from TQL Stadium. Just up the street from two houses I used to live in. An awesome venue. I remember when this was the vestry. It's now the transept and If you're thinking about throwing a big event, big party, a wedding, if you're getting married, if you're stuck paying for somebody's wedding, any sort of big corporate event, holiday parties are coming up here pretty soon. Check this place out. Learn more at delightmore.com. That's delightmore.com. 13 away from 5 o'clock. I'm Mo Egger. Glad you are with us today. This is ESPN 1530, Cincinnati's sports station.
01:14:37
Speaker 13: ESPN 1530.
01:14:41
Speaker 5: From the UCHealth Traffic Center, a mammogram takes 15 minutes and could save your life. Schedule yours with UCHealth's Breast Imaging Experts at 513-584-PINK. There is still an accident eastbound on Tucson.
01:14:57
Speaker 2: Braves game three in Atlanta. Chris Sale and Yoshi Yamamoto on the hill. Then the Brewers trying to close out the Padres. Series shifts to San Diego. with Dustin May and Nick Pavetta on the hill. Looking forward to that. A few minutes here before the top of the hour. I don't know. I'm still in. The weather's nice, and the Reds stopped playing a week and a half ago, so my piece of paper I jotted down. I always jot down MT, which means Marty and Tracy. Brenneman and Jones on baseball is not on this time of year. So instead, we'll one-up that. We'll talk to Jim. Jim, you're on ESPN 1530. Good afternoon, Jim. How are you?
01:15:38
Speaker 19: Yeah, I've got a problem for across the middle. Bring back David Fulcher, have him knock the snot out of a few people and just reestablish the middle because the Bengals have nobody in the middle.
01:15:52
Speaker 5: No.
01:15:53
Speaker 2: And it was painfully, I mean, I don't know that David Fulcher at his advanced age is going to be the answer, but it was painfully obvious looking at the Jacksonville Jaguars and how they how they played, what they tried to do. They didn't target DJ Turner. They didn't target Dax Hill. They targeted the linebackers, and they targeted the safeties. Now, maybe that changes a little if Brian Cook is available, but Jordan Battle's a starter. He played. Demetrius Knight's a starter. He played. Barrett Carter's a starter. He played. And the Jacksonville Jaguars attacked the middle of the field, which is where those guys are going to be.
01:16:31
Speaker 4: If they don't stop the middle, they play somebody like Kansas City, they'll get killed.
01:16:35
Speaker 2: Well, they will play Kansas City in December, and Travis Kelsey is playing like he did three or four years ago. It's remarkable if you look at this, and I'd have to add Brenton Strange's numbers to it, but coming into this game, tight ends had caught 20 passes for something approaching like 280 or 290 yards. I had the exact figure on Sunday morning. This team can't figure out a way to cover a tight end, and... you know, there's a lot of teams that they have on their schedule. The Miami Dolphins are not one of them who have good outside threats, and the Jacksonville Jaguars do, but can beat you with their tight end. It's been years since it has felt like the Bengals had any solution to an even halfway decent tight end.
01:17:23
Speaker 4: I agree totally. Thanks for taking my call.
01:17:25
Speaker 2: Jim, thank you. I appreciate you chiming in. And like, I've heard folks say, well, you know, you kind of give the defense a little bit of a pass for the way the game unfolded. Everybody was complicit in the team's demise. Certainly what leapt off the page to me when it came to that game on Sunday was the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of the offense and the fact that the offense had the football less than two minutes to go with a chance to go take the lead, excuse me, and they didn't do it. But The tackling was bad. The coverage in the middle of the field wasn't very good. The run defense left a lot to be desired. And I think this team over the course of the entire season, if they have normal health, I think they'll have an okay defense. I do think a lot of us, and I said us, so I include me, we're a little guilty of making this defense out to be probably better than it's going to be this year. They are better top to bottom. They have Dexter Lawrence. They have Jonathan Allen. I think those guys just by themselves make this defense more difficult. And yeah, man, they're dealing with injuries in the secondary. But there has been something striking about how they've played. and how they've tackled because it has looked and felt a lot like the previous two years. We'll see. Look, they're playing an offense on Sunday that is putrid. The Malik Willis thing is not working out in Miami. They have maybe the most anonymous group of skilled players in the league. if the Dolphins have any chance on Sunday, it's going to be because their defense gives them an opportunity, but they haven't scored more than 13 points in a game this season. I still want to know against good offenses, and I think the Jags have a good offense, can this team win a football game for them? Now, look, the Buccaneers are 0-4, the Texans are 0-4.
01:19:31
Speaker 3: And we did.
01:19:32
Speaker 2: You can credit the defense for playing well in those two games, but I want to see how they do. We'll see if Lamar Jackson plays in that game in a few weeks. I'm guessing he won't see how they do against Baltimore Ravens. I want to see if they can win a game against a really good team. And I felt like as much as you could say, well, the defense played winning football on Sunday. Frankly, I thought the Jags got in their own way more than the Bengals did. They had two touchdowns called back. They had a play at the end of the game called back that would have sealed it. Like, The defense doesn't get passing marks for that game. And again, it feels like they're still really easy to game plan against because they have deficiencies in the middle and they're not as difficult to play because they don't tackle well. Pike talked about this on yesterday's show. The striking difference between how the Jacksonville Jaguars tackled and how the Bengals tackled was something that it was very sobering to watch in real time and it's sobering to think about After the fact, we're way late, four minutes away from five o'clock. We're broadcasting on a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon here in downtown Cincinnati at the transept. My name is Mo Eggert. We'll talk about the new Coke offense and Zach Taylor getting an F on a project he's had eight months to work on next on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. Hey.
01:20:53
Speaker 13: And 1530.
01:20:56
Speaker 2: This is us.
01:20:57
Speaker 8: I'm Mo Egger.
01:20:57
Speaker 2: This is ESPN 1530. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you're having an unbelievable Tuesday afternoon. We are in an unbelievable place, the transept, downtown Cincinnati, OTR, Elm Street, down pretty much right next door to Music Hall, right across from Washington Park, great part of town. And a wonderful event, or wonderful venue if you're hosting an event. Or if you're attending an event, if somebody invites you to come to an event here at the transept, say yes. This is a beautiful facility. It's run by the folks at Delightmore. They have a whole set of venues around town, including the one that's going to open up in 2027 on Ray Street, the Phoenix, refurbishing that place. The transept here is unbelievable. The folks at Delightmore are getting ready for Blink this weekend. There is the Charlie Harper live exhibit on Saturday. That's a ticketed event. Get more information at delightmore.com. It's a free event, but you got to have tickets. Also, they're going to have a Bengals Ravens watch party for the game on the 25th. So you can learn about that. That's at the Mercantile Immersive. We've done the show from there as well. Learn more about all of these venues, including the one we're at today at delightmore.com. We have folks waiting on hold. We're going to get to them. We've been pretty heavy on the Bengals today. I say this, and I'll preface this by just, if you've listened to my show over the last seven-plus seasons, I think among my many, many, many weaknesses and faults, I think, though, that one thing you could say about me is I'm fair when it comes to criticism of Zach Taylor um there are times he clearly deserves heat he's an nfl head coach his team hasn't done enough winning he's missed the postseason in five of his seven seasons even in years where the bangles were very good there were coaching decisions that we scrutinized but i think at least on this show he's given a fair shake and i've gone out of my way to point to things that I think Zach has done really well, where his fingerprints have been on the Bengals' successes. So I try not to defer to the team is losing, the coach is at fault, let's fire him. That said, Zach Taylor had nine months to work on a project. You ever have one of those like in college or maybe high school, a semester project where It's not do it overnight. It's not have it in by the end of the week. It's have it in by the end of the quarter or by the end of the semester or maybe the term, whatever it is. And you've got all this time to work on it. Zach Taylor's had months to work on making the Bengals better under center. Is he doing that with a brand new quarterback?
01:24:06
Speaker 4: No.
01:24:07
Speaker 2: Is he doing that with a brand new offensive line? No.
01:24:11
Speaker 3: No.
01:24:13
Speaker 2: Is he doing that with new running backs? No. New tight ends? Eric Aul is new-ish, I guess, because he didn't play last year, but not really. Anybody new on offense? Anybody knew that they would, you know, that would be a hindrance to them figuring out a way to operate under center? So he's had months to work on this project. come up with a way to work more effectively and efficiently with the quarterback taking the snap from under center. Run the ball more effectively, use play action, find more explosives. Nobody expected the Bengals to, like, set the world on fire under center, although more explosiveness with what they already do well should equal a really prolific, really productive, and for what it's worth, highly ranked offense. We seeing any of that? It looks clunky. It looks disjointed. It looks uneven. It looks like something they shouldn't do. By the way, we talk about like the Bengals operating under center, like it's this new, just mysterious way of playing offense. I mean, the National Football League is 107 years old. I would be willing to bet. that the overwhelming majority of snaps taken by NFL quarterbacks in NFL offenses in the last 107 years have been taken with the quarterback under center. We talk about this like it's something brand new, like it's this advanced calculus that you need like a PhD to understand. We talk about the Bengals running under center like, oh my God, if they can unlock this mystery, the key to never losing a football game is going to be revealed. It's putting the quarterback under center. I know I'm making it sound easier than it is. Why can't they do this? Now, is it just one reason? When you have a team sport with 11 guys on the field and the complexities that go into every single play, there's rarely one thing at fault when things go wrong. But like with Zach Taylor, you know, we talk about the Bengals roster. Zach, get whatever amount of blame you want to throw at him for roster deficiencies. Not really. I mean, Duke Tobin, front office. Any issues with the defense? Do we point the finger at Zach Taylor? Nah, not really. I mean, he's on the offensive side of the ball. That's where his discipline is. How about like any mistakes they've made in the draft? No, no, not so much. But on offense, when it comes to something like this, rehabbing your offense, refurbishing your offense, that's on you, Zach. So I have a hard time not squarely pointing the finger at the head coach of the team when he's had a lot of continuity on the offensive side of the ball, when he's an offensive coach, when that's his background, when it is as bad as it's been, when it is as clunky as it's been. That's on Zach, man. And I say this as the guy who tries not to default to or defer to, let's blame the head coach when things go wrong. Let's blame Zach Taylor when things go wrong. You've had eight months to work at this. And there's other parts of your job. I get it. But you've had eight months as the play caller. as the head coach with an offensive background, to find a way to play offense in a way that is not clunky, disjointed, or unproductive. And he has failed. I'm sure you might be listening and, hey, raise your hand. Let's put it on Joe Burrow. He's got to be better turning his back to the defense. And the offensive line isn't blocking as effectively or as efficiently as it should, and so blame those guys. Fine, but, like, this– doesn't look well coached. This doesn't look well organized. And statistically, it's incredibly nonproductive. Zach, this was your term project. This was your semester project. You've had months to work at this. This is what it looks like? You get an F. And it doesn't mean that it can't get better. I'm sure if they keep practicing playing under center, it will get better.
01:28:57
Speaker 15: But, oh, boy.
01:28:59
Speaker 2: For all the talk of under center, I compared it to New Coke. You've got the quarterback of the team basically saying, like, screw that. Let's just throw the football. Let's just heave it. Let's throw it 54 times, drop back 58 times. He wants to throw it more. It's New Coke. A lot of hype, a lot of chatter, a lot of talk. And New Coke, they, like, stopped selling it after 10 weeks. It feels like after four weeks, it might make sense to go, okay, that was fun to experiment with. Screw it. Let's put Joe in the shotgun and have him do what he does well. Like, Zach, what did you do for the last eight months? Am I overly simplifying this? Maybe I am.
01:29:39
Speaker 3: I don't know, dude.
01:29:42
Speaker 2: Like, Zach, your discipline is on offense. You're the play caller of the offense. Al's going to have new pieces to work with. Duke's going to have a lot to do with the roster. Can you find a way to get more out of this offense, more explosives? And by the way, do it with the same dudes you were coaching last year. Oh, no, man. The results should be better than what they are. Instead, it's the new Coke offense. Lot of hype. Lot of hype. Lot of chatter. And after a couple of weeks, it feels like it's maybe something they should get rid of. Quarter after five. 513-749-1530 is our number.
01:30:19
Speaker 3: 866-702-3776.
01:30:19
Speaker 2: We're broadcasting from the transept. OTR, downtown Cincinnati, on Elm Street, across from Washington Park, right by Music Hall. Beautiful venue. We'll take your phone calls. Next, ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
01:30:41
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01:30:45
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01:30:48
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01:31:00
Speaker 2: 21 minutes after five o'clock this is espn 1530 broadcasting from the transept on elm street otr learn more at delightmore.com we got folks waiting on hold Let's talk to.
01:31:17
Speaker 10: Him.
01:31:18
Speaker 2: Pat, you're on ESPN 1530. Go ahead, Pat.
01:31:20
Speaker 3: How are you?
01:31:22
Speaker 4: Mo, well, with your previous soliloquy about Mr. Taylor, that just aggravated me even further because his results are, let's see, under.
01:31:34
Speaker 3: 500 as a coach.
01:31:35
Speaker 4: And if he's an offensive mind, why is his offense so offensive? So.
01:31:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, it's one of, I think, the more fair questions that has been asked over the years for all of their talent, and I think they have often had really good talent, even acknowledging that offensive line play has been an issue. Number one, statistically, they've never been among the absolute upper crust in the league in offensive production. Number two, there's also been these long lulls offensively where they just spin their tires, and You know, everybody loves the quarterback, understandably so. Everybody loves the skill guys, understandably so. Then why do they have these, like, protracted offensive issues? And at some point, like, the answer becomes the person in charge of the offense and the person in charge of calling the plays, and that's Zach Taylor.
01:32:27
Speaker 4: And unfortunately, Zach wants to play checkers in a league where everybody else is playing chess. And with you saying he had all these months to come up with something, well, then use the tight ends more. Make Burrow throw across the middle. Take four-yard gain. Don't try for that 12. The 12 is glorious. The 20 is glorious. The 50 is great. But you're going to move the ball down the field four or five yards at a time. The old dink and donk, as Jack Lambert used to call the Bengal offense, and you control the game and you keep the ball from the other team and your defense stays rested. And that's the part that Burrow has to understand, as good as he is, Take the shorter stuff and let your guys pound on the other team's people in the middle, and eventually you're going to wear them down mentally and physically, and you're going to do better. That's the part that just, Mr. Taylor, you're not doing the right thing.
01:33:23
Speaker 2: You know what I would like to see is, if you've watched the Bengals over the last couple of years, that actually has been kind of what they've been good at. It is go in the shotgun and throw seven or eight yards passes. I think, and Tony pointed this out to me yesterday, the thing that I think is frustrating is when they throw short, guys are always immediately hit. This is easy to look up, and maybe I'll do it tonight. I would be willing to bet the Bengals haven't piled up a lot of yards after the catch in recent years because it feels like every time somebody catches a football, there's a guy draped all over them. like they're, they're, it feels like they don't do a good enough job of scheming guys to get open. Now, at the end of the day, it's up to individual dudes to win one-on-one battles, but especially in the middle of the field, you never, you rarely, it feels like you rarely see a catch and then a guy takes off because there's no one near him or that you get a guy operating in space. It feels like everything is, is tight. Is some of that on the players? Of course it is, but it, I watch other offenses, and especially in the middle of the field, they can get guys in space, and here that seems like a foreign concept. And why is.
01:34:30
Speaker 4: It that Travis Kelsey.
01:34:33
Speaker 4: Always seems to be open in the middle of the field somewhere because he understands where to go to catch the ball to where he's not going to have somebody immediately on top of him. And that, I think, is a little bit of a byproduct of the fact he was a quarterback. But he's got a guy named Andy Reid and his staff teaching him what to do, when to do it. And we don't seem to have that ability with our guys. And they're not stupid. They're good players, but I think they need to be coached better.
01:35:02
Speaker 2: You mentioned something else. You talk about how great Travis Kelsey has been. It's when everybody knows he's going to get the ball, he still gets it. And yet, with the Bengals, it feels like if the other team decides we're taking away Jamar Chase, the Bengals collectively shrug their shoulders and go, okay. It feels often Over the past eight years that we have talked a lot about how Cincinnati's offense allows the defense to dictate how they're going to play. And when I watch some of the better teams in the NFL, I don't feel that way. Yeah.
01:35:40
Speaker 4: And if you want to be a better team, you've got to improve. And when you don't improve and you spin your wheels the same way year in, year out, it's time for change.
01:35:48
Speaker 11: Yeah.
01:35:49
Speaker 2: Well, I think those conversations will be amplified among folks like you and I if they drop this one on Sunday.
01:35:57
Speaker 4: I just, you have certain weapons, use your weapons, but don't make it so obvious that you're what you're going to do every time. And I think that's one of the things there's too much predictability. And then at the end of the day, when you have guys that aren't really suited to do certain things, too cute. My word is too cute. Don't be cute. Be basic. make it work. I mean, because like you said, he had plenty of time to plan, and if you didn't plan correctly, then obviously you do not have the ability to do it right. And when you can't do it right, you've got to change.
01:36:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just, I mean, I appreciate the phone call, Pat. Thanks so much. I am not a gratuitous basher of Zach Taylor, but I don't know, man. Like, this offseason, does Zach have a say in roster construction? Yes, but Hey, this offseason, we want to fundamentally change how we play on offense so that we have multiple identities. We still want to have the ability to put Joe in the gun, let him diagnose, and pick defenses apart. We still want to be able to do that. He's good at that.
01:37:05
Speaker 16: Fine.
01:37:05
Speaker 2: Awesome. But we want to be able to operate with him playing under center. Okay. That doesn't seem like that should be that difficult. With the continuity, with the experience, a quarterback in his seventh NFL season, chase brown is his fourth nfl year there's some younger dudes on the offensive line but dalton riser's been around forever orlando brown's been around forever i mean like this this should not be that hard and i think we were all expecting some growing pains we were all expecting there to be you know some moments where the fact that this is still a new way of playing for them and is going to catch up to him. But for it to be as bad as it's been, for it to look the way it has, like, Zach, this was your project. This was the project you had to spend all offseason working on, all training camp working on. Make them be able to play better with the quarterback under center. And he had been able to do that. That, to me, reflects on coaching. 28 minutes after 5 o'clock. More of your phone calls are coming up. We also had UC answering a question I didn't like the answer on Saturday night. And Joe Burrow going off-brand as well. Sports headlines coming up to ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
01:38:29
Speaker 17: You've been listening to Football in the Natty on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
01:38:39
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530.
01:38:42
Speaker 9: Traffic from the uc health traffic center.
01:38:45
Speaker 14: Espn 1530 cincinnati sports station.
01:38:49
Speaker 2: Headlines are a service to kelsey chevrolet home of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours for life kelseychev.com off day for the bangles coaches hard at work trying to figure out a way to make the the offense work with the quarterback taking the snap from directly under center real real real sort of high level calculus stuff Bengals and Dolphins in Miami Sunday at 1. The game live on ESPN 1530 pregame starts at 9 a.m. Joe Mixon is apparently not going to sign with the Seattle Seahawks after his physical. He did not play last season. He obviously spent the 2024 season with the Houston Texans, was put on IR by them before the season started last year. Baseball tonight, National League Division Series Game 3 in Atlanta. yoshi yamamoto chris sale on the hill that game starts at six series tied at a game of peace brewers move to uh san diego to take on the padres in game three looking to close out the series behind dustin may he'll be opposed by nick pivetta that game starts at 9 30 tonight and the cincinnati cyclones have started uh their training camp getting closer to the echl season and um I think that's all I got. That's all I got. By the way, the official new hockey team of the Mo Eggers show is in action tonight. The Nashville Predators skating at Toronto. I talked about the fact that I've adopted a new NHL team because I broke up with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The runner-up in my search was the Toronto Maple Leafs. So I think that'll be motivating Toronto tonight. Tough road game for my mighty Preds.
01:40:33
Speaker 16: 1-1-0.
01:40:36
Speaker 2: In their first two games of the season. 25 from 6, Don, you're on ESPN 1530. Don, good afternoon. How are you?
01:40:46
Speaker 13: I'm good, Mo.
01:40:48
Speaker 8: First and foremost, your interview with Peter.
01:40:51
Speaker 7: King was amazing.
01:40:54
Speaker 2: Thank you. Kind of you to say.
01:40:57
Speaker 8: Great job, and love to hear from him and the national perspective and all that kind of fun stuff.
01:41:05
Speaker 2: His book is awesome. I appreciate you saying that.
01:41:10
Speaker 8: Looking at the Bengals running game and under center and all that kind of fun stuff, yeah, we can talk about Zach Taylor and what he's done or what he's called, but.
01:41:23
Speaker 13: Didn't this all.
01:41:24
Speaker 8: Spring from last year when Joe Flacco came in and was so successful under center and how our running game thrived The question is, what are we doing differently and why is it not successful now when it was so successful back then? Is it play calling? Is it strategy? Or is it commitment?
01:41:53
Speaker 2: Or is it the quarterback? That's a fair question. That's a fair question. Why haven't they been able to mesh and for lack of a better word to use, combine the way Joe Burrow wants to play with the way that they have played when they've had, you know, go back to 2023 when Jake Browning managed the offense pretty effectively and then Joe Flacco last year. Why haven't they been able to blend those two things? Is Joe Burrow complicit in that not working? Maybe. But at the end of the day, it strikes me as like, this is something that This should have been the central objective for this head coach this offseason with all the personnel coming back, with a starting quarterback who had a front row seat for how Joe Flacco ran the offense last year. For what it's worth, with Joe Flacco still on the team, why does this look the way it does? And why do you have the starting quarterback of the team sounding like he's kind of ready to move on and go back to playing the way they used to play when he had at least statistical success?
01:42:57
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's hard to blame Joe on that kind of stuff. I want to know what our personnel was and the alternative play calls and motion and things like that.
01:43:13
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, there's a lot that we don't know. But I started with the head coach. This was your baby this offseason. We're going to give you the same group of guys. We're going to give you the quarterback who ran the offense well under center last year. He's here for whatever amount of resourcefulness he can provide. You have the same offensive line. You still have a good running back. Your quarterback is back. This is what we're going to spend the entire offseason working on. And again, you allow for hiccups and growing pains, but it looks like, frankly, it looks like they've never practiced being under center before. And I know they did for a fact because I watched them do it. Why doesn't it work?
01:43:54
Speaker 8: Let's hope with the bye week that they go back to those days when Flacco was so successful and learn from those play calls. and see what they're doing differently.
01:44:05
Speaker 2: Hope so. Don, I appreciate the phone call and the nice words about the Peter King interview. Yeah, I don't know. Now, I'll tell you, and I went down this road with Daner before. Bengals are a seven-point favorite against the Miami Dolphins who look like the sort of team that could be the last to win. I'm not going to go as far as say they're going to finish without a victory because while that has happened, it's going to take a lot. But I don't know, man. You've lost two straight. You have a bye at the end of this game. If you lose, you're two and three. It's recoverable. But if the theme of the season, all offseason was urgency, winning now, throwing some caution to the wind for the future, you lose to the Dolphins to fall to two and three. You've got a bye following that game. Then you come back and play a division opponent on the road. I don't think the Bengals would fire Zach Taylor. I do think that that's exactly what the conversation is going to be on Monday if they don't win this football game. 20 from 6. Mike, go ahead. You're on ESPN 1530.
01:45:15
Speaker 13: Thank you, Mo.
01:45:19
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
01:45:19
Speaker 10: That was a very good interview with Peter King.
01:45:23
Speaker 2: Very nice. Thank you. An interview is only good if the subject's good and he's great.
01:45:30
Speaker 10: Well, I've seen you turn some chopped liver into pretty good interviews, so don't discount your abilities, young man.
01:45:36
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
01:45:37
Speaker 4: Because you are the dog.
01:45:41
Speaker 10: Well, I can't do the football thing right now, brother, but I'm torn. I'm torn between my two favorite times of the year. March Madness with baseball starting. And the baseball playoffs with football rolling, it's a tough toss. But I got to go March Madness if I had to pick.
01:46:03
Speaker 2: Likewise, but I think the month of October is a close second. I think there's nothing better than March because I love, you know, I'm a big, like, hey, the weather's starting to turn guy, right? So I like that. I love college basketball. I love the tournament. I love champ week. I love the dash to get into the tournament. I love all that stuff. Then you combine it with spring training is underway. Baseball is about to get here. There's a lot of NFL news with free agency. The NBA is coming down the stretch. March is my favorite. But October, when you have the overlap of Major League Baseball, the NFL, college football, the NBA starts on October the 20th. The NHL is underway. The college football season, we're now into conference games. The playoff field is starting to take shape at least a little bit. There's so much stuff going on. October is a very close second as far as I'm concerned to March.
01:47:04
Speaker 7: I'm with you.
01:47:05
Speaker 10: I'm watching the game, one of the playoff games the other night, and I almost went back to my childhood. And here's why. It's that time of the year. You know it's playoff baseball when the shadows are coming in earlier.
01:47:17
Speaker 4: In the game than they were.
01:47:18
Speaker 10: That's how much of a junkie I am. And I have a sentimental attachment to that. I really, truly do. Because, man, this playoff baseball this year, Mo, has been exceedingly exciting. Very good.
01:47:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, games have been good. The scenes in Milwaukee for the first two games have been unbelievable. Tons of drama in that game, too. Tons of drama, I think, in both. Now, the Braves made a late comeback, which made, I'm sure you as a Dodgers fan, a little bit nervous in the ninth inning of game one. I thought the game on Sunday night was terrific. It's fun watching the Tampa Bay Rays play. It's fun watching people watch them for the first time. Yeah, I'm... The scenes in San Diego for the home playoff games against the Cubs, those games weren't really good. They were blowout games, but the park looked awesome. The scenes looked awesome. I'm with you. I'm not old enough to remember when World Series games were played during the day, although I do remember the last one in 85. 84, I'm sorry, in 87, which was Twins Cardinals. I think game six was played at least in the late afternoon. But there is still something really cool, and I know a lot of fans don't like this, about during the week when there's high stakes baseball being played during the day. I love that. I do, too.
01:48:38
Speaker 10: My favorite World Series game of all time, Mickey Lowich, the Detroit Tigers. Mickey was a pot-bellied left-hander, but he was a stud against Bob Gibson for the Cardinals, and Gibson struck out 18 Tigers in that World Series game.
01:48:52
Speaker 7: Unbelievable.
01:48:53
Speaker 10: But this Tampa Bay team, Mo, they're no joke now.
01:48:57
Speaker 19: They are no joke.
01:48:59
Speaker 10: And they'll beat you every way possible. That's why I love them. They'll play small ball.
01:49:04
Speaker 4: They'll hit the deep ball. They've got the pitching's great. They've got the best closer in baseball. They're an exciting team. They're going to close the Yankees out. But, you know, I was looking real quick at the.
01:49:16
Speaker 10: The Padres now, they're down two games to none, but they're 21 games over 500 at home. And the Guardians are down two games to none, but they were 500 at home but seven games over on the road. So we still might have some baseball left.
01:49:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think San Diego is going to have something to say about that series. The Guardians just don't hit. They have seven hits in two games. Offensively, they were feeble all season long. They won in spite of what they don't do on offense. I have a hard time believing, and by the way, the White Sox offensively have been something to watch in the postseason as a whole. I don't know how they score enough to bounce back from down 0-2. I think San Diego can. My money is still going to be on Milwaukee just because of having the 2-0 lead, having Game 5 in their own building, the pitching they can throw at San Diego. I do think the Padres are going to have something to say about how that series ends. I It wouldn't stun me to see the Yankees win a game or two at home and make it a series. I would be floored if the Guardians found a way to score enough runs with the way the White Sox are swinging the bats. It would be surprising to me to see the Guardians score enough runs to even get that series to a fifth game, much less complete the comeback.
01:50:34
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm with you. The one thing about the Yankees was that, I bet Aaron Boone wanted to crawl under a rock. Have you ever seen such a dismal, oh my God, Mo, that was horrendous.
01:50:46
Speaker 11: Wasn't it?
01:50:46
Speaker 2: It was horrendous.
01:50:48
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah. I never saw anything that bad.
01:50:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, they've been outclassed. They've been outclassed by the moves that Kevin Cash has made. They've been outclassed by Tampa Bay's pitching. And as you alluded to, the small ball, the ability to find ways to score runs That don't involve the homer.
01:51:06
Speaker 10: They're like the Reds a few years ago. They put pressure on you all the time. Remember when the guys were fresh a couple years ago? Man, they drove teams crazy with their speed and their daring base running.
01:51:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the fun thing about the Reds in 2023 when they had guys on base. It put the opposing defense on edge. And with the Rays, they can steal bases, but they're great at getting on base. And, like, you know, that to me, if you look at the teams in the postseason, Milwaukee led the entire sport in on-base percentage. L.A. number three in on-base percentage. Tampa Bay number five in on-base percentage. The White Sox were a top ten team in on-base percentage. The Cubs, who obviously petered out early, number two in on-base percentage. Like, yeah, you want to hit home runs? Look, man, I think home runs are actually sort of underrated. But as much as a lot of folks don't like hearing people talk about on-base percentage, when you have a lot of guys who can get on base and then a lot of guys who once they get on base can run, boy, you can do a lot of really cool things. And by the way, they've got a guy in Caminero who hits the ball out of the ballpark a bunch. So they're kind of perfectly built, right? They've got a guy who can mash. They've got guys who can run. And they've got a lot of guys who are good at getting on.
01:52:27
Speaker 10: The rest of the game should be fun. I'm just excited. I wanted to share that with you, my friend, and have a good night. Thanks for the time, Mo.
01:52:34
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. Yeah, the Rays win 1-0 on the Rasmussen outing where he took a no-hitter into the eighth and then went again game two. So game three tomorrow evening. Mike, thank you very much.
01:52:48
Speaker 14: Thanks, pal.
01:52:48
Speaker 10: Appreciate you.
01:52:50
Speaker 2: 13 from 6 o'clock. Yeah, man, on the.
01:52:54
Speaker 2: Burrow is getting some heat. The Burrow thing for me is this. The Burrow brand, the Burrow football brand is processing, decision-making, intelligence, and just being really cerebral, right? Joe Burrow has really good physical gifts. But I feel like what sets him apart has always been, and you'll find Mike Sando from The Athletic It might have been this year, but in one of the blurbs about him, when he put quarterbacks into tiers, he quotes a defensive coordinator who, and I'm paraphrasing him here, says, like, you can't confuse him pre-snap. You cannot confuse him before the snap. He's that smart. He can process better than anybody. His decision-making is impeccable. That's the brand. Now, okay, he's got a good arm. He can show his athleticism. He can put the ball in tight windows. He can throw passes where only the offensive player can catch it. Like we have seen Joe Burrow do a lot of really cool physical things. But I feel like the brand is what sets him apart is the intelligence and the processing. Well, with what we've seen this year with the turnovers, that doesn't feel like really good decision-making. It doesn't feel like great processing. When Joe Burrow is making poor decisions defensively, He's not Joe Burrow. He goes off-brand. Is he still plenty capable? Yes. I did this this morning. Go back and watch the last drive, which they don't score on. He throws three passes that are just really, really good throws. One of them is a remarkable throw. Puts the team in a position to go win the football game. But what makes Joe Joe, what makes him special, and this goes back to his time in college, pre-snap processing, post-snap processing during play decision-making. When that stuff is there, Joe Burrow is not Joe Burrow. The Joe Burrow brand, he went off of it. He's gone off of it this year. And look, good quarterbacks throw interceptions. Part of what makes them so damning is the Bengals playing close games. The Tampa Bay game was close in large part because of the Joe Burrow pick six. The turnover against Pittsburgh sealed the game. The turnovers this week, this team doesn't have enough margin for error to overcome them. We didn't get a chance to talk about the Bearcats today. You see the question coming into that game against Arizona was, what's going to happen when a team takes away the run? Are they going to be able to beat teams with the pass? Against Arizona, the answer was no. We'll have more of that on Thursday. I am not on the air on ESPN 1530 tomorrow. Audie Elmore is filling in. I will be pinch hitting for Dan. at the CareSource Invitational for GoBearCats.com with Terry Nelson, UC, and Ohio State at 3 o'clock. So really excited about that. I can't wait for that event. College basketball is here-ish. So looking forward to that. I'm back on air Thursday afternoon. Looking forward to that. Our thanks to the great folks here at the Transcept for hosting us. Check out this venue and learn more at delightmore.com. Make sure you check out the Charlie Harper live show Part of Blink. Delightmore.com. That's this weekend. And the Bengals Ravens Watch Party at the Mercantile Immersive as well. Delightmore.com. Got to go. Thanks to Mike Mills for producing on site. Thanks to Taryn, of course, back in Kenwood. Thanks to you for listening. Have a great night. This is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station.
01:56:42
Speaker 12: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic.
01:56:47
Speaker 9: From the UC Health Traffics.