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Speaker 1: Now here's your chance to win one thousand dollars. Just entered this nationwide keyword on our website.
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Speaker 2: Pay. That's pay entering.
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Speaker 3: Now look you.
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Speaker 4: On fifteen thirty.
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Speaker 5: Congratulations to Cody Bryant of the Seattle Seahawks, former Bearcat and maybe hopefully ideally future bengaled a dominant performance by Seattle's defense, which we are going to discuss. I'm Aleka. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, the best four words in the English language. Pitchers and catchers report. That is what's happening right now in Goodyear. The first full squad workout of the first workout, I guess will be on Wednesday. We are inching closer to the start of the Cactus League season, which begins in less than two weeks. Today, outside by the way, when I left my house at twelve twelve, I don't know why I picked twelve twelve. It was twelve twelve today's weather. It felt almost tropical, like thirty seven degrees. Legitimately, I walked to the end of the driveway to get my garbage can and it almost felt like warm. Thirty seven degrees. That's how cold it's been here. But maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. The Reds are going through baseball activities, so to speak, in goodyear. A lot on them today between now and six o'clock. Show preview is available on Twitter at Mulleger. Thanks to shareffacs credit union, you know what you should do this week? Make a goal to go to shareffacts dot org and learn about the benefits of membership at shareffac's credit union. You can become a member just like me. Go to sharefax dot org. So give it up to the Seattle Seahawks defense, which was remarkable. I don't know that the box score, I don't know that a simple game summary will do justice what we saw from Seattle's defense last night. And I don't know that there's any grand takeaway from what the Seahawks did to the Patriots or what they did all long. It would be I think a little bit of a misnomer to talk about how well, you know, Seattle had a great defense and they could be sort of the inverse of the Bengals, where they have a great defense and a league average offense. There are some metrics where the Seattle Seahawks were awesome on offense. EPA per play EPA per Dropack Jackson Smith and Jigbo was the NFL's offensive player.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: REVW.
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Speaker 5: Kenneth Walker was the MVP of a game last night that was dominated by Seattle's defense, but they it it was extraordinarily well executed. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel. They could rush for right, they could keep Drake May from scrambling, and they kept the Patriots for the most part, from getting any separation downfield. Stefan Diggs was a non factor. Drake May's running was a non factor. And so congratulations to the Seahawks. One of the most dominant defensive performances we've had in recent history in the Super Bowl and a team that is probably not going to go anywhere, a testament to the coaching of Mike McDonald, a testament to the the deafness of handling the roster by the general manager John Schneider.
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Speaker 2: They win a terrific division.
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Speaker 5: They dominated that game last night, dominated it. That game was not as close as the final score would indicate.
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Speaker 2: Drake May was terrible. The Patriots game plan.
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Speaker 5: Chris Collinsworth talked about this like in the midway through the first quarter of the game last night, that they were on offense at least coaching as if it was the Denver game with all the bad weather, or they were basically saying, we're not going to move the ball. We can't move the ball, we can't do anything on offense. Maybe we can get a special team's mistake by Seattle. Perhaps we can get their offense to make a mistake. Think about that for a second. That is an offense that went into a shell with the guy who was this close to being named the league's MVP. That's how good Seattle was last night. It's how uninspiring the Patriots were last night, and frankly, from our perspective in Cincinnati, no knock on Seattle. A well earned, well deserved championship. Thoroughly impressed all season long by their defense. We talked about them going into the postseason that at times, if you watched them at the end of the season against the San Francisco forty nine ers, it felt like they had like thirteen defensive players on the field. Now the Rams tested them a little bit, but still reasonably dominant run. They're the one seed, great home field advantage, destroy a short handed San Francisco team and beat pretty handily. Although the score was at least somewhat in doubt, the game's outcome at least somewhat in doubt if you looked at the score in the fourth quarter last night, their defense was dominant. From a New England perspective, though, that's the best the AFC had to offer. It illustrated last night. Why this season and you could say this in Cincinnati, You could say this in Buffalo, you could say this in Baltimore. Maybe you could still say it in Kansas City. It illustrates why this season was so frustrating. That's the best the AFC had to offer. Now, Mike Vray Bowl is a terrific coach. Drake may is a very good player. I'm not convinced he was one hundred percent last night. The Patriots are probably gonna be a force to be reckoned with for quite a while. But that is the current barometer in the AFC that goes into the offseason to a degree at least as the team de beat in the AFC. That's the bar that everybody else in the AFC. With Joe Burrow and with Patrick Mahomes, and with Josh Allen, and with Lamar Jackson and with Justin Herbert, And to what degree you want to say this?
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Speaker 6: C J.
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Speaker 5: Stroud in Houston and Trevor Lawrence and Jacksonville and a handful of other places. I guess maybe you want to throw Pittsburgh into the conversation. By all means, go for it. I'll leave them out for now. The bar you have to clear was rendered useless offensively.
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Speaker 2: In the Super Bowl last night.
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Speaker 5: So it is going to be fascinating this offseason to see which teams in the AFC are best positioned to knock that team off its perch. And by the way, you might go, well, wait a minute, hang on a second. And the regular season it was the Denver Broncos, okay, and the Denver Broncos, unfortunately for them, had to play the AFC Championship game without their starting quarterback, Bo Nicks. And who knows how that game unfolds If Knicks plays, who knows how that game unfolds. If weather isn't a factor, who knows how that game unfolds. If Sean Payton decides to kick a field goal with his team leading by seven points early fifteen days ago, we don't know. But the thing that made this season so frustrating and This was talked about in real time. This was talked about as the season was unfolding. The thing that made this season so frustrating is you looked at the AFC and you said, it's either wide open or not very good. It was wide open. It wasn't very good. And the team that represented that half of the league in the Super Bowl last night offensively because I thought New England's defense did play pretty well last night, but offensively was entirely non competitive. Now it's a second year quarterback, it's a new head coach. The Patriots were in many respects ahead of schedule. I think we know what that feels like here, right the Bengals in twenty twenty one, we talked about him being ahead of schedule. And the Patriots will probably be back in the postseason next year.
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Speaker 2: And we'll see, we'll see.
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Speaker 5: But I watched out last night, going man, this conference was there for the taking. The fact that this is the best the AFC could do makes them all the more painful. If you had a team that you thought had a chance before the season, but that didn't take advantage of that chance.
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Speaker 2: Thirteen minutes after three o'clock. Our lines are open today Today is a guest free Monday five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty will get you in eight seven, two, three, seven, seven six works as well.
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Speaker 5: We have a lot of ground to cover. The weekend that was in college basketball with a UC win, another Miami win, another Kentucky win, and Xavier playing tonight. Updated AP Top twenty five rankings. Uk is back into the top twenty five and twenty fifth, Miami unmoved at twenty third. All of that to get to a little bit later on. Reds pitchers and catchers have reported in goodyear. We also have reports indicating two different things about the Bengals. One the teams are gonna call about Joe Burrow. We can laugh at that. The other one, I think is a pretty interesting discussion to tag or to not tag Trey Hendrickson, because there were reports over the weekend indicating that the Bengals are at least open to the idea which on February then ninth, why wouldn't they be. We'll spend some time on that a little bit later on. You can send a tweet to the show or to me at Moeger Thanks to Delta Dental, Delta Dental is building healthy, smart vibrant communities for all good at Delta Dental, Oh dot com.
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Speaker 2: A handful of questions loom over Goodyear.
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Speaker 5: We'll ask some of them next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.
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Speaker 7: Station WCKY Cincinnati and iHeartRadio station Garan teed Human ESPN iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 5: You know, if you miss anything on this show, you can listen on the iHeartRadio app. You can also listen to us on ESPN fifteen thirty dot com and go to the podcast page. Taren, what are we listening to right now?
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Speaker 2: One of bad bunny songs for doing not perform? Oh boy, oh no, oh man? Oh. You know, I don't do culture wars. Don't get involve in culture wars. I have a very very happy life, very happy. And one of the reasons for my happiness is I I don't. I don't fight culture wars. It is it is a blissful existence. It is awesome.
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Speaker 5: And so here's here's my commentary on the halftime show. Okay, uh, if you watched the Super Bowl halftime show, awesome. Western civilization did not come to an end because of the halftime show. And if you chose not to watch the halftime show and saw it's some sort of alternate programming.
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Speaker 2: Awesome, that's cool too. Western civilization didn't come to an end because you didn't watch the halftime show and chose something else. There you go, that's that's that's what I got. That's what I got for you.
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Speaker 5: As it relates to the to the to the halftime show, I don't need it was fine.
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Speaker 2: It was the halftime show for me.
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Speaker 5: For the most part. Is is filler. And that's no knock on anybody who has performed it. It is often not aimed at me. That is okay, that's fine. I don't need everything aimed at me. I didn't know much about Bad Bunny going into the halftime show. I don't know that much about it now. The halftime show is on. In my house. During halftime, we were also getting my daughter ready for bed and doing some reading, and I had to take the garbage out and I did a round of dishes because I wanted to be locked in for the third quarter. But when it was on, it was on, and like looked okay. I don't know.
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Speaker 6: I just.
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Speaker 5: Everybody settled into their respective roles last night, and the people who wanted to get mad about it, who were always looking for reasons to.
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Speaker 2: Be mad, they got to performatively be mad.
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Speaker 5: And the folks who wanted to convince those who were mad about it that they were missing the greatest halftime show of all time went on social media and talked about how it was the greatest halftime show of all time, and that's awesome whatever. For me, it was fifteen minutes that was on my television, and Western's civilization did not come to an end because of it. That's all I got for you as it relates to the halftime If you enjoyed it terrific, if you tolerated it terrific, and if you didn't like.
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Speaker 2: It, that's fine too. That's fine too.
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Speaker 5: I don't know when we determined that the halftime show had to become a cultural touchstone. Bigger cultural touchstone for me is pictures and catchers report more fun talking about that in goodyear than any culture war.
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Speaker 2: Yep, forty eight years old. I've never fought a cultural war. Pretty damn happy, thank you.
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Speaker 5: I will let them, I'm sure. Down the hall. That's the talking point today, being angry. And you know the folks who were angry about the halftime show, I'm guessed didn't need to watch the halftime show to be angry about it. So I'm sure that's happening down there. That's your thing, man, go for it at a what we do here. So I just talked about it for two and a half minutes, even though I wasn't going to twenty three minutes after three o'clock. Five point three seven, four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. They are They are reporting in goodyear. Our friend Pat Brennan, who, by the way, Terry get Pat Brennan on the show this week for the first time in like forever. He tweeted out video of like bullpen sessions and games of catch being had and that is like ASMR for people like me. So we're inching closer to the start of the Cactus League schedule. The question that looms over the start of spring training is simple, have they done enough? Have they done enough on one level at the end of the season last year, If one would have asked what do the Rights need to accomplish this offseason, I think the basic answer would have been, make the bullpen better, make the bullpen deeper, go find a guy who can hit home runs. That happened like that is that is a thing the Reds did, and yet I still would would find it understandable if you said, you know, they did go and get the baseline, uh, sort of bare minimum things they needed, but you know what, they could.
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Speaker 2: Use a little bit more. I understand that as well.
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Speaker 5: The success of this team this year is going to be largely dependent upon whether or not people who were on the team last year or part of the organization last year, end up doing more this season.
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Speaker 2: Like they're gonna put more.
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Speaker 5: Than they ever have on Ellie de la Cruz, and understandably so, this is the guy they've wanted to make the highest paid player in franchise history. Okay, can his production justify that? Can he take a major leap forward, hopefully with better health and hopefully with better management of whatever health issues he has? Can the Reds get better too, whole production? Like, I don't know that the equation is that complex. For success for this year, the starting pitching needs to be healthier than it has been. For as as awesome as Hunter Green can be at times, he has not gotten through a full big league season without getting placed on the injured list. For as reliably good as Nicolodolo can be, you're still wondering, can he get through a full big league season? They have a lot of depth, they have a lot of quality, But can can some of those dudes get through a full big league season? And I'm led to believe that at the answer is yes, this team will be even better because those are good pitchers. Obviously those are only two of them. But there's there's a basic equation for me. Sounds basic. It maybe isn't nearly as much. Can the starting pitchers get through the big get through the season with minimal stays on the injured list? Can their depth be not tested nearly as much? Can that group of guys stay healthy? And can the two through five spots in the batting order this year be better than last? If the answers are yes, this team can challenge for a National League Central Division title. Other things would have to go right. The Cubs would perhaps have to be not as good as some expect. The Brewers would have to come back to Earth, which I think most expect to happen at least to a degree. But if those two things happen, and like there's a lot of nuance inside those things, Like you talk about two through five in the batting order. Well, gee, that's four out of the nine spots. But if you go back to last year, the one thing that I think has happened, as we've talked about the Reds needing a bat in the pursuit of Kyle Schwarber, what they were gonna do when they didn't get them. Should they trade for Luis Robert? Is there another free agent out there? And then obviously ultimately the signing of a Euhanio Suarez. I think we've talked so much about the Reds offense and needing to improve upon what it was last year that we've almost framed last year's offense as being bad. It wasn't bad. It wasn't as good as we would like, and it was bad at times. It was bad in extra innings, it was bad at time in close games. But they were like fourteenth in the league in run scored per game last season, which isn't great, It's not awful. You're not trying to improve upon a team that was league worst. You're not trying to improve upon an offense that was bottom five in the sport. They were kind of middle of the pack. Can that be a little bit better this year? Well, the answers will be yes. If the two hole production is better. Last year, Red's two hole hitters were second to last in OPS. Three hole hitters that's obviously mostly not entirely, but mostly l twenty second cleanup hitters, twenty first. If each of those three things improved this year, this offense will be better. We could talk about where the home runs are gonna come from, and can Sal Stewart make the club, which I think he will and hit twenty five to thirty? Can Ellie hit a few more? Can Gino hit thirty to thirty five this year? But as a general rule, like I'll make it sound simple, although it's not. Two through five, better starting staff, minimal injury issues, this team can challenge for an NL Central title. In the absence of that, then you know it's gonna be a little bit difficult. I think one of the things that's going to be interesting about this year's team, and our friend Charlie Goldsmith wrote about this when they got a Johaniosuarez. Can they be better in extra inning games than they were last season? It was uncanny how bad they were an extra They were good in one run games twenty two and twenty two that's maybe not good, but it's not atrocious. But they were if I recall three and twelve and extra inning games last season. So let's say you're gonna play and you know, anywhere from fifteen to twenty extra innings games. Can they be better if the overall offenses better, chances are the answer is yes. But I think that's the question that kind of hovers over the team as spring training begins. Look at what they were last year, look at what they are this year. Have they done enough in terms of outside acquisitions? And then once the games begin in a month and a half, which players who are part of the team last year do more this year? And ultimately that's probably going to have a lot more to do with this team's level of success than anything they acquired in the offseason. Now, Gino being in the order every day and being as good at hitting the ball out of the ballpark.
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Speaker 2: As he has been should only have an effect a positive effect on the others in the lineup. We've talked a lot about protection for Elie della cruise, but have they done enough? You're willing and welcome to answer at five point three seven four nine fifteen thirty at Muger on Twitter, I have a Super Bowl guarantee I'll give you coming up in the four o'clock hour, and speaking of questions to tag Trey Hendrickson or nod tag Trey Trey Hendrickson, which I can't even say. That is coming up in the four o'clock hour.
00:20:16
Speaker 5: Sports headlines and some college hoops and some phone calls coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty.
00:20:21
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic from.
00:20:26
Speaker 8: The UC Health Traffic Center at the uc Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered What's best for You, Learn Moore at u seehealth dot com.
00:20:40
Speaker 2: Good news.
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Speaker 8: State Route twenty eight now reopened from an earlier accident with an overturned vehicle that was between Charles Snyder Road and State Route forty eight. However, the right lane blocked from an accident at southbound seventy five between Ezer Charles Drive and seventh on that ezelic with traffic.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: This report is sponsored by Wendy's New Big ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati's sports stations. Sports headlines are a service.
00:21:08
Speaker 5: Kelsey Chevrolet Home of lifetime power train protection and guarantee credit approval from their family to yours for life kelseyshev dot Com in Goodnear today, Red's pitchers and catchers are reporting to US spring training. They'll take physicals tomorrow. They'll have a workout on Wednesday. The first Cactus League game is going to be in twelve days, when the Reds take on the Guardians in Goodyear. A couple of NL's central teams making moves. The Pirates get their hitter, Marcelo Zuna signs a one year contract worth twelve million dollars to play for the Buckos. And this was an interesting deal. The Brewers have traded third baseman Caleb Durbin, who finished sixth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting, to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for lefty Kyle Harrison. There were a whole bunch of other players involved in the deal as well, but those of the two main particulars. College basketball Tonight at Madison Square Garden, Xavier is taking on Saint John's. The Red Storm came back to win the first game against Xavier at the Sintas Center tip off at six thirty Tonight the game's live on seven hundred wlwpre game with Joe and Byron at six pm. Also tonight, Indiana takes on Oregon Late latest AP Top twenty five. Men's Poul Kentucky is in its sliding in at twenty five after another come from behind victory in their denim uniforms on Saturday over Tennessee the Mark Pope Show tonight at six on ESPN fifteen thirty. Following that'll be the NKU Coaches Show at seven on ESPN fifteen thirty. By the way, Miami holds steady at twenty third in the AP Top twenty five. The RedHawks win at Marshall in convincing fashion on Saturday. One NFL note Clint Kubiak, as everybody expected, the offensive coordinator of the Seahawks leaving to become the head coach of.
00:22:55
Speaker 2: The Las Vegas Raiders.
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Speaker 5: Twenty three away from five o'clock, phone calls coming up five point three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty the College troops from over the weekend. You know, sometimes if you follow something solely on social media, you will think it's worse than it is, which is why you shouldn't follow things solely on social media. I follow a fairmount of Kentucky fans. I have a lot of Kentucky fans in my life. You would think that team has four wins. They win again. They've won eight out of nine. Come from behind, down fourteen at half at the half against Tennessee. They're now a half game at a first place. They do not look like they're among the nation's elite. They have played shorthanded most of the season. They can go through these lulls, especially on the offensive end, where what you're supposed to get from a Mark Pope coach team is not what you get here. They are in the middle of February. If you look at like most bubble Watch pieces that come out this time year, in as a lock to make the tournament and more than an outside chance to win the SEC.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: SEC is not as good this year as it has been. Have game at a first place.
00:24:09
Speaker 5: You see yesterday, Look call it what it is. They play at home. They played better at home than away from home. They're twelve and three at home. They haven't bet anybody in any game outside of Fifth Third Arena. Last night and Tony and I were talking about this What makes them so frustrating is they're a good defensive team. Your eyeballs tell you that, metrics tell you that, math tells you that yesterday they defended, but they also made shots, and they spread their scoring a bunch of amongst a whole bunch of guys, and just for an afternoon, looked the.
00:24:39
Speaker 2: Part to improve to twelve and twelve.
00:24:43
Speaker 5: There was a nice bounce back after the ugliness, if you will, of Thursday night. We played the postgame audio of Wes Miller kind of bearing his soul. Was totally fair to wonder after that game, like, all right, now, what's this going to look like? Well, for a day, the answer was pretty good. You see wins. Xavier plays Saint John's tonight. As we talked about the first game, the Red Storm came back after Xavier was in control at halftime. I am a big defender of the college basketball on court product because as much as you hear about the sports issues and the sport has issues, as much as you hear about how it's being ruined, one people don't stop watching. Ratings are incredible for college basketball this year. Two, the on court product can still be so good. Exhibit number four hundred and six this season, Yukon and Saint John's on Friday Night, a game that felt like a Sweet sixteen or Elite eight game. Saint John's has gone with a bigger lineup here. Recently they have crushed teams on the glass and a major reason why is Dylan Mitchell. And we don't have to do this every time a former Bearcat plays a really good game.
00:25:52
Speaker 2: But there were.
00:25:52
Speaker 5: Folks who when Dylan Mitchell left at the end of last season, We're like, yeah, good riddance. How many have watched him this year playing a major role on a ranked team. Tip Off tonight at six thirty from MSG again pregame at six on seven hundred WLW five point three fifteen thirty. I believe back from the Super Bowl, Mike, go ahead, you're on ESPN fifteen thirty.
00:26:23
Speaker 3: Hold on, I'm sorry just one second. You got me off guard a little bit. Well, we're still traveling back from uh from the Bay Area, and what I got some picks. I'm gonna say, yeah, I just forgot. I haven't had time, but I got a bunch of good ticks and treated my buddies to some stuff. But we had so many cool things happen. First of all, No, the weather was sensational, sensational. It couldn't have been better.
00:26:52
Speaker 2: You know, you send me an you send me an email from the game talking about the weather. And then he took a shot at Cincinnati.
00:26:59
Speaker 3: Oh, I probably did.
00:27:01
Speaker 2: You did?
00:27:01
Speaker 5: You told me to move because there are better places to live than someone else.
00:27:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's better weather. Yeah, because you like warm weather, and I wish you could someday get out of here and get out of there and go where you like the warm weather. It's just something I yearned for you to have moment in your beers. Okay, so we're in this disabled section around I guess around the thirty two to thirty three art lines and about halfway up maybe third of the I don't know, but not the great seats I'm not. And guess who came to visit us? Well, because I I have. I finally got Greg Cosell's email, and I've been emailing him off and on for the past year and sometimes he'll respond and sometimes he won't. And uh, he came down. He got my latest email. He came down because his brother got killed in Vietnam. He came down and took all of our hands and gave gave us one hundred dollars bill and said to you know, just have fun. And we said, no, we can't take it. He said, no, I answys please take it, and he gave us autographs. And what a sweetheart of a guy.
00:28:16
Speaker 2: That's very cool, very he's very good.
00:28:19
Speaker 3: Friends with Sal pal Antonio. Evidently you know Sal was Sal was a Navy seal.
00:28:24
Speaker 5: He was, yeah, yeah, and with with Terren's dad.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: Apparently, how about that.
00:28:31
Speaker 3: Exactly? That's that's uh, that's more impressive than being a football player, baseball player, basketball player. Those guys are way copper than.
00:28:40
Speaker 2: Any of those, no question about that.
00:28:42
Speaker 3: Yes, but anyway, he uh, I didn't know this, mom. He has the longest running show on ESPN. He started his Sunday morning show what's it called NFL.
00:28:55
Speaker 5: Today or an NFL NFL Matchup? That show has been on since I was a.
00:28:59
Speaker 3: Kid, since nineteen eighty four.
00:29:02
Speaker 2: Wow, And he invented.
00:29:06
Speaker 3: It, he started it, and now he doesn't do it. He doesn't produce it anymore. He has somebody else. But I said, are you nineteen eighty four, mister Cosell. He said, yes, my friend, nineteen eighty that's pretty incredible when you think about it, isn't it moment?
00:29:21
Speaker 8: It is?
00:29:21
Speaker 5: And so that show is important. It's important television, and it's always been buried like early on Sunday morning before you know NFL Countdown or any of the pregame shows. But you know, we're in this era now and it's great where you have a lot of folks breaking down the all twenty two and talking about schemes and strategies on a more advanced level. That show, which when I was a kid, it was called Edge NFL Matchup and it had Ron Jaworski and then Merril Hodge was on it for a while. That was the first show that I could recall that really did that and did that like I didn't know it went back to eighty four, but I remember being a kid in the late eighties early nineties watching that show on Sunday mornings and it was insanely ahead of its time.
00:30:03
Speaker 2: Now there's like a million people doing that.
00:30:05
Speaker 5: That show that I could recall was one of the first, and it's still going to this day and it's still given an awful time slot.
00:30:13
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I wonder how cool maybe because it's just been so successful in that times. Well, I don't know, because there's nothing else on. Then maybe I don't know. You know better than me about that stuff. But check this out. So so I was more than benevolent to my friends, and I would have been that way anyway, But and they told me to tell you. Thank you for your suggestion, Tarren Bland. I got you a beautiful ball cap, commemorative ball caps, got to play Patriots logo, got the Seahawks logo on the back, that's got the NFL logo. It's all cotton, it's not got an adjustable strap. You gave me your size, so I hope the damn think fits. Wow, but you told me your size.
00:30:56
Speaker 2: How much did a hat tossed at the Super Bowl?
00:31:00
Speaker 3: You really want to know?
00:31:01
Speaker 2: Yeah? The seventy dollars seventy dollars hat. Wow, unbelievable.
00:31:07
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker 3: Oh, Karen deserves it, you know, for what the last fifteen years on the radio with you. But the food I had, I felt like I was at a fine dining restaurant, and it's the same way at Oracle, I had the best ah sushi. I've one of the best I've ever had in my life. And I've had a lot of sushi, and I had they have a goat burger with goat meat blackened goat burger. It's the best beef I've ever eaten in my life.
00:31:37
Speaker 2: Wow, unbelievable.
00:31:39
Speaker 3: Then I had abalony, which is like a mollusk. You know, it's not like people think it's like calamari, but it's not like klamari squid. Avalony is much harder to catch and it's it's a sea snail. It lives on the rocks. Yeah, and they have to beat the hell out. But I just couldn't believe the food that was available. So that was cool.
00:31:59
Speaker 5: Way to the football, the Levi Stadium sells a goat burger.
00:32:05
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:32:06
Speaker 2: Do they sell that for like a regular forty nine Ers game?
00:32:11
Speaker 3: I assume it looks like you know, it looked like it had been on the menu on the board.
00:32:15
Speaker 5: Do they serve Do they serve like a like a regular hamburger made out of cow?
00:32:21
Speaker 6: Yeah? Sure.
00:32:21
Speaker 2: Oh, so you have options.
00:32:23
Speaker 5: You can get a you can eat a goat, or you could eat a regular beef.
00:32:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can eat very or they have a veal burger, which is basically a baby calf, which is a calf, you know, gotcha bum bums me out. I hate to eat something that's only a baby.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: But now I have a question.
00:32:41
Speaker 5: I like, when you say goat burger, does that mean greatest of all time burger and it features goat cheese or is the meat actual goat because I am skeptical that the meat is actually goat meat.
00:32:53
Speaker 3: The meat is actually goat meat, which is extremely popular in countries like Pakistan, India, all over the Middle East, and there's a lot of people from all over the world. That was in San Francisco, of course, And so the guy told me they tested it out about three years ago. The response was if he at the beginning because people had to get over the goat thing. But then when they did, they thought, well, what the hell's the difference cal goat?
00:33:20
Speaker 2: Do they have goat cheese on the Do they have goat cheese on the goat burger made of goat meat? Yes, very well, unbelievable.
00:33:30
Speaker 3: And the goat cheese has cranberry and pistachios.
00:33:33
Speaker 5: And on the high levels it really it does sound high level. Yeah, no, no question about it. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad you had a From a culinary perspective, how much of the gotburger.
00:33:43
Speaker 3: Cost It was twenty two dollars.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: Twenty two bucks, gotcha?
00:33:48
Speaker 3: Okay, right, so check this out. We have one little miss out. Oh so this guy. All the Seahawks fans were very nice people with Patriot fans. Everybody was really cool. Yeah, there wasn't anything crazy. A little bit of craziness with the drunkenness. But this one guy was pretty lit up. He was probably in his forties. And my one buddy doesn't have any legs. Okay, he lost his legs in Vietnam. This a hole. I didn't use the word a hole. He can't. He started he was drunk and a monkey. He started saying in my buddy, whose name is buddy? Uh, well, I'm sick of pan taxes to support you veterans, you bastards. I'm tired of it. You don't deserve anything. We work hard to just And finally the security guard had to come down and take him away because I mean, we can't do anything to defend ourselves.
00:34:41
Speaker 5: Really, so some rando decides to come up and start harassing a bunch of veterans at the Super Bowl.
00:34:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, drunk as hell. Looked like he had money, like he was dressed very uh well.
00:34:54
Speaker 5: I mean, if if he was a fan at the Super Bowl, he's he's probably not destitute. And and you said your your your buddy's name is buddy.
00:35:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know his real names. That's probably nickname.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: God, I understand.
00:35:07
Speaker 3: I don't answer.
00:35:07
Speaker 2: You. Guys are obviously very close. Well.
00:35:09
Speaker 5: And so the game itself was was a good time. And are you are you back in so Cow? Are you en route?
00:35:16
Speaker 6: What?
00:35:16
Speaker 2: What were you now?
00:35:18
Speaker 3: So we're we're just pretty everybody's sleeping in exhausted. We're in the we're in the van. We left Big sir, and now we're down around Santa Rosa, which is central the central coastline of Pacific Coast Highway. I can't sleep because the scenery is just so spectacular. I have to be able to look at it until I just fall asleep, which I will appreciated. But I'll tell you what I got to ask you football question. This mister Kenneth Walker the third, he is laid beyond, he makes lady and Bell looks fast.
00:35:52
Speaker 6: Fuck.
00:35:54
Speaker 3: This guy is unreal. Moe, uh, commit the audience what I'm talking about.
00:36:00
Speaker 2: I have no idea what you're talking about.
00:36:01
Speaker 5: What I could tell you, though, is this that I felt stupid not not betting on him to be the game's MVP. Me too, I felt dumb not betting on Kenneth Walker. And it was abundantly clear. Look, the Seattle's defense was awesome last night. It seemed far fetched that they were going to pick a player, although I think Witherspoon had a chance. I so they were not going to pick a defensive player. They weren't going to pick the kicker. It was pretty clear as the game unfolded it wasn't going to be JSN, especially because he had lee for a while after getting into an incident with the concussion tent. But Kenneth Walker was terrific last night, and I watched that game unfold and I thought, like, I'm dumb for not betting on him to be the game's MVP.
00:36:45
Speaker 3: Me too, Well, I hit I had one of the only really smart bets I had was jsnun under ninety four and a half. Yes, I got lucky on that, Yeah, but listen to me. It was New England. My most renowned whiteout is Stephan Daves. You're in trouble.
00:37:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I don't disagree, Mike we have to run. I appreciate you regaling us with tails from the Super Bowl and hopefully you arrived back at your residence in one piece.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: Thanks for chiming out, and I'll send you these picks before the shows over.
00:37:20
Speaker 5: I can't wait. Mike, thanks, thanks very much, and get Tarn his seventy dollars hat. Terry again, a seventy dollars hat for Mike. How about that shot the Mike, I am skeptical that the Goatburger included goat meat. Just I'm gonna put that out there. He was there, I wasn't. I'm gonna I'm skeptical that the the goat Burger g O A T could have stood for the greatest of all time. I'm sure it had goat cheese. Goat cheese is awesome. I'm I'm gonna. I'm gonna stop short of totally buying the fact that the goat Burger had goat meat. Eight from four o'clock, So the Bengals tag Trey Hendrick and we'll get to that amazing sports talk radio topic at four h five on ESPN fifteen thirty station.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Now here's your chance to win one thousand dollars. Just answered this nationwide keyword on our website.
00:38:12
Speaker 2: Bonus. That's bonus. Enter it now you bons.
00:38:16
Speaker 4: ESPN fifteen thirty got.
00:38:19
Speaker 5: A couple of bull questions. One of them is about Trey Hendrickson. According to a Mike Garoffalo of the NFL Network during one of the many shows that that network aired from the Super Bowl, said, our understanding is the Bengals are still considering using the franchise tag. It could be a tag and trade possibility. Perhaps sounds like all options are on the table, but it is not a foregone conclusion that his time in Cincinnati is over all, right, why would it be Now they have a couple of weeks for the NFL franchise tag deadline to get here. There are some options. They do have options for Trey Hendrickson. This is this is I think more interesting than some will make it out to be. And I don't know if I put that in the most eloquent way, but Trey Hendrickson is regarded, despite the injury issues of this past season, and despite his age he's thirty one, he will be thirty two by the end of next season, is still regarded as one of the best two or three available free agents this offseason. Like, if you look at any ranking of this offseason's free agents, you will find lists, and they're all subjective. Some of them come from a more informed place than others. But you'll find lists and have him as the best free agent available, and others will say, well, he's maybe not the best, but he's one of the best two or three free agents available regardless. It feels like, and who knows, maybe we're wrong about this, but it feels like there's a very very very good chance that Trey Hendrickson as a free agent will have a lot of suitors, a lot of teams interested. To a large degree, you could understand why you watch the guy play. I watched the guy play. You know what he can do. Even last year before he got hurt, it wasn't like he was a non factor. So you can understand why right teams need edge rushers. Trey is a year removed from being a Defensive Player of the Year finalist, so it would make sense that he has a lot of suitors. If you're running the Bengals and you understand that here is a player who's going to have a lot of suitors who are gonna come after him, why then wouldn't you want them approaching you? Like, let's say there are six teams and I'm just making that number up. Maybe the number is higher, maybe the number is lower. Let's say there are six teams that are gonna approach Trey Hendrickson about him signing with them. If you're Duke Tobin and Mike Brown, don't you want those teams approaching you?
00:41:12
Speaker 2: If you tag them, they have to approach you. You control where he goes. That makes sense.
00:41:22
Speaker 5: Hey, wait a minute, we can get something for an asset that a lot of teams are gonna want. That would make sense. However, let's be honest. Over the last couple of years, maybe the Bengals haven't led the league in offseason drama, but it certainly has felt like they're the They're among the leaders in offseason drama, and one of the players around whom the most drama has swirled has been Trey Hendrickson. Trays of our lives, I mean, the ordeal these last couple of off seasons, they've taken on lives of their own. We joke all the time, like, if we were to ever have an ESPN fifteen thirty Ring of Honor, Trey Hendrickson goes in on the first ballot because of all the different segments and all the different shows and all the different just you know, bits we've gotten off of Trey Hendrickson. His contract issues have taken on lives of their own. Do you really want to sign up for more of that? Because the moment you decide to tag them. And by the way, Paul Danner Junior's on the show tomorrow has like a ten step guide for the Bengals to use this offseason to get to the super Bowl. And one of the things he writes about is tag Tray and trade him for a third round pick.
00:42:46
Speaker 2: Sign me up, right, who wouldn't want that? I get trade Tray and get in a year where I got to nail it in the draft, I get one more ticket. I get one more raffle ticket.
00:42:58
Speaker 5: Right, Like, that's if you're bad at drafting, the best way to not be bad at drafting is to have as many picks as possible because at some point you'll get some picks. Right, So yeah, man, and just the basics of it, Well, if you tag them now, instead of all those suitors coming to Trey, now, maybe not all of them, but a few of them are going to have to come to you, and then you know, you could weigh the offers that are out there. And my guess is there would be offers out there, So I guess, and you can tell me if you think I'm wrong. Like some market assessment is in play here, you have to assess the market correctly. If we tag him, will the potential trade market be there? And can we capitalize by getting something of value in return? If the answer is yes, then why wouldn't you tag and then look to trade Trey Hendrickson. Now, if you tag him, he could always side the franchise tag offer and then you're stuck with the guy for close to thirty million bucks. Now, there are worse players to be stuck with, right, But then there's the other part of this. So the Bengals clearly, for years, and we've talked about this a bunch, but clearly, for years, the Bengals have not had plans for Trey to be on the team in twenty twenty six. Whether that point of view is correct, incorrect, off base, unfair, legitimate, whatever it is. For years, among all the different Trey Hendrickson things that have been out there, the easiest conclusion to draw has been Bengals do not have Trey in their plans for twenty twenty six, So what's changed?
00:44:53
Speaker 2: Right?
00:44:53
Speaker 5: Like, if you're gonna tag him, you have to at least grasp the possibility that he decides to Okay, fine, I'll come back and play for a year.
00:45:01
Speaker 2: We can debate whether or not he would do that. My guess is he would not. But if you if you tag him, you at least have to confront the possibility that the guy still ends up being your player in twenty twenty six. Are you suddenly comfortable enough.
00:45:13
Speaker 5: With him being a player in your team in twenty twenty six after spending the last two years not being comfortable with him being on the team in twenty twenty six? Five point three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty vote. Now at Moegar, we have two pole questions thanks to United Heartland Insurance. I've talked for years about United Heartland Insurance and what they could do for you to help you pay less for your insurance. Why not check out uhis dot com. Uh There's two pole questions, one about the Reds, which we'll get to here in a bit, but one of them is what should the Bengals do with Trey Hendrickson, and God knows, I've gotten a lot of pole questions about Trey Hendrickson. I've gotten a lot of pole questions out of Trey Hendrickson. I should say, should they tag him and trade him, should they tag him and keep him, or for the love of God, just move on. And that's the other part of this. It feels like among the many things the Bengals need to try to accomplish this offseason is to finally have a drama free offseason. Now, I think you have to admit that to expect any relevant team to have a drama free offseason every single year is unrealistic. If you have good players, and the Bengals have had some good players, and if you have a lot of good players, invariably there's gonna be somebody who's not happy, who wants more, who believes they're undervalued, that wants to stay with the team, but the team doesn't want to keep them. Like whatever it is that said. In recent years, the contract issues, the stalemates with players, the public negotiation ploys, the weirdness of the Shamar Stewart situation, like all of those things have dominated the Bengals discourse. Bengal should have a goal this offseason, and it should be to make my job in the off season difficult because it hasn't been. Not that this is a hard job. It clearly is not, although I make it sound hard, but I mean that the treasure trove of stuff we've had to talk about, whether it's been Jesse Bates or t Higgins or Jamar Chase or Joe Mixon or Trey Hendrickson, it's been. It's been one after the other after the other after the other. One of the goals for this off season should be, let's get through it where the focus is solely on who are adding and what we could do with who we add, and let's leave all of the distractions. Let's let's leave all that in our rear view mirror. Now, that's gonna be hard to do, especially if it's you know, let's let's sign DJ Turner then sit on our hands when it comes to Dax Hill or vice versa, or not offer a contract extension to Chase Brown, like somewhere you can help. But wonder is there gonna be with a guy who's under contract right now, who's eligible for an extension, is there going to be some sort of standoff. Is there going to be some sort of issue. Is there going to be a holdout or a hold in? If you tag Trey Hendrickson and you don't get a deal done, you are probably signing up for a whole offseason of more trays of our lives Copyright Paul Danner, Junior. Four coming up with that, is that really what you want? And so like there's a big part And I've got three choices on the poll. One is tag him and trade him, one is tag him and keep him, and the other is, for the love of God, just move on. For the love of God, just move on. Makes sense too for a couple of different reasons. One is what we just outlined, Like, you've had all these issues with him, It's time to put those in the rear view mirror. It's time to get through an offseason where there are no contract squabbles, there are no hold ins, there are no holdouts, there's none of that in the easiest way to do that is to move on from a guy who has been at the center of all those things. But also, like, if you legitimately believe in what you have and what you can go get you don't need to wrestle with Trey Hendrickson's twenty twenty six by using the franchise tag on him. Like if you believe, and I'm among those who do, who believe that Miles Murphy is ready to take a major leap in his fourth NFL season, And by the way, just because he was a non factor for his first two years doesn't mean you have to discount what he did this past season. If you believe that what we saw from Miles Murphy is the beginning of a guy who's going to prove that he was worth taking with a first round pick in twenty twenty three, and.
00:49:49
Speaker 2: If you believe, as we could argue they shouldn't. But if you genuinely believe that Shamar Stewart is ready to enjoy a coming out party in twenty twenty seve and prove that he was deserving of being a first round pick of this team. And if you believe that we could use free agency to find a player that we can at least add to the mix to be helpful in our pursuit of a better pass rush. And if you believe in your ability to draft edge rushers or even interior players on the defensive line to bolster the pass rush this year. Then aren't you comfortable simply moving on? I can only speak from my perspective. I could be talked into either. I can be talked into either tagging him and trading him, because I believe there's a world where the market materializes to the degree that the Bengals get something good out of a Trey Hendrickson trade. But I've also watched Trey be at the center of a lot of different sort of off field distractions of it the last couple of years, and an objective for this team this offseason is to be free and clear of off season distractions. On one hand, I think everybody would breathe a sigh of relief if they just moved on. On the other hand, any good NFL team maximizes markets and assets, and if you could tag him and trade them and flip what you got for him into a player who could help you this year, then that's all for the better. But if you tag him, who knows, if the market doesn't materialize, if there's not a deal that you really won, if he goes ahead in sciences franchise tag offer, Okay, there's some good to that maybe it's a fully healthy, fully rejuvenated Trey Hendrickson in twenty twenty six. But then there's all the potential baggage that comes with it. I think it's a more interesting question than one might have theorized two months ago. Five went, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty.
00:51:59
Speaker 5: Other pole question about the Reds in twenty twenty six, the Reds will I'll give you four choices win the National League Central, make the playoffs as a wildcard, finish above five hundred, but no playoffs, or finished be low five hundred.
00:52:11
Speaker 2: Vote now at moegar.
00:52:12
Speaker 5: Both poll questions at moegar Thanks to United Heartland Insurance. Your phone calls are coming up at seventeen after four o'clock on moegar. This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.
00:52:25
Speaker 4: Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.
00:52:31
Speaker 8: Uc Health Traffic Center at the uc Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you. Learn more at UCHealth dot com. Southbound seventy one after tapped road and accident has been cleared out still about a ten minute delay back from Martin Luther King drive a new accident in on southbound seventy one. It's after Norwood lateral on that Ezelic with track this week.
00:53:01
Speaker 9: Free agency to the draft and everything in between. We've got the Bengals off season covered on ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home of the Bengals.
00:53:12
Speaker 2: Forty five percent of you say the Reds is going to make the playoffs as a wild card. Hired I said like a broadcaster. Fourteen and a half percent of you say win the National League Central, Thirty one percent say finish above five hundred, but no playoffs, which will be like they last year won eighty three games, but they don't get in. And then nine and a half percent of you say finished below five hundred.
00:53:38
Speaker 5: I think we'll all be better equipped. Admittedly, we'll all be better equipped to answer this question in a month or so.
00:53:44
Speaker 2: But if I.
00:53:47
Speaker 5: Have a wager on the Reds to make the postseason this year, and me I always bet on them to hit the over for no other reason other than I want something to pay attention to it September.
00:53:59
Speaker 2: Not that you wall always do, but you often do. This year, I'm comfortable doing to make the playoff bet. What I think is going to be.
00:54:08
Speaker 5: Interesting if you go back to last year, So the Reds were twenty two and twenty two in one run games. Sometimes you'll see in a season where like a team is really really, really good in one run games, and that doesn't really carry over often from year to year across a lot of different sports. So sometimes the team's really bad in one run games and that often usually doesn't carry over from year to year.
00:54:29
Speaker 2: Again, regardless of sport.
00:54:31
Speaker 5: You see this in the NFL, where a team that is awesome in one score games one season ends up being awful in one score games the next year. Everything sort of regresses to the mean if you go back to last season. One of the things, one of the things that made the Reds easy to admire or hard to give up is, you know, we did the whole thing where, hey, they went like five months without losing a series, and it got to be sort of a trope. We kind of made fun of it, but it's if you never lose a series, you can never really go on a long losing streak. So there was something to that, There was something to that that spoke to that team's resiliency if you want to go from a far more intangible perspective, but it spoke to the quality of a club. They might not always be playing at their best, but they're good enough to just salvage games here and there. So they never have a nine to ten game losing streak. The longest losing streak the Reds had last season was five games. But conversely, the longest winning streak they had last year was five games. And this is part of what made them at times so deeply frustrating. They never like went on a run. They never went on and look, you could go on a run where you win like thirteen out of fifteen, and that is great, and maybe it's broken up by you know, you win four games and then you lose one, then you win four more games, and then you lose one, and then you what am I looking.
00:55:56
Speaker 2: For five more?
00:55:57
Speaker 5: And but they they never did either, right, They never had this long, drawn out spell where they lost seventeen out of twenty and lost so many games in a short amount of time that it just drilled them from the playoff race. But they also never went on a run. They never went on a run where they were able to close the gap between them and Milwaukee. They never went on a run where they were able to close the gap between them and the Chicago Cubs. They weren't good enough, they weren't consistent enough. Their offensive limitations usually are what kept that team from going on a prolonged stretch of winning. Their longest winning streak last season was as long as their longest losing streak five games.
00:56:39
Speaker 2: So that's one of the questions this year.
00:56:42
Speaker 5: Now you in the same baseball season, it's long enough, you could have a ten game winning streak and you could have a ten game losing streak. But which of those two things is more likely to not be the case this year after it was the case last year in fact, that they kept coming off the mat, you know, the whole cockroaches thing, because you couldn't sweep them. They never had a long, prolonged stretch where they just sunk their chances. Good starting pitching is usually gonna be what keeps you from going through a long stretch of losing. Bad offense or mediocre offense, more accurately, is gonna keep you prevent you from going on the long.
00:57:26
Speaker 2: Stretch of winning. That was missing last year.
00:57:28
Speaker 5: So this season like I'd be willing to bet this is the bet I'd be willing to make.
00:57:35
Speaker 2: They will not have their longest streak.
00:57:41
Speaker 5: Be fewer than six games, meaning the longest winning streak ain't gonna be five, and the longest losing streak isn't gonna be five. They're gonna have something this longer, maybe a winning streak, maybe a losing streak. One of the keys to the season is which is it? And I think on a larger scale, it's like, do they have a three week period where it feels like they never lose, or do they have a three week stretch where it feels like they never win. The twenty twenty two season was sunk because they lost twenty one out of twenty two at one point after they started two and two, and the twenty twenty three team took off because they had a twelve game winning streak and in the month of June into early July it felt like they never lost.
00:58:23
Speaker 2: What do they have this season? Is the offense going to be good enough that they have a stretch three weeks a month, whatever it is, where they go and again make up your number, they win eighteen out of twenty one. They win twenty two out of twenty six, so they win nine out of ten, or they win like eight in a row, or on the other end of it, do they go through a collective slump and fail to have their pitching carry them through a stretch where the offense isn't as good, and instead of continually avoiding sweeps, they get swept in some series and they lose fourteen of sixteen, seventeen of twenty nine in a row, that sort of thing.
00:59:11
Speaker 5: There's going to be a streak longer than five this year. I don't have the answer. I'm not sure anybody does. I'd be willing to bet I guess that. If I had to pick one or the other, I would say they're more likely to win more than five consecutive games than lose more than five consecutive games. And again, maybe they do both. It doesn't necessarily have to be either or. But if you believe the offense is gonna be dramatically improved, fair to wonder if it will be. But if you believe the offense is gonna be dramatically improved largely because dudes who were on the team last year are better this year, then I think you feel like they're gonna have a longer than five game winning streak, or if you feel like the offense has not been dramatically improved, or they're gonna be still too prone to these long stretches where it feels like they never score and that's fair too. Chances are you feel like the longest streak of losses is going to be more than five, But the longest streak they go through this season will not be five games.
01:00:06
Speaker 2: I don't make many guarantees. I'll make that one.
01:00:10
Speaker 5: Their longest streak this season, losing or winning will not be five? Which is it more likely to be? Four thirty seven, four nine, fifteen thirty. I got folks waiting. I will stop babbling and take some phone calls after sports headlines on ESPN fifteen thirty.
01:00:27
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
01:00:33
Speaker 8: Buick Center at the UC Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from non surgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you. Learn more at ucehealth dot com. One accident now cleared away that was on southbound seventy one after Norwood Lateral. Police are on the scene of another accident though northbound seventy five before Norwood Lateral. That one off on the right shoulder. I'm at Ezelak with traffic this report.
01:01:03
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01:01:20
Speaker 5: Reds pitchers and catchers reporting today to a Goodyear Red Spring training complex and Goodyear. They'll undergo physicals tomorrow, they'll have a workout on Wednesday, the first Cactus League game twelve days away, twelve days away, and Goodyear Reds and Guardians. I believe the Reds will be the road team for that tilt. A couple of other baseball stories, Pirates get their slugger Marcelo Zuna, who I didn't want one year, twelve million dollars. Also, the Milwaukee Brewers have traded away their third baseman, Caleb Durbin, to the Red Sox for Kyle Harrison, who's a lefty. Whole bunch of other players involved. Those are the two main particular's. College basketball Tonight, Xavier takes Hans Johns at Madison Square Garden tip off at six point thirty on seven hundred WLW. Also tonight, Indiana battles Oregon. Latest AP Top twenty five Men's college basketball poll. Arizona continues to be a unanimous number one. Arizona and Kansas hookup tonight in a battle of top ten teams. This evening, We've got the Mark Pope Radio Show at six o'clock on ESPN fifteen thirty. The Wildcats with another come from behind victory, this time at home over Tennessee to a sweep the season series against the Volunteers. The NKU Coaches Show is tonight at seven o'clock. Darren Horn's team ended a five game losing streak on Saturday. Dan Grezger with twenty two norse beet Milwaukee AP Top twenty five Men's college pole. Kentucky is twenty fifth, the Miami RedHawks holding at twenty third. Travis Steeles team in action next on Friday for a late night nationally televised tilt against the Ohio University Bobcats. There you go with sports headlines. Let's take a phone caller too. Huh five point three thirty. Uh Steven Montgomery, thanks for hanging on Steve.
01:03:07
Speaker 6: Go ahead, Hey Mo, Sorry to jump back around to the Trey Hendrickson potentially the franchise tag. One thing that I'm not sure you know is I believe February nineteenth is the first day you can tag a player. Yes, and you have a two week time frame. And keep in mind, within this two week time frame, the combine is going to occur where every GM is going to be located. They could tag him and they could be at that combine and every other team would come to them. They'd be right there talking to him. Well, we might go a third rounder. You know, while you're a good team, your third rounder is low. We might wait and hear somebody's got a higher third rounder something, and then the Bengals can he send the tag before that two week timeframe is up, and then there don't have the obligation of being stuck with them. So I think it's a great opportunity to try and just get something for the match, because, like you said, I think the ship is out. I don't really want him in the locker room. I don't really want him on the team this year. I like the idea of going young. You finally saw what Murphy and O so I could do when given the full time jobs. And one other last thing on the Bengals. And I know I'm just preaching to the choir. You've been a fan forever, remember we used to sit in the same section. And if they look at this, it's almost just like typical Bengals history. Leon Hall and Jonathan jokes. If they signed one, you've got your cornerback problems solved. Dax Hill and DJ Turner could both be extended in this offseason. If they don't, they're going to draft a corner in the first round and they're still just plugging a hole in a bucket. But it's so maddening to think it's right there in front of them. They have the money, they have the talent, they know this scheme, they're a perfect fit. Put those guys and lock them up for four years, and then you go into the draft wide open. If the d tackle's there, you take him. Get a safety in the second round. You can get Kobe Bryant as a safety in a free agent great, get a safety in the third round. It's just one of those things that I could see so often. If they just get this done.
01:05:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, but what you just outlined sounds and seems really easy. What it feels like the Bengals mo has been has been to take the easy and make it more complex. And so what you can help but wonder is how will they take this reasonably easy thing, which is DJ Turner played like one of the best corners in football last year, So go ahead and lock him in, right, go ahead and pay him like one of the best corners in football, and maybe at a at a slight discount relative to what you would have to pay next year. But get that done, and you have finally found a home for Dax Hill, and it finally feels like you have carved out the right role for him, and it feels like he's still an as sending player. Go ahead and get him done, and then you don't have to touch corner and you could sort of streamline your priorities on defense with the draft and with free agency. Sound. But a lot of things that have sounded easy for the Cincinnati Bengals they have unnecessarily made more complex. And that's the question this offseason, how will they make something more complex than it.
01:06:10
Speaker 2: Needs to be.
01:06:13
Speaker 6: It has to be done. They have to take care of their own before free agency. Then free agency is wide open, then the draft is wide open. Hit those three things. I don't see any way with a with a sixteen game or seventeen game burrow. They're not in the playoffs and making a run next year. If they just get those things done, every other team would love to have an offense like they do going into the season. The Bengals really only have to focus on one side of the ball minus adult and Resnor extension. It should be such a layup. Even the Brown family could nail it. I'm just begging and pleading, like this is the opportunity everybody seems down right now. Everybody's either cap crashed or they've got talent that's old and they're moving on, like in Baltimore. The other thing of doing that with the franchise teak is you would dictate where Hendricksing goes.
01:07:04
Speaker 3: You don't want them to go to Baltimore.
01:07:05
Speaker 2: H Yeah, you're exactly right.
01:07:08
Speaker 6: It's like we keep saying, it's not rocket science. Just get to work early, don't let it come to you, be proactive, go after it. If they do those things that, I'm pretty sure they already sold out on season tickets, but I think people will be scratching and clawing to get into the stadium again, which is what they claim they really need, and they'll get more primetime games and everybody will be hyped for the season. And we do have continuity in our coaching, so we don't have that strike against us. But at least we know on the offensive side of the ball it works. We saw improvement on the defense side of the ball with a pretty big darth of talent that disappeared aged overnight. But I think if they can just get those guys first and not be focusing on potentially drafting a corner, that's a huge first step.
01:07:55
Speaker 5: Steve made it sound easy and I could not agree more. Thanks very much, Thanks mo I guess, I guess On the tray thing, it's like, boy, there's exasperation with it. But if you know there's going to be a market for the guy, if you know there's going to be teams interested, would you rather those teams come to him or come to you? By the way, there is something to be said about controlling where he goes. If you know, though, there's going to be a market for Trey Hendrickson, and it is still impossible for I think most of us to imagine there won't be one. Would you rather tray have the suitors come to him, or would you rather have the suitors come to you and then you can figure out a way to get a prime asset for him this year this year. But it's one of the central questions of the off season. Beyond that, right, Like, they have a lot of money to spend, tons to spend relatively speaking in free agency, but tons to spend relative to the team needs. Like it's one thing to have a lot of cab space, it's something else to have a lot of cap space and one half year team basically set. Now, that does not mean they're not gonna, you know, draft to tackle the future. It does not mean that they wouldn't you know, be willing to sign a wide receiver who may represent an upgrade from what they have lower on the depth chart. But generally speaking, you don't really have to do anything with the offense. So they're in a very enviable spot. Lots of money to spend, lots of money to spend, and really only one side of the ball to spend it on.
01:09:28
Speaker 2: That's really good. That's really good.
01:09:33
Speaker 5: So there will be players, I believe starting caliber players who come to Cincinnati to help on defense, and then you obviously get the draft, above and beyond what they do in the draft, how do they take the simple and make it more complex than they need to. Which of those possible contract extensions turns into a thing, Which of those possible contract extensions turns into the sort of you know, hold in, hold out, standoff as, so whatever it is that leaks into the OTAs and then leaks into Miniicamp and then leaks into training camp.
01:10:19
Speaker 2: Like again, it takes two to tango.
01:10:23
Speaker 5: Maybe DJ Turner is like, dude, all I want to do is hit free agency one day, and so I'll play out my last year here and then, assuming you're not gonna tag me, I'll go ahead and hit free agency. And maybe they haven't seen enough from Dax Hill that compels them to want to pay him. I would argue there are very few places on your defense where it feels like you could be set, and not that they can't use a corner. Who's going to be the slock corner next year is a question, But those two players, like I think with DJ dj Turner, I think you saw enough this year and Dax Hill, like you did invest a first round pick in him. You've put up with the ups and downs of position and moves, scheme changes, defensive coordinators, an injury two years ago. Like it feels like he has a home. Shouldn't shouldn't he keep that home on your team? We'll see. But the Tryandrickson thing, like if you can, if you can get past the exasperation that I think everybody feels with just the the general topic of Trey Hendrickson's future, and you understand that there's going to be a market for him.
01:11:28
Speaker 2: Do you want that market coming to you? Do you want that market existing elsewhere? Vote now?
01:11:35
Speaker 5: At Malegger, It's fourteen away from five o'clock. I have a Super Bowl guarantee. Really quick, I'll give it to you next.
01:11:42
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
01:11:46
Speaker 8: Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center at the UC help Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you more at you see health dot com northbound seventy five and exitent off onto the right shoulder before Norwood Lateral. There's some slow traffic southbound seventy one between Martin Luther King and Fort Washington Way right now a five to ten minute delay on at Azelic with traffic.
01:12:17
Speaker 2: This report gave sponsored.
01:12:18
Speaker 5: This is ESPN fifteen thirty Moegger. It's the day after the super Bowl.
01:12:27
Speaker 2: Next year's super Bowl is going to be on Valentine's Day, and folks on the internet are wondering how are couples going to navigate this? Is this really going to be that much of an obstacle for any couple that's like, you know, sort of solid in their relationship. Is the super Bowl happening on a Sunday evening on Valentine's Day going to cause a problem? Yep?
01:12:55
Speaker 3: Really?
01:12:56
Speaker 5: Can't you celebrate Valentine's Day the night before, like if if it's like, you know what the game is on Sunday, We're gonna watch the game on Sunday. The next day is gonna be President's Day, which is going to solve an entirely different issue. Can you not have your Valentine's Day date on Saturday the thirteenth and have it be any less meaningful? Like is there especially knowing like there's a year to prepare? Is this going and granted there's gonna be people who you know they enter new relationship, enter new relationships between now and a year from now. But that could also be something you negotiate when you enter hey, which I think is good to do anyway. Like my wife and I don't really really do Valentine's Day. We buy each other cart or something well by my daughter of Valentine's Day present, because I think that's cute. But you know, we're not in high school anymore, so Valentine's Day isn't quite the thing that maybe it would have been when we were seventeen years old. Like we're folks in our forties. We have busy lives, we have jobs, we have a kid to raise, like we do date night, but Valentine's Day itself isn't a huge deal, and so, you know, maybe we're the exception.
01:14:16
Speaker 2: I don't know.
01:14:16
Speaker 5: I just I find it hard to believe that any couple that's in good standing with itself, with each person in good standing with the other, that that a football game being played on February the fourteenth is somehow going to ruin the relationship. I could be dead wrong about this.
01:14:30
Speaker 2: I don't know.
01:14:31
Speaker 5: I will say this. I don't know if our school district is the only one.
01:14:37
Speaker 2: I know we're not.
01:14:38
Speaker 5: Because I have a coworker with kids in a different district and we were talking about this today. Bengals made the Super Bowl in January of twenty twenty two. Ever since then, our school district has had an in service day the day after the Super Bowl. That is deft smart planning by the folks in our district. So like my daughter did not of school today, now I'm right, So this has become a thing now right where school districts are planning in serviced. I don't know really what happens during an in service day. I would imagine it's a lot less stressful than it is than when the kids are there. This isn't coincidental, right you could put it? And by the way, Monday's a holidays, so no school for President's Day. That has been a thing since the year after the Bengals made the Super Bowl.
01:15:29
Speaker 2: Dumb.
01:15:32
Speaker 5: I will guarantee you this also because this gets asked every year. I had a friend of mine who texted me last week and said she was at lunch with a bunch of like business leaders who wanted to know why the Super Bowl is not on Saturday. And there's two basic reasons for this. One is the host city wants the game on Sunday because a lot of people who come into the host city for various activities don't stay for the game, and so they don't want those people on Saturday morning. They want the Saturday night's day. Also, the TV networks, whoever carries the game, Sunday is a better TV day.
01:16:07
Speaker 2: Saturday.
01:16:07
Speaker 5: There's more people out, they want more people watching at home. This is simple. In our lifetime, this is my guarantee, in our lifetime, we will never have Super Bowl moved from Sunday to Saturday.
01:16:21
Speaker 2: Ever.
01:16:21
Speaker 5: And by the way, like I get it, you know, hey, you want the day off, take a vacation day.
01:16:28
Speaker 2: I hear this.
01:16:29
Speaker 5: My colleague Lance McCallister complains about this every single year. Every single year. Super Bowl should be on Saturday night, because you know, going to work the next day stinks. You're allowed to take a vacation day. The NCAA tournament the Thursday and Friday. The Thursday, we do a show at the Holy Grail in the morning and then I'm done for the weekend. I take a vacation day on Friday because I want to go watch basketball. I don't want to be on opposite my favorite sporting event, so I use it vacation day. Some American workers get more than others, but there's always stories about how American workers aren't using all their vacation day which, let me tell you something, use all your vacation days. Rule Number one in the American workforce should be use all your vacation days. If you're going to go crazy on Super Bowl Sunday, use a vacation day. Except now we're just going to close the schools anyway, so we might as well make it a holiday. I don't know, but I really appreciate the forward thinking by area school districts. Maybe not all, maybe not most, but there are some that have in service days now on the Monday after the Super Bowl, and I know it's done in case the Bengals make it. The day after the super Bowl is a little bit different if your team isn't it. Unfortunately ours was not. But we are not ever going to get a Saturday night super Bowl. So it's why that topic is never brought up on this show. Number one, others own it. Number two, it's a non starter because it's never going to happen. Ever, there's my guarantee. If I'm wrong, burn the tape, so to speak. Come away from five o'clock. By the way, a name was mentioned before that we have to keep talking about. We'll tell you who it is at five oh five on ESPN fifteen thirty.
01:18:21
Speaker 1: Now here's your chance to win one thousand dollars. Just enter this nationwide keyword on our website.
01:18:27
Speaker 2: Dollar. That's dollar. Enter it now.
01:18:30
Speaker 5: Look, I'm hearing from folks on social media and on email about Valentine's Day. Like we like Valentine's Day, don't. We don't dismiss, we don't ignore.
01:18:42
Speaker 2: We celebrate Valentine's Day like we do Saint Patrick's Day. Friday is coming? What's that? What's coming Friday? This Friday?
01:18:50
Speaker 5: Are you gonna be playing a bunch of sexy time music? I get it, that's a that's a staple on this show. If not on Valentine's Day, which is you know, on a Saturday this year, the day before, you could play all your sexy time music. Like I just I don't know that for that many couples, Valentine's Day coinciding with the Super Bowl is gonna like be a problem I could be. Maybe I'm using my limited relationship experience as a guide. I just know that most people that I know, you know, we'll do We'll do dinner, we'll do something for Valentine's Day to recognize. My wife last year bought me three cigars for three cigars that I really wanted for Valentine's Day, and we had a nice dinner. But if there happened to be a football game on, well, that would have been okay. And there might have been a sporting event on last year in Valentine's Day. For all I can remember, I just don't Valentine's Day is great, celebrated however you want.
01:19:43
Speaker 2: We don't ignore it.
01:19:44
Speaker 5: We just don't make it out to be the sort of thing that like gets in the way of of everything else. In this country, the two biggest holidays are Christmas and Thanksgiving. Correct we play NFL football on those days. One of those days has long been all about football for a lot of families. The other has quickly become about football. We now have games on Netflix on Christmas, and I know those are regular season games, so people are checking in and checking out, and you know, maybe it's on in the background and the super Bowl is a little bit different. But if we can find a way to have the NFL coincide and coexist with Thanksgiving and Christmas, we can figure out a way to make the biggest sporting event in this country coexist with Valentine's Day. That's that once, by the way, not every year. Once it will be okay, that's it, like Valentine's Day getting beat up for I didn't criticize the day that all criticizes Sweetest Day. Sweetest Day is unrecognized in our house. We've never recognized it, never will recognize it. It's as if it never was invented. Valentine's Day will do Valentine's Day. We'll get a hard shape pizza from Lorosa's. We'll do small gifts for each other, but it's not like Christmas where you're buying like nineteen things with the other person. And if the super Bowl is happening on Valentine's Day, us, like most families in this country, will figure out a way to make Valentine's Day coexist with the super Bowl. Thank you, seven after five o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Name was mentioned before congratulations to a former Bearcat Kobe Bryant. Kobe playing safety for the Seahawks and coming pseudo close to a couple of picks in the game last night wins a ring congratulations to him. When he was at u SE, he willingly played robin to Sauce Gardner's batman. Sauce Gardner was awesome, was an awesome college football player, and you See's had some good corners. Mike Mickens what he did at you See goes without saying, but Sauce Gardener his like last two years, you See's opponent openly decided to not throw his way. It was comical how much they would avoid throwing to his side of the field, And so naturally, if teams were gonna throw, they had to throw to Kobe Bryant's side of the field.
01:22:13
Speaker 2: And he answered the bell man like to a degree, you think about it, like teams aren't even trying to test Sauce. They're trying to test me, and I respond, And I put together a great college football career and was tied for the nation's lead in interceptions in twenty twenty the weird COVID season, and was one of the best players on a team that went undefeated and yet sort of faded to the background behind what Sauce was able to do. And Sauce had the nickname and a neat persona, and again like he was a remarkable college player.
01:22:48
Speaker 5: But I always love how Kobe kind of handled that. And on passing downs, you often knew as everybody did. And maybe he didn't know the ball is coming his way, but I could tell you where it wasn't going. And if I could tell you where it's not going, I can tell you where it's more likely to go. And so he had a terrific college career playing corner. Gets drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, and I don't remember who it was, but the last time the Bengals played Seattle, you know, we always try to get somebody who covers the other team, and I don't remember who he got on, but Kobe was having a hard time getting playing time, and I remember getting whoever it was, I should go look it up. And I asked about Kobe Bryant. He's like, dude, he's going to be a really good player. They've got to find a home for him, but they love so much about him. He has since been moved to safety and now he's a free agent, and this is an easy thing to do here, But the Bengals need a safety. They need like an established safety who may still be ascending. Now, I know that's the description of Geno Stone when he was a free agent. You know, Stone was a seventh round pick. Kobe Bryant was the fourth round pick. There are other safety options available. But would you be a post to Kobe Bryant helping solve the Bengal safety issues? I would not, so anyway, congratulations to him, and now he hits free agency and I would expect is going to have a lot of lucrative offers come his way. Sign me up for Kobe Bryant as a Cincinnati Bengal. The game itself last night, the story was Seattle's defense in real time. It it was abundantly clear early in the game, and collins Worth mentioned this on NBCs. I thought it was abundantly clear early in the game. Patriots were not going to be able to move the football and so in the absence of Seattle making a critical mistake on special teams or on offense, the Patriots were not going to win that football game. And collins Worth talked about this early in the broadcast aut at how you know, early in the game they had a possession that it kind of felt like the game hinged on that, and early in the game it felt like they were managing the game the way they did the Denver game with all the weather. The weather last night in Santa Clara was darn near perfect. This story was Seattle's defense. I'm not sure the final score. I'm not sure the box score is going to entirely encapsulate how good and how dominant Seattle's defense was. Now there's room for multiple truths. Seattle's defense rushing with four, keeping Drake May from scrambling, being excellent on the back, ending coverage, all of that well established. Drake May was also terrible and maybe physically compromised with that shoulder that he was weirdly not asked about before the game on NBC.
01:25:50
Speaker 2: There's room for multiple truths. Usually in life, there are. He was atrocious. New England's offensive game plan seemed atrocious. New England didn't seem like they were at all willing to be aggressive with fourth and short or with throwing the ball at times on third downs. You couldn't help but do this either. This is maybe not the most fair thing.
01:26:13
Speaker 5: The Patriots future is probably very bright, and Drake may did finish this far away from winning the NFL's MVP, and there's a lot of teams that would love to have him at quarterback. And by the way, when they did pseudo mount to comeback last night, Dre dropped a couple of times.
01:26:30
Speaker 2: But you couldn't help but watch.
01:26:33
Speaker 5: The Patriots scheduled this year was historically weak in the postseason. They caught some breaks a Chargers team that was not at all equipped to play ont offense in the first round of the postseason with a woefully decimated offensive line and a quarterback who was physically compromised. In the second round, c J. Stroud was horrific. He was really bad against Pittsburgh and round one. He was worse against the Patriots in round two. So weather was a factor. New England beats Denver playing with Jared Stidham in a game dominated by snow in the second half, like a lot of stuff went their way. But that's okay. All you can do is play who the schedule gives you. All you can do is take care of the opponent in front of you. The Patriots, up until last night did that at the same time, you couldn't help but watch that game last night and go, that's that's the AFC's best.
01:27:29
Speaker 2: That's the AFC's best. So it does two different things.
01:27:33
Speaker 5: I think it illustrates how much of a missed opportunity this season was for a whole bunch of AFC teams. Obviously, you could put the Bengals in that conversation. It could also include the Bills and the Ravens, and could include, if you want, the Chargers, and you can make it about the Texans if you want. The AFC was down. The AFC's one seed was the Denver Broncos. The AFC two seed was that Patriots team from last night. Also might illustrate how relatively easy it may be to get back to the top in this conference for any number of teams. Kansas City perhaps should lead that conversation. Baltimore should lead that conversation. The Buffalo Bills will be in that conversation. The Bengals should be as well. I'll say this this morning on FanDuel, the Bengals odds to win the AFC were at plus thirteen hundred plus thirteen hundred if you are bullish on the Bengals today.
01:28:39
Speaker 2: You should If you're a gambler, you should buy that now.
01:28:41
Speaker 5: If you're not, that's okay, because I don't think those odds are going to get any longer. I don't think that's going to go to plus fifteen hundred. I don't think that's going to go to plus sixteen hundred.
01:28:52
Speaker 2: Now.
01:28:53
Speaker 5: They might not be the odds on favorite to win the AFC. In fact, I'd be stunned if they were. But those odds will only get shorter as the offseason unfolds because they're gonna add people.
01:29:04
Speaker 2: They're not trading Burrow.
01:29:06
Speaker 5: You know you've read this weekend about how teams are gonna be calling the Bengals about Joe Burrow.
01:29:10
Speaker 2: That's neat.
01:29:11
Speaker 5: I can call a lot of people about a lot of different things. Doesn't mean they're gonna say yes, Joe Burrow will play for the Bengals in twenty twenty six. He's also probably not gonna sit out the season, so don't worry about any of that. So he is gonna play. They're gonna do nothing but add. They're not gonna lose a key guy in free agency, even Trey Hendrickson's departure We're talking about a guy who was here for less than half of the season in twenty twenty five.
01:29:38
Speaker 2: The question is.
01:29:41
Speaker 5: Can they go from a six win team this year to being where the Patriots were this year and leapfrogs some of the teams in the process. But it it is not often felt like the AFC is now wide open. In recent years, we've talked about there being a big three or a big four, and the Bengals at times have been in that small grouping. I don't know if there's a big anything in the AFC right now. By the way, we could have said that had the Patriots won that game last night. The fact that they played the way they did, the fact that they were as offensively inept as they were, will only amplify those conversations. Sixteen minutes after five o'clock, a couple of po up questions for your entertainment at Moulagar. One is about Trey Hendrickson and what the Bengal should do with ny. The other is about where the Reds are going to finish uh in the National League Central this year at Moulagar Thanks to United Heartland Insurance go to uh I NS dot com. Five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. They are playing catch and getting ready in goodyear. Spring training is about to start for the Reds. Reasons to feel bullish.
01:30:48
Speaker 2: And then one reason to maybe not feel so bullish coming up on ESPN fifteen.
01:30:52
Speaker 7: Thirty, WCKY Cincinnati and iHeartRadio Station Guaranteed humanesp in fifteen thirty I Heart Radio.
01:31:03
Speaker 2: If you miss anything on this show, how dare you?
01:31:06
Speaker 5: The good news is we record everything and we put it on the internet, and we've got an app, the iHeartRadio App, And you know it would be cool if you go to the app and you could set us as a preset. Thanks very much. In advance, we put interviews. We had a bunch of really good ones last week. Number of you have said nice things about our conversation with Jeene's territor. Our guy Sean Saya joined us to discuss some of the lessons that the Bengals can learn from the teams that were in the Super Bowl. Our friend Evan Cohen from ESPN Radio was with us as well. All of that and so much more. Ron Harper our interview with him that's available on the iHeartRadio app. Podcast of this show. Our a service of long Nex Sports Grow. By the way, the new location in Hebren is open and can't wait to check that out later this week. They've got a great deal all three long Next locations this week with Valentine's Day coming up. Two entrees, one appetizer and one dessert for forty five bucks. How about that? So date night at Long Necks, Wilder, Hebron or rich Wood. And again, congratulations to the folks at Long Necks for the reopening of the grand reopening of their Hebren location. I think that's the best way to phrase that. Five one, three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty and eight sixty six seven two three seven seven six works as well.
01:32:33
Speaker 2: You know the Reds.
01:32:34
Speaker 5: Thing with the offseason, pitchers and catchers reporting in in goodyear. This is the year where twenty twenty five we're going to determine whether last year was a success. This is a different type of spring training, This is a different type of rollout to the.
01:32:49
Speaker 2: Season where they made the postseason last year.
01:32:52
Speaker 5: I'll be honest with you, if you listen to a lot of the offseason discourse, much of which I participated in, that exactly feel like they were a playoff team last year, but they were now be the first to admit, if they win eighty three games this season or only eighty three games this season, it's gonna be hard to imagine this team playing in the postseason. But it does feel like this season that a we're going into it talking about their like bona fides as far as getting to the playoffs and advancing in the playoffs and winning the division. Not really sure we were doing that as much last year, despite hiring Terry Francona. Now it's how do they use last year as a jumping off point? The offense last year, as frustrating as it was, as at.
01:33:47
Speaker 2: Times punchless as it was.
01:33:51
Speaker 5: What's kind of neat about the Uhenio Suarez pickup is they're adding him to an offense that top to bottom wasn't atrocious last season. Now, there were times it was, but they were fourteenth in the league and run scored. They're not league worst. They're not the Bengals defense where you're building from, you know, a place at the very very bottom of the league. There are a lot of reasons to believe that team offensively could be better. The improvement, however, is going to come from within that's no knock on euhanios Wuarez. You were hoping he can hit you thirty to forty home runs, and playing in the ballpark the Reds play in, there's a very good chance that can happen. But at the end of the day, like dudes who have been here now for a while, like you realize how long ago twenty twenty three really was. Matt McClain was the Red's best player then because of a year where he doesn't play and then a year where he does play but doesn't play well, it feels like that was forever ago. Can you imagine what it would mean to this team if the Reds get the Matt McClain this year they clearly thought they were getting going into last year. It's a game changer that maybe he doesn't hit second at the beginning of the season, but that doesn't mean he can't be in assets somewhere else in the order. Can you imagine if a year of full health for Elie Dela Cruz, if that translates into like legitimate superstardom, aided by the fact that he's got somebody hitting behind him who's a legitimate long ball threat. Imagine what that looks like what it can mean for this team this year. Noelve Marte Offensively, I think Noel A Marte was the best feel good story on the team last season. Dude, who could not have been deeper in the doghouse during spring training and at the end of the season. You couldn't have imagined them without him. Can you imagine Sal Stewart hitting thirty home runs for this team? Talked about this on Friday. If you want to do this from a gambling perspective, plus eight hundred for him to be National League Rookie of the Year. I think that value is absurd because we saw he can hit the ball out of the ballpark at the big league level in the month he was up last season, hitting in this ballpark, maybe in a lineup that provides him a little bit more protection. There's a whole lot of things that singularly, if they happen, make total sense.
01:36:28
Speaker 2: The question is can all of them happen?
01:36:31
Speaker 5: And if they all happen at the same time, you know, I think the idea of this season is to go from eighty three last year to ninety. All those things happen, that's more than doable. Question is, while some of them, may will all of them and if not, then what.
01:36:53
Speaker 2: I just believe this.
01:36:54
Speaker 5: Man, Like, it's easy to be down on the Reds for a lot of different reasons. It's been thirty years since they've advanced in the playoffs. The brand of the franchise isn't awesome. Folks are still pissed off at ownership. Like, there's a lot there. But if you took I don't know, twenty teams that last season didn't win a championship, didn't really come that close to winning a championship, but believe they can do better this season and at least make the playoffs. How many of them will start spring training from a place where they have a really good idea of who four of their starting pitchers are going to be. How many of them have the starting pitching options the Reds have. How many of them have a chance for the high end the rotation here has the potential for like that's kind of, you know, part of what made so many of the discussions this offseason so frustrating when it came to the search for a home run back right, Like, boy, the starting pitching is top notch. They have a lot of guys, a lot of a lot of talent, a lot of potential, a lot of guys in your team control for a long time, if the offense could only be you know, okay. By the way, this sounds a lot like the Bengals when it comes to their offense and lack of defense. But there are a whole lot of teams that I believe are starting spring training from the position of strength the Reds are starting from with their starting pitching. And even if you can wonder about, you know, how the Reds are going to fill out the two through five spots in the batting order, if they're going to be collectively better at getting on base, if they're really going to see an uptick in the mental home runs they hit. I think to a degree, they're starting from a pretty enviable place with the guys they have most ideally filling out those roles.
01:38:45
Speaker 2: Five point thirty at moeggor on Twitter. Vote now.
01:38:47
Speaker 5: We'll update the poll questions here after sports headlines. College basketball coming up will get to that as well. On ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.
01:38:54
Speaker 4: Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
01:39:00
Speaker 8: Do you see health traffic center at the UC help backneck and spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered What's best for You or more at U seehealth dot com. There is a new accident in on eastbound two seventy five after coal rain. Also a crash southbound seventy five between Shepherd Lane and Cooper Avenue. Police, fire and ems are all there on scene. I'm at ezelic with traffic.
01:39:29
Speaker 9: This raised athletes the world's biggest stage stay with ESPN fifteen thirty were the latest Olympic updates.
01:39:41
Speaker 2: Do the updates involve people who would ordinarily have no interest in skiing getting madelins Yvonne mad at her for what they were mad at her because she tried to compete despite having an ACL injury. I did not see the injury happen real time, but I woke up yesterday morning, and you know, I was having a cup of coffee, kind of enjoying the quiet. My daughter had had friends over. They were in the other room, they had spent the night, and I, you know, I had to go. We had a basketball game, you see, played and so I thought, ye, I'm gonna do what I often do if I can is just I'm gonna take ten to fifteen minutes and I read stuff and I go. Sometimes I'll look at Twitter first, and sometimes I don't. Yesterday was one of those mornings where I looked at Twitter first. And on a day where you knew Twitter for much of the Super Bowl was going to be an angry, angry place yesterday morning, you know, you get folks, they need that dopamine head of just being angry at things online. And apparently Lindsay Vaughn's crash, which I don't really think had anything to do with her knee injury, and I do not closely follow downhill skiing, but I like to watch it during the Olympics because the Olympics are cool and because it's a very dangerous looking space. So she has an injury and it wasn't enough to go man. That stings for her.
01:41:06
Speaker 5: Folks, big man, big big man at the media for Oprah over hyping it, of course, and then big mad at her for taking up a spot that they thinks should have gone to somebody else, big big, big mad on social Yes. So then I quickly decided I'm gonna go read something that has nothing to do with this Sports Headlines, earth service of Kelsey Chevrolet. I do, like, I don't really have these people in my life, but I one of these days I'm going to identify somebody because I see some of these folks online and they're for the most part, not people I follow, because I don't really follow people like this, but like you just you get the sense there are some of these folks that like every day their sole reason for existing is to find things to be mad at. So they they they look, they spend all day looking for things that they could use to just express they're angered. They get that temporary hit, and I just one of these days, I'm gonna, like, like just embed myself with them for a day, just to see what life in the real world is actually like. Sports Headlines are a service at Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime power train protection and guarantee credit approval from their family to yours for life.
01:42:17
Speaker 2: Kelsey chev dot Com.
01:42:19
Speaker 5: Reds pitchers and catchers are reporting to us spring training in goodyear physicals tomorrow, So turn your head and cough and then the first workout is going to be on Wednesday. Of course, the first Cactus League game against the Guardians is going to be on February the twenty.
01:42:36
Speaker 2: First, in goodyear or twelve days away. What else do we have? A couple of baseball notes. Pirates have signed Marcelo Zuna, who was a player that some thought the Reds might be interested in.
01:42:51
Speaker 5: Hard pass on him. Meanwhile, this raise some eyebrows. Today, the Red Sox have acquired Caleb Durbin a third basement from Milwaukee Brewers. Who finished I said six before thirty the National League Rookie the Year voting last year in exchange, Boston sends to Milwaukee lefty Kyle Harrison.
01:43:09
Speaker 2: What else do we have? College basketball?
01:43:10
Speaker 5: Tonight it's Patino Bowl two as Xavier takes on Saint John's at the world's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, tip off tonight at six thirty. That game can be heard on seven hundred WLW with Joe and Byron pregame coverage starting Ainst six pm. Also tonight, Indiana takes on Oregon. I believe I should have checked this. They are celebrating the undefeated seventy five seventy sixteen. I believe that's happening tonight. I don't know college basketball?
01:43:38
Speaker 2: What else we have? The AP top twenty five men's pull is out.
01:43:40
Speaker 5: Kentucky slides into twenty five after another come from behind win, this time again over Tennessee on Saturday. More tonight on the Mark Pope Show at six pm on ESPN fifteen thirty. After that, it'll be the NKU Coaches Show, the Norse winning on Saturday, Darren Horn's team beating Milwaukee. He'll talk about that in so much more at seven o'clock to the Miami RedHawks are twenty third in the AP Tops twenty five poll, holding steady where they were last week. Miami beat Marshall on the road. Kenpalm dot com has and you can go overboard with this, but kenpom dot com predicts Miami to win each of their remaining games, which obviously, if they did, they would finish the regular season undefeated. They give Miami no worse than a sixty seven percent chance to win each of their final seven remaining games, including an eighty eight percent chance to beat Ohio You on Friday night. RedHawks have had some close calls in this quest for an undefeated season. The two back to back overtime games against Buffalo and Ken State. The return game against Buffalo, which Miami made it closer than it needed to be, but they did hang on to win the UMass game, which they We play U Mass a week from tomorrow in Amherst. Now the OU game is going to be here on Friday. That's the nationally televised game. That U Mass game is going to be tough. And then it's Terrence Bowling, Green Falcons, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Toledo, and then the second of two games against Oh You and Athens, which I would imagine if Miami is undefeated and they play the Bobcats in Athens the last game, that atmosphere is going to be fun. But Ken Palm likes them to win every game and gives them no worse than a six sixty seven percent chance of winning. This is I think the most interesting story in college basketball right now. And you know we were making fun last week of I guess there are some Arizona Wildcats fans who have decided to pick a fight with Miami and folks who like the RedHawks. And the cool thing about college basketball is not every undefeated season is the same. The Arizona Wildcats are awesome. Now they play in what is going to be another fun night of college basketball. They play what I think most would agree is a must watch game against Kansas, a Jayhawks team that has very quietly snuck into the top ten. That game is in Lawrence tonight, So by the end of this evening, it is plausible that Miami will be the nation's only undefeated team. Arizona is better than Miami. And you don't need me to say that. I don't need to say it. You don't need to hear me say that. But the cool thing about this sport is there's lots of room for different types of stories. There's lots of room for different types of really good teams. There's lots of room for fans to be really excited about their respective teams. And I think I talked about this last week, but if I didn't, I'll say it here. I think the cool thing about Miami isn't so much that they're undefeated, although because they're undefeated, there are a lot more on people's radar than they would be if they had two lost. What I think is cool is this is the continuation of something that started last year. Miami University basketball has been dormant for most of this century, and you know, Malette Hall has been empty, and the sport Miami basketball, in the local sports landscape in recent years has not really been on the grid. And now the campus community is excited. Miami alums are fired up. More people are going to games like that's awesome when it happens, and you could acknowledge that.
01:47:35
Speaker 2: Even if that's not your team.
01:47:36
Speaker 5: And I've read over the last day or so a lot of stories about Sam Darnold being the Super Bowl's greatest ever redemption story.
01:47:43
Speaker 2: And maybe he is, and it's a neat story that this guy was.
01:47:47
Speaker 5: Kind of left for dead in multiple places and he's associated with seeing goats, seeing ghosts when he was with the Jets and they were playing the Patriots. And now I don't think he was awesome last night, but he is a super Bowl winning quarterback. That is an awesome story. Travis Steele not getting the job done at Xavier and then getting another chance in the same part of the country and making the most of.
01:48:11
Speaker 2: It is also a cool story.
01:48:14
Speaker 5: I don't know why Miami being undefeated has to make anybody who roots for another really good team feel uncomfortable. I do think, though, the biggest story in the sport right now is the distinct possibility that you'll have a team that wins every regular season game and yet if they don't continue perfection in their conference tournament, they may not make it. And you know, we're talking about humans on the selection committee, and each one applies different criteria. It would be unsurprising if someone on the selection committee said, look, yes, the schedule is really weak, and it is by everybody's admission, and yes they uh, getting through the MAC undefeated is different than getting through the Big twelve, SEC, Big East, ACC, et cetera.
01:49:13
Speaker 2: Undefeated.
01:49:14
Speaker 5: But they did go undefeated. Are we essentially going to nullify all of that because they lost one game, especially in the conference tournament title game. There have been lots of really good teams that didn't make the Big Dance because they lost their conference tournament title game. I don't know that there's been an undefeated one. You will have folks on the committee who I believe, say, look, yes, schedule is what it is, net is what it is. They're eighty ninth today, but come on, man, they won every game. And then you're gonna have folks on the committee who go, look, good team, great season, but look at the metrics. The metrics, and if you just look look at the pure metrics of it, Q one wins or lack thereof net ranking Ken Palm, and you just you don't even consider that there's a zero in the lost column. And then you look at the schedule and how it's weighted down and the fact that they've played three games that don't even count when you look at their resume. You are going to have people if this is what happens, where they win all their games and they still have seven to go and then lose in the conference tournament title game, which nobody here wants that you're gonna have folks on the committee who go neat story, good team, but you can't put them in because of the because of the metrics. It's gonna be fascinating, and it might be a moot point because maybe Miami loses and still wins the MAC Tournament, or maybe Miami wins all their games and still wins the MAC Tournament and they go into the NCAA Tournament with an undefeated, unblemished record, then it's gonna be fascinating to see what seedet and like, who knows, maybe they lose like five of their next seven and then get smoked in the first round in the MAC Tournament. It doesn't matter at all, but we are we are certainly with each success of Miami victory, we are closing it on the possibility of them going into the MAC Tournament with an undefeated record and still at least not a lock to make the Big Dance and maybe a good bet to not make it if they lose.
01:51:27
Speaker 2: We'll see ut the college basketball, the New England Patriots a college basketball Yeah, there you go, there you go.
01:51:35
Speaker 5: The Bearcat came yesterday. I don't know that we need to make a bigger deal out of it than it is. They're twelve and twelve, but a solid performance at home. The Bearcats are twelve and three at home this season. The issue has been among many they haven't won away from home. I know my colleague Tony Pike, who's as big of a Bearcat fan as I am, wants to cling to the idea that this team is going to run the table. In order to do that, you have to win away from home. They haven't done so this year. I do think, I do think they should win the next two games. What is so frustrating about the Bearcats? And again there's a lot of different things. What is so frustrating about the Bearcats is on the defensive end, they're a good team. Like on the defensive end of the floor, metrics, eyeball test, are they perfect? No, they're really good. What was so tantalizing about yesterday is you saw what a good defensive team can do when they shoot the ball. Well, they weren't perfect on the offensive end, but they shot close to sixty percent. I'm not entirely sure how good that UCF team is. They're a tournament team today, but back to back losses. Cincinnati did whatever they won on the offensive end last night, shot sixty one percent from behind the arc, and they had like five guys in double figures. If you knew nothing about the Bearcats but watched the game yesterday, you would think that's a team that's got a chance to make the NCAA tournament.
01:52:55
Speaker 2: Alas that is not the case.
01:52:57
Speaker 5: We have to go tomorrow on the show, Paula on his h excuse me, ten point guide for the Bengals to get back to the super Bowl.
01:53:06
Speaker 2: What else do we have?
01:53:08
Speaker 5: Oh, Jordan Bishwell is going to be on the show that you U see baseball coach, our friend Stewart W. Penrose from the Manila Lag Group on a handful of sports legal issues, including the possibility that y Selpuig is going to go to federal prison for a really long time, that uplifting story in so much more. Anything you might have missed go find on the iHeartRadio app, follow on Twitter at Mowegor's show has over got to go. Thanks to Tarren Bland for producing. Thanks to you for listening. The Mark Pope Radio Show is coming up next. Have an awesome night. We'll talk to you tomorrow. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.
01:53:42
Speaker 4: Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
01:54:10
Speaker 8: From the uc Health Traffic Center at the uc Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you? Learn Moore at UCHealth dot com. One accident has now been cleared away eastbound on two seventy five. That's after seventy one on the Ohio side. Northbound two seventy five, there's an accident on the entrance ramp from westbound Ohio Pike. I'm at EAZELIC with traffic.
01:54:40
Speaker 2: This report is sponsored by Miami Valley Gaming
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00:00:06
Speaker 2: Pay. That's pay entering.
00:00:09
Speaker 3: Now look you.
00:00:10
Speaker 4: On fifteen thirty.
00:00:11
Speaker 5: Congratulations to Cody Bryant of the Seattle Seahawks, former Bearcat and maybe hopefully ideally future bengaled a dominant performance by Seattle's defense, which we are going to discuss. I'm Aleka. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, the best four words in the English language. Pitchers and catchers report. That is what's happening right now in Goodyear. The first full squad workout of the first workout, I guess will be on Wednesday. We are inching closer to the start of the Cactus League season, which begins in less than two weeks. Today, outside by the way, when I left my house at twelve twelve, I don't know why I picked twelve twelve. It was twelve twelve today's weather. It felt almost tropical, like thirty seven degrees. Legitimately, I walked to the end of the driveway to get my garbage can and it almost felt like warm. Thirty seven degrees. That's how cold it's been here. But maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. The Reds are going through baseball activities, so to speak, in goodyear. A lot on them today between now and six o'clock. Show preview is available on Twitter at Mulleger. Thanks to shareffacs credit union, you know what you should do this week? Make a goal to go to shareffacts dot org and learn about the benefits of membership at shareffac's credit union. You can become a member just like me. Go to sharefax dot org. So give it up to the Seattle Seahawks defense, which was remarkable. I don't know that the box score, I don't know that a simple game summary will do justice what we saw from Seattle's defense last night. And I don't know that there's any grand takeaway from what the Seahawks did to the Patriots or what they did all long. It would be I think a little bit of a misnomer to talk about how well, you know, Seattle had a great defense and they could be sort of the inverse of the Bengals, where they have a great defense and a league average offense. There are some metrics where the Seattle Seahawks were awesome on offense. EPA per play EPA per Dropack Jackson Smith and Jigbo was the NFL's offensive player.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: REVW.
00:02:24
Speaker 5: Kenneth Walker was the MVP of a game last night that was dominated by Seattle's defense, but they it it was extraordinarily well executed. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel. They could rush for right, they could keep Drake May from scrambling, and they kept the Patriots for the most part, from getting any separation downfield. Stefan Diggs was a non factor. Drake May's running was a non factor. And so congratulations to the Seahawks. One of the most dominant defensive performances we've had in recent history in the Super Bowl and a team that is probably not going to go anywhere, a testament to the coaching of Mike McDonald, a testament to the the deafness of handling the roster by the general manager John Schneider.
00:03:14
Speaker 2: They win a terrific division.
00:03:17
Speaker 5: They dominated that game last night, dominated it. That game was not as close as the final score would indicate.
00:03:24
Speaker 2: Drake May was terrible. The Patriots game plan.
00:03:27
Speaker 5: Chris Collinsworth talked about this like in the midway through the first quarter of the game last night, that they were on offense at least coaching as if it was the Denver game with all the bad weather, or they were basically saying, we're not going to move the ball. We can't move the ball, we can't do anything on offense. Maybe we can get a special team's mistake by Seattle. Perhaps we can get their offense to make a mistake. Think about that for a second. That is an offense that went into a shell with the guy who was this close to being named the league's MVP. That's how good Seattle was last night. It's how uninspiring the Patriots were last night, and frankly, from our perspective in Cincinnati, no knock on Seattle. A well earned, well deserved championship. Thoroughly impressed all season long by their defense. We talked about them going into the postseason that at times, if you watched them at the end of the season against the San Francisco forty nine ers, it felt like they had like thirteen defensive players on the field. Now the Rams tested them a little bit, but still reasonably dominant run. They're the one seed, great home field advantage, destroy a short handed San Francisco team and beat pretty handily. Although the score was at least somewhat in doubt, the game's outcome at least somewhat in doubt if you looked at the score in the fourth quarter last night, their defense was dominant. From a New England perspective, though, that's the best the AFC had to offer. It illustrated last night. Why this season and you could say this in Cincinnati, You could say this in Buffalo, you could say this in Baltimore. Maybe you could still say it in Kansas City. It illustrates why this season was so frustrating. That's the best the AFC had to offer. Now, Mike Vray Bowl is a terrific coach. Drake may is a very good player. I'm not convinced he was one hundred percent last night. The Patriots are probably gonna be a force to be reckoned with for quite a while. But that is the current barometer in the AFC that goes into the offseason to a degree at least as the team de beat in the AFC. That's the bar that everybody else in the AFC. With Joe Burrow and with Patrick Mahomes, and with Josh Allen, and with Lamar Jackson and with Justin Herbert, And to what degree you want to say this?
00:05:50
Speaker 6: C J.
00:05:50
Speaker 5: Stroud in Houston and Trevor Lawrence and Jacksonville and a handful of other places. I guess maybe you want to throw Pittsburgh into the conversation. By all means, go for it. I'll leave them out for now. The bar you have to clear was rendered useless offensively.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: In the Super Bowl last night.
00:06:11
Speaker 5: So it is going to be fascinating this offseason to see which teams in the AFC are best positioned to knock that team off its perch. And by the way, you might go, well, wait a minute, hang on a second. And the regular season it was the Denver Broncos, okay, and the Denver Broncos, unfortunately for them, had to play the AFC Championship game without their starting quarterback, Bo Nicks. And who knows how that game unfolds If Knicks plays, who knows how that game unfolds. If weather isn't a factor, who knows how that game unfolds. If Sean Payton decides to kick a field goal with his team leading by seven points early fifteen days ago, we don't know. But the thing that made this season so frustrating and This was talked about in real time. This was talked about as the season was unfolding. The thing that made this season so frustrating is you looked at the AFC and you said, it's either wide open or not very good. It was wide open. It wasn't very good. And the team that represented that half of the league in the Super Bowl last night offensively because I thought New England's defense did play pretty well last night, but offensively was entirely non competitive. Now it's a second year quarterback, it's a new head coach. The Patriots were in many respects ahead of schedule. I think we know what that feels like here, right the Bengals in twenty twenty one, we talked about him being ahead of schedule. And the Patriots will probably be back in the postseason next year.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: And we'll see, we'll see.
00:07:36
Speaker 5: But I watched out last night, going man, this conference was there for the taking. The fact that this is the best the AFC could do makes them all the more painful. If you had a team that you thought had a chance before the season, but that didn't take advantage of that chance.
00:07:51
Speaker 2: Thirteen minutes after three o'clock. Our lines are open today Today is a guest free Monday five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty will get you in eight seven, two, three, seven, seven six works as well.
00:08:04
Speaker 5: We have a lot of ground to cover. The weekend that was in college basketball with a UC win, another Miami win, another Kentucky win, and Xavier playing tonight. Updated AP Top twenty five rankings. Uk is back into the top twenty five and twenty fifth, Miami unmoved at twenty third. All of that to get to a little bit later on. Reds pitchers and catchers have reported in goodyear. We also have reports indicating two different things about the Bengals. One the teams are gonna call about Joe Burrow. We can laugh at that. The other one, I think is a pretty interesting discussion to tag or to not tag Trey Hendrickson, because there were reports over the weekend indicating that the Bengals are at least open to the idea which on February then ninth, why wouldn't they be. We'll spend some time on that a little bit later on. You can send a tweet to the show or to me at Moeger Thanks to Delta Dental, Delta Dental is building healthy, smart vibrant communities for all good at Delta Dental, Oh dot com.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: A handful of questions loom over Goodyear.
00:09:12
Speaker 5: We'll ask some of them next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.
00:09:17
Speaker 7: Station WCKY Cincinnati and iHeartRadio station Garan teed Human ESPN iHeartRadio.
00:09:27
Speaker 5: You know, if you miss anything on this show, you can listen on the iHeartRadio app. You can also listen to us on ESPN fifteen thirty dot com and go to the podcast page. Taren, what are we listening to right now?
00:09:46
Speaker 2: One of bad bunny songs for doing not perform? Oh boy, oh no, oh man? Oh. You know, I don't do culture wars. Don't get involve in culture wars. I have a very very happy life, very happy. And one of the reasons for my happiness is I I don't. I don't fight culture wars. It is it is a blissful existence. It is awesome.
00:10:13
Speaker 5: And so here's here's my commentary on the halftime show. Okay, uh, if you watched the Super Bowl halftime show, awesome. Western civilization did not come to an end because of the halftime show. And if you chose not to watch the halftime show and saw it's some sort of alternate programming.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: Awesome, that's cool too. Western civilization didn't come to an end because you didn't watch the halftime show and chose something else. There you go, that's that's that's what I got. That's what I got for you.
00:10:46
Speaker 5: As it relates to the to the to the halftime show, I don't need it was fine.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: It was the halftime show for me.
00:10:54
Speaker 5: For the most part. Is is filler. And that's no knock on anybody who has performed it. It is often not aimed at me. That is okay, that's fine. I don't need everything aimed at me. I didn't know much about Bad Bunny going into the halftime show. I don't know that much about it now. The halftime show is on. In my house. During halftime, we were also getting my daughter ready for bed and doing some reading, and I had to take the garbage out and I did a round of dishes because I wanted to be locked in for the third quarter. But when it was on, it was on, and like looked okay. I don't know.
00:11:30
Speaker 6: I just.
00:11:33
Speaker 5: Everybody settled into their respective roles last night, and the people who wanted to get mad about it, who were always looking for reasons to.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: Be mad, they got to performatively be mad.
00:11:44
Speaker 5: And the folks who wanted to convince those who were mad about it that they were missing the greatest halftime show of all time went on social media and talked about how it was the greatest halftime show of all time, and that's awesome whatever. For me, it was fifteen minutes that was on my television, and Western's civilization did not come to an end because of it. That's all I got for you as it relates to the halftime If you enjoyed it terrific, if you tolerated it terrific, and if you didn't like.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: It, that's fine too. That's fine too.
00:12:15
Speaker 5: I don't know when we determined that the halftime show had to become a cultural touchstone. Bigger cultural touchstone for me is pictures and catchers report more fun talking about that in goodyear than any culture war.
00:12:33
Speaker 2: Yep, forty eight years old. I've never fought a cultural war. Pretty damn happy, thank you.
00:12:43
Speaker 5: I will let them, I'm sure. Down the hall. That's the talking point today, being angry. And you know the folks who were angry about the halftime show, I'm guessed didn't need to watch the halftime show to be angry about it. So I'm sure that's happening down there. That's your thing, man, go for it at a what we do here. So I just talked about it for two and a half minutes, even though I wasn't going to twenty three minutes after three o'clock. Five point three seven, four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. They are They are reporting in goodyear. Our friend Pat Brennan, who, by the way, Terry get Pat Brennan on the show this week for the first time in like forever. He tweeted out video of like bullpen sessions and games of catch being had and that is like ASMR for people like me. So we're inching closer to the start of the Cactus League schedule. The question that looms over the start of spring training is simple, have they done enough? Have they done enough on one level at the end of the season last year, If one would have asked what do the Rights need to accomplish this offseason, I think the basic answer would have been, make the bullpen better, make the bullpen deeper, go find a guy who can hit home runs. That happened like that is that is a thing the Reds did, and yet I still would would find it understandable if you said, you know, they did go and get the baseline, uh, sort of bare minimum things they needed, but you know what, they could.
00:14:19
Speaker 2: Use a little bit more. I understand that as well.
00:14:21
Speaker 5: The success of this team this year is going to be largely dependent upon whether or not people who were on the team last year or part of the organization last year, end up doing more this season.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: Like they're gonna put more.
00:14:35
Speaker 5: Than they ever have on Ellie de la Cruz, and understandably so, this is the guy they've wanted to make the highest paid player in franchise history. Okay, can his production justify that? Can he take a major leap forward, hopefully with better health and hopefully with better management of whatever health issues he has? Can the Reds get better too, whole production? Like, I don't know that the equation is that complex. For success for this year, the starting pitching needs to be healthier than it has been. For as as awesome as Hunter Green can be at times, he has not gotten through a full big league season without getting placed on the injured list. For as reliably good as Nicolodolo can be, you're still wondering, can he get through a full big league season? They have a lot of depth, they have a lot of quality, But can can some of those dudes get through a full big league season? And I'm led to believe that at the answer is yes, this team will be even better because those are good pitchers. Obviously those are only two of them. But there's there's a basic equation for me. Sounds basic. It maybe isn't nearly as much. Can the starting pitchers get through the big get through the season with minimal stays on the injured list? Can their depth be not tested nearly as much? Can that group of guys stay healthy? And can the two through five spots in the batting order this year be better than last? If the answers are yes, this team can challenge for a National League Central Division title. Other things would have to go right. The Cubs would perhaps have to be not as good as some expect. The Brewers would have to come back to Earth, which I think most expect to happen at least to a degree. But if those two things happen, and like there's a lot of nuance inside those things, Like you talk about two through five in the batting order. Well, gee, that's four out of the nine spots. But if you go back to last year, the one thing that I think has happened, as we've talked about the Reds needing a bat in the pursuit of Kyle Schwarber, what they were gonna do when they didn't get them. Should they trade for Luis Robert? Is there another free agent out there? And then obviously ultimately the signing of a Euhanio Suarez. I think we've talked so much about the Reds offense and needing to improve upon what it was last year that we've almost framed last year's offense as being bad. It wasn't bad. It wasn't as good as we would like, and it was bad at times. It was bad in extra innings, it was bad at time in close games. But they were like fourteenth in the league in run scored per game last season, which isn't great, It's not awful. You're not trying to improve upon a team that was league worst. You're not trying to improve upon an offense that was bottom five in the sport. They were kind of middle of the pack. Can that be a little bit better this year? Well, the answers will be yes. If the two hole production is better. Last year, Red's two hole hitters were second to last in OPS. Three hole hitters that's obviously mostly not entirely, but mostly l twenty second cleanup hitters, twenty first. If each of those three things improved this year, this offense will be better. We could talk about where the home runs are gonna come from, and can Sal Stewart make the club, which I think he will and hit twenty five to thirty? Can Ellie hit a few more? Can Gino hit thirty to thirty five this year? But as a general rule, like I'll make it sound simple, although it's not. Two through five, better starting staff, minimal injury issues, this team can challenge for an NL Central title. In the absence of that, then you know it's gonna be a little bit difficult. I think one of the things that's going to be interesting about this year's team, and our friend Charlie Goldsmith wrote about this when they got a Johaniosuarez. Can they be better in extra inning games than they were last season? It was uncanny how bad they were an extra They were good in one run games twenty two and twenty two that's maybe not good, but it's not atrocious. But they were if I recall three and twelve and extra inning games last season. So let's say you're gonna play and you know, anywhere from fifteen to twenty extra innings games. Can they be better if the overall offenses better, chances are the answer is yes. But I think that's the question that kind of hovers over the team as spring training begins. Look at what they were last year, look at what they are this year. Have they done enough in terms of outside acquisitions? And then once the games begin in a month and a half, which players who are part of the team last year do more this year? And ultimately that's probably going to have a lot more to do with this team's level of success than anything they acquired in the offseason. Now, Gino being in the order every day and being as good at hitting the ball out of the ballpark.
00:19:43
Speaker 2: As he has been should only have an effect a positive effect on the others in the lineup. We've talked a lot about protection for Elie della cruise, but have they done enough? You're willing and welcome to answer at five point three seven four nine fifteen thirty at Muger on Twitter, I have a Super Bowl guarantee I'll give you coming up in the four o'clock hour, and speaking of questions to tag Trey Hendrickson or nod tag Trey Trey Hendrickson, which I can't even say. That is coming up in the four o'clock hour.
00:20:16
Speaker 5: Sports headlines and some college hoops and some phone calls coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty.
00:20:21
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic from.
00:20:26
Speaker 8: The UC Health Traffic Center at the uc Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered What's best for You, Learn Moore at u seehealth dot com.
00:20:40
Speaker 2: Good news.
00:20:41
Speaker 8: State Route twenty eight now reopened from an earlier accident with an overturned vehicle that was between Charles Snyder Road and State Route forty eight. However, the right lane blocked from an accident at southbound seventy five between Ezer Charles Drive and seventh on that ezelic with traffic.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: This report is sponsored by Wendy's New Big ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati's sports stations. Sports headlines are a service.
00:21:08
Speaker 5: Kelsey Chevrolet Home of lifetime power train protection and guarantee credit approval from their family to yours for life kelseyshev dot Com in Goodnear today, Red's pitchers and catchers are reporting to US spring training. They'll take physicals tomorrow. They'll have a workout on Wednesday. The first Cactus League game is going to be in twelve days, when the Reds take on the Guardians in Goodyear. A couple of NL's central teams making moves. The Pirates get their hitter, Marcelo Zuna signs a one year contract worth twelve million dollars to play for the Buckos. And this was an interesting deal. The Brewers have traded third baseman Caleb Durbin, who finished sixth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting, to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for lefty Kyle Harrison. There were a whole bunch of other players involved in the deal as well, but those of the two main particulars. College basketball Tonight at Madison Square Garden, Xavier is taking on Saint John's. The Red Storm came back to win the first game against Xavier at the Sintas Center tip off at six thirty Tonight the game's live on seven hundred wlwpre game with Joe and Byron at six pm. Also tonight, Indiana takes on Oregon Late latest AP Top twenty five. Men's Poul Kentucky is in its sliding in at twenty five after another come from behind victory in their denim uniforms on Saturday over Tennessee the Mark Pope Show tonight at six on ESPN fifteen thirty. Following that'll be the NKU Coaches Show at seven on ESPN fifteen thirty. By the way, Miami holds steady at twenty third in the AP Top twenty five. The RedHawks win at Marshall in convincing fashion on Saturday. One NFL note Clint Kubiak, as everybody expected, the offensive coordinator of the Seahawks leaving to become the head coach of.
00:22:55
Speaker 2: The Las Vegas Raiders.
00:22:57
Speaker 5: Twenty three away from five o'clock, phone calls coming up five point three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty the College troops from over the weekend. You know, sometimes if you follow something solely on social media, you will think it's worse than it is, which is why you shouldn't follow things solely on social media. I follow a fairmount of Kentucky fans. I have a lot of Kentucky fans in my life. You would think that team has four wins. They win again. They've won eight out of nine. Come from behind, down fourteen at half at the half against Tennessee. They're now a half game at a first place. They do not look like they're among the nation's elite. They have played shorthanded most of the season. They can go through these lulls, especially on the offensive end, where what you're supposed to get from a Mark Pope coach team is not what you get here. They are in the middle of February. If you look at like most bubble Watch pieces that come out this time year, in as a lock to make the tournament and more than an outside chance to win the SEC.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: SEC is not as good this year as it has been. Have game at a first place.
00:24:09
Speaker 5: You see yesterday, Look call it what it is. They play at home. They played better at home than away from home. They're twelve and three at home. They haven't bet anybody in any game outside of Fifth Third Arena. Last night and Tony and I were talking about this What makes them so frustrating is they're a good defensive team. Your eyeballs tell you that, metrics tell you that, math tells you that yesterday they defended, but they also made shots, and they spread their scoring a bunch of amongst a whole bunch of guys, and just for an afternoon, looked the.
00:24:39
Speaker 2: Part to improve to twelve and twelve.
00:24:43
Speaker 5: There was a nice bounce back after the ugliness, if you will, of Thursday night. We played the postgame audio of Wes Miller kind of bearing his soul. Was totally fair to wonder after that game, like, all right, now, what's this going to look like? Well, for a day, the answer was pretty good. You see wins. Xavier plays Saint John's tonight. As we talked about the first game, the Red Storm came back after Xavier was in control at halftime. I am a big defender of the college basketball on court product because as much as you hear about the sports issues and the sport has issues, as much as you hear about how it's being ruined, one people don't stop watching. Ratings are incredible for college basketball this year. Two, the on court product can still be so good. Exhibit number four hundred and six this season, Yukon and Saint John's on Friday Night, a game that felt like a Sweet sixteen or Elite eight game. Saint John's has gone with a bigger lineup here. Recently they have crushed teams on the glass and a major reason why is Dylan Mitchell. And we don't have to do this every time a former Bearcat plays a really good game.
00:25:52
Speaker 2: But there were.
00:25:52
Speaker 5: Folks who when Dylan Mitchell left at the end of last season, We're like, yeah, good riddance. How many have watched him this year playing a major role on a ranked team. Tip Off tonight at six thirty from MSG again pregame at six on seven hundred WLW five point three fifteen thirty. I believe back from the Super Bowl, Mike, go ahead, you're on ESPN fifteen thirty.
00:26:23
Speaker 3: Hold on, I'm sorry just one second. You got me off guard a little bit. Well, we're still traveling back from uh from the Bay Area, and what I got some picks. I'm gonna say, yeah, I just forgot. I haven't had time, but I got a bunch of good ticks and treated my buddies to some stuff. But we had so many cool things happen. First of all, No, the weather was sensational, sensational. It couldn't have been better.
00:26:52
Speaker 2: You know, you send me an you send me an email from the game talking about the weather. And then he took a shot at Cincinnati.
00:26:59
Speaker 3: Oh, I probably did.
00:27:01
Speaker 2: You did?
00:27:01
Speaker 5: You told me to move because there are better places to live than someone else.
00:27:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's better weather. Yeah, because you like warm weather, and I wish you could someday get out of here and get out of there and go where you like the warm weather. It's just something I yearned for you to have moment in your beers. Okay, so we're in this disabled section around I guess around the thirty two to thirty three art lines and about halfway up maybe third of the I don't know, but not the great seats I'm not. And guess who came to visit us? Well, because I I have. I finally got Greg Cosell's email, and I've been emailing him off and on for the past year and sometimes he'll respond and sometimes he won't. And uh, he came down. He got my latest email. He came down because his brother got killed in Vietnam. He came down and took all of our hands and gave gave us one hundred dollars bill and said to you know, just have fun. And we said, no, we can't take it. He said, no, I answys please take it, and he gave us autographs. And what a sweetheart of a guy.
00:28:16
Speaker 2: That's very cool, very he's very good.
00:28:19
Speaker 3: Friends with Sal pal Antonio. Evidently you know Sal was Sal was a Navy seal.
00:28:24
Speaker 5: He was, yeah, yeah, and with with Terren's dad.
00:28:28
Speaker 2: Apparently, how about that.
00:28:31
Speaker 3: Exactly? That's that's uh, that's more impressive than being a football player, baseball player, basketball player. Those guys are way copper than.
00:28:40
Speaker 2: Any of those, no question about that.
00:28:42
Speaker 3: Yes, but anyway, he uh, I didn't know this, mom. He has the longest running show on ESPN. He started his Sunday morning show what's it called NFL.
00:28:55
Speaker 5: Today or an NFL NFL Matchup? That show has been on since I was a.
00:28:59
Speaker 3: Kid, since nineteen eighty four.
00:29:02
Speaker 2: Wow, And he invented.
00:29:06
Speaker 3: It, he started it, and now he doesn't do it. He doesn't produce it anymore. He has somebody else. But I said, are you nineteen eighty four, mister Cosell. He said, yes, my friend, nineteen eighty that's pretty incredible when you think about it, isn't it moment?
00:29:21
Speaker 8: It is?
00:29:21
Speaker 5: And so that show is important. It's important television, and it's always been buried like early on Sunday morning before you know NFL Countdown or any of the pregame shows. But you know, we're in this era now and it's great where you have a lot of folks breaking down the all twenty two and talking about schemes and strategies on a more advanced level. That show, which when I was a kid, it was called Edge NFL Matchup and it had Ron Jaworski and then Merril Hodge was on it for a while. That was the first show that I could recall that really did that and did that like I didn't know it went back to eighty four, but I remember being a kid in the late eighties early nineties watching that show on Sunday mornings and it was insanely ahead of its time.
00:30:03
Speaker 2: Now there's like a million people doing that.
00:30:05
Speaker 5: That show that I could recall was one of the first, and it's still going to this day and it's still given an awful time slot.
00:30:13
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I wonder how cool maybe because it's just been so successful in that times. Well, I don't know, because there's nothing else on. Then maybe I don't know. You know better than me about that stuff. But check this out. So so I was more than benevolent to my friends, and I would have been that way anyway, But and they told me to tell you. Thank you for your suggestion, Tarren Bland. I got you a beautiful ball cap, commemorative ball caps, got to play Patriots logo, got the Seahawks logo on the back, that's got the NFL logo. It's all cotton, it's not got an adjustable strap. You gave me your size, so I hope the damn think fits. Wow, but you told me your size.
00:30:56
Speaker 2: How much did a hat tossed at the Super Bowl?
00:31:00
Speaker 3: You really want to know?
00:31:01
Speaker 2: Yeah? The seventy dollars seventy dollars hat. Wow, unbelievable.
00:31:07
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker 3: Oh, Karen deserves it, you know, for what the last fifteen years on the radio with you. But the food I had, I felt like I was at a fine dining restaurant, and it's the same way at Oracle, I had the best ah sushi. I've one of the best I've ever had in my life. And I've had a lot of sushi, and I had they have a goat burger with goat meat blackened goat burger. It's the best beef I've ever eaten in my life.
00:31:37
Speaker 2: Wow, unbelievable.
00:31:39
Speaker 3: Then I had abalony, which is like a mollusk. You know, it's not like people think it's like calamari, but it's not like klamari squid. Avalony is much harder to catch and it's it's a sea snail. It lives on the rocks. Yeah, and they have to beat the hell out. But I just couldn't believe the food that was available. So that was cool.
00:31:59
Speaker 5: Way to the football, the Levi Stadium sells a goat burger.
00:32:05
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:32:06
Speaker 2: Do they sell that for like a regular forty nine Ers game?
00:32:11
Speaker 3: I assume it looks like you know, it looked like it had been on the menu on the board.
00:32:15
Speaker 5: Do they serve Do they serve like a like a regular hamburger made out of cow?
00:32:21
Speaker 6: Yeah? Sure.
00:32:21
Speaker 2: Oh, so you have options.
00:32:23
Speaker 5: You can get a you can eat a goat, or you could eat a regular beef.
00:32:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can eat very or they have a veal burger, which is basically a baby calf, which is a calf, you know, gotcha bum bums me out. I hate to eat something that's only a baby.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: But now I have a question.
00:32:41
Speaker 5: I like, when you say goat burger, does that mean greatest of all time burger and it features goat cheese or is the meat actual goat because I am skeptical that the meat is actually goat meat.
00:32:53
Speaker 3: The meat is actually goat meat, which is extremely popular in countries like Pakistan, India, all over the Middle East, and there's a lot of people from all over the world. That was in San Francisco, of course, And so the guy told me they tested it out about three years ago. The response was if he at the beginning because people had to get over the goat thing. But then when they did, they thought, well, what the hell's the difference cal goat?
00:33:20
Speaker 2: Do they have goat cheese on the Do they have goat cheese on the goat burger made of goat meat? Yes, very well, unbelievable.
00:33:30
Speaker 3: And the goat cheese has cranberry and pistachios.
00:33:33
Speaker 5: And on the high levels it really it does sound high level. Yeah, no, no question about it. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad you had a From a culinary perspective, how much of the gotburger.
00:33:43
Speaker 3: Cost It was twenty two dollars.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: Twenty two bucks, gotcha?
00:33:48
Speaker 3: Okay, right, so check this out. We have one little miss out. Oh so this guy. All the Seahawks fans were very nice people with Patriot fans. Everybody was really cool. Yeah, there wasn't anything crazy. A little bit of craziness with the drunkenness. But this one guy was pretty lit up. He was probably in his forties. And my one buddy doesn't have any legs. Okay, he lost his legs in Vietnam. This a hole. I didn't use the word a hole. He can't. He started he was drunk and a monkey. He started saying in my buddy, whose name is buddy? Uh, well, I'm sick of pan taxes to support you veterans, you bastards. I'm tired of it. You don't deserve anything. We work hard to just And finally the security guard had to come down and take him away because I mean, we can't do anything to defend ourselves.
00:34:41
Speaker 5: Really, so some rando decides to come up and start harassing a bunch of veterans at the Super Bowl.
00:34:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, drunk as hell. Looked like he had money, like he was dressed very uh well.
00:34:54
Speaker 5: I mean, if if he was a fan at the Super Bowl, he's he's probably not destitute. And and you said your your your buddy's name is buddy.
00:35:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know his real names. That's probably nickname.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: God, I understand.
00:35:07
Speaker 3: I don't answer.
00:35:07
Speaker 2: You. Guys are obviously very close. Well.
00:35:09
Speaker 5: And so the game itself was was a good time. And are you are you back in so Cow? Are you en route?
00:35:16
Speaker 6: What?
00:35:16
Speaker 2: What were you now?
00:35:18
Speaker 3: So we're we're just pretty everybody's sleeping in exhausted. We're in the we're in the van. We left Big sir, and now we're down around Santa Rosa, which is central the central coastline of Pacific Coast Highway. I can't sleep because the scenery is just so spectacular. I have to be able to look at it until I just fall asleep, which I will appreciated. But I'll tell you what I got to ask you football question. This mister Kenneth Walker the third, he is laid beyond, he makes lady and Bell looks fast.
00:35:52
Speaker 6: Fuck.
00:35:54
Speaker 3: This guy is unreal. Moe, uh, commit the audience what I'm talking about.
00:36:00
Speaker 2: I have no idea what you're talking about.
00:36:01
Speaker 5: What I could tell you, though, is this that I felt stupid not not betting on him to be the game's MVP. Me too, I felt dumb not betting on Kenneth Walker. And it was abundantly clear. Look, the Seattle's defense was awesome last night. It seemed far fetched that they were going to pick a player, although I think Witherspoon had a chance. I so they were not going to pick a defensive player. They weren't going to pick the kicker. It was pretty clear as the game unfolded it wasn't going to be JSN, especially because he had lee for a while after getting into an incident with the concussion tent. But Kenneth Walker was terrific last night, and I watched that game unfold and I thought, like, I'm dumb for not betting on him to be the game's MVP.
00:36:45
Speaker 3: Me too, Well, I hit I had one of the only really smart bets I had was jsnun under ninety four and a half. Yes, I got lucky on that, Yeah, but listen to me. It was New England. My most renowned whiteout is Stephan Daves. You're in trouble.
00:37:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I don't disagree, Mike we have to run. I appreciate you regaling us with tails from the Super Bowl and hopefully you arrived back at your residence in one piece.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: Thanks for chiming out, and I'll send you these picks before the shows over.
00:37:20
Speaker 5: I can't wait. Mike, thanks, thanks very much, and get Tarn his seventy dollars hat. Terry again, a seventy dollars hat for Mike. How about that shot the Mike, I am skeptical that the Goatburger included goat meat. Just I'm gonna put that out there. He was there, I wasn't. I'm gonna I'm skeptical that the the goat Burger g O A T could have stood for the greatest of all time. I'm sure it had goat cheese. Goat cheese is awesome. I'm I'm gonna. I'm gonna stop short of totally buying the fact that the goat Burger had goat meat. Eight from four o'clock, So the Bengals tag Trey Hendrick and we'll get to that amazing sports talk radio topic at four h five on ESPN fifteen thirty station.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Now here's your chance to win one thousand dollars. Just answered this nationwide keyword on our website.
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Speaker 2: Bonus. That's bonus. Enter it now you bons.
00:38:16
Speaker 4: ESPN fifteen thirty got.
00:38:19
Speaker 5: A couple of bull questions. One of them is about Trey Hendrickson. According to a Mike Garoffalo of the NFL Network during one of the many shows that that network aired from the Super Bowl, said, our understanding is the Bengals are still considering using the franchise tag. It could be a tag and trade possibility. Perhaps sounds like all options are on the table, but it is not a foregone conclusion that his time in Cincinnati is over all, right, why would it be Now they have a couple of weeks for the NFL franchise tag deadline to get here. There are some options. They do have options for Trey Hendrickson. This is this is I think more interesting than some will make it out to be. And I don't know if I put that in the most eloquent way, but Trey Hendrickson is regarded, despite the injury issues of this past season, and despite his age he's thirty one, he will be thirty two by the end of next season, is still regarded as one of the best two or three available free agents this offseason. Like, if you look at any ranking of this offseason's free agents, you will find lists, and they're all subjective. Some of them come from a more informed place than others. But you'll find lists and have him as the best free agent available, and others will say, well, he's maybe not the best, but he's one of the best two or three free agents available regardless. It feels like, and who knows, maybe we're wrong about this, but it feels like there's a very very very good chance that Trey Hendrickson as a free agent will have a lot of suitors, a lot of teams interested. To a large degree, you could understand why you watch the guy play. I watched the guy play. You know what he can do. Even last year before he got hurt, it wasn't like he was a non factor. So you can understand why right teams need edge rushers. Trey is a year removed from being a Defensive Player of the Year finalist, so it would make sense that he has a lot of suitors. If you're running the Bengals and you understand that here is a player who's going to have a lot of suitors who are gonna come after him, why then wouldn't you want them approaching you? Like, let's say there are six teams and I'm just making that number up. Maybe the number is higher, maybe the number is lower. Let's say there are six teams that are gonna approach Trey Hendrickson about him signing with them. If you're Duke Tobin and Mike Brown, don't you want those teams approaching you?
00:41:12
Speaker 2: If you tag them, they have to approach you. You control where he goes. That makes sense.
00:41:22
Speaker 5: Hey, wait a minute, we can get something for an asset that a lot of teams are gonna want. That would make sense. However, let's be honest. Over the last couple of years, maybe the Bengals haven't led the league in offseason drama, but it certainly has felt like they're the They're among the leaders in offseason drama, and one of the players around whom the most drama has swirled has been Trey Hendrickson. Trays of our lives, I mean, the ordeal these last couple of off seasons, they've taken on lives of their own. We joke all the time, like, if we were to ever have an ESPN fifteen thirty Ring of Honor, Trey Hendrickson goes in on the first ballot because of all the different segments and all the different shows and all the different just you know, bits we've gotten off of Trey Hendrickson. His contract issues have taken on lives of their own. Do you really want to sign up for more of that? Because the moment you decide to tag them. And by the way, Paul Danner Junior's on the show tomorrow has like a ten step guide for the Bengals to use this offseason to get to the super Bowl. And one of the things he writes about is tag Tray and trade him for a third round pick.
00:42:46
Speaker 2: Sign me up, right, who wouldn't want that? I get trade Tray and get in a year where I got to nail it in the draft, I get one more ticket. I get one more raffle ticket.
00:42:58
Speaker 5: Right, Like, that's if you're bad at drafting, the best way to not be bad at drafting is to have as many picks as possible because at some point you'll get some picks. Right, So yeah, man, and just the basics of it, Well, if you tag them now, instead of all those suitors coming to Trey, now, maybe not all of them, but a few of them are going to have to come to you, and then you know, you could weigh the offers that are out there. And my guess is there would be offers out there, So I guess, and you can tell me if you think I'm wrong. Like some market assessment is in play here, you have to assess the market correctly. If we tag him, will the potential trade market be there? And can we capitalize by getting something of value in return? If the answer is yes, then why wouldn't you tag and then look to trade Trey Hendrickson. Now, if you tag him, he could always side the franchise tag offer and then you're stuck with the guy for close to thirty million bucks. Now, there are worse players to be stuck with, right, But then there's the other part of this. So the Bengals clearly, for years, and we've talked about this a bunch, but clearly, for years, the Bengals have not had plans for Trey to be on the team in twenty twenty six. Whether that point of view is correct, incorrect, off base, unfair, legitimate, whatever it is. For years, among all the different Trey Hendrickson things that have been out there, the easiest conclusion to draw has been Bengals do not have Trey in their plans for twenty twenty six, So what's changed?
00:44:53
Speaker 2: Right?
00:44:53
Speaker 5: Like, if you're gonna tag him, you have to at least grasp the possibility that he decides to Okay, fine, I'll come back and play for a year.
00:45:01
Speaker 2: We can debate whether or not he would do that. My guess is he would not. But if you if you tag him, you at least have to confront the possibility that the guy still ends up being your player in twenty twenty six. Are you suddenly comfortable enough.
00:45:13
Speaker 5: With him being a player in your team in twenty twenty six after spending the last two years not being comfortable with him being on the team in twenty twenty six? Five point three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty vote. Now at Moegar, we have two pole questions thanks to United Heartland Insurance. I've talked for years about United Heartland Insurance and what they could do for you to help you pay less for your insurance. Why not check out uhis dot com. Uh There's two pole questions, one about the Reds, which we'll get to here in a bit, but one of them is what should the Bengals do with Trey Hendrickson, and God knows, I've gotten a lot of pole questions about Trey Hendrickson. I've gotten a lot of pole questions out of Trey Hendrickson. I should say, should they tag him and trade him, should they tag him and keep him, or for the love of God, just move on. And that's the other part of this. It feels like among the many things the Bengals need to try to accomplish this offseason is to finally have a drama free offseason. Now, I think you have to admit that to expect any relevant team to have a drama free offseason every single year is unrealistic. If you have good players, and the Bengals have had some good players, and if you have a lot of good players, invariably there's gonna be somebody who's not happy, who wants more, who believes they're undervalued, that wants to stay with the team, but the team doesn't want to keep them. Like whatever it is that said. In recent years, the contract issues, the stalemates with players, the public negotiation ploys, the weirdness of the Shamar Stewart situation, like all of those things have dominated the Bengals discourse. Bengal should have a goal this offseason, and it should be to make my job in the off season difficult because it hasn't been. Not that this is a hard job. It clearly is not, although I make it sound hard, but I mean that the treasure trove of stuff we've had to talk about, whether it's been Jesse Bates or t Higgins or Jamar Chase or Joe Mixon or Trey Hendrickson, it's been. It's been one after the other after the other after the other. One of the goals for this off season should be, let's get through it where the focus is solely on who are adding and what we could do with who we add, and let's leave all of the distractions. Let's let's leave all that in our rear view mirror. Now, that's gonna be hard to do, especially if it's you know, let's let's sign DJ Turner then sit on our hands when it comes to Dax Hill or vice versa, or not offer a contract extension to Chase Brown, like somewhere you can help. But wonder is there gonna be with a guy who's under contract right now, who's eligible for an extension, is there going to be some sort of standoff. Is there going to be some sort of issue. Is there going to be a holdout or a hold in? If you tag Trey Hendrickson and you don't get a deal done, you are probably signing up for a whole offseason of more trays of our lives Copyright Paul Danner, Junior. Four coming up with that, is that really what you want? And so like there's a big part And I've got three choices on the poll. One is tag him and trade him, one is tag him and keep him, and the other is, for the love of God, just move on. For the love of God, just move on. Makes sense too for a couple of different reasons. One is what we just outlined, Like, you've had all these issues with him, It's time to put those in the rear view mirror. It's time to get through an offseason where there are no contract squabbles, there are no hold ins, there are no holdouts, there's none of that in the easiest way to do that is to move on from a guy who has been at the center of all those things. But also, like, if you legitimately believe in what you have and what you can go get you don't need to wrestle with Trey Hendrickson's twenty twenty six by using the franchise tag on him. Like if you believe, and I'm among those who do, who believe that Miles Murphy is ready to take a major leap in his fourth NFL season, And by the way, just because he was a non factor for his first two years doesn't mean you have to discount what he did this past season. If you believe that what we saw from Miles Murphy is the beginning of a guy who's going to prove that he was worth taking with a first round pick in twenty twenty three, and.
00:49:49
Speaker 2: If you believe, as we could argue they shouldn't. But if you genuinely believe that Shamar Stewart is ready to enjoy a coming out party in twenty twenty seve and prove that he was deserving of being a first round pick of this team. And if you believe that we could use free agency to find a player that we can at least add to the mix to be helpful in our pursuit of a better pass rush. And if you believe in your ability to draft edge rushers or even interior players on the defensive line to bolster the pass rush this year. Then aren't you comfortable simply moving on? I can only speak from my perspective. I could be talked into either. I can be talked into either tagging him and trading him, because I believe there's a world where the market materializes to the degree that the Bengals get something good out of a Trey Hendrickson trade. But I've also watched Trey be at the center of a lot of different sort of off field distractions of it the last couple of years, and an objective for this team this offseason is to be free and clear of off season distractions. On one hand, I think everybody would breathe a sigh of relief if they just moved on. On the other hand, any good NFL team maximizes markets and assets, and if you could tag him and trade them and flip what you got for him into a player who could help you this year, then that's all for the better. But if you tag him, who knows, if the market doesn't materialize, if there's not a deal that you really won, if he goes ahead in sciences franchise tag offer, Okay, there's some good to that maybe it's a fully healthy, fully rejuvenated Trey Hendrickson in twenty twenty six. But then there's all the potential baggage that comes with it. I think it's a more interesting question than one might have theorized two months ago. Five went, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty.
00:51:59
Speaker 5: Other pole question about the Reds in twenty twenty six, the Reds will I'll give you four choices win the National League Central, make the playoffs as a wildcard, finish above five hundred, but no playoffs, or finished be low five hundred.
00:52:11
Speaker 2: Vote now at moegar.
00:52:12
Speaker 5: Both poll questions at moegar Thanks to United Heartland Insurance. Your phone calls are coming up at seventeen after four o'clock on moegar. This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.
00:52:25
Speaker 4: Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.
00:52:31
Speaker 8: Uc Health Traffic Center at the uc Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you. Learn more at UCHealth dot com. Southbound seventy one after tapped road and accident has been cleared out still about a ten minute delay back from Martin Luther King drive a new accident in on southbound seventy one. It's after Norwood lateral on that Ezelic with track this week.
00:53:01
Speaker 9: Free agency to the draft and everything in between. We've got the Bengals off season covered on ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home of the Bengals.
00:53:12
Speaker 2: Forty five percent of you say the Reds is going to make the playoffs as a wild card. Hired I said like a broadcaster. Fourteen and a half percent of you say win the National League Central, Thirty one percent say finish above five hundred, but no playoffs, which will be like they last year won eighty three games, but they don't get in. And then nine and a half percent of you say finished below five hundred.
00:53:38
Speaker 5: I think we'll all be better equipped. Admittedly, we'll all be better equipped to answer this question in a month or so.
00:53:44
Speaker 2: But if I.
00:53:47
Speaker 5: Have a wager on the Reds to make the postseason this year, and me I always bet on them to hit the over for no other reason other than I want something to pay attention to it September.
00:53:59
Speaker 2: Not that you wall always do, but you often do. This year, I'm comfortable doing to make the playoff bet. What I think is going to be.
00:54:08
Speaker 5: Interesting if you go back to last year, So the Reds were twenty two and twenty two in one run games. Sometimes you'll see in a season where like a team is really really, really good in one run games, and that doesn't really carry over often from year to year across a lot of different sports. So sometimes the team's really bad in one run games and that often usually doesn't carry over from year to year.
00:54:29
Speaker 2: Again, regardless of sport.
00:54:31
Speaker 5: You see this in the NFL, where a team that is awesome in one score games one season ends up being awful in one score games the next year. Everything sort of regresses to the mean if you go back to last season. One of the things, one of the things that made the Reds easy to admire or hard to give up is, you know, we did the whole thing where, hey, they went like five months without losing a series, and it got to be sort of a trope. We kind of made fun of it, but it's if you never lose a series, you can never really go on a long losing streak. So there was something to that, There was something to that that spoke to that team's resiliency if you want to go from a far more intangible perspective, but it spoke to the quality of a club. They might not always be playing at their best, but they're good enough to just salvage games here and there. So they never have a nine to ten game losing streak. The longest losing streak the Reds had last season was five games. But conversely, the longest winning streak they had last year was five games. And this is part of what made them at times so deeply frustrating. They never like went on a run. They never went on and look, you could go on a run where you win like thirteen out of fifteen, and that is great, and maybe it's broken up by you know, you win four games and then you lose one, then you win four more games, and then you lose one, and then you what am I looking.
00:55:56
Speaker 2: For five more?
00:55:57
Speaker 5: And but they they never did either, right, They never had this long, drawn out spell where they lost seventeen out of twenty and lost so many games in a short amount of time that it just drilled them from the playoff race. But they also never went on a run. They never went on a run where they were able to close the gap between them and Milwaukee. They never went on a run where they were able to close the gap between them and the Chicago Cubs. They weren't good enough, they weren't consistent enough. Their offensive limitations usually are what kept that team from going on a prolonged stretch of winning. Their longest winning streak last season was as long as their longest losing streak five games.
00:56:39
Speaker 2: So that's one of the questions this year.
00:56:42
Speaker 5: Now you in the same baseball season, it's long enough, you could have a ten game winning streak and you could have a ten game losing streak. But which of those two things is more likely to not be the case this year after it was the case last year in fact, that they kept coming off the mat, you know, the whole cockroaches thing, because you couldn't sweep them. They never had a long, prolonged stretch where they just sunk their chances. Good starting pitching is usually gonna be what keeps you from going through a long stretch of losing. Bad offense or mediocre offense, more accurately, is gonna keep you prevent you from going on the long.
00:57:26
Speaker 2: Stretch of winning. That was missing last year.
00:57:28
Speaker 5: So this season like I'd be willing to bet this is the bet I'd be willing to make.
00:57:35
Speaker 2: They will not have their longest streak.
00:57:41
Speaker 5: Be fewer than six games, meaning the longest winning streak ain't gonna be five, and the longest losing streak isn't gonna be five. They're gonna have something this longer, maybe a winning streak, maybe a losing streak. One of the keys to the season is which is it? And I think on a larger scale, it's like, do they have a three week period where it feels like they never lose, or do they have a three week stretch where it feels like they never win. The twenty twenty two season was sunk because they lost twenty one out of twenty two at one point after they started two and two, and the twenty twenty three team took off because they had a twelve game winning streak and in the month of June into early July it felt like they never lost.
00:58:23
Speaker 2: What do they have this season? Is the offense going to be good enough that they have a stretch three weeks a month, whatever it is, where they go and again make up your number, they win eighteen out of twenty one. They win twenty two out of twenty six, so they win nine out of ten, or they win like eight in a row, or on the other end of it, do they go through a collective slump and fail to have their pitching carry them through a stretch where the offense isn't as good, and instead of continually avoiding sweeps, they get swept in some series and they lose fourteen of sixteen, seventeen of twenty nine in a row, that sort of thing.
00:59:11
Speaker 5: There's going to be a streak longer than five this year. I don't have the answer. I'm not sure anybody does. I'd be willing to bet I guess that. If I had to pick one or the other, I would say they're more likely to win more than five consecutive games than lose more than five consecutive games. And again, maybe they do both. It doesn't necessarily have to be either or. But if you believe the offense is gonna be dramatically improved, fair to wonder if it will be. But if you believe the offense is gonna be dramatically improved largely because dudes who were on the team last year are better this year, then I think you feel like they're gonna have a longer than five game winning streak, or if you feel like the offense has not been dramatically improved, or they're gonna be still too prone to these long stretches where it feels like they never score and that's fair too. Chances are you feel like the longest streak of losses is going to be more than five, But the longest streak they go through this season will not be five games.
01:00:06
Speaker 2: I don't make many guarantees. I'll make that one.
01:00:10
Speaker 5: Their longest streak this season, losing or winning will not be five? Which is it more likely to be? Four thirty seven, four nine, fifteen thirty. I got folks waiting. I will stop babbling and take some phone calls after sports headlines on ESPN fifteen thirty.
01:00:27
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
01:00:33
Speaker 8: Buick Center at the UC Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from non surgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you. Learn more at ucehealth dot com. One accident now cleared away that was on southbound seventy one after Norwood Lateral. Police are on the scene of another accident though northbound seventy five before Norwood Lateral. That one off on the right shoulder. I'm at Ezelak with traffic this report.
01:01:03
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01:01:08
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01:01:17
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01:01:20
Speaker 5: Reds pitchers and catchers reporting today to a Goodyear Red Spring training complex and Goodyear. They'll undergo physicals tomorrow, they'll have a workout on Wednesday, the first Cactus League game twelve days away, twelve days away, and Goodyear Reds and Guardians. I believe the Reds will be the road team for that tilt. A couple of other baseball stories, Pirates get their slugger Marcelo Zuna, who I didn't want one year, twelve million dollars. Also, the Milwaukee Brewers have traded away their third baseman, Caleb Durbin, to the Red Sox for Kyle Harrison, who's a lefty. Whole bunch of other players involved. Those are the two main particular's. College basketball Tonight, Xavier takes Hans Johns at Madison Square Garden tip off at six point thirty on seven hundred WLW. Also tonight, Indiana battles Oregon. Latest AP Top twenty five Men's college basketball poll. Arizona continues to be a unanimous number one. Arizona and Kansas hookup tonight in a battle of top ten teams. This evening, We've got the Mark Pope Radio Show at six o'clock on ESPN fifteen thirty. The Wildcats with another come from behind victory, this time at home over Tennessee to a sweep the season series against the Volunteers. The NKU Coaches Show is tonight at seven o'clock. Darren Horn's team ended a five game losing streak on Saturday. Dan Grezger with twenty two norse beet Milwaukee AP Top twenty five Men's college pole. Kentucky is twenty fifth, the Miami RedHawks holding at twenty third. Travis Steeles team in action next on Friday for a late night nationally televised tilt against the Ohio University Bobcats. There you go with sports headlines. Let's take a phone caller too. Huh five point three thirty. Uh Steven Montgomery, thanks for hanging on Steve.
01:03:07
Speaker 6: Go ahead, Hey Mo, Sorry to jump back around to the Trey Hendrickson potentially the franchise tag. One thing that I'm not sure you know is I believe February nineteenth is the first day you can tag a player. Yes, and you have a two week time frame. And keep in mind, within this two week time frame, the combine is going to occur where every GM is going to be located. They could tag him and they could be at that combine and every other team would come to them. They'd be right there talking to him. Well, we might go a third rounder. You know, while you're a good team, your third rounder is low. We might wait and hear somebody's got a higher third rounder something, and then the Bengals can he send the tag before that two week timeframe is up, and then there don't have the obligation of being stuck with them. So I think it's a great opportunity to try and just get something for the match, because, like you said, I think the ship is out. I don't really want him in the locker room. I don't really want him on the team this year. I like the idea of going young. You finally saw what Murphy and O so I could do when given the full time jobs. And one other last thing on the Bengals. And I know I'm just preaching to the choir. You've been a fan forever, remember we used to sit in the same section. And if they look at this, it's almost just like typical Bengals history. Leon Hall and Jonathan jokes. If they signed one, you've got your cornerback problems solved. Dax Hill and DJ Turner could both be extended in this offseason. If they don't, they're going to draft a corner in the first round and they're still just plugging a hole in a bucket. But it's so maddening to think it's right there in front of them. They have the money, they have the talent, they know this scheme, they're a perfect fit. Put those guys and lock them up for four years, and then you go into the draft wide open. If the d tackle's there, you take him. Get a safety in the second round. You can get Kobe Bryant as a safety in a free agent great, get a safety in the third round. It's just one of those things that I could see so often. If they just get this done.
01:05:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, but what you just outlined sounds and seems really easy. What it feels like the Bengals mo has been has been to take the easy and make it more complex. And so what you can help but wonder is how will they take this reasonably easy thing, which is DJ Turner played like one of the best corners in football last year, So go ahead and lock him in, right, go ahead and pay him like one of the best corners in football, and maybe at a at a slight discount relative to what you would have to pay next year. But get that done, and you have finally found a home for Dax Hill, and it finally feels like you have carved out the right role for him, and it feels like he's still an as sending player. Go ahead and get him done, and then you don't have to touch corner and you could sort of streamline your priorities on defense with the draft and with free agency. Sound. But a lot of things that have sounded easy for the Cincinnati Bengals they have unnecessarily made more complex. And that's the question this offseason, how will they make something more complex than it.
01:06:10
Speaker 2: Needs to be.
01:06:13
Speaker 6: It has to be done. They have to take care of their own before free agency. Then free agency is wide open, then the draft is wide open. Hit those three things. I don't see any way with a with a sixteen game or seventeen game burrow. They're not in the playoffs and making a run next year. If they just get those things done, every other team would love to have an offense like they do going into the season. The Bengals really only have to focus on one side of the ball minus adult and Resnor extension. It should be such a layup. Even the Brown family could nail it. I'm just begging and pleading, like this is the opportunity everybody seems down right now. Everybody's either cap crashed or they've got talent that's old and they're moving on, like in Baltimore. The other thing of doing that with the franchise teak is you would dictate where Hendricksing goes.
01:07:04
Speaker 3: You don't want them to go to Baltimore.
01:07:05
Speaker 2: H Yeah, you're exactly right.
01:07:08
Speaker 6: It's like we keep saying, it's not rocket science. Just get to work early, don't let it come to you, be proactive, go after it. If they do those things that, I'm pretty sure they already sold out on season tickets, but I think people will be scratching and clawing to get into the stadium again, which is what they claim they really need, and they'll get more primetime games and everybody will be hyped for the season. And we do have continuity in our coaching, so we don't have that strike against us. But at least we know on the offensive side of the ball it works. We saw improvement on the defense side of the ball with a pretty big darth of talent that disappeared aged overnight. But I think if they can just get those guys first and not be focusing on potentially drafting a corner, that's a huge first step.
01:07:55
Speaker 5: Steve made it sound easy and I could not agree more. Thanks very much, Thanks mo I guess, I guess On the tray thing, it's like, boy, there's exasperation with it. But if you know there's going to be a market for the guy, if you know there's going to be teams interested, would you rather those teams come to him or come to you? By the way, there is something to be said about controlling where he goes. If you know, though, there's going to be a market for Trey Hendrickson, and it is still impossible for I think most of us to imagine there won't be one. Would you rather tray have the suitors come to him, or would you rather have the suitors come to you and then you can figure out a way to get a prime asset for him this year this year. But it's one of the central questions of the off season. Beyond that, right, Like, they have a lot of money to spend, tons to spend relatively speaking in free agency, but tons to spend relative to the team needs. Like it's one thing to have a lot of cab space, it's something else to have a lot of cap space and one half year team basically set. Now, that does not mean they're not gonna, you know, draft to tackle the future. It does not mean that they wouldn't you know, be willing to sign a wide receiver who may represent an upgrade from what they have lower on the depth chart. But generally speaking, you don't really have to do anything with the offense. So they're in a very enviable spot. Lots of money to spend, lots of money to spend, and really only one side of the ball to spend it on.
01:09:28
Speaker 2: That's really good. That's really good.
01:09:33
Speaker 5: So there will be players, I believe starting caliber players who come to Cincinnati to help on defense, and then you obviously get the draft, above and beyond what they do in the draft, how do they take the simple and make it more complex than they need to. Which of those possible contract extensions turns into a thing, Which of those possible contract extensions turns into the sort of you know, hold in, hold out, standoff as, so whatever it is that leaks into the OTAs and then leaks into Miniicamp and then leaks into training camp.
01:10:19
Speaker 2: Like again, it takes two to tango.
01:10:23
Speaker 5: Maybe DJ Turner is like, dude, all I want to do is hit free agency one day, and so I'll play out my last year here and then, assuming you're not gonna tag me, I'll go ahead and hit free agency. And maybe they haven't seen enough from Dax Hill that compels them to want to pay him. I would argue there are very few places on your defense where it feels like you could be set, and not that they can't use a corner. Who's going to be the slock corner next year is a question, But those two players, like I think with DJ dj Turner, I think you saw enough this year and Dax Hill, like you did invest a first round pick in him. You've put up with the ups and downs of position and moves, scheme changes, defensive coordinators, an injury two years ago. Like it feels like he has a home. Shouldn't shouldn't he keep that home on your team? We'll see. But the Tryandrickson thing, like if you can, if you can get past the exasperation that I think everybody feels with just the the general topic of Trey Hendrickson's future, and you understand that there's going to be a market for him.
01:11:28
Speaker 2: Do you want that market coming to you? Do you want that market existing elsewhere? Vote now?
01:11:35
Speaker 5: At Malegger, It's fourteen away from five o'clock. I have a Super Bowl guarantee. Really quick, I'll give it to you next.
01:11:42
Speaker 4: Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.
01:11:46
Speaker 8: Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center at the UC help Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you more at you see health dot com northbound seventy five and exitent off onto the right shoulder before Norwood Lateral. There's some slow traffic southbound seventy one between Martin Luther King and Fort Washington Way right now a five to ten minute delay on at Azelic with traffic.
01:12:17
Speaker 2: This report gave sponsored.
01:12:18
Speaker 5: This is ESPN fifteen thirty Moegger. It's the day after the super Bowl.
01:12:27
Speaker 2: Next year's super Bowl is going to be on Valentine's Day, and folks on the internet are wondering how are couples going to navigate this? Is this really going to be that much of an obstacle for any couple that's like, you know, sort of solid in their relationship. Is the super Bowl happening on a Sunday evening on Valentine's Day going to cause a problem? Yep?
01:12:55
Speaker 3: Really?
01:12:56
Speaker 5: Can't you celebrate Valentine's Day the night before, like if if it's like, you know what the game is on Sunday, We're gonna watch the game on Sunday. The next day is gonna be President's Day, which is going to solve an entirely different issue. Can you not have your Valentine's Day date on Saturday the thirteenth and have it be any less meaningful? Like is there especially knowing like there's a year to prepare? Is this going and granted there's gonna be people who you know they enter new relationship, enter new relationships between now and a year from now. But that could also be something you negotiate when you enter hey, which I think is good to do anyway. Like my wife and I don't really really do Valentine's Day. We buy each other cart or something well by my daughter of Valentine's Day present, because I think that's cute. But you know, we're not in high school anymore, so Valentine's Day isn't quite the thing that maybe it would have been when we were seventeen years old. Like we're folks in our forties. We have busy lives, we have jobs, we have a kid to raise, like we do date night, but Valentine's Day itself isn't a huge deal, and so, you know, maybe we're the exception.
01:14:16
Speaker 2: I don't know.
01:14:16
Speaker 5: I just I find it hard to believe that any couple that's in good standing with itself, with each person in good standing with the other, that that a football game being played on February the fourteenth is somehow going to ruin the relationship. I could be dead wrong about this.
01:14:30
Speaker 2: I don't know.
01:14:31
Speaker 5: I will say this. I don't know if our school district is the only one.
01:14:37
Speaker 2: I know we're not.
01:14:38
Speaker 5: Because I have a coworker with kids in a different district and we were talking about this today. Bengals made the Super Bowl in January of twenty twenty two. Ever since then, our school district has had an in service day the day after the Super Bowl. That is deft smart planning by the folks in our district. So like my daughter did not of school today, now I'm right, So this has become a thing now right where school districts are planning in serviced. I don't know really what happens during an in service day. I would imagine it's a lot less stressful than it is than when the kids are there. This isn't coincidental, right you could put it? And by the way, Monday's a holidays, so no school for President's Day. That has been a thing since the year after the Bengals made the Super Bowl.
01:15:29
Speaker 2: Dumb.
01:15:32
Speaker 5: I will guarantee you this also because this gets asked every year. I had a friend of mine who texted me last week and said she was at lunch with a bunch of like business leaders who wanted to know why the Super Bowl is not on Saturday. And there's two basic reasons for this. One is the host city wants the game on Sunday because a lot of people who come into the host city for various activities don't stay for the game, and so they don't want those people on Saturday morning. They want the Saturday night's day. Also, the TV networks, whoever carries the game, Sunday is a better TV day.
01:16:07
Speaker 2: Saturday.
01:16:07
Speaker 5: There's more people out, they want more people watching at home. This is simple. In our lifetime, this is my guarantee, in our lifetime, we will never have Super Bowl moved from Sunday to Saturday.
01:16:21
Speaker 2: Ever.
01:16:21
Speaker 5: And by the way, like I get it, you know, hey, you want the day off, take a vacation day.
01:16:28
Speaker 2: I hear this.
01:16:29
Speaker 5: My colleague Lance McCallister complains about this every single year. Every single year. Super Bowl should be on Saturday night, because you know, going to work the next day stinks. You're allowed to take a vacation day. The NCAA tournament the Thursday and Friday. The Thursday, we do a show at the Holy Grail in the morning and then I'm done for the weekend. I take a vacation day on Friday because I want to go watch basketball. I don't want to be on opposite my favorite sporting event, so I use it vacation day. Some American workers get more than others, but there's always stories about how American workers aren't using all their vacation day which, let me tell you something, use all your vacation days. Rule Number one in the American workforce should be use all your vacation days. If you're going to go crazy on Super Bowl Sunday, use a vacation day. Except now we're just going to close the schools anyway, so we might as well make it a holiday. I don't know, but I really appreciate the forward thinking by area school districts. Maybe not all, maybe not most, but there are some that have in service days now on the Monday after the Super Bowl, and I know it's done in case the Bengals make it. The day after the super Bowl is a little bit different if your team isn't it. Unfortunately ours was not. But we are not ever going to get a Saturday night super Bowl. So it's why that topic is never brought up on this show. Number one, others own it. Number two, it's a non starter because it's never going to happen. Ever, there's my guarantee. If I'm wrong, burn the tape, so to speak. Come away from five o'clock. By the way, a name was mentioned before that we have to keep talking about. We'll tell you who it is at five oh five on ESPN fifteen thirty.
01:18:21
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01:18:30
Speaker 5: Look, I'm hearing from folks on social media and on email about Valentine's Day. Like we like Valentine's Day, don't. We don't dismiss, we don't ignore.
01:18:42
Speaker 2: We celebrate Valentine's Day like we do Saint Patrick's Day. Friday is coming? What's that? What's coming Friday? This Friday?
01:18:50
Speaker 5: Are you gonna be playing a bunch of sexy time music? I get it, that's a that's a staple on this show. If not on Valentine's Day, which is you know, on a Saturday this year, the day before, you could play all your sexy time music. Like I just I don't know that for that many couples, Valentine's Day coinciding with the Super Bowl is gonna like be a problem I could be. Maybe I'm using my limited relationship experience as a guide. I just know that most people that I know, you know, we'll do We'll do dinner, we'll do something for Valentine's Day to recognize. My wife last year bought me three cigars for three cigars that I really wanted for Valentine's Day, and we had a nice dinner. But if there happened to be a football game on, well, that would have been okay. And there might have been a sporting event on last year in Valentine's Day. For all I can remember, I just don't Valentine's Day is great, celebrated however you want.
01:19:43
Speaker 2: We don't ignore it.
01:19:44
Speaker 5: We just don't make it out to be the sort of thing that like gets in the way of of everything else. In this country, the two biggest holidays are Christmas and Thanksgiving. Correct we play NFL football on those days. One of those days has long been all about football for a lot of families. The other has quickly become about football. We now have games on Netflix on Christmas, and I know those are regular season games, so people are checking in and checking out, and you know, maybe it's on in the background and the super Bowl is a little bit different. But if we can find a way to have the NFL coincide and coexist with Thanksgiving and Christmas, we can figure out a way to make the biggest sporting event in this country coexist with Valentine's Day. That's that once, by the way, not every year. Once it will be okay, that's it, like Valentine's Day getting beat up for I didn't criticize the day that all criticizes Sweetest Day. Sweetest Day is unrecognized in our house. We've never recognized it, never will recognize it. It's as if it never was invented. Valentine's Day will do Valentine's Day. We'll get a hard shape pizza from Lorosa's. We'll do small gifts for each other, but it's not like Christmas where you're buying like nineteen things with the other person. And if the super Bowl is happening on Valentine's Day, us, like most families in this country, will figure out a way to make Valentine's Day coexist with the super Bowl. Thank you, seven after five o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Name was mentioned before congratulations to a former Bearcat Kobe Bryant. Kobe playing safety for the Seahawks and coming pseudo close to a couple of picks in the game last night wins a ring congratulations to him. When he was at u SE, he willingly played robin to Sauce Gardner's batman. Sauce Gardner was awesome, was an awesome college football player, and you See's had some good corners. Mike Mickens what he did at you See goes without saying, but Sauce Gardener his like last two years, you See's opponent openly decided to not throw his way. It was comical how much they would avoid throwing to his side of the field, And so naturally, if teams were gonna throw, they had to throw to Kobe Bryant's side of the field.
01:22:13
Speaker 2: And he answered the bell man like to a degree, you think about it, like teams aren't even trying to test Sauce. They're trying to test me, and I respond, And I put together a great college football career and was tied for the nation's lead in interceptions in twenty twenty the weird COVID season, and was one of the best players on a team that went undefeated and yet sort of faded to the background behind what Sauce was able to do. And Sauce had the nickname and a neat persona, and again like he was a remarkable college player.
01:22:48
Speaker 5: But I always love how Kobe kind of handled that. And on passing downs, you often knew as everybody did. And maybe he didn't know the ball is coming his way, but I could tell you where it wasn't going. And if I could tell you where it's not going, I can tell you where it's more likely to go. And so he had a terrific college career playing corner. Gets drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, and I don't remember who it was, but the last time the Bengals played Seattle, you know, we always try to get somebody who covers the other team, and I don't remember who he got on, but Kobe was having a hard time getting playing time, and I remember getting whoever it was, I should go look it up. And I asked about Kobe Bryant. He's like, dude, he's going to be a really good player. They've got to find a home for him, but they love so much about him. He has since been moved to safety and now he's a free agent, and this is an easy thing to do here, But the Bengals need a safety. They need like an established safety who may still be ascending. Now, I know that's the description of Geno Stone when he was a free agent. You know, Stone was a seventh round pick. Kobe Bryant was the fourth round pick. There are other safety options available. But would you be a post to Kobe Bryant helping solve the Bengal safety issues? I would not, so anyway, congratulations to him, and now he hits free agency and I would expect is going to have a lot of lucrative offers come his way. Sign me up for Kobe Bryant as a Cincinnati Bengal. The game itself last night, the story was Seattle's defense in real time. It it was abundantly clear early in the game, and collins Worth mentioned this on NBCs. I thought it was abundantly clear early in the game. Patriots were not going to be able to move the football and so in the absence of Seattle making a critical mistake on special teams or on offense, the Patriots were not going to win that football game. And collins Worth talked about this early in the broadcast aut at how you know, early in the game they had a possession that it kind of felt like the game hinged on that, and early in the game it felt like they were managing the game the way they did the Denver game with all the weather. The weather last night in Santa Clara was darn near perfect. This story was Seattle's defense. I'm not sure the final score. I'm not sure the box score is going to entirely encapsulate how good and how dominant Seattle's defense was. Now there's room for multiple truths. Seattle's defense rushing with four, keeping Drake May from scrambling, being excellent on the back, ending coverage, all of that well established. Drake May was also terrible and maybe physically compromised with that shoulder that he was weirdly not asked about before the game on NBC.
01:25:50
Speaker 2: There's room for multiple truths. Usually in life, there are. He was atrocious. New England's offensive game plan seemed atrocious. New England didn't seem like they were at all willing to be aggressive with fourth and short or with throwing the ball at times on third downs. You couldn't help but do this either. This is maybe not the most fair thing.
01:26:13
Speaker 5: The Patriots future is probably very bright, and Drake may did finish this far away from winning the NFL's MVP, and there's a lot of teams that would love to have him at quarterback. And by the way, when they did pseudo mount to comeback last night, Dre dropped a couple of times.
01:26:30
Speaker 2: But you couldn't help but watch.
01:26:33
Speaker 5: The Patriots scheduled this year was historically weak in the postseason. They caught some breaks a Chargers team that was not at all equipped to play ont offense in the first round of the postseason with a woefully decimated offensive line and a quarterback who was physically compromised. In the second round, c J. Stroud was horrific. He was really bad against Pittsburgh and round one. He was worse against the Patriots in round two. So weather was a factor. New England beats Denver playing with Jared Stidham in a game dominated by snow in the second half, like a lot of stuff went their way. But that's okay. All you can do is play who the schedule gives you. All you can do is take care of the opponent in front of you. The Patriots, up until last night did that at the same time, you couldn't help but watch that game last night and go, that's that's the AFC's best.
01:27:29
Speaker 2: That's the AFC's best. So it does two different things.
01:27:33
Speaker 5: I think it illustrates how much of a missed opportunity this season was for a whole bunch of AFC teams. Obviously, you could put the Bengals in that conversation. It could also include the Bills and the Ravens, and could include, if you want, the Chargers, and you can make it about the Texans if you want. The AFC was down. The AFC's one seed was the Denver Broncos. The AFC two seed was that Patriots team from last night. Also might illustrate how relatively easy it may be to get back to the top in this conference for any number of teams. Kansas City perhaps should lead that conversation. Baltimore should lead that conversation. The Buffalo Bills will be in that conversation. The Bengals should be as well. I'll say this this morning on FanDuel, the Bengals odds to win the AFC were at plus thirteen hundred plus thirteen hundred if you are bullish on the Bengals today.
01:28:39
Speaker 2: You should If you're a gambler, you should buy that now.
01:28:41
Speaker 5: If you're not, that's okay, because I don't think those odds are going to get any longer. I don't think that's going to go to plus fifteen hundred. I don't think that's going to go to plus sixteen hundred.
01:28:52
Speaker 2: Now.
01:28:53
Speaker 5: They might not be the odds on favorite to win the AFC. In fact, I'd be stunned if they were. But those odds will only get shorter as the offseason unfolds because they're gonna add people.
01:29:04
Speaker 2: They're not trading Burrow.
01:29:06
Speaker 5: You know you've read this weekend about how teams are gonna be calling the Bengals about Joe Burrow.
01:29:10
Speaker 2: That's neat.
01:29:11
Speaker 5: I can call a lot of people about a lot of different things. Doesn't mean they're gonna say yes, Joe Burrow will play for the Bengals in twenty twenty six. He's also probably not gonna sit out the season, so don't worry about any of that. So he is gonna play. They're gonna do nothing but add. They're not gonna lose a key guy in free agency, even Trey Hendrickson's departure We're talking about a guy who was here for less than half of the season in twenty twenty five.
01:29:38
Speaker 2: The question is.
01:29:41
Speaker 5: Can they go from a six win team this year to being where the Patriots were this year and leapfrogs some of the teams in the process. But it it is not often felt like the AFC is now wide open. In recent years, we've talked about there being a big three or a big four, and the Bengals at times have been in that small grouping. I don't know if there's a big anything in the AFC right now. By the way, we could have said that had the Patriots won that game last night. The fact that they played the way they did, the fact that they were as offensively inept as they were, will only amplify those conversations. Sixteen minutes after five o'clock, a couple of po up questions for your entertainment at Moulagar. One is about Trey Hendrickson and what the Bengal should do with ny. The other is about where the Reds are going to finish uh in the National League Central this year at Moulagar Thanks to United Heartland Insurance go to uh I NS dot com. Five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. They are playing catch and getting ready in goodyear. Spring training is about to start for the Reds. Reasons to feel bullish.
01:30:48
Speaker 2: And then one reason to maybe not feel so bullish coming up on ESPN fifteen.
01:30:52
Speaker 7: Thirty, WCKY Cincinnati and iHeartRadio Station Guaranteed humanesp in fifteen thirty I Heart Radio.
01:31:03
Speaker 2: If you miss anything on this show, how dare you?
01:31:06
Speaker 5: The good news is we record everything and we put it on the internet, and we've got an app, the iHeartRadio App, And you know it would be cool if you go to the app and you could set us as a preset. Thanks very much. In advance, we put interviews. We had a bunch of really good ones last week. Number of you have said nice things about our conversation with Jeene's territor. Our guy Sean Saya joined us to discuss some of the lessons that the Bengals can learn from the teams that were in the Super Bowl. Our friend Evan Cohen from ESPN Radio was with us as well. All of that and so much more. Ron Harper our interview with him that's available on the iHeartRadio app. Podcast of this show. Our a service of long Nex Sports Grow. By the way, the new location in Hebren is open and can't wait to check that out later this week. They've got a great deal all three long Next locations this week with Valentine's Day coming up. Two entrees, one appetizer and one dessert for forty five bucks. How about that? So date night at Long Necks, Wilder, Hebron or rich Wood. And again, congratulations to the folks at Long Necks for the reopening of the grand reopening of their Hebren location. I think that's the best way to phrase that. Five one, three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty and eight sixty six seven two three seven seven six works as well.
01:32:33
Speaker 2: You know the Reds.
01:32:34
Speaker 5: Thing with the offseason, pitchers and catchers reporting in in goodyear. This is the year where twenty twenty five we're going to determine whether last year was a success. This is a different type of spring training, This is a different type of rollout to the.
01:32:49
Speaker 2: Season where they made the postseason last year.
01:32:52
Speaker 5: I'll be honest with you, if you listen to a lot of the offseason discourse, much of which I participated in, that exactly feel like they were a playoff team last year, but they were now be the first to admit, if they win eighty three games this season or only eighty three games this season, it's gonna be hard to imagine this team playing in the postseason. But it does feel like this season that a we're going into it talking about their like bona fides as far as getting to the playoffs and advancing in the playoffs and winning the division. Not really sure we were doing that as much last year, despite hiring Terry Francona. Now it's how do they use last year as a jumping off point? The offense last year, as frustrating as it was, as at.
01:33:47
Speaker 2: Times punchless as it was.
01:33:51
Speaker 5: What's kind of neat about the Uhenio Suarez pickup is they're adding him to an offense that top to bottom wasn't atrocious last season. Now, there were times it was, but they were fourteenth in the league and run scored. They're not league worst. They're not the Bengals defense where you're building from, you know, a place at the very very bottom of the league. There are a lot of reasons to believe that team offensively could be better. The improvement, however, is going to come from within that's no knock on euhanios Wuarez. You were hoping he can hit you thirty to forty home runs, and playing in the ballpark the Reds play in, there's a very good chance that can happen. But at the end of the day, like dudes who have been here now for a while, like you realize how long ago twenty twenty three really was. Matt McClain was the Red's best player then because of a year where he doesn't play and then a year where he does play but doesn't play well, it feels like that was forever ago. Can you imagine what it would mean to this team if the Reds get the Matt McClain this year they clearly thought they were getting going into last year. It's a game changer that maybe he doesn't hit second at the beginning of the season, but that doesn't mean he can't be in assets somewhere else in the order. Can you imagine if a year of full health for Elie Dela Cruz, if that translates into like legitimate superstardom, aided by the fact that he's got somebody hitting behind him who's a legitimate long ball threat. Imagine what that looks like what it can mean for this team this year. Noelve Marte Offensively, I think Noel A Marte was the best feel good story on the team last season. Dude, who could not have been deeper in the doghouse during spring training and at the end of the season. You couldn't have imagined them without him. Can you imagine Sal Stewart hitting thirty home runs for this team? Talked about this on Friday. If you want to do this from a gambling perspective, plus eight hundred for him to be National League Rookie of the Year. I think that value is absurd because we saw he can hit the ball out of the ballpark at the big league level in the month he was up last season, hitting in this ballpark, maybe in a lineup that provides him a little bit more protection. There's a whole lot of things that singularly, if they happen, make total sense.
01:36:28
Speaker 2: The question is can all of them happen?
01:36:31
Speaker 5: And if they all happen at the same time, you know, I think the idea of this season is to go from eighty three last year to ninety. All those things happen, that's more than doable. Question is, while some of them, may will all of them and if not, then what.
01:36:53
Speaker 2: I just believe this.
01:36:54
Speaker 5: Man, Like, it's easy to be down on the Reds for a lot of different reasons. It's been thirty years since they've advanced in the playoffs. The brand of the franchise isn't awesome. Folks are still pissed off at ownership. Like, there's a lot there. But if you took I don't know, twenty teams that last season didn't win a championship, didn't really come that close to winning a championship, but believe they can do better this season and at least make the playoffs. How many of them will start spring training from a place where they have a really good idea of who four of their starting pitchers are going to be. How many of them have the starting pitching options the Reds have. How many of them have a chance for the high end the rotation here has the potential for like that's kind of, you know, part of what made so many of the discussions this offseason so frustrating when it came to the search for a home run back right, Like, boy, the starting pitching is top notch. They have a lot of guys, a lot of a lot of talent, a lot of potential, a lot of guys in your team control for a long time, if the offense could only be you know, okay. By the way, this sounds a lot like the Bengals when it comes to their offense and lack of defense. But there are a whole lot of teams that I believe are starting spring training from the position of strength the Reds are starting from with their starting pitching. And even if you can wonder about, you know, how the Reds are going to fill out the two through five spots in the batting order, if they're going to be collectively better at getting on base, if they're really going to see an uptick in the mental home runs they hit. I think to a degree, they're starting from a pretty enviable place with the guys they have most ideally filling out those roles.
01:38:45
Speaker 2: Five point thirty at moeggor on Twitter. Vote now.
01:38:47
Speaker 5: We'll update the poll questions here after sports headlines. College basketball coming up will get to that as well. On ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.
01:38:54
Speaker 4: Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
01:39:00
Speaker 8: Do you see health traffic center at the UC help backneck and spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered What's best for You or more at U seehealth dot com. There is a new accident in on eastbound two seventy five after coal rain. Also a crash southbound seventy five between Shepherd Lane and Cooper Avenue. Police, fire and ems are all there on scene. I'm at ezelic with traffic.
01:39:29
Speaker 9: This raised athletes the world's biggest stage stay with ESPN fifteen thirty were the latest Olympic updates.
01:39:41
Speaker 2: Do the updates involve people who would ordinarily have no interest in skiing getting madelins Yvonne mad at her for what they were mad at her because she tried to compete despite having an ACL injury. I did not see the injury happen real time, but I woke up yesterday morning, and you know, I was having a cup of coffee, kind of enjoying the quiet. My daughter had had friends over. They were in the other room, they had spent the night, and I, you know, I had to go. We had a basketball game, you see, played and so I thought, ye, I'm gonna do what I often do if I can is just I'm gonna take ten to fifteen minutes and I read stuff and I go. Sometimes I'll look at Twitter first, and sometimes I don't. Yesterday was one of those mornings where I looked at Twitter first. And on a day where you knew Twitter for much of the Super Bowl was going to be an angry, angry place yesterday morning, you know, you get folks, they need that dopamine head of just being angry at things online. And apparently Lindsay Vaughn's crash, which I don't really think had anything to do with her knee injury, and I do not closely follow downhill skiing, but I like to watch it during the Olympics because the Olympics are cool and because it's a very dangerous looking space. So she has an injury and it wasn't enough to go man. That stings for her.
01:41:06
Speaker 5: Folks, big man, big big man at the media for Oprah over hyping it, of course, and then big mad at her for taking up a spot that they thinks should have gone to somebody else, big big, big mad on social Yes. So then I quickly decided I'm gonna go read something that has nothing to do with this Sports Headlines, earth service of Kelsey Chevrolet. I do, like, I don't really have these people in my life, but I one of these days I'm going to identify somebody because I see some of these folks online and they're for the most part, not people I follow, because I don't really follow people like this, but like you just you get the sense there are some of these folks that like every day their sole reason for existing is to find things to be mad at. So they they they look, they spend all day looking for things that they could use to just express they're angered. They get that temporary hit, and I just one of these days, I'm gonna, like, like just embed myself with them for a day, just to see what life in the real world is actually like. Sports Headlines are a service at Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime power train protection and guarantee credit approval from their family to yours for life.
01:42:17
Speaker 2: Kelsey chev dot Com.
01:42:19
Speaker 5: Reds pitchers and catchers are reporting to us spring training in goodyear physicals tomorrow, So turn your head and cough and then the first workout is going to be on Wednesday. Of course, the first Cactus League game against the Guardians is going to be on February the twenty.
01:42:36
Speaker 2: First, in goodyear or twelve days away. What else do we have? A couple of baseball notes. Pirates have signed Marcelo Zuna, who was a player that some thought the Reds might be interested in.
01:42:51
Speaker 5: Hard pass on him. Meanwhile, this raise some eyebrows. Today, the Red Sox have acquired Caleb Durbin a third basement from Milwaukee Brewers. Who finished I said six before thirty the National League Rookie the Year voting last year in exchange, Boston sends to Milwaukee lefty Kyle Harrison.
01:43:09
Speaker 2: What else do we have? College basketball?
01:43:10
Speaker 5: Tonight it's Patino Bowl two as Xavier takes on Saint John's at the world's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, tip off tonight at six thirty. That game can be heard on seven hundred WLW with Joe and Byron pregame coverage starting Ainst six pm. Also tonight, Indiana takes on Oregon. I believe I should have checked this. They are celebrating the undefeated seventy five seventy sixteen. I believe that's happening tonight. I don't know college basketball?
01:43:38
Speaker 2: What else we have? The AP top twenty five men's pull is out.
01:43:40
Speaker 5: Kentucky slides into twenty five after another come from behind win, this time again over Tennessee on Saturday. More tonight on the Mark Pope Show at six pm on ESPN fifteen thirty. After that, it'll be the NKU Coaches Show, the Norse winning on Saturday, Darren Horn's team beating Milwaukee. He'll talk about that in so much more at seven o'clock to the Miami RedHawks are twenty third in the AP Tops twenty five poll, holding steady where they were last week. Miami beat Marshall on the road. Kenpalm dot com has and you can go overboard with this, but kenpom dot com predicts Miami to win each of their remaining games, which obviously, if they did, they would finish the regular season undefeated. They give Miami no worse than a sixty seven percent chance to win each of their final seven remaining games, including an eighty eight percent chance to beat Ohio You on Friday night. RedHawks have had some close calls in this quest for an undefeated season. The two back to back overtime games against Buffalo and Ken State. The return game against Buffalo, which Miami made it closer than it needed to be, but they did hang on to win the UMass game, which they We play U Mass a week from tomorrow in Amherst. Now the OU game is going to be here on Friday. That's the nationally televised game. That U Mass game is going to be tough. And then it's Terrence Bowling, Green Falcons, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Toledo, and then the second of two games against Oh You and Athens, which I would imagine if Miami is undefeated and they play the Bobcats in Athens the last game, that atmosphere is going to be fun. But Ken Palm likes them to win every game and gives them no worse than a six sixty seven percent chance of winning. This is I think the most interesting story in college basketball right now. And you know we were making fun last week of I guess there are some Arizona Wildcats fans who have decided to pick a fight with Miami and folks who like the RedHawks. And the cool thing about college basketball is not every undefeated season is the same. The Arizona Wildcats are awesome. Now they play in what is going to be another fun night of college basketball. They play what I think most would agree is a must watch game against Kansas, a Jayhawks team that has very quietly snuck into the top ten. That game is in Lawrence tonight, So by the end of this evening, it is plausible that Miami will be the nation's only undefeated team. Arizona is better than Miami. And you don't need me to say that. I don't need to say it. You don't need to hear me say that. But the cool thing about this sport is there's lots of room for different types of stories. There's lots of room for different types of really good teams. There's lots of room for fans to be really excited about their respective teams. And I think I talked about this last week, but if I didn't, I'll say it here. I think the cool thing about Miami isn't so much that they're undefeated, although because they're undefeated, there are a lot more on people's radar than they would be if they had two lost. What I think is cool is this is the continuation of something that started last year. Miami University basketball has been dormant for most of this century, and you know, Malette Hall has been empty, and the sport Miami basketball, in the local sports landscape in recent years has not really been on the grid. And now the campus community is excited. Miami alums are fired up. More people are going to games like that's awesome when it happens, and you could acknowledge that.
01:47:35
Speaker 2: Even if that's not your team.
01:47:36
Speaker 5: And I've read over the last day or so a lot of stories about Sam Darnold being the Super Bowl's greatest ever redemption story.
01:47:43
Speaker 2: And maybe he is, and it's a neat story that this guy was.
01:47:47
Speaker 5: Kind of left for dead in multiple places and he's associated with seeing goats, seeing ghosts when he was with the Jets and they were playing the Patriots. And now I don't think he was awesome last night, but he is a super Bowl winning quarterback. That is an awesome story. Travis Steele not getting the job done at Xavier and then getting another chance in the same part of the country and making the most of.
01:48:11
Speaker 2: It is also a cool story.
01:48:14
Speaker 5: I don't know why Miami being undefeated has to make anybody who roots for another really good team feel uncomfortable. I do think, though, the biggest story in the sport right now is the distinct possibility that you'll have a team that wins every regular season game and yet if they don't continue perfection in their conference tournament, they may not make it. And you know, we're talking about humans on the selection committee, and each one applies different criteria. It would be unsurprising if someone on the selection committee said, look, yes, the schedule is really weak, and it is by everybody's admission, and yes they uh, getting through the MAC undefeated is different than getting through the Big twelve, SEC, Big East, ACC, et cetera.
01:49:13
Speaker 2: Undefeated.
01:49:14
Speaker 5: But they did go undefeated. Are we essentially going to nullify all of that because they lost one game, especially in the conference tournament title game. There have been lots of really good teams that didn't make the Big Dance because they lost their conference tournament title game. I don't know that there's been an undefeated one. You will have folks on the committee who I believe, say, look, yes, schedule is what it is, net is what it is. They're eighty ninth today, but come on, man, they won every game. And then you're gonna have folks on the committee who go, look, good team, great season, but look at the metrics. The metrics, and if you just look look at the pure metrics of it, Q one wins or lack thereof net ranking Ken Palm, and you just you don't even consider that there's a zero in the lost column. And then you look at the schedule and how it's weighted down and the fact that they've played three games that don't even count when you look at their resume. You are going to have people if this is what happens, where they win all their games and they still have seven to go and then lose in the conference tournament title game, which nobody here wants that you're gonna have folks on the committee who go neat story, good team, but you can't put them in because of the because of the metrics. It's gonna be fascinating, and it might be a moot point because maybe Miami loses and still wins the MAC Tournament, or maybe Miami wins all their games and still wins the MAC Tournament and they go into the NCAA Tournament with an undefeated, unblemished record, then it's gonna be fascinating to see what seedet and like, who knows, maybe they lose like five of their next seven and then get smoked in the first round in the MAC Tournament. It doesn't matter at all, but we are we are certainly with each success of Miami victory, we are closing it on the possibility of them going into the MAC Tournament with an undefeated record and still at least not a lock to make the Big Dance and maybe a good bet to not make it if they lose.
01:51:27
Speaker 2: We'll see ut the college basketball, the New England Patriots a college basketball Yeah, there you go, there you go.
01:51:35
Speaker 5: The Bearcat came yesterday. I don't know that we need to make a bigger deal out of it than it is. They're twelve and twelve, but a solid performance at home. The Bearcats are twelve and three at home this season. The issue has been among many they haven't won away from home. I know my colleague Tony Pike, who's as big of a Bearcat fan as I am, wants to cling to the idea that this team is going to run the table. In order to do that, you have to win away from home. They haven't done so this year. I do think, I do think they should win the next two games. What is so frustrating about the Bearcats? And again there's a lot of different things. What is so frustrating about the Bearcats is on the defensive end, they're a good team. Like on the defensive end of the floor, metrics, eyeball test, are they perfect? No, they're really good. What was so tantalizing about yesterday is you saw what a good defensive team can do when they shoot the ball. Well, they weren't perfect on the offensive end, but they shot close to sixty percent. I'm not entirely sure how good that UCF team is. They're a tournament team today, but back to back losses. Cincinnati did whatever they won on the offensive end last night, shot sixty one percent from behind the arc, and they had like five guys in double figures. If you knew nothing about the Bearcats but watched the game yesterday, you would think that's a team that's got a chance to make the NCAA tournament.
01:52:55
Speaker 2: Alas that is not the case.
01:52:57
Speaker 5: We have to go tomorrow on the show, Paula on his h excuse me, ten point guide for the Bengals to get back to the super Bowl.
01:53:06
Speaker 2: What else do we have?
01:53:08
Speaker 5: Oh, Jordan Bishwell is going to be on the show that you U see baseball coach, our friend Stewart W. Penrose from the Manila Lag Group on a handful of sports legal issues, including the possibility that y Selpuig is going to go to federal prison for a really long time, that uplifting story in so much more. Anything you might have missed go find on the iHeartRadio app, follow on Twitter at Mowegor's show has over got to go. Thanks to Tarren Bland for producing. Thanks to you for listening. The Mark Pope Radio Show is coming up next. Have an awesome night. We'll talk to you tomorrow. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.
01:53:42
Speaker 4: Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.
01:54:10
Speaker 8: From the uc Health Traffic Center at the uc Health Backneck and Spine Center. Spine care is never one size fits all, from nonsurgical treatments to the most complex cases. They've mastered what's best for you? Learn Moore at UCHealth dot com. One accident has now been cleared away eastbound on two seventy five. That's after seventy one on the Ohio side. Northbound two seventy five, there's an accident on the entrance ramp from westbound Ohio Pike. I'm at EAZELIC with traffic.
01:54:40
Speaker 2: This report is sponsored by Miami Valley Gaming
