Full Transcript for The Mo Egger Radio Show -- 11/11/26

operate, and we'll just move forward with it. 00:05:54 Speaker 1: And Zach Taylor explaining what happened on behalf of Duke Tobin, who says he's apologetic. 00:06:00 Speaker 6: Huh? 00:06:02 Speaker 1: I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. I will make a lot of mistakes between now and six o'clock. I'm a human being. Duke Tobin's a human being. Like, is it good? No. Does it highlight some degree of unpreparedness or ineptitude? 00:06:17 Speaker 7: Sure. 00:06:17 Speaker 1: But like, okay, made a mistake. Made a mistake as a human being. It happens. But you don't own a mistake by having somebody else explain it for you. That's not how you own a mistake. If we make a mistake on this show, Taryn and I as a team, and I'm involved, I don't have Taryn go to our boss. I don't have Taryn go to advertisers. Don't have Taryn go to the audience, go to you and say, well, Mo's really sorry. No, you don't own a mistake by having somebody else explain it to you. I know how you are with your kids, but when my daughter makes mistakes, kiddo, you got to own it. I support you. I'll have your back, but you got to own it. You don't own it by having me offer the explanation for you. How about this Sunday? If Zach Taylor makes a coaching decision that backfires. If he makes a coaching decision that just helps result in the team losing the football game, Zach Taylor is going to have to go in the media room after the game, and he's going to have to answer questions. It's part of his job. And then he's going to have to come back the next day and answer more questions. Why is it so hard for Duke Tobin to, I don't know, go downstairs, walk into the interview room, or he'll walk into the locker room and say, hey, look, I know this is sort of a weird set of circumstances. If you guys have questions, and I'm sure our fans do, here I am. What do you want to know? And you fall on your sword. You have some egg on your face. You own the mistake. And then everybody's going to sort of move on. In the grand scheme of things, maybe this doesn't matter to you. Perhaps it doesn't. If the Bengals win on Sunday, that's all we're going to be talking about. I don't know, man. I just, I think on a human level, like Zach Taylor's job is already hard enough. Now I have to explain why the guy in charge of making trades doesn't know how to make trades. You kidding me? And I think what we're getting as fans, like, we want to know stuff. And I get it, man. There's a segment of folks for whom the Bengals can do no wrong. Trust me, I've heard from you today. I heard from you yesterday. And the hows and whys don't matter if the hows and whys are about something bad. But for most of us, we follow this team. We care about this team. We emotionally invest in this team. It's interesting, at least, to kind of find out why things happen or why things don't happen. Nobody is demanding that Duke Tobin be fired. Nobody is demanding that Duke Tobin be punished. But, hey, something didn't happen. It could have helped the team. It could have negatively impacted the team. Also, the trade deadline came and went. You didn't get any better. Your team's got a chance to win the whole thing this year. Oh, no, man. Wouldn't it be kind of cool to hear from Duke Tobin? Instead, he has his head coach sit there, and acknowledge that this is something that doesn't make him comfortable? Has his head coach go out there and do the explaining for him? That is the opposite of accountability. That is the opposite of owning up to something. And it's weak. Duke Tobin has made himself available and certainly did this all season. We had the big mega press conference back in February, March, whenever that was. And it was illuminating and it was that we got some answers to some stuff and maybe we didn't like all the answers. And I remember at the end of it going, see, like, that's that's not so bad, Duke. By the way, if you do that on a more frequent basis, the press conferences aren't going to go over an hour. It wasn't that hard like this. those reporters aren't mean. They're going to ask fair questions, and you can answer them however you want. Duke Tobin appeared with me and Tony on one of our training camp shows, and I thought we asked good, fair questions, and it wasn't that bad. My guy can't take 10 minutes out of his day and talk about what happened at the trade deadline, even if there was no failed trade, even if there was no abandoned trade. Do you kind of want to know from Duke Tobin a little bit about the process that ended up with them adding no players? Instead, you get the head coach who just told you like yesterday, he wasn't working phones. He was watching tape. He was getting his team ready. That is weak. That is not taking ownership. That is not being held accountable. At the end of the day, it may not matter because perhaps on Sunday, Joe Jamar and T are going to do a bunch of cool stuff. I feel the way many of you do, which is just go win the game on Sunday. A, I think they will be. I think the Bengals are going to win the division regardless of what happens on Sunday. They have a good team. But isn't, hey, it's going to be fine because Joe, Jamar, and T are going to bail us out. Isn't that sort of the Bengals brand? Hey, our front office has egg on its face. Duke Tobin is being just mocked all around the country. The Bengals front office is the subject of ridicule. What's going to make it go away is Joe, Jamar, and T, and Dexter. On Sunday night are going to make everybody else forget about it. That's very on brand because for years, that's what the Bengals have been all about. Joe Jamar and T are going to bail us out. And so yet again, number nine, number five, and number one on Sunday night are in charge of changing the conversation. 18 minutes after three o'clock. Your thoughts, questions, comments are always welcome at 513-749-1530. I don't want to hear from people like Duke Tobin because I want them to squirm or because I want them to be made to

feel uncomfortable or because I want them to embarrass themselves. That's never what this is all about. It's, hey, I'm a fan. Tell me why things happen, right? I want to know stuff. It's a thirst for knowledge. We want to know about why certain players grade higher than others. We want to know about schematics. We want to know about what analytics say about a position or a decision in the game. We want to know stuff. You're not at least somewhat interested in, well, why a trade didn't happen and why no other trades did happen. Zach Taylor's not the person to give you and I those explanations. Duke Tobin is. Instead, he chose to hide behind his head coach. I don't know about you, but I think that's incredibly weak. 19 minutes after five o'clock. 513-749-1530 is our number. 866-702-3776 works as well. You can send me a tweet at Mo Egger. Thanks to Delta Dental. Delta Dental is building healthy, smart, vibrant communities for all. Go to deltadentaloh.com. You and I are human beings. Human beings are capable of having multiple thoughts, even if those thoughts are not necessarily in line with the rest of your thoughts. I will explain what I'm talking about. It's Bengals related. We'll get to that next. ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:13:50 Speaker 7: This week, Sunday Night Football in America arrives in Cincinnati as the Bengals renew their AFC North feud with the Pittsburgh Steelers. A rivalry so bitter, it makes black coffee taste like a milkshake. It's four quarters of hard hits, high drama, and plenty of divisional disdain. Catch every snap. every collision and every moment of afc north chaos the game kicks off at 8 20 p.m with coverage starting at 4 p.m sunday stream for free on the new and improved iheart radio app or on espn 1530 The official home of the Cincinnati Bengals. 00:14:28 Speaker 1: A 41-second promo for a football game. Good God. Bengals-Steelers on Sunday. Yes, pregame at 3. Me, Tony, Austin. Four big hours. It's going to be awesome. We'll see you at the Holy Grail. Still no mention of Tony. Don't call him again. They still don't put Tony in the promo. We have 41 seconds. We couldn't squeeze the guy's name in. If we start mentioning Tony, then the promo is going to be like a minute long. This is ESPN 1530. I'm Mo Egger. By the way, Paul Daner Jr. was awesome on the whole Bengals trade debacle thing yesterday. If you missed it, go find that conversation on the iHeartRadio app. I went a little bit long that segment, so my apologies. We have folks waiting. I'm not the Red, so I don't make you wait forever without a payoff. Get to them in order as we get them. David, you're on ESPN 1530. David, good afternoon. How are you? 00:15:22 Speaker 8: Hi, Mom. 00:15:22 Speaker 7: Love your show. Thank you. 00:15:24 Speaker 3: I want to offer up a different interpretation of what Zach Taylor said. And I'm not at all suggesting that this is absolutely what he meant. But if you listen to that audio and you think back to two days ago when

he said, we're good. Mm-hmm. it's conceivable to me that he's talking about Duke Tobin telling him what to say two days ago and kind of sheepishly acknowledging that what he was saying was false. We did, in fact, go out and try to get someone, and I didn't feel comfortable. Duke had me do that. Is that making sense? 00:16:17 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the exact quote from Zach was, Duke was very explicit when he came and spoke to me about how he wanted this portrayed. I'm not comfortable doing it, but I'm going to do what he asked. And so Zach talking about not being, go ahead. 00:16:33 Speaker 3: He could be talking about how I want this to be portrayed, meaning how I presented it two days ago when I said the team was good. 00:16:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I think this is simply about, hey, we tried to make a trade. We couldn't. Here's why it didn't happen. We're not going to try to spin it. We're not going to try to blame some outside entity. We're not going to blame the Philadelphia Eagles. The blame rests here at Paycore Stadium. And I can appreciate that. I just, I don't understand. I don't understand why the person who made the mistake can't make himself available and answer a few questions about how the Bengals do things. 00:17:14 Speaker 3: I totally agree with that. But if it, you know, either Zach Taylor really threw Tobin under the bus or he was casually talking about what happened two days ago and, and doing it without, Yeah, I think he should be ashamed if I mean, to just come and have Duke Cove and say, you're going to go out there and apologize for me and say Duke wanted me to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't know. It's just that would be bad also. 00:17:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, I just the way the whole thing, the way the whole thing avoids any interpretation or you and I wondering publicly what happened is for Duke to just come downstairs and be a big boy. And for 10 minutes, just, you know, and so you may be right. And my version of of events may end up being accurate. The problem is we're not going to know because the person who could clear all this up and basically make it go away refused to make himself available today. 00:18:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, totally agree. I just think if you listen again, you could say if you change your thought pattern before listening, it could be either. 00:18:37 Speaker 1: Might be. David, I appreciate the phone call, man. Thank you. I just, to me, it's like, I don't want, I say this as somebody, I don't have as public a job, I guess, as Duke Tobin, although I speak a lot more frequently publicly than he does. So maybe, I don't know. One of the most frustrating things I deal with or can deal with is like, your words get twisted and people will accuse you of saying things that you didn't say or that you didn't mean. And sometimes it's, I will find myself in the process of not clearly articulating a thought. And I feel like it gets misinterpreted and that's very frustrating. And when you do this for a living, you know, you, you do 15 hours a week, invariably people are going to hear things that they thought they heard, or they're going to hear things that they were told you said that you didn't say. And that's the most it's this job is very few frustrations, but that's one of them, right? The thing that I think any one of us wants least is for our words to be misinterpreted, to be misconstrued, to be attributed to somebody else. Uh, I get emails all the time and I'm sure the other hosts do as well from, from people who think they heard me say something like on Bill Cunningham show. And I'll go, that wasn't me. 00:19:58 Speaker 3: Sorry. 00:19:58 Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Uh, if I'm Duke Tobin, uh, I want what happened. Like, again, this is not fireable. This isn't finable. There isn't anybody who's being realistic who believes Duke Tobin should be blown out because this got screwed up. But I do think like you have to appreciate the fact that your fans, your public, your customers want to know stuff about how things operate. And so the only way for there to be no misinterpretation is to make yourself available. 27% From 4 o'clock sports headlines, our guy Rick Broering in 12 minutes on Xavier and NKU basketball. ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:20:41 Speaker 9: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic. You found Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. 00:20:47 Speaker 10: I want to be. 00:20:48 Speaker 1: An AI voiceover guy. Sports headlines are a service. of kelsey chevrolet home of lifetime powertrain protection and a guaranteed credit approval from their family the yours for life kelseychev.com zach taylor on top of having to speak on behalf of duke tobin says uh that's uh dylan fairchild i almost said stewart fairchild not him Dylan Fairchild, day-to-day with a chest injury, said he suffered it on the last play of the game on Sunday in Madrid. Cassius Howell, they went out of their way. Zach Taylor went out of his way to say that Cassius Howell's season not necessarily over, but he is being called week-to-week. Bengals back at work today, getting set for the Steelers on Sunday. That game at 8.20 Sunday evening live. on ESPN 1530 and get a full dose of Bengals football tonight on Bengals game plan. That shows from six to eight this evening from the grail on ESPN 1530. I believe, I believe that's like all I got for local sports headlines. Miami was penalized in that game last night against Ohio university for showing uprights on the video board. Patriots tried that. Was that during the preseason? Miami tried it last night. It was funny. Red Hawks, 34 unanswered to beat OU last night. The college hoops from last night, not good for Kentucky. I love that event and I've attended it twice and there's a bigness to it that I think it at least compels me to call that college basketball's opening night. Those are four monster programs. Michigan State, uber, uber impressive last night. uh in beating duke michigan state and duke feel

like michigan state and duke uh kansas i'm not entirely sure how good kansas is going to be but they and specifically trey white and tyron stokes were awesome last night kentucky doesn't feel like kentucky right now destroyed i'll be honest with you i think they cut it to eight maybe midway through the second half last night Just outmanned, overmatched. UK falls by 20. Dayton gets beaten by Siena. They lose as 14.5-point favorites against Northern Illinois. 19.5-point favorites, I should say, against Siena last night, giving up 99 points. As a Bearcat fan, scares me to go to UD Arena when they've lost consecutive games. As a Dayton fan, I understand and feel every bit of exasperation with where the program is right now. that everybody else who cares about Dayton basketball feels. NKU at St. Louis last night. 00:23:30 Speaker 3: St. 00:23:31 Speaker 1: Louis is going to be good. Race out to a 21-zip lead, 30 assists, new arena record for the Billikens. They blow out the Norse. And Xavier last night against Detroit Mercy, 100-55 winners. You take everything with a grain of salt based on who teams are playing, but specifically on the defensive end, the Musketeers have looked awesome so far. Rick Boring, whose wife gave birth to a baby daughter within the last couple of days, is going to join us. Talk about the Muskies and the Norse next on ESPN 1530. 00:24:03 Speaker 9: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. traffic. 00:24:11 Speaker 1: 1530, Mo Egger, thank you for listening today. We will get back into the Bengals and we also have to have a conversation about a conversation in the 4 o'clock hour. Kelsey Conway in the 5 o'clock hour on the Bengals and what they did and didn't do at the trade deadline and obviously Sunday's game. against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Our guy Rick Boring is with us as he is every single Wednesday to talk Xavier and NKU basketball. And I'm thrilled that he is doing this because quite frankly, I wasn't sure. Rick is the proud father of a brand new baby girl, Mackenzie Louise. He posted a photo on social media. She is gorgeous. And so forget the basketball for a second. Congratulations. Is everybody good? Thanks, Mo. 00:24:54 Speaker 5: Everything went really well. 00:24:56 Speaker 2: The biggest concern was last week I was in the midst of Sioux Falls and College Station, Texas, and it was leading right up until the due date. So we were a little worried about me trying to make emergency travel plans back to Cincinnati. But fortunately, that didn't have to happen. Everything went according to plan and baby and mom are doing well. 00:25:14 Speaker 3: Awesome. 00:25:15 Speaker 1: Glad to hear it. There had to be a part of you when it was 21 to nothing last night that thought, you know what, if I had to miss a game, maybe this was the one to miss. 00:25:24 Speaker 5: Uh, no comment. 00:25:25 Speaker 2: There may have been something of that, that uttered in my house. 00:25:31 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:25:32 Speaker 11: Yeah. 00:25:32 Speaker 1: I can't blame you. Let me, let me start with that. 00:25:34 Speaker 11: St. 00:25:34 Speaker 1: Louis was, was really good last year. They set an arena record for assists in the game last night. Was that just NKU running into a buzzsaw? 00:25:42 Speaker 2: I think it's a little bit of that. I think a couple things are going on. One is that NKU's a new team, and when they face some pressure from higher-level teams, it's clearly giving them issues, whether that be offensive pressures, teams kind of running it down their throat at their defense, or against Texas A & M, them getting pressured in the backcourt and their offense turning the ball over. But also, I think the biggest thing that I look at with last night's game and the way it started is, Just the travel schedule that they had last week. I mean, three games in a matter of five days. The crazy schedule. They basically had a day and a half at home before they headed right back on the road to St. 00:26:18 Speaker 1: Louis. 00:26:19 Speaker 5: It just didn't look like they had any legs to start that game. 00:26:21 Speaker 1: They will play four consecutive home games. So during that stretch, what do you hope to learn about the Norse? 00:26:28 Speaker 2: Well, I think the big thing, especially in this first game against Central Michigan, where it should be a decent test, is what they look like against light competition, which I think we got a taste of in the UTEP games and the South Dakota games. Can they continue that level of play, especially on the offensive end, and sustain that after seeing a dip against two really good teams in Texas A & M and St. Louis, and particularly the frontcourt play? I mean, Noah Pagotto had that unbelievable game at South Dakota with 30 points, and He was so good on the glass in both of those two games to see the way it's dipped here the last two games against higher-level big men. Will you want to see that pick right back up when they go into playing mid-major big men that are similar to what they're going to see in Horizon League play? 00:27:12 Speaker 1: I know any team that hasn't played better competition in their first three or four games, we take the results with a grain of salt. Fine. That's all well and good. But what we've seen from the Xavier Musketeers, especially on the defensive end of the floor, is worth noting when we talk about when they start playing better teams, correct? 00:27:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's worth noting, but I'm definitely in a wait-and-see mode with that. Because there's also... You can look at that in two very different ways. One is that, hey, maybe this Xavier team is going to be much better defensively than any of us thought. They're being led by their defense right now, and they've been super impressive on that end. The other side of the coin is... If you're being led by your defense, maybe your offense isn't as good as we thought it was going to be. And if your offense isn't as good as we thought it was going to be, are

you going to be good enough to beat higher level teams? Because we know you have some shortcomings on the defensive end. Some of your guys aren't physically equipped to be great defenders against high major teams. They look good against Eastern Michigan or against Detroit or against Mount St. Mary's, but they probably aren't going to look quite that good when you're facing Big East teams. So I think there's reason for optimism because of the way the defense is played, but there's also reason to be a little bit of like, okay, let's see what this actually looks like against a Mississippi State on Friday night. 00:28:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, for the next five or against, quote, high majors, Mississippi State, neutral site, Iowa's going to be here. So I guess similar question against more representative competition, what are you looking forward to learning about XU? 00:28:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think just that the defense, you know, what does the defense look like when you're facing teams that can actually give you some trouble in one-on-one matchups and potentially expose some of your shortcomings? Can Mike Nwoku stay out of foul trouble and make a big impact in those games when you're playing legit front courts and not playing much smaller teams that can't match you physically or from an athleticism perspective? 00:29:10 Speaker 5: Those are the two big things. 00:29:11 Speaker 2: And then we're also seeing this interesting situation at point guard play out where you and I had talked a lot about that leading up to the season where Chance Westry was the expected point guard coming in. didn't play very well during the preseason exhibitions. They take him out of the starting lineup. They take him out of that starting point guard spot. And since then, they started the season and he was their leading scorer in the first two games. And he's played pretty well coming off the bench in a shooting guard role. Do you start to think about moving him back to that starting point guard spot? Does the freshman, Caleb House, who has looked good coming off the bench, eventually get a shot at that starting point guard spot? Or do you continue to play True Washington, who is more of a wing, at that point guard spot and just let him continue out of position? 00:29:51 Speaker 5: I think that question is going to be answered over the next few weeks. 00:29:55 Speaker 1: How many guys will Richard Pitino play when they play hard games? 00:30:00 Speaker 2: That's a really good question because right now he's being very liberal with his substitutions. He was doing some hockey line changes with five guys in, five guys. 00:30:07 Speaker 5: Out last night. 00:30:08 Speaker 2: And when you're winning the game by 40 plus points, that can be a challenge. Just trying to figure out how many guys do we want to get minutes for? Do we need to play our starters more to make sure they're sharp? All of that stuff. So I think That was definitely a challenge for them last night. I'm guessing you're going to continue to see them go at least eight or nine deep in real games. And one of the reasons is because I'm not sure that they've figured out who the go-to backup option is in the front court yet. Like Nikos Itakoudis and Rollins Aligbe have both played pretty well in spurts off of the bench for them in that front court. So I think you're going to continue to see both of them play a lot. Kalik House is clearly going to be a player for them off of the bench that sees a lot of minutes. And then Gabe Pizzotto is definitely a big piece for them off the bench. That's nine right there that you know are going to be a part of your game plan in real games against legit competition. And then from there, do you see a freshman like Asher Elson step in and start to get minutes off the bench and work his way into that rotation? Now that he's back from injury, there are a few other names that you might look at as well. 00:31:12 Speaker 1: Are you getting any sleep? 00:31:14 Speaker 5: So far, yes. 00:31:16 Speaker 2: It's a little bit different this time because the first time around, you know, you're at the hospital. It's an overnight situation and you don't have any reason to go home. You're just staying in the hospital. Now we have a three-year-old son. So at night, I was coming back home to take him to bed and I got to sleep in my own bed. 00:31:29 Speaker 5: So, so far, so good. 00:31:30 Speaker 2: We just arrived back home from the hospital. 00:31:32 Speaker 5: So we'll see how the next few nights go. 00:31:34 Speaker 1: Is your three-year-old excited? It seems like it. 00:31:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been telling people about his sister. He said he's going to teach her to yell and sing. 00:31:43 Speaker 5: And play basketball. So we'll see how that goes. 00:31:45 Speaker 1: She probably won't need many yelling lessons at the outset, but that other stuff, he's going to have to come in handy. All right, man. I appreciate you doing this. Congratulations. 00:31:56 Speaker 5: Appreciate you, man. 00:31:56 Speaker 1: Thank you. That's our man, Rick Boring. Subscribe if you're a Xavier fan. MusketeerReport.com. And of course, you can hear Rick. on NKU radio broadcast and part of the skinny podcast as well. Awesome stuff from Rick. We appreciate him doing that. I know. on the day that we brought our daughter home from the hospital nine and a half years ago, I would imagine had I said to my other half, Hey, I'm going to jump on, on someone's talk show right now. She would have said, yeah, that's, that's not happening. So I appreciate Rick and his wife for letting him carve out some time to talk some, some college basketball with us. I think that's, I think there's two things there. Richard Patino's playing a ton of guys right now. I always get a kick out of when people talk about like, Oh, they can go 10 deep. That sounds awesome in November. And then you get to January and nobody's playing 10. Even Jared Kohuna at UC has talked about like, well, we'd

like to play 13. It's like, yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know against hard teams. Playing 13 is going to happen. We will see. And then the other thing is, how does what they're doing on defense, you know, translate to games against Mississippi State and Iowa and Virginia? And obviously a little bit later down the road, the Skyline Chili Crosstown shootout, we will see. But the early returns, they play hard. And they have certainly looked locked in on the defensive end. 513-749-1530 is our phone number. I never got to, I meant to do this earlier this hour. I think the proper way to frame what the Bengals did and didn't do at the trade deadline, because we could pound away at Duke Tobin, and we will, for why a deal didn't go through. But at the end of the day, like, is this team going to be okay with its deficiencies going unaddressed? We're going to spend some time on that. We also have to have a conversation about a conversation about Ellie De La Cruz. Coming up on 4 o'clock, ESPN 1530. Genesis Diamonds. 00:33:59 Speaker 10: Get your midweek Bengals fix tonight at 6 o'clock on Bengals Game Plan. 00:34:04 Speaker 1: I will. 00:34:05 Speaker 10: On ESPN 1530, Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:34:10 Speaker 1: Two hours away. Soon as we're done, an actual good show is going to start. Bengals game plan. 00:34:17 Speaker 3: What's up? 00:34:18 Speaker 1: I'm Mo Egger. This is ESPN 1530. Thanks for listening today. Wise Money Sports with our guide, Joe Wilson, in 30 minutes. Nick Kroll says, Reds haven't had any conversations about Elie Delacruz. Fine. Whatever. Before we have an Elie Delacruz conversation, I have a question. That later on. And a lot more on the Bengals and getting set for this game on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Let's grab a phone. I don't like making people wait. Brian, College Hill, you're on ESPN 1530. Thank you for your patience, Brian. How are you? Hey, Mo. 00:34:53 Speaker 11: How you doing, man? 00:34:54 Speaker 1: Wonderful. What's up? 00:34:56 Speaker 11: Good show. Good show. 00:34:58 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:34:58 Speaker 11: Hey, man. Look, I'm not so concerned about the debacle of them fumbling the... for lack of a better term, the whole trade deal, right? The concern is, why would you just be trying to get a guy? That dude is just a dude. If you're going to Philly, man, you should be going to Philly for Zach Bond. It's the same thing I told you yesterday. You should be going to Zach Bond. You should be trying to hit a home run, man. Also, You were in Spain with Jesse Bates. He's telling me that the guys didn't have a chance to say something to him. Like, bro, look, come over here. We are a contender this year. Only people on our way is the Jacksonville Jaguars or maybe... the Kansas City Chiefs. 00:35:57 Speaker 1: Obviously, Jesse Bates can't trade himself, but the Atlanta Falcons personnel are over there. I would have to imagine, and maybe I'm giving them more credit than they deserve, hey, look, if things

don't unfold the right way for you out here and you decide to sell, we would be interested in a safety we have spent years trying to replace. 00:36:18 Speaker 11: What did they give up? What did they give up for Jesse Bates? 00:36:23 Speaker 1: I will get the exact package. 00:36:27 Speaker 11: I think it was like a second, maybe a second and a fifth. 00:36:32 Speaker 1: I know there were two draft choices, and I don't want to be incorrect. And so two draft picks, second rounder next year and a fifth rounder in 28. Come on, man. I'd have done it. 00:36:42 Speaker 11: It was right there, man. 00:36:44 Speaker 1: I'd have done it. But you're, you're, you're right. I mean, you're right. And in a weird way, you could argue that like the Bengals were done a favor by not trading for a guy who's not going to make much of an impact. But you, you mentioned like you had Philly on the phone. Linebacker has been a deficiency for a while. How at some point did the conversation not drift towards Zach Bond? Why was that not more attractive to you? What would that have cost? I can't imagine it would have cost all that much. Also, The trade between Philly and Cincinnati fell apart before lunchtime. You mean to tell me there's not still time to pivot to something else? 00:37:17 Speaker 11: Yeah. I mean, that's my biggest concern right there. Why wouldn't you swing for defenses for a guy that you know is a You know, a bona fide, probably one of the top safeties in the league. If you couldn't get Zach Bond, you had to say something about Jesse Bates. I mean, just inquire about that. Because what was the money part of that deal with this guy, Etta BK, whatever his name is? Didn't somebody say they would have been overspending anyway, or. 00:37:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think relative to the production, which there hasn't been a ton, they would have they would have probably been accused of overpaying. And like, I understand edge depth. You don't have how there are only so many edge guys out there. Like there are players who get a change of scenery and then suddenly they're productive. He'd have been playing on the same defensive line as Dexter Lawrence. And and maybe that would have helped. 00:38:10 Speaker 3: But. 00:38:11 Speaker 1: I think your overarching point is the correct one, and it's the one that matters the most. You can beat them up for the trade that fell through, and you can maybe be happy that that trade didn't fall through, but in an era where teams are using trades to make themselves better, and in a year where all the other teams that the Bengals are going to be competing with added to their roster and addressed deficiencies, the Bengals did nothing. 00:38:36 Speaker 11: Yeah, you got Shamar, and you have Miles Murphy, I mean, it's time for them dudes to step up. I mean, if you just want a guy, you can look towards one of them. I mean, the production probably, of course, is not the same between Shamar Stewart and this Etta BK, but I'm sure it's close with Miles Murphy and Etta BK. 00:38:56 Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 00:38:57 Speaker 11: I've been seeing Miles Murphy, he's been putting on some wheels, man, running across the field, running down some people. So, I mean, I would have a good conversation with him because if I'm not mistaken, he's in the contract here. Like, bro, you need to step it up, bro. You're looking for next year. Like, you want to get paid, right? 00:39:16 Speaker 1: Yes. No, I think a lot of us thought, like, we were going to see an uber-motivated and hopefully super-productive Miles Murphy for the reasons you just outlined. This was his chance to get paid and Unfortunately, unfortunately, we haven't seen the production. I think a lot of us thought we were going to see from him. Brian, I got to run, man. Thank you. 00:39:32 Speaker 11: Thank you, man. 00:39:34 Speaker 1: I would just wonder, like a lot of folks leading up to the trade deadline brought up Dayon Henley, who was traded by the Chargers to the Broncos right before the deadline. I think we saw that that trade came down about two o'clock yesterday afternoon. Chargers get a fourth in 27 and a fifth in 28. Now it's a rental. Henley's due to be a free agent at the end of this year. You couldn't have upped that Annie a little bit, but again, like it comes back to the availability and I don't know how revealing Duke Tobin would have been. The fact that he didn't make himself available would certainly suggest that he wouldn't have been very revealing at all. But like, don't you have questions? if you're a fan of this team, don't, don't you have questions about why not just the, the how and why of the deal that fell through? I know that's the headline and you know, maybe folks want to see, you know, Duke Tobin turn red because they want to see him be embarrassed at explaining why a trade that they thought that they were going to make fell through. I, I, I think for me, there's a little bit more curiosity as to, and like, I get it. We like our team. There was nothing for us out there, but I don't know, dude. We went through in the two or three weeks leading up to yesterday at four o'clock, a long, long, long list of players and a long, long, long list of teams that you could do business with in order to get one of those players. Like, you know, we say it all the time on this show. There's room for multiple truths, right? There's also room for these thoughts to coexist. This is a good football team. Might not be a great football team. Might be a team that still has something to prove. Might be a team that, you know, you want to see them beat somebody who's among the upper crust before you really believe in them. That's fair, but This is a good team with a good record, bunch of good players. Their roster is solid. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a solid roster. It's a healthy-ish roster. And all of that is a result of, not all of it, but a lot of it is a result of some really good, aggressive work, smart work by Duke Tobin

in the front office. Yeah, okay, they stumble into Joe Burrow and they kind of stumble into Jamar Chase, but You know, they did some good work acquiring outside help this offseason. The Dexter Lawrence trade wasn't only bold, it was smart. Dexter Lawrence is a relative bargain compared to some of the other guys who play his position. They've also done a good job, like on the fringes, finding a Dante Myers, getting guys like that. This is going to be a playoff team. That may sound bold. Look at the standings. look at their schedule, look at where they are right now, this is a very, very, very, very, very likely playoff team. They're a good bet to win the division. Odds on favorites right now to win the AFC North. That'll change if they lose on Sunday, but I'll hot take it. I think the Bengals are going to win the division even if they lose to Pittsburgh. But they've got a roster that has deficiencies. Anybody who has watched them can tell you what they are. Their deficiencies may not be the same deficiencies they have in Miami or with the Chargers or with the Jets or with the Raiders or with the Cardinals or with any number of rotten teams in the league. Some of those are more rotten than others. But they got a roster with deficiencies. And like... Again, these things can coexist. They're a good team. They're a team that could use some upgrades. There have been football teams far, far, far better than this version of the Bengals that have gotten help from outside, especially in this era where trades are more commonplace. There are organizations with larger and longer track records of success that have said we're good, but we could still be better. And they've made that move. I do not believe in this league, but also other sports that winning franchises often seem completely content with what they have. There's a lot of reasons to like this team. Zach Taylor said he liked this team. I would too if I was the coach. I like this team as a fan. But it doesn't mean they couldn't use some help. And chances are, if they made a move, it was going to be a move. The trade deadline wasn't going to solve all their issues. Hitting it at the trade deadline wasn't going to guarantee that this team is the last one standing at the end of the season. But it's still disappointing. that they could not successfully execute a trade for an established NFL player, in particular on the defensive side of the ball. And if you look at what the organization's philosophy is, you could accuse a Bengals fan, you could accuse me of you're putting too much faith in this year. The Bengals did that. In their history, they've never prioritized an individual season more than the Cincinnati Bengals have prioritized 2026. And so I think that helps kind of I don't know. It helps add to the disappointment. Like all along, you've been all about winning right now. And then at the deadline, you seemingly stopped. Now other teams made moves too. And Jacksonville Jaguars are being accused of overpaying, but while it is obviously not guaranteed to work, any of the moves that the other teams made, it is, it is hard. And it's hard to do this because the Bengals are good. It's hard to watch Buffalo address a deficiency. Kansas City address a deficiency. Denver add to an already good defense. Jacksonville add to their team. The Jaguars have been a wagon for over a year. Jacksonville's last 18 games, they're 15 and three. I think nine of those games they've won by more than 14. They've beaten Cincinnati now head to head. And yet those teams decided we're in good shape, but we've got some issues. We've got to get better. And so how do you not wonder, like Bill Barnwell writes for ESPN, he writes, Bengals are going to come to regret not making a move at the deadline. I'm not going to speak in such certainty because there is a lot to like about this team. This team's offense should be the envy of the NFL. Joe Burrow is playing at an MVP caliber level. The offensive line is good. The running game is starting to round into form. They have all world weaponry. They have good players on defense. But how do you not wonder Whether or not by the end of the season, we're looking back on the deadline wondering, could this guy that they didn't get have helped here? Or could this trade that they didn't make, could that have helped here? The margins for winning and losing in this league is, they're razor thin. Could acquiring somebody at the deadline widen that margin for the Bengals just a little bit? They're going to have to win close games. They're going to have to win hard games. They're going to have to win games where, you know, maybe the big three are having a slow day. Are they going to be capable of doing that? And if not, will we look back on their inability or unwillingness to pull the trigger at the trade deadline as something that ultimately came back to doom them? You and I obviously hope that the answers are no. But can you imagine what it's going to feel like if the answers are yes? So this isn't gratuitously banging on the Bengals, this awful franchise. They're 6-2. They're in good shape. They're favored on Sunday. Projected right now to be favored in every game they play. They have a good, good football team. We just gave them a world of credit for how they handled Madrid and the logistics and how they played. Good football team. Which is what makes not adding to it so disappointing. Especially when you add to it what they've done in Denver, Buffalo, Casey, and Jacksonville. 20 after 4 o'clock. 513-749-1530 is our number. Wise Money Sports with our guy Joe Wilson from Omega Wealth coming up in 15 minutes. Kelsey Conway from the Enquirer on the Bengals in an hour. This is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 00:48:50 Speaker 9: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic. 00:48:54 Speaker 1: From the UC Health. 00:48:55 Speaker 10: This is Football in the Natty. Brought to you by Belterra Casino and Belterra Park on ESPN 1530. The official home of

the Cincinnati Bengals. 00:49:08 Speaker 1: Football in the Natty. Latest college football playoff rankings came out last night. Kentucky is still in the top 12, 11 despite losing to tennessee in lopsided fashion on saturday indiana uh down five spots ranked number nine last night ohio state there's still a path playoff chances this year on life support ranked 20th coming off back-to-back losses Next year, we're going to the 24-team field, which is ridiculous. So I hear a lot about how, well, this is going to be great for the smaller schools. This is going to be great for the group of six schools. There's going to be more larger pathway for them to be in. Well, I'm looking at the top 25, and the only school from outside the Power 4 I see is Boise State 24th. Liberty's eight and one, not ranked. New Mexico, eight and one, not ranked. You may believe, and I don't entirely disagree, that they don't deserve to be. But if this is indeed going to be good for a group of six schools and the selling point, why this is going to work is, hey, it's easier for the little guy. Well, then the way to do that is to prove it by ranking them and putting them close to the playoff field. That is not happening. But, you know, what we do have, I see at number 22 is Missouri with their three losses, one by 14, one by 28. And LSU with their three losses, one by 36. And Ohio State with three losses. And I see Ole Miss there. Ole Miss has a loss by 35. Ranked number 19. I'm not doing this to pick on any of those schools. But, you know... I've heard folks say, well, what about the NCAA tournament? There's media mediocrity in the NCAA tournament. 00:50:59 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:51:01 Speaker 1: And in a 15 year span, they will have gone from 64 to 76, which is ridiculous. And, and if, if the selling point for that is, well, it's going to be better for the low majors. 00:51:15 Speaker 5: Okay, sure. 00:51:16 Speaker 3: Whatever. 00:51:20 Speaker 1: But, What's always been cool about college football to me is its uniqueness in terms of you have to have an excellent season to have access to the championship. Four was not enough. I think most of us came to agree with that. And so the expansion to 12... There is a degree of excellence and accomplishment you still have to reach to make it a 12. And like I get it, we have Alabama's number three with two losses. Texas is six with two losses. Tennessee's eighth with two losses. BYU is 10th with two losses. But there's still like a level of, if not excellence, very, very, very, very goodness there. This was always the one sport where mediocrity was not acceptable as it relates to competing for a championship. You couldn't be okay. In all the other sports, you can. You can be a very okay team and make the NFL postseason. You can be a very okay baseball team and make the postseason. You can be a very okay college basketball team and play for your sports national championships. I get it. We're all still going to watch. We're all still going

to engage. But it is fair to look at things that have happened to this sport in particular and not like how some of the new things have made things that we thought were special and unique about college football not the same or in some cases have made those things go away. When you look at the bottom end of the college football playoff rankings, is there anybody excited about watching some of those teams compete for a national championship think the answer is no uh what is this gonna mean business-wise we'll get to that more on the bengals and the mechanics of the trade deadline and uh nick crawl says they haven't had talks with other teams about ellie de la cruz we are going to talk about this a lot but not before we do something we'll get to that coming up in a bit i'll make it make sense sports headlines coming up as well espn 1530 cincinnati sports station. 00:53:46 Speaker 6: Mm-mm. 00:53:55 Speaker 10: You've been listening to Football in the Natty, brought to you by Kingdom Built Exteriors on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals. 00:54:07 Speaker 1: Kingdom Built Exteriors. Bengals! 00:54:09 Speaker 7: This week, Sunday Night Football in America arrives in Cincinnati as the Bengals renew their AFC North feud with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Rivalry so bitter it makes black coffee taste like a milkshake. It's four quarters of hard hits, high drama, and plenty of divisional disdain. Catch every snap, every collision, and every moment of AFC North chaos. The game kicks off at 8.20 p.m. with coverage starting at 4 p.m. 00:54:38 Speaker 1: Sunday. 00:54:38 Speaker 7: Stream for free on the new and improved iHeartRadio app or on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals. 00:54:48 Speaker 1: It's Wednesday. We're back in the saddle. Wednesdays mean wise money sports with our guy Joe Wilson from Omega Wealth Private Capital. We skipped a week. We're back. We're back. Everything is good. Life is good. 00:55:00 Speaker 12: Back in town. 00:55:01 Speaker 1: Back in town. Yeah, buddy. A lot going on. It's a good thing. It is a good thing. 00:55:05 Speaker 12: A lot's going on in the sports world. I feel like there's always things going on in the sports world, but I do feel like we're in a warp zone of activity right now. 00:55:12 Speaker 1: There is a lot happening, yes. There's a lot happening. A lot happening from a sports business perspective. We've talked about the possibility of college football playoff expansion, which is now reality starting next year. ESPN, five years, nearly $ 1. 00:55:24 Speaker 3: 7 billion. 00:55:27 Speaker 1: Expand the field to 24 in 2027, this on top of the existing six-year 7.8 bill deal from ESPN in March of 2024. But let's talk about this from a business perspective, because I think there are business pros and cons. 00:55:42 Speaker 3: Well, sure. 00:55:43 Speaker 12: I mean, you got 12 more games in the current 12-team format that's coming up, so... That's more inventory to sell, right? I

think there's a plus and minus to that. But new money could cover a lot in the loss of these title games. I mean, these title games are about $ 250 million. So combined, about $ 1. 7 billion over five years. It's almost $ 340 million a year. About a net gained about $ 90 million a year. Rough math, hashtag. Campus, first round games. I think that's neat because that's going to be great for some of the vibe, the concessions. We saw that a few years ago. I remember I've got some friends that are diehard Tennessee volunteer fans who came up to Ohio State. 00:56:21 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:56:22 Speaker 12: And they traveled like crazy. It was very weird because Ohio State was— Yeah, well, they didn't lose. They got stepped on, kind of like the Buckeyes have been stepped on the last couple weeks. So, yeah, so I think that's good. More gates, more concessions, more local spending in the town. So I think that's good for these college towns. Big Ten commissioner argues that the buys, the home field advantage, the race for the top 24, it's going to give the teams something more to play for. Here's my little concern again. 00:56:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead. Man, that's a lot of games. It's a lot of games, yeah. 23 playoff games. That's my, from a sports perspective, that's what I don't like about it. 23 playoff games. I like it when playoff games are special. We've watered them down in every sport. We're watering down the postseason with the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. We're really doing it with college football playoff games. I mean, be honest, but you are a sports aficionado. Also, another word for that is nerd. Yes. 00:57:19 Speaker 12: How many, do you watch the play-in games regularly? 00:57:22 Speaker 1: For the NCAA tournament. So do I go to them? God almighty, you're an animal. I love those. I don't even watch them. But here's why I like them. I like those, number one, it's the nice appetizer for the main course on Thursday. Also, I think it's cool that 16 seeds get a chance to win an NCAA tournament game. That's not applying here. So the great thing about the play-in games to me are 16 seeds play against each other, which guarantees one is going to have a winning experience before they go get trounced by a one. This is very true. So that's what I like. That's not in play here. 00:57:52 Speaker 12: Yeah. 00:57:52 Speaker 1: No, not at all. And it will be interesting. 00:57:54 Speaker 12: I think it'll be college football is becoming so big. I mean, it's just massive. 00:57:59 Speaker 1: Um, second biggest sport in this country. 00:58:00 Speaker 12: Yeah. 00:58:01 Speaker 10: Yes, it is. 00:58:01 Speaker 1: That's massive. 00:58:02 Speaker 5: It is. 00:58:03 Speaker 1: Um, it'll be interesting to see though. 00:58:06 Speaker 12: We're doing this also on the run of a very strong economy year after year after year after year. So the dollars are there. 00:58:13 Speaker 1: This will be interesting. 00:58:14 Speaker 12: If we ever get an economic pullback, are the ad dollars there to support to the level of I mean, that's a lot of ads. It's a lot of marketing. And that's what the TV is built on. And that's where the money comes from. So it'll be interesting to see. 00:58:28 Speaker 1: We went through the business pros. Give me some of the business cons. 00:58:31 Speaker 12: Well, you're talking about conferences or trade approving revenue stream. For one, that's, you know, uh-oh, not sure. SEC title game alone is valued probably around $ 100 million at the conference. Regular season value is the biggest risk, right? Some November games could lose urgencies and you could see ratings soften. I mean, that makes sense. 00:58:48 Speaker 1: And that's true. I'm heading up. 00:58:50 Speaker 12: To the SHU this weekend, and really, if it wasn't for kind of a parent's weekend with the golf team, I have zero desire to go watch the Buckeyes play Northwestern. So I do think there's a little wear and tear on that. Player workload, that's going to rise, and season starts earlier, right? How's this going to work with the season? seniors that are wanting to go to the next level um that you know that that's a lot of games what would it be with injuries smaller conference non-cfp bowls are going to get squeezed bro yeah um you know a 10 bowl lineup of power conference matchups i don't know it's anytime there's more upside you Mo, there is also the question that, what am I giving up to get it? Yeah. And I think this could be interesting. I think for college football fans, they love this. I'm interested in it. I just don't know how much I'm going to be watching of the early games other than just if my teams. 00:59:44 Speaker 1: Are favorite teams. Yeah. I don't love this. I don't love what it does to the regular season. I don't love 23 playoff games. I think we're going to get a lot of bad playoff games. I just, I think most college football fans are like me. We will watch them. We'll adjust. my team might benefit from it one day if the Bearcats are ever nationally relevant again. 01:00:05 Speaker 12: Let's talk about that. What happens if something like that happens, right? Where you get a Big 12 that they get hot, right? And all of a sudden they get in. And then what if they get hot and they win a couple of these games? That's going to be the exciting part of this. Because other than that, it's just going to be seasons over. So there will be some excitement. It'll be interesting in the era of NIL. But if anything, can show you how NIL has changed college football. It is this very year. Look how many number ones have moved and shifted. So anything's possible, Mo. 01:00:40 Speaker 1: Let's talk about business and investing lessons that can come from the collapse of Live Golf. 01:00:45 Speaker 2: Live. 01:00:46 Speaker 1: Interesting. Here's the deal. 01:00:49 Speaker 12: Saudis funding pulled it in April after spending more than $ 5 billion since 2022 and filed for bankruptcy on September 8th. On November

5th, it's all you're told. The court companies moving to a new value maximizing wind down instead of the live 2.0 plan they tried to resurrect this and a lot of the players over there are like i'm out yeah a proposed 300 million dollar rescue from a group called bc partners it fell apart it disintegrated and investors wanted binding commitments from crucial massive elite players and the players said nay nay uh european tour which is becoming a growing tour warned anyone who signed with this new live 2.0 Just know it doesn't even need to apply for the DP World Tour, which is the PGA Tour over there. Liv paid $ 15. 6 million to retain seven executives, including $ 6. 375 million to CEO Scott O'Neill before filing the B of the K. Here's the lessons. 01:01:42 Speaker 1: Yes. 01:01:43 Speaker 12: Product innovation is not a business model. Shotgun starts, 54-hole formats, team golf, it drew some attention. It definitely shifted the PGA Tour, but the economics relied on cash infusions and extravagant, extravagant guarantees. Underserved markets worked, though. They had some amazing crowds in South Africa, some other parts of the world that really did help grow the game. That was their whole initiative. I'm not sure that was worth a $ 5 billion gamble. Incumbents in history are. 01:02:16 Speaker 1: Hard to beat. 01:02:17 Speaker 12: Head-to-head war with PGA Tour, it's turned into a cold war that just completely galvanized the competition. And single source risk. I think this is the key for any business investor. One fund paid for almost everything. When it's strategy challenge, the league had no plan B. This is where we look at, from a market standpoint in Omega, It's concentration risk. 01:02:42 Speaker 7: Right. 01:02:42 Speaker 12: Clients with it all the time. Maybe all your stock is just with your employer. All your stock is in one tech stock. A plan similar has built maybe an inspiration expiration date. We've had capital, but no sustainable purpose for it. It's why the opposite of purpose determines placement, which we talk about. And all of our plans matter. concentration risk is huge and that's what happened right here. 01:03:04 Speaker 1: Wise money sports joe wilson omega wealth private capital quick quickly let's talk about the big 12 brett yormark the commissioner leaving effective uh jan 31 job and this is a guy who came to college sports from outside he was ceo of rock nation did some good stuff stabilizing the league once texas and oklahoma left new schools came in They're now searching for a successor. Obviously, Cincinnati is a Big 12 school, so we're paying attention to this. What are the business angles? Business angles. 01:03:32 Speaker 12: Act early and aggressively on media rights, right? So if you're taking over something you're getting and you get the chance to run the marketing, if you're going to go, you've got to go. Back 12 waited. They waited for top dollar and it collapsed. I think that's a big one. Outsiders bring in necessary disruption. He ran the league like a modern brand. and was open for business. He claimed sponsorship revenue was up 65% this year. And that partnership revenue had grown almost 3000% since 2023. Um, Entertainment first has limits. I mean, we remember the LED glass basketball court. 01:04:07 Speaker 1: Oh, man, that was awful. Did you not like it? I hated it. It was a little weird. It looked weird. 01:04:12 Speaker 12: I can't imagine playing on it. 01:04:13 Speaker 1: A little too cute. Players didn't like it. 01:04:15 Speaker 3: It was slippery. 01:04:15 Speaker 5: It was awful. 01:04:16 Speaker 12: Shot in the blue. So, obviously, that got some debacle. The SEC and Big Ten use their leverage, and I think this is powerful. If you're outside... You don't have leverage. You've got to be very cautious when you're making big plays because the SEC and Big Ten use their leverage. CFP negotiations claim over 50% of the revenue. Without a Blue Blood brand, glass ceilings are very hard to break. Here's the deal. Apply it to your business. Apply it to your investing. Lock in your plan while you have leverage before you need it. If you're at work, you have some good success, lock in the advantage then. A great sales pitch is no substitute for a sound retirement strategy. You got some gains. Things are good. Maybe have a conversation. Do I need to take a little off the table? 01:05:02 Speaker 1: Or do you gamble at all? Those are the conversations you have at Omega Wealth Private Capital. 01:05:06 Speaker 12: We do it every day, day in, day out. 01:05:08 Speaker 11: Here it is. 01:05:09 Speaker 12: Whether it's a playoff, a breakaway tour, maybe it's a conference, the winners lock in substantial cash flow. You avoid concentration risk. Avoid single points of failure. You look at it for the long term, Mo. It's the same message we give our clients to build a plan ahead. that last because it's how your story ends. That's why we called Omega Wealth Private Capital. Omega is the last letter. Be and stay retirement ready. 01:05:34 Speaker 1: O-W PrivateCapital.com Alright, that's our guy Joe Wilson. Joe, thanks so much. Does Duke Tobin need Zach Taylor to drive him around when the sun goes down? We've already determined that he has to speak for him when he tries to make a trade and it doesn't work. Does he have to cut his food for him? We have a lot to get to. Kelsey Conway from the Inquirer on the Bengals in 30 minutes and a conversation about a conversation coming up as well on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 01:06:02 Speaker 9: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic. 01:06:06 Speaker 4: From the UC Health. 01:06:09 Speaker 1: Seven from five. This is ESPN 1530. I'm Mo Egger. If you missed Paul Daner Jr. yesterday on the Bengals trade, are we calling it a fiasco? We'll call it a fiasco. Why not? It's available on the iHeartRadio app. Also, the Tony and Moe football show this week, which was awesome. Look, man, it sounds like so many, and maybe you're

accusing me of this as well, are gratuitously banging on the Bengals for the way the trade deadline thing unfolded. The football team itself... the victory over the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta is not very good, but you talk about like, as the kids say, giving a team its flowers after the game against Atlanta. I don't know how anybody couldn't or how anybody didn't because the, the biggest opponent sometimes for those teams and those games overseas, isn't the team they play on the field. It's the logistics, the travel, the, It looked like the Bengals embraced everything. It looked like the coaching staff and the logistics staff had a plan that was really well executed. Like, optimism for this team, I think, was kicked into hyperdrive. They won the game. They're 6-2. Pittsburgh's coming. It's a chance to, you know, jump into first place by themselves. But, you know, if it's, well, you know, folks are just wailing away at the Bengals because they seem like a Mickey Mouse organization because of the failed trade, fine. But the exact opposite was true for how they handled Madrid. And that I don't think should be lost in this mix. Tony and I talked about that Monday. If you missed the Tony and Mo football show, go listen to it. It's available on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts of this show on the iHeartRadio app, or a service of Long Neck Sports Grill as you think ahead of the weekend, as you think ahead to, I don't know, as you try to pick a place with your buddies to watch college football, pro football, college basketball, or even just hang out with your buddies and talk with each other. Long Neck Sports Grill, three locations, tons of awesome game day specials, too. You got Wilder, you got Hebron, you got Richwood, you got Long Neck's. We thank Long Neck's. for their support. Would it have been that hard for Duke Tobin to be a little transparent today? We'll get to that. You'll hear what happened instead coming up next five o'clock ESPN, 1530. I can't take that. 01:08:40 Speaker 10: Get your midweek Bengals fixed tonight at six o'clock on Bengals game plan on ESPN, 1530 Cincinnati sports station. 01:08:53 Speaker 1: All right, that's us. I'm Oleg, or this is ESPN 1530. Thanks for listening. 01:08:59 Speaker 3: Today. 01:09:00 Speaker 1: Hope you're having an awesome Wednesday afternoon. By the way, neglectful of me at the top of the show to not say this, but if you're among the men and women who have served our country, hope you're having a pleasant and gratitude-filled Veterans Day. Bengals game plan coming up in an hour from the Holy Grail starring Dan Horton, Wayne Boxmiller. I believe Joe Flacco will be among the guests tonight, so go check that out. Starting at 6 on ESPN 1530. Cannot wait for that. Kelsey Conway from The Enquirer in just a few minutes. on the Bengals who gets set to play the Pittsburgh Steelers. Zach Taylor had some good injury news as it relates to Dylan Fairchild. They're calling him day to day. Cash is how week to week, though nobody is publicly ruling out a return to the field for cashes in 2026, which is great because he has shown obviously a lot of promise as a rookie trade deadline came and went just over 25 hours ago. And it may have been naive. I don't know. But there was a part of me that last night thought, you know, Duke Tobin having to be told, hey, if we make this trade with Philly, it's going to cost us a compensatory third round pick. It's embarrassing. The optics aren't great. It's not fireable. It's not the sort of thing that should wash away the cool things that Duke Tobin has done. Like, building a six and two team helping make upgrades getting dexter lawrence those are good things but still and it's it's not like the trade deadline isn't solely defined by a deal that fell through it's largely defined by a good team that could use some help not adding anybody zach taylor is not in charge of the trade deadline he doesn't execute trades he doesn't talk with other teams He's the head coach. His job is to get his football team ready to play on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Duke Tobin's job is to handle the roster and make decisions about the roster while balancing short-term needs and long-term goals. So the deadline comes and goes, and the headline might have been Bengals nearly made a trade that they didn't, and they didn't because somebody from the outside gave them information that they should have. 01:11:23 Speaker 3: Fine. 01:11:24 Speaker 1: But the big story is other teams did what they think they needed to do to get better. Bengals didn't add anybody from outside. If there is a moment during the season that it would make sense for Duke Tobin to talk Not for an hour, not to every media outlet individually, but just make himself available and answer some questions. Today was the day. Not because anybody who's realistic or reasonable wanted to see Duke squirm or get embarrassed, but we care about this team. We root for this team. We obsess over this team. We talk about this team. We sometimes defend this team. You kind of like knowing stuff. You like knowing how the sausage is made, so to speak. You like knowing why trades are made or not made. And so today would have been a good opportunity for Duke Tobin to say, hey, look, while everybody's here to talk about Zach Taylor or talk to Zach Taylor, while everybody's here to talk to players about the game on Sunday, here I am. Anybody have any questions instead with everybody wondering about the deadline and what didn't happen and what did happen and whether or not the Bengals made a mistake when it came to a trade that they were on the verge of making instead of Duke Tobin talking, you got Zach Taylor here. He is from earlier today. 01:12:49 Speaker 4: We, we tried something yesterday and, and, And Duke was very explicit with me when he came and spoke to me of how he wanted this portrayed. And I'm not comfortable doing it, but I'm going to do what he asked. And we did make an effort to kind

of put some depth in there in place of Cassius. As we got into it, obviously it was going to be a little more costly than we initially anticipated. So he's really apologetic about it and wants to make clear Philly was a great trade partner. 01:13:15 Speaker 1: It was on our end. 01:13:16 Speaker 4: And that's just the way things go. But certainly have a ton of confidence in our front office and how they do things. And they've given us the players that have allowed us to be 6-2 right now and playing at such a high level. So we'll put that behind us and move forward and just get excited for this game on Sunday. And our locker room is in a great place right now. 01:13:32 Speaker 11: Did he disclose how well. 01:13:34 Speaker 1: He can wear? 01:13:34 Speaker 4: No, I didn't even ask the question. It doesn't really matter to me. You know, it probably took three minutes of my day yesterday away from watching tape. got a lot of faith in how those guys operate, and we'll. 01:13:44 Speaker 5: Just move forward with it. 01:13:45 Speaker 4: Obviously, we tried something. 01:13:48 Speaker 1: There's the head coach of the team having to answer a question about something that he just told you he has nothing to do with. Now, good for Zach Taylor for doing it. He points the finger at Duke Tobin. Apparently, Duke Tobin wanted the finger pointed at him. Zach, I think, acknowledged, like, I'm not comfortable having to do this, and why would he be? Imagine somebody you work with sending you out there to explain to your boss or to somebody else, to investors, to customers, why something didn't get done. Wait a minute. I, you, you made the mistake. Why, why do I, why, why am I the person that has to come and explain what happened? That's not how the real world should operate. That's also not like you don't own a mistake by having somebody else explain it for you. You don't accept accountability and responsibility by having somebody else outline what happened. It may not matter. Bengals may win Sunday. I think they will. Bengals may win the division, regardless of what happens on Sunday. I believe they will. But there's also like part of that. That's, I don't know, frustrating because a lot of us feel the same way. You know what? Go in on Sunday and this goes away. So what are the Bengals always do? It feels like the brand is, Hey, no matter what else happens, we've got Joe Jamar and T and they'll, they'll just, they'll fix it or they'll change the conversation or they'll bail us out. It's going to have to happen again this week. Bengals are being laughed at around the country right now. And they're being laughed at around the country right now for two reasons. One, the Philadelphia trade fiasco to why didn't they do anything? Like that is a, that is a thing. Folks who talk about this league and cover this league and care about this league and root for teams around this league. Look at the Broncos adding to an already good defense. The Chiefs adding to a wide receiver

group that has not been very good. Buffalo adding to a secondary that badly needed help. Jacksonville adding to a team that has won 15 of its last 18 regular season games. And the Bengals didn't do anything? So yeah, the conversation is going to change if they beat Pittsburgh on Sunday. The conversation is probably going to change by the end of today because, all right, we've all exhausted what we've had to say about what the Bengals did and didn't do at the trade deadline, though we are filing away what they did and didn't do at the trade deadline because if it comes back to bite them, then we're going to look back on yesterday at four o'clock as a possible turning point of the season. But if you're a fan of the team, aren't you at least kind of interested in the hows, the whats, the whys, maybe the whys more than anything else as it relates to the trade deadline? 01:16:31 Speaker 11: I am. 01:16:32 Speaker 3: You are. 01:16:35 Speaker 1: Why couldn't the person in charge of what they did do, didn't do, and nearly did answer some questions today? That shouldn't be Zach Taylor's responsibility. I don't say this from the perspective of needing to see Duke Tobin embarrass himself or show embarrassment, show shame. I don't want somebody's head on a stick. Again, what happened with the Philly trade, I don't think is necessarily fireable. I do think it should involve some internal examination of like who does what, who knows what. Let's make sure all our T's are crossed and I's are dotted. But from a fan perspective, I was kind of interested in hearing what Duke had to say. Not just why did this trade not happen? Not just did some random guy on the internet. I know he's not random. Why does he know more about your compensatory pick situation than you? But also really when that trade fell through, there was nothing else to pivot to. Really? You've seen this team play eight games and for all of its attributes and all of the good things about it, you looked at it and said, we don't need anybody. or what we would have to give up in order to get somebody in a season that this organization has prioritized, unlike any other future asset wasn't worth giving up. A younger player who doesn't play a lot wasn't worth giving up. Duke Tobin may have answered those questions and maybe he wouldn't have provided very satisfactory answers, but the person who should be answering those questions is not the head coach of the football team. So I don't, I felt like Zach, some would say he threw Duke under the bus. I think he was pretty transparent here. Like, I'm not comfortable doing this because this isn't my department. Like, if you were Zach Taylor, wouldn't you tell Duke Tobin, like, hey, big boy, next time I make a decision in a game and everybody wants to know what I was thinking and what I was doing, how about you go answer the questions? How about you go handle the press conference? So, This goes away if they win, and I think they're going to win on Sunday. And once they went on Sunday, they have a very good chance to take a five game winning streak and turn it into a six, seven and eight game winning streak. But it kind of feels like the entire modus operandi of the organization is, eh, yeah, you know what? Joe and Jamar and T are going to fix it. That's often been a thing on the field. In this case, it kind of feels like something that's off the field. And I think Duke Tobin, to a large degree, this was not a good look yesterday. I think this makes it work worse. 16 minutes after 5 o'clock. Kelsey Conway wrote about what happened with the Philly trade yesterday. She'll join us next. We also got to talk about how we're going to talk about LA Dela Cruz. Let's set the stage for the offseason. As lockout interrupted as it may be coming up in about 20 minutes on ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Nation. 01:19:45 Speaker 9: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. Traffic. 01:19:50 Speaker 1: From the UC Health Traffic Center. 01:19:53 Speaker 10: This is Football in the Natty. Brought to you in part by Skyline Chili. On ESPN 1530. The official home of the Cincinnati Bengals. 01:20:04 Speaker 1: 23 after 5. This is ESPN 1530 Mo Egger on Wednesdays. We catch up with our friend from The Enquirer and Cincinnati.com, the host of the Beyond Sunday podcast, back from Madrid, covering a Bengals trade deadline that left us with more questions than answers. She's written about it. Kelsey Conway is here. 01:20:25 Speaker 2: Hi. 01:20:26 Speaker 1: Hi. 01:20:27 Speaker 11: Hi, Mo. 01:20:28 Speaker 8: How you doing? 01:20:30 Speaker 3: I'm well. 01:20:30 Speaker 1: What is going on down there? I mean, what is... We got a trade deadline. Duke's making trades. And there's a guy on the internet who says, well, they shouldn't make this trade. Then Zach Taylor has to explain on Duke's behalf, well, it went wrong, but Duke's not going to talk about it instead. It's me. What is going on down there? 01:20:50 Speaker 8: Yeah, I think you summarized it pretty well. 01:20:53 Speaker 6: I think it's... Unnecessary chaos is how I would explain it. I did some digging on the situation yesterday, and this is what I know. 01:21:07 Speaker 8: And Zach reiterated it today. 01:21:10 Speaker 6: The Bengals were fully ready. 01:21:15 Speaker 8: To make the trade. 01:21:16 Speaker 6: And although they haven't said anything, publicly that it was the tweet or what exactly transpired for them to realize the compensatory pick issue. It is true in that they found out after they had already agreed to terms with the Eagles. 01:21:37 Speaker 8: And then at that point, they did not feel strong enough that. 01:21:43 Speaker 6: Losing out on a potential third round pick for that level of player was acceptable in. 01:21:49 Speaker 8: Addition to a sixth round pick. 01:21:50 Speaker 6: So then they're scrambling and they call the trade-off. And so, of course, the conversation is, how did they not know that? That's a conversation for a different day. But the bigger story to me

were two things. One, that they didn't address any other positional need. And two, I don't think it's been talked about enough. They won't come out and say it, but you don't go out and get a rotational edge rusher like that, if you had enough belief in Shamar Stewart and Myles Murphy down the stretch. And I know that they'll say it's a numbers game, that they wanted to have a group of five edge rushers, and that's why they wanted to go out and. 01:22:36 Speaker 8: Get, you know, a fifth one. But they have players on the practice squad. 01:22:43 Speaker 6: They don't need to give up a six-round pick for that player if you felt like you could win with Shamar Stewart and Myles Murphy. And so to me, that's one of the interesting developments from this is they basically admitted without saying it that we need more edge help because without Cassius Howell, the pressure package that we were going to make be the one thing that we're really good at, we can't do it. And so that to me was one of the bigger takeaways is that they clearly have an issue outside of Boye Mafei. as far as consistent edge pressure. And that's problematic to me because there's so many holes on the back end that the one thing you can count on them doing is like bringing pressure and being good at it. And if they can't do that, then what can they hang their hats on on defense? 01:23:31 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's, that's fair. I guess. Okay, fine. So the deal they were going to make common sense stepped in. We're not going to make it. There was nothing else they could do in the aftermath of that deal falling apart. 01:23:43 Speaker 6: No, because I think at that point, from what I understand, and which shouldn't come as a shock to you for as long as you follow this organization, they are never going to be true players at the trade deadline, especially on a year that they traded away a first round pick. Like that was such a big deal for them. And I really think at this point, we've almost like normalized it. Like that was an unprecedented situation. The Bengals really, really, really, really value their day one and day two picks. And if you look at what the Jags gave up and what the Bills gave up, first, second round picks, obviously the Broncos and Chiefs were more mid-round picks. The Bengals are not going to be, I don't foresee it being something unless it's like a. 01:24:34 Speaker 8: Dire, dire situation. 01:24:36 Speaker 6: The type of franchise that is ever willing to give up a first, second or third round pick in the middle of the season. It's just not who they've been and it's not something they're comfortable doing. And they more so than other franchises really value this whole notion of we're not going to mortgage our future for right now. And of course, that's not what Bengals fans want to hear. But that's just how it is. And the other piece of it is, and this part also won't come as a surprise to you. 01:25:07 Speaker 8: They are looking at. 01:25:08 Speaker 6: All of the contracts that they have on the books next year. And that is Dexter Lawrence, Boye Maffe, T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, Joe Burrow. They're going to have to pay DJ Turner. They've got some pretty hefty contracts loaded at specific positions that and I, and I wrote this, like, although it was fun for people to talk about and speculate about Jonathan Taylor, the Bengals were never going to be able to afford giving up a first or second round pick for him and then take on his contract. 01:25:39 Speaker 8: That is $ 15 million a year. They just can't do it. 01:25:42 Speaker 6: And they're never gonna do it, especially at a position like running back. So I really think it was a, I never really thought that they would be legitimate players because I, That's just not how they operate. 01:25:54 Speaker 8: And you can agree with it or disagree with it. 01:25:57 Speaker 6: And it's, you know, obviously an important piece to talk about, but they just are never going to be that franchise with this regime in the front office. And that's why I thought yesterday when other than the whole disaster with the trade that didn't go through, it went how I expected it because I just don't ever see them being willing to say, you know what? we're going to go for it this year and we're going to give up a second round pick in addition to giving up our first round pick last year. 01:26:22 Speaker 1: Was it at all possible to make the team better without giving up that specific kind of draft capital? 01:26:29 Speaker 8: They didn't feel so. I think that the players. 01:26:32 Speaker 6: That they had, I know that they had conversations about players. I don't think that they just sat up there and said, we're good. 01:26:39 Speaker 8: We don't need anything. 01:26:41 Speaker 6: But I think The initial conversations, the next step after you share interest is, can you guys get to point B, which is compensation? And it just didn't seem like any of the players that they were interested in, they can also meet the requirement of the compensation piece. And that's why trades are so hard for teams that aren't willing to change with the times. 01:27:09 Speaker 3: Totally. 01:27:10 Speaker 6: The Bengals can manage free agency because it doesn't involve the other team. Trades are complicated for a franchise like the Bengals because you have to have both sides agree on what compensation looks like and if it's fine for both sides. And the Bengals weren't able to feel comfortable with what the other teams were offering. 01:27:31 Speaker 8: And that's why they didn't get anybody. 01:27:34 Speaker 1: I want to punch myself in the head. 01:27:38 Speaker 6: I know you're like, I can't believe I called you, but it's, it's not surprising to me because the same people that the fans want to change are the same people that told you all off season. They think they were good enough at linebacker. 01:27:57 Speaker 8: So I guess for me. 01:27:58 Speaker 6: That's why I never let my head really think that they

were actually going to be big players in the trade deadline because Because I just have followed everything that they've said. And they've been so convicted, almost stubborn to a point. And so now really the story is the trade deadline will either be a talking point at the end of the season because if the Bengals don't make the playoffs or if they bounce early out and say the Bills make the run or the Jags and they win the AFC because of the additions that they made. Then the Bengals are going to have to answer to that. But say the Bengals string together, you know, four wins. I don't think people are really going to be talking about the trade deficit. And I think that the Bengals are betting on them winning, winning as many games as they can with the team that they have and, You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to like it, but that's just how they operate. 01:28:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, the way they operate is we'll screw some stuff up, but Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, and Tee Higgins, they'll make it, right? That's how they've operated now for a while. That's how they've operated when it comes to roster building, and now it's like, okay, if they go win on Sunday, and I think they will. And then that's five straight wins, and they're in first place. The conversation will change. And so, hey, Joe, Jamar, and T, go bail us out so everybody stops talking about how we have no idea what we're doing at the trade deadline. 01:29:20 Speaker 8: Sure, and that's totally how I think a lot of people view it. 01:29:25 Speaker 6: And I go back to the point of, like, They've come a long way with Joe Burrow as far as gaining back some trust. I know for a fact that Joe Burrow over the last two years has been very vocal behind the scenes of like, we have got to improve on defense. And I think the Dexter Lawrence trade, the Boye-Mafé addition, the Brian Cook addition, Jonathan Allen, I think all of those pieces have helped bridge back some trust from joe with the front office and the team as far as them showing okay joe we we are going to give you some pieces we've realized we can't do it on our own but can you imagine if in the same year that dex they got dexter lawrence that they showed we're actually going to pull off an in-season trade not for joe flacco but for a corner or a linebacker and and Can you imagine how galvanized today Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase, two players who are already playing at an incredibly. 01:30:20 Speaker 8: High level, can you imagine how they would feel? 01:30:23 Speaker 6: But instead today, we're about to go into Joe Burrow's press conference, and one of the first questions is going to be, do you wish your team did more? It keeps going back to the same conversation, and they could have. 01:30:36 Speaker 6: Negated it by making a move and really just gotten themselves to a point where things were really good. And so it's just one of those things where You would have liked to see it happen, but it didn't. 01:30:48 Speaker 8: And I'm

not really surprised. 01:30:49 Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, coming off the Madrid trip, which, you know, they get they get an A plus for how they handled all that. The Steelers coming here this week, like if you could have beaten them and then sandwich in between like a piece that just makes everybody feel like, all right, we're really going for it right now. I think the ancillary benefit to that emotionally, at least, would have been would have been pretty awesome. 01:31:11 Speaker 6: And talk about Sunday, the atmosphere. I'm fully expecting it to be, regardless, like an awesome place. But I think everybody on Sunday would have been like, if we win this game, we traded for. 01:31:23 Speaker 8: A player, we got Dexter Lawrence. Like, I think the trajectory of. 01:31:27 Speaker 6: These three years that have been really bad between the fans and the team, I think you could have made up for a lot of it. But, you know, we'll see if they go out and win. And, you know, winning tends to cure all the time. But if you lose, then this week is one that you then you put in your notebook when you're doing your whole season recap of like the Bengals had everything in front of them. 01:31:51 Speaker 8: This is the glory years for the Bengals. 01:31:54 Speaker 6: And it all started to fall apart on the trade deadline week, because in addition to not acquiring talent. their front office that they continue to say, you know, we don't need any more people. We have all the information. We don't need any more checks and balance systems. Well, you don't help yourself when these types of things happen. 01:32:13 Speaker 1: Well, let's say they don't win on Sunday and they lose the game. And afterward, we're kind of revisiting a critical Zach Taylor decision that went awry. Will Duke Tobin do the press conference for him since Zach did him a solid today? 01:32:29 Speaker 6: I can confidently tell you that is absolutely not going to happen. I think that the next time any of us will hear from Duke Tobin will either be following the season, which we don't even know if that's going to continue to be a thing in January or if it'll be at the combine. And I think that it was a missed opportunity to not even, you know, and the Bengals beat put in a request for Duke Tobin either a statement or, you know, talk to him and it was denied. Um, so I think it was a missed opportunity to not address it and take accountability and instead having Zach having to do it. Um, but they have angles are steadfast in wanting one voice during the season and one voice in the off season. Um, so yeah, I don't think Duke Tobin will be holding any sort of press conferences anytime soon, regardless of what happens. on Sunday night, but I think Sunday nights could be really interesting because I think the bangles. 01:33:27 Speaker 8: Are playing really well. 01:33:28 Speaker 6: And I've kind of, you know, been suspicious of the Steelers all season. 01:33:32 Speaker 8: Long, but you got to give it to them. They won four games in a row. Mike McCarthy is a really good coach. 01:33:37 Speaker 6: And I think we got to stop saying like, Oh, the bangles should just beat the Steelers. So they have Joe burrow. Like the Steelers are a pretty good team. So I think the bangles are going to have to play really well. And I'm sure you've seen the stat, like the history doesn't bode well for teams that are coming off of an international trip, facing a team coming off of a buy. So I think this is, I mean, we, it feels like we kind of do this every week, but this week to me more so than anything is a game where Zach Taylor and Al have to have their best because you got everything in front of you, a home game, your crowd's going to be into it. You got to be able to handle this game and really take control of the division. 01:34:16 Speaker 8: So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It'll be fun. 01:34:18 Speaker 1: Did you enjoy Madrid? I did. 01:34:21 Speaker 8: You know, I am a very picky eater. 01:34:23 Speaker 6: And so I was kind of like, I don't know how I'm going to survive. 01:34:27 Speaker 8: In Madrid. 01:34:28 Speaker 6: Um, so I ate a lot of hamburgers, but it was a beautiful city. 01:34:33 Speaker 8: Like, you know, you saw clips from the players. 01:34:35 Speaker 6: That like, if you get fast food in Europe, like you're, you know, that shouldn't be allowed. 01:34:40 Speaker 8: I am that person. 01:34:41 Speaker 6: Um, but I will say, I didn't really know what to expect of Spain, but Madrid was absolutely beautiful. 01:34:48 Speaker 8: It was so clean. It was safe. It was a gorgeous city. The people were nice. 01:34:53 Speaker 6: The NFL did an incredible job shuttling us to practice the games. It was an awesome experience. And clearly the Bengals fans felt the same way. I mean, I was blown away by how many fans were there. And I think top to bottom, it was just a really great trip. 01:35:08 Speaker 3: Awesome. 01:35:09 Speaker 1: Well, welcome back. And thank you as always. 01:35:12 Speaker 8: Thanks so much for having me on. 01:35:13 Speaker 1: That's Kelsey Conway covering the Bengals for the Inquirer and Cincinnati.com, host of the Beyond Sunday podcast, where Kelsey chats with the moms and significant others of Bengals players. You heard her mention Joe Burrow's going to talk at six o'clock. They'll have that covered. on Bengals game plan, which starts in just about 25 minutes. Got to spend a few minutes on Ellie Dela Cruz next, ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 01:35:39 Speaker 10: You've been listening to Football in the Natty on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals. 01:35:52 Speaker 7: This week, Sunday Night Football in America arrives in Cincinnati as the Bengals renew their AFC North feud with the Pittsburgh Steelers. A rivalry so bitter it makes black coffee taste like a milkshake. It's four quarters of hard hits, high drama, and plenty of divisional disdain. Catch every snap. Every collision and every moment of AFC North

chaos. The game kicks off at 8.20 p.m. with coverage starting at 4.00 p.m. 01:36:20 Speaker 1: Sunday. 01:36:21 Speaker 7: Stream for free on the new and improved iHeartRadio app or on ESPN 1530, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals. 01:36:30 Speaker 1: Quarter to six. This is ESPN 1530. Bengals game plans 20 minutes away. We'll go to Pittsburgh tomorrow. Look ahead to Sunday. Cannot wait for the game on Sunday. Pre-game coverage at the Grail starts at 3. Tony, Audie, and me, the Holy Grail tonight, home of Bengals game plan. So that'll be exciting. Nick Kroll at the GM meeting said that the Reds haven't had any conversations with teams about Eli De La Cruz. Look, this is the topic of the offseason, and we all hate that this is the topic of the offseason. What are the Reds going to do with Eli De La Cruz? And chances are the answer isn't give him an extension it's are they going to trade him or are they not going to trade him should they trade him or should they not trade him and it's painful to do this like nobody nobody wants to talk about trading a great player like ellie de la cruz when he's coming off an excellent season has years left on his deal but let's face it the reds don't appear to be in a position where they're going to win with him and it also stinks that they haven't won so far with him during the first nearly four years of his big league career. So this is the topic of the offseason. We're going to have conversations about this. Before we do, though, I want to know how we're going to talk about this. Are we going to talk about this from an emotional perspective, where the conversation is driven by People aren't going to go to games anymore if they trade Ellie Dela Cruz. Or someone's 11-year-old is going to cry if they trade Ellie Dela Cruz. Or, hey, my kid's got an Ellie Dela Cruz jersey. Now how do I tell him that Ellie's not here? If we're going to have the conversation from an emotional perspective, okay, I think we should have the conversation from a more logical perspective. And unfortunately, from a more cold perspective, if we remove the emotion from the conversation, it becomes about what's best for the Reds, frankly, long-term fortunes. Eli De La Cruz, one of the best players in the sport, with a somewhat controllable salary, under team control for the next three years, at the age of 24, 25, is one of the hottest trade commodities in the recent history of the sport. You could get back a lot. Now, do you trust the Reds to execute the right move to get back what they need? And I ask this not just from the perspective of how we talk about this, but how is this going to be discussed in the hallways at GABP? Will the conversation be driven by, yeah, if we trade them, there's going to be more sell the team billboards and we're going to have season ticket holders bail and people are going to be mad at us and they're going to tweet mean things about us. Or is the conversation going to be driven by, look, this is unfortunately where we are. We need a lot. The best way to get a lot is to trade away a guy who can get us a lot. How are we going to be talking about this? Is it emotional? If it's emotional, my fuse is going to be pretty short. I will admit it because I hate to do this. The right answer is to at least entertain what other teams would offer you. Not give them away, not trade them for 50 cents on the dollar. But see if you can maximize his value, and his value is already very, very, very high. If we're going to do this from a logical perspective, I think there's some really good conversations to be had about what they could get, when they should trade him, who they would be willing to trade him to, exactly what you would accept in a return. If this is emotional, if it's I'm going to fill my diaper if they trade them, I'm going to yell and scream about how I'm never going to go to games again. I'm going to lose my mind because my kid's got his jersey. I'm going to yell and scream because my kid's yelling and screaming. I don't know. I know how we should talk about this. And more specific, I know how this should be talked about at GABP, not from an emotional perspective. from a cold, calculated, logical baseball perspective, like the perspective they use in Milwaukee. We are back tomorrow at 3.05. Anything you may have missed, go find on the iHeartRadio app. Thanks to Long Neck's Sports Grill. Dan Hoard, Wayne Boxmiller waiting in the wings. Joe Flacco expected to stop by the Holy Grail tonight. Bengals game plan starting at 6. Thank you for listening. Have an awesome night. Thanks to Taryn Bland for producing this episode. is ESPN 1530 Cincinnati Sports Station. 01:41:43 Speaker 9: Cincinnati's ESPN 1530. 01:41:46 Speaker 1: Traffic. From the UCHealth Traffic Center with 40 years of expertise, trust UCHealth for epilepsy care built around you. Visit uchealth.com slash epilepsy.