00:00:00
Speaker 1: Like ESPN. We are way late to start the hour. Way late. Irresponsible clockwork by me. Sorry about that. This is ESPN 1530. My name's Mo Egger. Thanks for listening. We got a lot of good stuff this hour. Our guy Jay Morrison later on. Reds lost, for what it's worth, to the Dodgers. Joe Burrow was doing stuff at practice today, certainly more than yesterday. On Thursdays, we talk with our man Robert Weintraub, who writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine. It is a must-read, and he's always kind enough to join us to talk about the team in orange and black. What's going on?
00:00:38
Speaker 2: No better news than hearing that Joe Barrow is upright, mobile, and ready at least for one more day. And we can quell the narrative around his injury proneness at least for a few hours. Yes!
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:00:50
Speaker 1: There's more fun things to talk about like turnovers. Let me ask you this because I, I feel like, you know, smart folks like yourself sort of, I don't know, throw a wet blanket sometimes on excitement over a defense that generates a lot of turnovers because there is some luck involved on Sunday against the bucks where the Bengals lucky, were they good or were they both? Yes.
00:01:11
Speaker 2: Uh, the wet blanket is here to tell you both, uh, not so wet, maybe damp. How about that? Uh, Yeah, one of the first things we really looked at at FTN Fantasy slash Football Outsiders as an analytics-based organization was what fumble luck really meant. And it boils down to this. Forcing for turnovers, forcing fumbles specifically, is a skill. Recovering them, however, is luck. It doesn't translate from week to week, from year to year. It's an oblong ball, and there's no real rhyme or reason for who recovers it once it's loose.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: Right.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: You know, when it is skilled to punch it out from Baker Mayfield as he's going into the end zone, that's a great play. But it could just as easily have been a Bucs wide receiver that fell on it instead of one of our guys.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: Right.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: And that changes the whole game. So, you know, the answer is both. And it's great to see they made so many splash plays and just forcing four fumbles is awesome. I mean, you know, we would have killed for that in so many games last year. So I'm not going to knock it. But recovering them and recovering all four and having all four really be so meaningful in the way they happened in the shadow of our own end zone and returning one for a touchdown and a key element getting the strip sack of Baker when they looked like they might really close the game to a one score game. You know, all those instances were awesome. But you can't rely on it from week to week, certainly, and recovering all those fumbles once they hit the ground is definitely luck. So let's go with interceptions next time. That's a great skill.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: Sign me up and thrown by C.J. Stroud and not Joe Burrow. This is, and I think the offensive line collectively passed a pretty good test against Tampa Bay. The Texans, especially on the edge, a little bit of a different animal. It could be a big test for Orlando Brown. When you look at him through your lens... walk me through the likelihood of either him, you know, being a solid right tackle or left tackle that we never talked about or somebody who ends up being a little bit of a weak link on the left, on the left side.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: Well, I think in his case, the main metric you want to look at is his paycheck, right? I mean, that's really the ultimate decider of what the league and what teams think of you and what your ultimate value tends to be. And he's paid sort of like a slightly below average left tackle in the league. And I, think his stats certainly over the last couple years since he's been in cincinnati have lived up to that you know i mean he's certainly not bad there's a lot of teams around the league that would kill for an orlando brown a left tackle uh but he has his flaws he tends to start slowly and amp up sunday's game notwithstanding he played pretty well um and you know he's had really some injury issues for the first time in his career specifically the broken leg that he played through in 24 that that's altered him and as he ages it it's hard to bounce back from those things but you know, I think overall you're, you're looking at a guy that you're like, you kind of alluded to, you're hoping not to really think about that much. And if that means that he just plays a pretty good game, you know, sort of a B to B minus game each week, the Bengals will certainly live with that. And, uh, you know, if you get a game like that, that you saw on Sunday where they had the lowest pressure rate allowed in the week, not all him, obviously, uh, they'll definitely take that they're running attack. Didn't, you know, kind of measure up analytically as we think in light of they were only about 21st in adjusted line yards while the bucks were fourth ironically enough they really ran the ball effectively but you know game script played a lot into the various running attacks on Sunday you saw the Bengals get ahead it hindered Tampa's ability to run the ball as much as they wanted to and I think that'll be a key going forward for a player like Brown you know as long as the Bengals have leads and can both run the ball and sort of keep defense is guessing as to what they're going to do, that can only help them. It's when they're in, you know, must pass true pass sets, as we like to say. And, uh, you know, his sort of get off is, is slow and not what he used to be. That's where you'll see him decline a little bit as a player, but if they can avoid that as much as possible, he's certainly a player that is worth keeping around, whether they needed to re up him as they did in the off season or, we can just debate that as the season goes along. I don't think there's any doubt. There'll be a drafting one left tackle in the, uh, in April of 27. I'll ask for sure.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: Is the Marius men's the next star tackle in this league?
00:05:29
Speaker 2: You know, I think back to what Scott Peters, the offensive line coach said, I think even before training camp, uh, he was asked, you know, what's the next step for Marius. And he just had a two word answer, total domination. And, uh, I think we saw that on Sunday, you know, uh, Ruben Bain, the Ballyhooed rookie end for Tampa Bay. The only thing he sniffed, he didn't sniff Burrow, he sniffed the grass. I mean, Brown put him on his butt more often than not. And yeah, listen, I mean, he was arguably the best player on the offense. And I think going forward, you know, when you have Jamar Chase, Joe Burrow, and Tee Higgins, and your best player is your right tackle, that's a pretty good sign. And, you know, I think he's definitely, if he's not there already, he's a top 10 right tackle and He's on the glide path toward being top three, top five. And, you know, he's certainly the best Bengals lineman since we lost Andrew Whitworth. And, you know, it's about time they drafted one. And the guy they drafted lived up to his potential. And Amarius certainly has done that in year three. All right.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: Robert Weintraub writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine. Read it at CincinnatiMagazine.com. I spent the early portion of the offseason yelling and screaming that they didn't make the linebackers any better by drafting or acquiring in free agency linebackers. Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight, by their own admission, were not perfect against the Bucs, but they were a hell of a lot better than anything I saw them do last year. Do I owe those guys an apology? No.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: Never apologize mo that's a sign of weakness come on this is the nfl uh you know a little yes like you said they didn't play perfectly they missed tackles but i think the main thing that we saw was that they just played so much freer than they did last year you know i mean they missed tackles and they missed tackles in this game they missed tackles a bunch last year to me it wasn't even so much that aspect of their play last year that was the problem it's almost like Getting into position to miss the tackle was almost good because they were missing so many assignments and were just lined up wrong or getting blown out of plays. They actually got a chance to make or miss a tackle. It was almost a success. That wasn't the case Sunday. You saw both Knight and Carter, especially Carter, really flying around to the football. Yeah, he over-pursued a few plays. Even the fumble that turned into the scoop and score for Demetrius Knight was Carter getting juked on the play, but it worked out well. And that's funny. I went back to last year's opener when they, you know, lost, they won. And I should say that that, that ugly game against Cleveland and the offense was the issue. And Demetrius and I did 10 tackles in the game and was really good. And we were all thinking to ourselves, Hey, we have something here in the rookie linebacker. He's just like Carson's Wessinger on the other side. And of course the Browns linebacker went on to win the defensive rookie of the year and Demetrius not so much. So there's a long way to go. However, early returns in one week, one Sunday, they definitely up their play. And I don't want to say you owe them an apology in person, but maybe write a little note to them or send them a fruit basket, something like that. Yeah. Just say you're praying for them.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: I'm a big fruit basket guy. That's usually my MO is I'll send people fruit baskets. I am in the market for a new NHL team because the Blue Jackets got rid of their radio broadcast and I don't like it. You are submitting the New York Islanders. Why? Why?
00:08:45
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up an Islanders fan in the suburbs of New York City. They were my team. They won four straight Stanley Cups low these many, many years ago. To be honest, there were about two decades where there was no way I would recommend becoming a fan of them to anybody. But now it's different. They have new ownership. They have a decent front office. They're still not great, but they have an exciting young defenseman named Matthew Schneider, who's one of the best players in the league. Matthew Schaefer. Did I say Schneider? Matthew Schaefer. And despite that, you should become a fan because see what it does to you. It makes you confuse names with all-time Canadians. Yes, they have an exciting young team. They're worth watching. They're in New York City, always good. And, you know, I recommend them. What else do you need?
00:09:27
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, they had a goon named Mick Vokoda. And so, you know, I mean, you know, I'm not the most hardcore hockey fan, but I remember turning on a game in like the early 90s, maybe late 80s, and there was this guy named Mick Vokoda trying to fight the entire Washington Capitals team. And so maybe just because of that, I don't know. But they're certainly under consideration, I'll tell you that.
00:09:54
Speaker 2: And does any of us really need a reason other than we have an awesome goon who takes on the entire team on the opposing bench? That's good enough for me, isn't it? They also had the great Mike Bossy, the sniper who I still worship. I put his number 22 into all my passwords. Maybe I shouldn't admit that on the radio, but it's in there in certain places. It's been a proud franchise. It hasn't been one that's kept up in these latter years, but you know, we hope for the best. Hopefully one more time before I die, they can at least establish one more mini dynasty.
00:10:27
Speaker 1: All right. Well, if I'm on board, then we'll, we'll share that the way we do the Bengals. Thank you as always. Yes. And the Knicks. And the Knicks.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Yes. I'm a board with the Islanders. Maybe that's the key to their, uh, Stanley kept hoisting.
00:10:40
Speaker 1: Maybe, maybe that could be, that'd be all right. Uh, it's, it's under advisement and, uh, we'll, we'll update you next week.
00:10:47
Speaker 2: Sounds good. Thanks so much, Mo.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: That's our guy, Robert Weintraub. Read his Bengals column, CincinnatiMagazine.com. Jay Morrison from BengalsTalk.com joins us next. Cincinnati's ESPN 1530.
00:10:59
Speaker 2: Traffic.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: From the UC Health Traffic Center.
Speaker 1: Like ESPN. We are way late to start the hour. Way late. Irresponsible clockwork by me. Sorry about that. This is ESPN 1530. My name's Mo Egger. Thanks for listening. We got a lot of good stuff this hour. Our guy Jay Morrison later on. Reds lost, for what it's worth, to the Dodgers. Joe Burrow was doing stuff at practice today, certainly more than yesterday. On Thursdays, we talk with our man Robert Weintraub, who writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine. It is a must-read, and he's always kind enough to join us to talk about the team in orange and black. What's going on?
00:00:38
Speaker 2: No better news than hearing that Joe Barrow is upright, mobile, and ready at least for one more day. And we can quell the narrative around his injury proneness at least for a few hours. Yes!
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:00:50
Speaker 1: There's more fun things to talk about like turnovers. Let me ask you this because I, I feel like, you know, smart folks like yourself sort of, I don't know, throw a wet blanket sometimes on excitement over a defense that generates a lot of turnovers because there is some luck involved on Sunday against the bucks where the Bengals lucky, were they good or were they both? Yes.
00:01:11
Speaker 2: Uh, the wet blanket is here to tell you both, uh, not so wet, maybe damp. How about that? Uh, Yeah, one of the first things we really looked at at FTN Fantasy slash Football Outsiders as an analytics-based organization was what fumble luck really meant. And it boils down to this. Forcing for turnovers, forcing fumbles specifically, is a skill. Recovering them, however, is luck. It doesn't translate from week to week, from year to year. It's an oblong ball, and there's no real rhyme or reason for who recovers it once it's loose.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: Right.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: You know, when it is skilled to punch it out from Baker Mayfield as he's going into the end zone, that's a great play. But it could just as easily have been a Bucs wide receiver that fell on it instead of one of our guys.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: Right.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: And that changes the whole game. So, you know, the answer is both. And it's great to see they made so many splash plays and just forcing four fumbles is awesome. I mean, you know, we would have killed for that in so many games last year. So I'm not going to knock it. But recovering them and recovering all four and having all four really be so meaningful in the way they happened in the shadow of our own end zone and returning one for a touchdown and a key element getting the strip sack of Baker when they looked like they might really close the game to a one score game. You know, all those instances were awesome. But you can't rely on it from week to week, certainly, and recovering all those fumbles once they hit the ground is definitely luck. So let's go with interceptions next time. That's a great skill.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: Sign me up and thrown by C.J. Stroud and not Joe Burrow. This is, and I think the offensive line collectively passed a pretty good test against Tampa Bay. The Texans, especially on the edge, a little bit of a different animal. It could be a big test for Orlando Brown. When you look at him through your lens... walk me through the likelihood of either him, you know, being a solid right tackle or left tackle that we never talked about or somebody who ends up being a little bit of a weak link on the left, on the left side.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: Well, I think in his case, the main metric you want to look at is his paycheck, right? I mean, that's really the ultimate decider of what the league and what teams think of you and what your ultimate value tends to be. And he's paid sort of like a slightly below average left tackle in the league. And I, think his stats certainly over the last couple years since he's been in cincinnati have lived up to that you know i mean he's certainly not bad there's a lot of teams around the league that would kill for an orlando brown a left tackle uh but he has his flaws he tends to start slowly and amp up sunday's game notwithstanding he played pretty well um and you know he's had really some injury issues for the first time in his career specifically the broken leg that he played through in 24 that that's altered him and as he ages it it's hard to bounce back from those things but you know, I think overall you're, you're looking at a guy that you're like, you kind of alluded to, you're hoping not to really think about that much. And if that means that he just plays a pretty good game, you know, sort of a B to B minus game each week, the Bengals will certainly live with that. And, uh, you know, if you get a game like that, that you saw on Sunday where they had the lowest pressure rate allowed in the week, not all him, obviously, uh, they'll definitely take that they're running attack. Didn't, you know, kind of measure up analytically as we think in light of they were only about 21st in adjusted line yards while the bucks were fourth ironically enough they really ran the ball effectively but you know game script played a lot into the various running attacks on Sunday you saw the Bengals get ahead it hindered Tampa's ability to run the ball as much as they wanted to and I think that'll be a key going forward for a player like Brown you know as long as the Bengals have leads and can both run the ball and sort of keep defense is guessing as to what they're going to do, that can only help them. It's when they're in, you know, must pass true pass sets, as we like to say. And, uh, you know, his sort of get off is, is slow and not what he used to be. That's where you'll see him decline a little bit as a player, but if they can avoid that as much as possible, he's certainly a player that is worth keeping around, whether they needed to re up him as they did in the off season or, we can just debate that as the season goes along. I don't think there's any doubt. There'll be a drafting one left tackle in the, uh, in April of 27. I'll ask for sure.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: Is the Marius men's the next star tackle in this league?
00:05:29
Speaker 2: You know, I think back to what Scott Peters, the offensive line coach said, I think even before training camp, uh, he was asked, you know, what's the next step for Marius. And he just had a two word answer, total domination. And, uh, I think we saw that on Sunday, you know, uh, Ruben Bain, the Ballyhooed rookie end for Tampa Bay. The only thing he sniffed, he didn't sniff Burrow, he sniffed the grass. I mean, Brown put him on his butt more often than not. And yeah, listen, I mean, he was arguably the best player on the offense. And I think going forward, you know, when you have Jamar Chase, Joe Burrow, and Tee Higgins, and your best player is your right tackle, that's a pretty good sign. And, you know, I think he's definitely, if he's not there already, he's a top 10 right tackle and He's on the glide path toward being top three, top five. And, you know, he's certainly the best Bengals lineman since we lost Andrew Whitworth. And, you know, it's about time they drafted one. And the guy they drafted lived up to his potential. And Amarius certainly has done that in year three. All right.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: Robert Weintraub writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine. Read it at CincinnatiMagazine.com. I spent the early portion of the offseason yelling and screaming that they didn't make the linebackers any better by drafting or acquiring in free agency linebackers. Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight, by their own admission, were not perfect against the Bucs, but they were a hell of a lot better than anything I saw them do last year. Do I owe those guys an apology? No.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: Never apologize mo that's a sign of weakness come on this is the nfl uh you know a little yes like you said they didn't play perfectly they missed tackles but i think the main thing that we saw was that they just played so much freer than they did last year you know i mean they missed tackles and they missed tackles in this game they missed tackles a bunch last year to me it wasn't even so much that aspect of their play last year that was the problem it's almost like Getting into position to miss the tackle was almost good because they were missing so many assignments and were just lined up wrong or getting blown out of plays. They actually got a chance to make or miss a tackle. It was almost a success. That wasn't the case Sunday. You saw both Knight and Carter, especially Carter, really flying around to the football. Yeah, he over-pursued a few plays. Even the fumble that turned into the scoop and score for Demetrius Knight was Carter getting juked on the play, but it worked out well. And that's funny. I went back to last year's opener when they, you know, lost, they won. And I should say that that, that ugly game against Cleveland and the offense was the issue. And Demetrius and I did 10 tackles in the game and was really good. And we were all thinking to ourselves, Hey, we have something here in the rookie linebacker. He's just like Carson's Wessinger on the other side. And of course the Browns linebacker went on to win the defensive rookie of the year and Demetrius not so much. So there's a long way to go. However, early returns in one week, one Sunday, they definitely up their play. And I don't want to say you owe them an apology in person, but maybe write a little note to them or send them a fruit basket, something like that. Yeah. Just say you're praying for them.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: I'm a big fruit basket guy. That's usually my MO is I'll send people fruit baskets. I am in the market for a new NHL team because the Blue Jackets got rid of their radio broadcast and I don't like it. You are submitting the New York Islanders. Why? Why?
00:08:45
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up an Islanders fan in the suburbs of New York City. They were my team. They won four straight Stanley Cups low these many, many years ago. To be honest, there were about two decades where there was no way I would recommend becoming a fan of them to anybody. But now it's different. They have new ownership. They have a decent front office. They're still not great, but they have an exciting young defenseman named Matthew Schneider, who's one of the best players in the league. Matthew Schaefer. Did I say Schneider? Matthew Schaefer. And despite that, you should become a fan because see what it does to you. It makes you confuse names with all-time Canadians. Yes, they have an exciting young team. They're worth watching. They're in New York City, always good. And, you know, I recommend them. What else do you need?
00:09:27
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, they had a goon named Mick Vokoda. And so, you know, I mean, you know, I'm not the most hardcore hockey fan, but I remember turning on a game in like the early 90s, maybe late 80s, and there was this guy named Mick Vokoda trying to fight the entire Washington Capitals team. And so maybe just because of that, I don't know. But they're certainly under consideration, I'll tell you that.
00:09:54
Speaker 2: And does any of us really need a reason other than we have an awesome goon who takes on the entire team on the opposing bench? That's good enough for me, isn't it? They also had the great Mike Bossy, the sniper who I still worship. I put his number 22 into all my passwords. Maybe I shouldn't admit that on the radio, but it's in there in certain places. It's been a proud franchise. It hasn't been one that's kept up in these latter years, but you know, we hope for the best. Hopefully one more time before I die, they can at least establish one more mini dynasty.
00:10:27
Speaker 1: All right. Well, if I'm on board, then we'll, we'll share that the way we do the Bengals. Thank you as always. Yes. And the Knicks. And the Knicks.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Yes. I'm a board with the Islanders. Maybe that's the key to their, uh, Stanley kept hoisting.
00:10:40
Speaker 1: Maybe, maybe that could be, that'd be all right. Uh, it's, it's under advisement and, uh, we'll, we'll update you next week.
00:10:47
Speaker 2: Sounds good. Thanks so much, Mo.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: That's our guy, Robert Weintraub. Read his Bengals column, CincinnatiMagazine.com. Jay Morrison from BengalsTalk.com joins us next. Cincinnati's ESPN 1530.
00:10:59
Speaker 2: Traffic.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: From the UC Health Traffic Center.
