SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome back, friends. It's the Bengals before and after podcast. I'm still Jared. I've got still Aaron. I've got still Aaron with me. We are we're not your hosts, we're your friends. Hosts. Hosts implies a certain level of show prep and thoroughness and expertise on a subject. And as we have said and will always say, this is a podcast for Bengals fans that after departing from watching the game with their friends, they can't get enough. They want to pop more bangles with their friends. Join us. We'll be your friends. That's what this podcast is about. Since we just resurrected it, quick reminder on how we do things. We get on the mic before the game and we give our honest and genuine fan-based opinions on what we think is going to happen. Then we go watch the game. And then we come back on mic ASAP while the emotions are still fresh, while the excitement is still running high or the wounds are still wide open. And we we trauma dump or celebrate right there in the moment. And so you, friend, get to see the the real-time uh spirits lifted or crushed by our beloved Bengals team. Um break things out into the three uh phases of the game offense, defense, and special teams where anything goes. Mr. Aaron, let's get into it. Let's do it. Let's talk. Let's talk about the offense. We've got two we have two things to consider now. Game one is over, so we're not just coming in peer circulation. We saw the offense. Yeah. Um, you know, against uh uh what will probably be a good Buccaneers team all around throughout the season. And now we we have that same offense uh going up against the Texans, who if you watched them play the Bills in week one, you might have started to have doubts about the Texans defense and are they really any good. But then you see what the Bills did to Detroit, and it turns out no, it's just the Bills are maybe unstoppable on offense. Uh you're not, right? It brings us back. It brings us back to we're talking about our offense, and we're going up against that Texans defense that on paper at least should should be better, should show up better against us than they did the Bills. I'll save my opinions and thoughts on that concept itself. Where are you at this week going into the Texans game?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Um optimistic offensively.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Um, I think um the all the the line played lights out last week. I mean, great, great um offensive line play um for four quarters of football against, again, what you like you said, what I think is going to be a very capable defense um all season for Tampa Bay. Um, so that's good. But, you know, here we are, week two, year five, seven, whatever it is of the Burrow era. And the headlines around not only Cincinnati, but the entire NFL are Joe Burrow and possibly an injury concern out there with the back. I just it just seems really early for that. And it seems uh laborious if I'm being honest. Um, and then I think you know, the second biggest topic is how do you get the football to the playmakers against a defense that is that is tough, right? They got um studs up and down that defensive lineup, right? And um, so you know, coming off a week where you win, yes. We talked about it last week. Some things to clean up. Um you know, the old adage, your your biggest improvement in the NFL comes from week one to week two. Um, I thought week one was pretty good, um, for sure, uh, especially on the offensive line. I think we're gonna be able to um run the football a little bit this year. The blocking was good. They kept Burrow for the most point most part, they kept him clean, you know, second or third fewest pressures in the NFL last week. Um, not something we usually associate with a Bengals offensive line, at least not in recent years. Um, but still, you're you're talking about a Burrow injury, and you're talking about where was Jamar Chase? Um, you know, they put that guy on a milk carton this week because we're gonna need to find him.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I mean, so you hit on a couple of things that have been like gnawing at me all week, and I've been looking forward to getting on the pod and letting letting fly. Number one, I agree with you. Can the whole world give me a break with Joe Burrow? Yes. He took a shoulder to the back on a scramble play. That hurts. These are NFL giants. It hurts. Pick pick a quarterback who takes that blow, and they're probably gonna feel a little stiff, a little tight in the muscles. Because you got hit by a Mac truck at game speed. So the the talk of like, oh, is he injured? He's questionable. Like, yeah, coaches and teams do this stuff. I was actually thinking earlier today, I started to wonder how how prevalent is it where teams game that designation, you know, between in the in the positive leaning side, like questionable, probable, where do they just play games with their opponent, just try to get in their head and go, maybe Joe Burrow isn't gonna start. You might have to game plan for Joe Flacco. Like, now we all know that the defensive coordinators on the other side of that competition are like, yeah, right. Like Joe Burrow went his press conference. If I'm not getting surgery, I'm playing. So yeah, that's the nothing burger that the national talking heads have decided to hate on us about Joe Burrow. Whatever. Um, I do kind of wonder like Josh Allen, I I think about Josh Allen, I think about Patrick Mahomes, I think about Joe Burrow, and and and Lamar Jackson too. Like that, those four guys are like they're very different quarterbacks, but they have some similarities. But like I look at Josh Allen, he's I guess like Burrow, you he's they they in terms of being a mobile quarterback and a and a and a like a bruiser of a quarterback, a la like you know, the era of Ben Rothesberger. Maybe Josh Allen's is just in a different tier there. He's just a bulkier, tougher dude. I feel like he's taking more hits and doing more running than Burrow. Now, I think Burrow's injuries are overblown, but he does get injured. He's uh he feels a little more fragile to me than like a Josh Allen, which is fine. We have a they're different quarterbacks, they don't have to be the same. But like, do you get that vibe? Do you think like, you know, and I'm not trying to hate on Joe Burrow at all? So if anybody's screaming at their stereo right now, like, what are you talking about? Don't you hate on Burrow? I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I love Joe Burrow. I think he's an elite quarterback, but is he a little more delicate than like a Josh Allen, than like uh Lamar Jackson? Do we need to, you know, do they need to work with him to like dial it back, dude? Or do we just let him do what he does, which is put the team on his back at the risk of hurting his back?

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Yeah, I I mean, I I think it's a couple of good good points brought up there. I think, you know, the tightening of the NFL designations over the past couple of years in the CBAs, I think um there is some gamesmanship that goes on for sure, right? Uh here behind the numbers, you know, the Bengals call up their third quarterback from the practice squad this week and put him on the active 53 man, which, you know, um that's not something you want to have to do. You don't want to have to carry three quarterbacks going into a football game. But um, does that lead to say, you know, where there's a little bit of smoke, maybe there is a little bit of fire. Maybe Burrow is banged up already out of the gate, right? Um, so yes, I think there is some gamesmanship that goes on there. Um, I really didn't ever think that he wouldn't play this week, but um, you know me, I have a long history of love-hate relationships with our class quarterbacks as they seem, um, who who tend to be banged up. And, you know, elite players have to be elite, right? And, you know, some of the other names that you've mentioned, part of being elite is being available, right? Being available to it to help your team because, you know, as good as this bango's offense is, I don't, I don't think it rides with Joe Flatcoe and um Derek Johnson or whoever the other guy is that is called up off the practice squad. I mean, um, you see those things in preseason, and I think as a fan, you get enamored. You're like, man, this guy looks great. If Burrow goes down, we could be, you know, we could be okay. But the fact is that they're playing against the third strings in players that aren't on NFL rosters anymore, uh, most of which aren't even on NFL practice squads anymore. And there's a reason for that, right? So I think, you know, it is concerning to me, right? That here we are week two, we're talking about an injury again. We all know Bengals fans know, NFL fans know that the Bengals offense goes with Joe Burrow, right? Um that that being said, you know, Joe is getting on, he's been in this league a long time now. You know, we we hear about it, you know, Aaron Rodgers doesn't practice on Wednesday and Thursday because of his age, you know, Lamar Jackson has times where he doesn't practice during the week because he's feeling banged up. And, you know, some of these guys get listed as, you know, questionable or, you know, banged up or limited in practice to give them a couple of days off, right? And is this a bangle strategy where, you know what, he took a hit, we're gonna limit him in practice Wednesday and Thursday, let him go through walkthroughs, let him throw where he's comfortable. But, you know, Joe Burrow's an MVP quarterback. He's seen this league, he knows the league, he knows his preparation, and all the signs point to that. Is this the Bengals maybe being a little bit more careful to keep Joe healthier for the year and not saying, hey, we need you out here going full go every week? You know, it that's you know that's not what Joe wants, but maybe Joe's getting a little bit more mature as well, right? Um is this, you know, kind of one of those things where he says, you know what, I want to be in this for 17 games. I got hit in the back on a on a play that was flagged, and you know, it is a little tweaky, it's a little tight. I'm gonna use this limited to get some more work on it, some more body mobility, those kind of things. Um, I don't know. I can hope, right? I can hope, but I hope we're not um sitting here talking at the end of the at the end of the day that man, that defensive line, that defense of the Texans got to Joe and they hit him a lot, and now here he is. He's danged for a week or two, and we've got to rely on a backup because you know we've talked about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Which by the way, the the defensive coordinator in for the Texans, that that they smell blood in the water, whether it's real or not.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

They are absolutely gonna go, oh, he's already tweaked. We are gonna punish him. We are going to bring all kinds of weird ass blitz packages, and we're the goal is to make contact with Joe Burrow. Don't even have to sack him, hit him clean, hit him often. Right. Make him uncomfortable, right? Punish him. Yeah. And it's gonna be a huge task on that O-line, like you said, they know it too. These guys are ride or die for their quarterbacks, and they're gonna have to dig deep and you know, assume if I'm on the O-line, I'm gonna assume he's hurt and that he's hero balling it, and I'm gonna use that to motivate me to be like, I gotta bring my best game out there today because my guy is fighting through pain, and we're gonna support it and make sure he doesn't have to be hurt more than he needs to be. I want to hit on one other thing too before I before my like passion and rage dissipates. You talked about let's get the milk cartons out. I'm watching football last week after the Bengals game, watching Monday night football, I'm watching Thursday night football, and you're seeing offenses again like the Bills, where just they move the ball at will offensively. It's basically like just whatever they want to do, they do it. Josh Allen can get the ball wherever he needs it. And then I think about our squad, and I'm like, there's not, it's not for a lack of talent. I can't think of any area in our offensive unit, right, that we haven't already talked to death. And let's just assume the O-line is pretty solid. You have an elite quarterback, you have two of the what ought to be two of the best receivers in the football league, right? Strong running back, decent tight ends, like it's it's deep. It's a it spoils of capability, right? But I don't all I can come up with, like I have for the however many years now in in the Zach era, is that this man cannot scheme his way out of a paper bag, and you you've given him like a Lamborghini and a straight road, and he's trying to figure out how do I get it into third, right? Like he he's all this potential horsepower, no obstacles. He should be able to just tear down the road at insane speeds in this poorly formed metaphor. But the dude can't get it in gear, and he and he can't be bothered to learn. Watch some film, man. Sit down on Thursday night with the rest of us and watch these teams play and take some notes because it is unforgivable to the fans to trot out an offense that has that much capability and even forgiving Jamar Chase because he's of course gonna draw the double teams and they're gonna scheme around him. Like, okay, but what did I just say? All this other talent, and like, you know, I don't want to relitigate last week's game, but like Gaseki's like our leading receiver. T. Higgins gets a couple of targets. That's the best scheme. But then I watch these other teams make use of their, I don't want to say inferior because it's early in the season, but like maybe not quite as stacked, but they just move the ball. However, it's tough as a fan, like those are fun games to watch. Big offensive plays are fun to watch. You built an offensive unit that that is, I think, built for that, right? And yet you're not delivering on it at all in any way, shape, or form. And I'm nervous going into today, like, this is another stout defense. I'm hopeful what you said earlier is correct, that we're gonna see the game one, game two leap. Right now, everybody's these players are now in the real game speed, not preseason, not practice. They've had they got a one real world game under their belt that we see something magical this week, something fun. Because I you can't count on the defense to score all your points every week, right? We got real lucky with that last week, in my opinion, and we're gonna need a lot out of the defense this week. We'll talk about that in a minute. But I want to see splashy plays, I want to see production. I want to see deep balls to Jamar Chase to make them respect the ability to for him to just go up and get it. Deep ball to T. Higgins because he can stretch the field, right? And we all know it interplays. You can start doing stuff like that now, the running game is established, blah, blah, blah. But like just pure fandom, man. Like, come up with something. I need this offensive unit to show up and be as explosive and dominant as they ought to be on paper. I'm tired of watching other teams do it and wonder week after week, why can't we?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, I mean it's what do I want to say here?

SPEAKER_02 16:08

I think the nervousness hits because we that we have gone through long periods of just abysmal offensive play in this city where we feel like we had talent, right? And I think this sets off our PTSD, right? We're like, hey, we've got all these weapons, how do we use them, right? How do we stretch the field a little bit? How do we get creative? How do we get the football into our biggest playmakers' hands and not have our biggest playmaker be locked down because he's getting double cover, right? How can we steam him open to get him some touches? Because we all know Jamar Chase has a unique ability to change a football game with the football in his hands, right? And I would say the same thing about T. Higgins, and I would say the same thing about our running backs and to a degree, our tight ends, less proven. Yes, I'll get you, but Gasecki has proven himself uh to be very reliable over the past couple of seasons. But Mike Gasesi, Gasecchi isn't the name that gets me going, right? I I mean, I've got a Lamborghini for a reason, and I want to use it, right? And I think two catches for 12 yards or targets is something where you're like, man, how can we get the football to the outside, right? And it doesn't, it doesn't bode well that we're hoping for that production on a defense the caliber that we're facing today, right? And oh, by the way, it doesn't get much easier in the next couple of games, right? You've got uh, you know, we have the what is it, the Texans today, then we got the Steelers and the Jags. Uh, two tough games. Uh, hopefully get a little break with the Dolphins, but then you're back in it with the Ravens in a couple of weeks. And, you know, it's a it's a brutal when you start thinking about, well, when are we gonna get the offense going here? When are we gonna have a defense where we feel like, hey, we've got every matchup and we are hands down on paper better? I think that's where your playmakers have got to show up, man. And um, you know, like it or not, again, not hating on uh on Jamar Chase, but there have been stretches in the man's career where he disappears a little bit, right? And he gets a little lost in the shuffle. And, you know, a quarterback like Joe Burrow, who is willing to hit the open man, take the five yards, keep the chains moving, let's chew clock, let's put points up. Um, I I get all that, but I still want Jamar Chase to be involved in the game plan. So I'm with you, man. Like, how do we get the man the football? How do we steam him open a little bit? How do we run some rub routes or whatever to get this guy the football? Because again, as important as Joe Burrow is to this offense, the receivers are equally as important in this offense.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

And we need to put a lot of money on him, you know. Like, let's see him produce. And yeah, as a fan, like that's what you want to see. That's what we're here for. All right, let's switch gears. Uh, let's talk about the defense. Last week was exciting. Loved everything about that, was delighted, um, far beyond my expectations. Texans, also a good offensive unit. They're playing a little injury game, I guess like they got their star wide receiver, Nico, some or other, like may or may not play. I haven't looked as of as of like the right now, right now, but honestly, who cares? Like, if you're banking on your victory because one star player isn't playing, then your team isn't good, right? If if you can't win unless they take serious injuries to marquee players, then you're not competing. You're just hoping for luck. So I'm excited to see if what the defense did game one can honestly can be improved upon. The D-line I thought was fantastic and fun to watch. I'm that's my I'm for whatever reason this week, I'm feeling very much about like not just do we win, but is it fun to watch? Last week's defensive performance was fun to watch. The secondary, I felt like, you know, lot of a lot of catches in space, a lot of big chunk plays given up where it would have been great to see a deflection, would have been great to see a defender, you know, in somebody's face, making it a little tougher uh, you know, and then in that game, obviously on in on Baker. But so this week, let's see if they clean that up. Let's see if the D-line can produce like they did. Be great to get another turnover or two forced by the D-line and pressure. But then really, I need to see what's our secondary really made of, or are we gonna have another season where it's a sieve, and as a fan, we're back on the other side of our conversation talking about can the offense keep us in this game because the defense can't stop our opponent or even slow them down enough.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah, I mean, I think I think um Nico Collins being inactive helps her defense, obviously. Um is that the final word? You like that? Yep, looks like he's inactive um today. So, but again, the Texans looked good last week offensively, right? Um, so the line played, the D-line was, I would say maybe outside of the offensive line, the biggest not surprise because you dumped the money in that you dumped into that defensive line. I think you wanted them to perform, but they definitely showed up last week, right? Pressure with with with four guys, five guys, you know, not having to run blitzes and that kind of stuff um to get the pressure is good. And I uh if the defensive line can play a similar game this week, I think that's a good thing, right? Um, a really good thing. And I think it speaks well to your your your chances of winning. Miss tackles in the secondary, I think are uh they're they're still a problem. They've been a problem for three years, four years. Um, we have to tackle better. You have to tackle better. Um, and that's just what it is. So um, you know, again, a lot a lot of money in in the defensive secondary, right? I think back end played really, really well last week. Um, I said it last week. We didn't talk a lot about the corners, and I think that's a good thing. I think overall, as a unit, I want to see them tackle in the back end a little bit more, right? Uh Mafa and Lawrence and those guys up front. I don't have a whole lot of worry about them latching on and and and making tackles. Um, but when those linebackers fill, when your corners come up, when your when your safeties are coming over the top, especially to stop the run, um, you gotta have you gotta have that sure tackling. So um it it it's another tall task. You're coming up against an offense that scored 30 plus points last week uh in a close one. Um and you know, you really think, you know, this squad is not too different than this Bengals squad, right? You know, you you really think uh the defense is really, really good here and it's much improved, and it's it's been good for a couple years now, but um, you know, you gotta score, you know, gotta score score points to win the football game, right? So, and they think their offensive can't their offensive unit can't be. Deep insight there. Deep insight. But um, yeah, I so the team with the most points usually wins. That was a madness right there. Gotta gotta score points to win the football game, right? So um I think this team's capable of doing it. I think our defense is capable of stopping them. I think we did a lot of good things. The turnovers were awesome last week. I hope we keep that up. It would be nice to get the ball once or twice, get us another possession or two. Um, but you know, it's um it's it comes down for me to how do we tackle on the back end? Can our defensive line get pressure without having to send a blitz every single down, every third down when you're predictable that you're blitzing? Can we get you know pressure with four and five up front? We did last week. Can we do it again against a good offense this week? I think that'll come in. And can we tackle behind, um, behind the line, right? In that defensive secondary. Can we cut down the big plays? Can we turn a five-yard completion into that five-yard completion instead of a five-yard completion with a missed tackle? Now you got 10 yards after the catch, and now we're talking about instead of second and five, third and five, you're talking about first and ten, and the chains keep moving, right? Um, that's what I wanted to see a little more from this squad last week. Get me off the field on a third down, right? Yes. Break the break a pass up, stop somebody short. Let's keep a three-yard gain, a three-yard gain, and instead of letting it be five or six because of a missed tackle. And I think, you know, talking about the jump from week one to week two, that's what I'll be looking for today. Um, do we tackle a little better? Can we continue to get pressure? Can we continue to keep the cornerbacks out of the conversation because that means we're not getting beat deep? Um, I think that would be a really positive week. And again, I think it sets you up for the good chance to win this football game.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

And some of these guys in the secondary are uh in on in contract years and are going to be looking to command significant paydays out of an organization that isn't really, I mean, it's recently been surprisingly open with its with its wallet, but not as free spending as other orgs. So to me, it's like, hey, if you're gonna try to go get you know Witherspoon money uh as a corner in the NFL from Cincinnati Bengals, you had better be locked down, lights out, you know, elite level talent. I don't are we gonna get that from these guys? Don't know. Are they gonna ask for that level of money? Absolutely. Um, will they get that? Probably not. We'll probably, you know, keep one, let one walk, as we've done in the past. We'll see how that plays out for us. But yeah, like I'm with you. It's incredibly frustrating to see a D-line play that dominantly last week, but then third and two, and as a fan, I look and I go, all right, well, they're gonna get that. So now what do we like? Let's move on to the next set of downs for the opponent. That's frustrating as hell. I want to look at third and two and know that not just the players on the field, but once again, Mr. Al Golden can reach back into his Notre Dame playbooks and draw something up. And third and two is is uh is a is stop short. And now on comes the punting unit, right? I want that level of certainty. And last week and years past, it's oh, third and short, we're probably gonna let him get it, and we'll have to try to you know make it a third and long next time, or you know, take possession of the ball. But yeah, it just need to see the dumb stuff cleaned up. They ought to these it's just it's it's crazy to me, man. Like these guys are pros, they they they're coached, they're elite. How do you I I'll give it to a guy one season if he just has a year where he's trying to make the highlight reel with every tackle, blow a guy up. You gotta correct that. But season after season, and I'm not saying that's what happened last week, to be clear, but I do wonder sometimes, some of these missed tackles are so egregious. I'm like, you were going for the highlight reel and not for the unsexy drag him by the shoelaces tackle. You wanted to explode him so you could make you know ESPN, and instead you whiffed and you made ESPN right for the wrong reason. And it's like, come on, just just go out there and and hit guys, tackle guys. You don't have to blow them up every time, just stop him in place or get in his face and don't let the easy completions just you know take chunks of the field, and then we have to get into the the bend don't break defense of your that's bad for my blood pressure, man.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Bad for everybody's blood pressure, sir. And to your point, five. Five bangles uh in the defensive secondary that are on contract years this year. You got Battle Hill, Turner, uh, and Dave and Davis. So you got your starting strong safety, your starting left corner, your starting right corner. Um, and then um every backup, you got your slot corner uh in there when he's in nickel, and you got your backup uh safety um who are all on contract here. So a lot of decisions to be made in this Bengals defensive secondary and just tackle somebody.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Just tackle me. Yeah, it's all I want to. It's real simple. It's real simple. We could go over the plays and we could scheme, but at the end of the day, gentlemen, just tackle them hard and as quickly as you can and as thoroughly. Go back to basics. It's pee-wee ball, wrap him up, drag him down. That's what we want. That's what'll get you paid. I mean, not for nothing. I I kind of mentally connected a few dots here. This is a Bengals front office that over the last year or let's say two has tipped its hand a bit, has shifted culturally a little bit to indicate we will pay for talent. I think Joe Burrow has had to wear them down to get to that point where he's like, What are you you're gonna you're gonna squander all this talent? You're gonna let me just sit here and waste away. And they kind of realize, wow, that we put a lot into that guy and he needs support on both sides. So if you're in a contractor, go be elite. Go demonstrate that you can that you can be among the top corners in the league. There is now more chance than historically there's ever been from the Cincinnati Bengals front office that you will get paid. Are they all gonna get paid? Probably not. But somebody could get a very lucrative day if they're producing. But what you're not gonna do is to go out there and whiff on tackles every week and then sit down with you know the Brown family and demand, you know, league leading money. Right? They we've already know they we already know what they'll do. They'll say, Thank you for your time. We love what you've done for this program, goodbye, get out. Right? So this is the time. Like, there's a there's an element of that. I want it's easy for me to say that as a fan. You know, I got low stakes in this whole thing. I I do wonder though, if the people in their orbit, these players' orbits, somebody's kind of telling them, hey, like, look at the trend. The team will pay, but you've got to go out there and be lockdown. You've got to be, you know, among the best. You've got to be elite at all times. And with tackles and stuff like that, that's just like the stuff he wouldn't let you know, high school players get away with cannot continue. And it by the way, in fairness, sometimes you got a receiver who's just nifty, and you miss a tackle because they're good and they made you miss a tackle, but that's not what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

We're not talking about it. Yeah, I'm not talking about the odd miss tackle. I'm talking about 12 miss tackles in an NFL football game last week. Uh, you've at least you've got to. I need more, I need more than that out of my defense. A couple of miss tackles, it's gonna happen. It's the NFL. You got shifty backs, you got shifty receivers, you got big tight ends that are gonna run people over, right? That happens for sure. But we can't be talking about 12, 15 missed tackles. Again, I'm just going back to it. It's the difference between third and short and third and long. Everybody knows third and short in this league is highly convertible. Uh, third and longs are a toss-up. It's where you see a lot of what we want tour of 50-50 balls across middle, turnovers, quarterback holding on to the ball too long, getting your defensive line who was dominant last week, a chance to get at the football, tug at the football, get it out, right? That's what we want. And you don't see that on third and short. Third and two, you don't see that. That's a quarterback sneak, that's a dive, that's you know, that's the big hug Molly's up front, putting their nose down and pushing the pile. Incredibly hard to defend. Give me third and five or six. Now we're talking, right? Now we have now we might have to have uh a little bit um more time in the pocket, more, more holding, more chance to get a ball um that that that we need to get, you know, one or two a game uh in the turnover uh column. So yeah, I mean I go on and on and on and on about this defense and you know how I wish that they would just tackle just a little bit better. Just tackle. Hopefully this week, um, hopefully this week we see that out of this group. Uh again, against the very capable Texans offense, which is which is the big thing, right? You if you you let them beat up beat you, they're they're gonna do it and they're gonna they're gonna really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, the odds makers, and we can let's pivot over to to special teams here with this. Yeah. Uh odds makers got a two and a half point spread. Uh Bengals are getting the two and a half right now, but the two and a half is a basically odds makers saying, uh, somebody's gonna win. We know that. Someone will most likely win, and so we're just gonna throw this random spread out. So even the odds makers, right? They know. They see exactly what we're talking about. This is gonna be close. Um what is your what is your WL win loss? What is your sense? What does your instinct tell you? Do we walk away with another dub, start the season 2-0? Or is this a uh a gridded out, grinded out lesson learned loss or something else? What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Um, man, I hate having to make a pick on this one, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Um I think this is an this is a chance for this Bengals team to show up and say, hey, we're for real. We are actually for real this year. We are one of the AFL's elite. We've got a really good defense. We have the ability to take the football away on defense now, which we didn't necessarily have last year. Um, the offense has the ability to go down the field, to take what you're gonna give us and beat you uh because we're not gonna make mistakes, right? Um so I think it's close. Uh, but my feeling is that the Bengals go down to Houston and get it done today in a close one. Uh, I don't think it's a blowout either way. I think it's close. I think it's gonna be hard fought. But for some reason, I just it it feels to me that the pieces are there for this club, right? We've we we we have been wanting more out of the defense. I think last week showed us a lot of bright spots. Um, I think the offense is tired of hearing about where where is where is Chase, where are the weapons at this week. Um, I expect them to come out a little mad and a little angry. Um, and you know, put up um put up enough to win to win this ball game down there in Houston today.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

This may come as a surprise to you. I also think we win this game today. I think I think the defense I hope the defense will surprise us the same way they did last week compared to defenses of of past, especially the line. Like I'm a true believer in Dexter Lawrence, Saxy Daxy, I'm I'm all in. I think that dude is disruptive. I think you just watch, and again, friendly reminder for everybody, I'll give you this once a week. I'm an idiot. But watching highlights, watching this man draw double, triple teams at the line and still reach an arm out to grab a Baker Mayfield as he tries to scramble and just disrupt him for half a step to let other defenders close the gap. I think he's gonna do more of that. I think they the the defense to me will be the reason we win this game. And I don't mean in the traditional sense of you know, they stop the opponent in a regular manner, right? Forcing three and outs and bend, don't break, blah, blah, blah. I think the defense will get one, two critical, splashy plays that will make the difference. I still agree with you. I don't think it's going to be a blowout as a result, because I still am nervous about this offense. You know, we've started one-o before and had a slow offensive start. That is there's precedent for that. So we might see more of it. We might see a formation of this team today that we've seen before where the defense is the leading side of the ball and doing the heavy lifting, and and and the offense takes longer to figure out what they're doing and who they're gonna be. I hope that's not true. But all that being said, I think we win. I don't think it's gonna be pretty. I think I'm still gonna be whining about where's my splashy plays. How come we can't scheme our guys open, but everybody else can? It's no fair, mommy. The other toy, they agree to play with their toys, Justin Jefferson's open. You mean to tell me the Vikings are that much better offensively than we are? Get out of town. Directly out of town. The Lions, no, get out of town. The Chiefs, no, no, I refuse even that. Go away. What do we they get to play with their toys? We don't. I don't think I get the we don't get that that luxury today. Uh, but we find a way to put up points and grind it out and win the game. So here we go. Here we go, man. Here we go. Let's go see what reality has in store for us. We'll be back on the micromophones after the game. We'll see how we're feeling and what's left uh of of our fragile emotional state. Hoodé. Hoodé, my friend.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

Here's a fingle problem. Offensive group.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

And we're back celebrating. Uh celebrating. I'm sticking to that. A dub. I'm I'm empty-handed right now. Ooh, that's that's a party foul right there. Well, I'm after a win.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

I can't believe we don't have shampeages. Tudo. I really.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Oh, you know what? Hold on. I can solve this. I can solve this. So here's the thing. Last week, I was like, man, we won, but it felt like a loss. Yeah. I was wrong. This was a win that feels like a not a loss, but boy, it was ugly, my man. Like that was an ugly game. Five sacks on the quarterback. An offense that had the splashy plays they needed, but just sprinkled through a slog in the mud. I had to keep reminding myself that Texans defense is legit. They are a legitimate unit. It's not like it was legit. Yeah, it's not like Bob's team out there and we just looked bad. Like they are very, very good, and they showed up and played like it. We managed to get it done. I mean, you know, sometimes. And the defense it was funny. Like story of the day.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

Easily the story of the day is this D. I mean, Joe and the O line.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

The G line, I'm still not sold on the secondary.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Hey, I I respectfully have to disagree. In an NFL football game, when you don't give up a score, it's a win. I'm gonna channel my channel my inner Dave Lapham here. It is hard to keep, yes, the Texans were down, their top three receivers. Uh Clowney also didn't play, but you're still going against CJ Stroud. You're going against uh who's the back down? Montgomery down there, very capable back, right? And you hold them out of the end zone all day. I think, you know, I don't disagree wholeheartedly. I I I still want more from the secondary. We talked about it during the game. Missed tackles are a big thing, right? Um, but you know, they didn't give up a touchdown, which is incredible in an NFL game.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

You're right. It's incredibly difficult, although the Texans didn't exactly put forth their best effort. Like I said, I didn't even realize it's one thing you have your number one receiver out. It's three top receivers are out.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

And it's so as somebody, I forget which of the beat writers put it on Twitter. Death taxes, and the Bengals forget how to cover a tight end. That remains a truth of existence, laws of the universe. We cannot figure out what that tight end is doing. Hey, did you see that guy? He's like a little bigger than a receiver, but not real fast. What's he doing out here? What he's allowed to catch the ball, but nobody told us that.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Does he have to report his eligible? No, that's the tight end. It's not an extra tackle, guys.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Rath. What's that small O lineman doing out here catching? He didn't report. That's that's a tight end, Cincinnati. He has really got to read the book.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

You know what? We have talked about this for years. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe the Bengals don't understand that the tight end is a position that you have to cover. He doesn't have to report as eligible. He can just catch the football.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

They're convinced. They're just like, yeah, there's no way. Don't worry about that guy. He didn't report in. So if he catches the ball, like it's a flag and we'll take the yards. What? What?

SPEAKER_00 42:33

How does this go on?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Yeah, anyway, I interrupted you, sir. Oh, that's okay. That's where we are. That's where we are. The D-line was just straight up fun to watch. Dexter Lawrence, like, I am not, like, I'm not gonna be like, I know ball. I've watched the Bengals, I've watched football for a long time. Connoisseurs, I would say, I was thinking about this while I was watching the game. Connoisseurs of football appreciate individual defensive play, especially like on the line, right? Indeed. Yeah. What I'm gonna say is I'm not a connoisseur at that level. Uh, I look at the defense as a unit when it comes to the D-line, especially. But Dexter Lawrence, despite my ignorance, he shows up so big that you have to appreciate the man. You have you can't help but see his individual impact on every play that he's in the game. He's disruptive. He draws double and triple teams and still pushes through. Commentators on the game made a good point. Like, yeah, we only got home to CJ Stroud maybe once or twice, you know, garbage time there at the end. We, you know, we got him, which I mean, not garbage, but like, you know, at that point it was kind of hopes and dreams for them. But the his he had no pocket almost all game. He was under pressure all game long. And that is something that last year we did not have. Our defense had no ability to make the quarterback uncomfortable. They just sat back and carved us up, and the defense was already kind of feeble. So they ate. I mean, it was bad. We all watched it. Now we've seen two examples of quarterbacks who are mobile, who are talented, can never get their rhythm because that front D line is just in their face every single snap. Yeah, man. No run games appreciably, right? Like there was no run game for the Texans.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

I mean, no, no run game for the Texans. I I you were talking and I was pulling up the stats here. So um rushing yards for the Texans are 60, right? Um the Bengals 85 rushing yards. So you beat them at the point of attack, right? Our offensive line pushed their defensive line around enough. Now, yes, we gave up five sacks. We'll talk about that later, but to run the football more effectively against a Texans defense that doesn't get run on, you know, and you talk about Dexter Lawrence. Um, I I had to go look because the man was everywhere. Like it seemed like, oh yeah, he was constantly taking on the double team and he was constantly disrupting timing, right? But you've got, you know, um Dexter Lawrence with only three tackles, but you look at Jonathan Allen and Cedric Johnson opposite the Lawrence Maffa, you know, kind of I I think the Texas offensive line said if we're going to stop anybody, it's got to be Dexter Lawrence. We can't let Maffa run wild like he did last week and force turnovers, right? And those guys continue to come. They continue to get double teams and triple teams, and they continue to get chipped by backs. But the rest of the offensive line that doesn't make $100 million is kind of, in my opinion, showing up, right? They they are they're definitely showing up. And it's, I think the story of the young season is the defensive front, um, really good. I know we're banging on our uh our our cornerbacks here and uh our back end, but um you know, Dax Hill had 10 tackles today. You know, he's out there working. Um, I thought at times on the defensive side of the ball, you saw flashes, man. A lot of those hits in the backfield where we have finally a couple of where the guys hit in the backfield, they make a proper tackle and they stop it for a couple yard loss. It seems like that happens to us every week. I saw flashes of it today. So um the only thing that I will say about the defense is they didn't turn the football over today, but I think the constant pressure on Stroud was something that felt almost to me like a turnover, and you turn them over on downs three times today. When does that happen in an NFL game? Bro, including a fourth and a four and fourth and inches.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Like I text you when it happened because we just talked about that, where I'm like, yeah, these are automatic, we can't ever do it. And I'll be dipped, damn, yeah, whatever, totally smother that. I will counter with boneheaded, Zach Taylor-esque play calling from the Texans on that fourth and inches to hand the ball off yards behind the line of scrimmage, but but okay, that's football. You take what the opponent gives you. The opponent thought they would hand it to their running back and pick up a few inches. You said no. And absolutely stuffed that. That is just not something the Bengals last year would have had a hope or a prayer of doing. Um I have to admit, as the energy, as I can come back to my senses, like the defensive game had moments of, but I always go in, I want the defense to just shut every team out, just a complete and utter domination and every every snap and officers are aware of who you are. So if one of our if our opponents give up like they get a 15, 20, 30 yard, you know, play on our defense, I'm like, burn it all down. Burn it all down, fire the coordinator. Like that should never happen. But it's you're NFL teams are gonna get chunk plays, it's gonna happen. You have to live with it. Sucks as a as a fan, you hate to see it, it tastes bitter, but but then it's how many of them are they giving up? Are they consistent? Is it a pattern? Are they also getting the other phases of the game going? And they're like, none of that today. Like some chunk plays because it's an NFL team. Of course, they're gonna get some. The opponent gets a say, right, as I say. But it's it's just like, wow, we have a defense. Now, counter that with I am still waiting for the offense to recognize that this is not the preseason and these games count. And and bear with me for a second, because I again if I'm listening to this, I'm probably yelling at me, going, are you insane? Did you watch that game? Yes, I did. But so so, yes, uh an inhuman circus catch from Jamar Chase that makes no sense. He should be dissected and studied in a lab. The CIA should get a hold of him.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

I don't know how the man gets his feet down every freaking time. And I watched it live today with a group of people, and I was like, the part of me that is like logical says there's no way this isn't a touchdown. But the part of me that knows Jamar Chase, I looked at and I said, he got him down. He's in. That's a touchdown. Mark in in real time, I went, that's an impressive catch.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

It's just too bad that his, you know, he's too close to being out of bounds. Yeah. And then they're like, touchdown. I'm like, are you serious right now? Because if you think about that play, the man was in is actively falling down before he has to recompose posture and position, catch and drag his toes. All in he went from, I'm tripping and I'm gonna fall down, to oh, hey, here's the ball. I should catch it and did. I think the kids call that out of his mind. I was out of my mind. Uh I was just like, so amazing, like, you know, fodder for the talking heads and for the Twitterverse, huge play. Definitely, you know, you need that. You've got to put up points. Like, look, we won the game. Like Madden said, at the end of the clock that hit zero, we had more points. Yay. We usually win. Like T. Higgins showed up. So we got our one and two heavily involved. The run game wasn't even bad. I just, man, the constant pummeling of Joe Burrow, like other teams, and this is we talked about in the before. I would I want to see a dominant offense where they can move the ball and Burrow's got time and they can carve up a defense and he could get the ball spread around. Sure. It's stressful on as a fan for the offense to have to operate in big, splashy, sporadic, you know, plays that are super fun, but between them is like just like lament and sadness, where you're just like, oh look, they sacked him again. Oh look. Yeah. He tried to chuck the ball to who did I forget who it was. Was it Chase or whatever? Like this little they tried to jet sweep with Jamar, which is stupid, but other teams make that work. We've never made that work, and it should be banned from the playbook for all eternity. You should be excommunicated from Cincinnati, like as a municipality, if you come in this city and try to run that play at any level, at high school, college, if you run that play in Cincinnati, you're gone. Should never be run. Right. And then the very next play, they try some half-baked, like pee-wee football like attempt at a weird drawn-up pseudo like sweep. Dude drops the ball, number one. It's a stupid enough play, it confuses the rest. They're like, was that a running play? Do we he's down? Do we mark it back? Or oh no, it's an incomplete pass because he technically meh chucked it forward. Yeah. Just that stuff, man, is where I wanna, it's it just takes something away. Call me insane, and I probably am for getting this emotional about a football team I don't play on. But it's like, come on, nonsense plays like that, and then you almost feel like you're in desperation mode where you gotta hit Chase 30 yards in the end zone. Does he catch it? Yes, he does, because Bro is accurate and Jamar Chase is not of this world. But why, man? Why must it be that way? Why can't we just march down the field like other teams do? I don't know. Maybe I'm being petty. Like a dub is a dub. A lot of other teams, by the way, a lot of other teams in our division didn't win today. Saints did their job, Pats did their job, and Mother Nature is trying to get rid of the Cleveland Browns right now. Their last I looked ever in a weather delay.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Still suspended. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yeah. So we see a few precise lightning strikes uh on the Cleveland side of the bench, and we can be sitting pretty. So yeah, it's like, hey, if they'd be happy, but I'm just like, oh why?

SPEAKER_02 53:11

I agree. I mean, I think um as the more analytical of the two of us, um Chase Brown or um Orlando Brown had a tough day, man. Two thumbs down all the way down for him. Um you know, Mims nicked up or shoe problem made me a little nervous. It's uh right right around halftime, he did come back. Um, but Orlando Brown just simply had a tough day. Five sacks of Joe Burrow um today, which is which is which which is tough, right? You know, you got a guy who we talked about it in the before, maybe maybe is, maybe isn't, dinged up, but you know, he appeared to be throughout the week and he gets he was running for his life uh for much. Those weren't gentle sacks either. Let's be clear.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

He was getting planted in the turf. The defense and the they were out for blood. Like they were the kind of things they had the day the defensive lineman when you interview them that like that they dream about. Like, I want the quarterback to be terrified of me. And they got where Burroughs a couple times wisely was like, oh god, and just dumped it off. Like, thank you, thank you, keep yourself healthy. But yeah, Orlando Brown. Between that and also being flagged like for false start at least once, I'm like, no, man, no, no, no, no. Go back to bed.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

I think he had three today. It was a tough day for him, tough day for the offense in general, right? Like, I mean, just a lot of penalties, a lot of pre-snap penalties, a lot of you know, just sloppiness, right? And out of the offense. You don't like to see that. You don't like to see the sacks. You don't want Burrow hit that much. Um really good that we were able to get Higgins and Jamar involved. Um, you know, both had good days, right? T almost had 100 yards and Jamar, you know, almost what, 75 yards and two touches. Yeah, something like that. I mean, that that that's good, right? Um, I love the touch pass to Jamar Chase, right behind the line, the jet sweep action that we run there. I think it's great. Um I know I know you hate.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

People are listening, but I need to let them know both thumbs up and down in a milking fashion, like it's a cow. Thumb down, thumb down.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

But I really scratch my head on why you run the exact same play to the same side of the field with uh who was Dante Myers, the very next play, right? Like I like Dante Myers. I think he's a good kid. I think he adds an element to this offense, but I don't think in a game where I want to sock away some time here and not give the Texans the football back. You look at the reason, that was the reason why, right? You have those two plays run back to back again. I it has its place in for me, the football in the hands of Jamar Chase is a good thing, right? The man is otherworldly and he seemed to be feeling himself a little bit today. So why not give him a chance to run to football?

SPEAKER_01 56:16

But it never works. Because it never, has never, will never work. I've never seen it work for us. I've seen it work for other teams. I'm just like at the beginning, every time I see it, I'll watch football tonight, sir, and I will text you when it happens. Because inevitably, at the four o'clock series, at Sunday night, Monday night, we will see a team successfully execute a jet sweep with one of their star players, and they'll get like 30 yards. Somehow we pick up five and a half if we're lucky. And yeah, and but we had to, but Jamar Chase had to run 50 yards behind the line to get the five-yard like what? Anyway, I digress. Yeah, I digress.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

Yeah. So I I think you're all fan. I it still wasn't today. Texas is a great defense, don't get me wrong. They're stout, they put pressure all day, they hit our quarterback, they, you know, but they weren't as I don't know, what do you want to say, bulletproof against the run as they were billed to be, right? Chase Brown had a nice day, you know, yeah, 80 something yards for him, something like that. I don't know, but like not a not an easy defense to run the football on. And you knew going in that the only way you had a chance for was for Joe Burrow not to be CJ Stroud and throw the ball 52 times, or whenever Stroud ended up throwing it, right?

SPEAKER_01 57:43

Like it was something like that.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

I feel like at the end of the day, we were able to run the football when we run it, wanted to run the football, and we were able to throw the football mostly when we wanted to throw the football, and that's the difference in this game, right? The Bengals shut down the Texans run game early, and it was going nowhere. And I think that puts a team that needs to be two-dimensional, which most teams do, but a team to be successful, you gotta have the play action pass, you gotta have something to slow down that defensive line. Can you imagine if we didn't have a running game today? We would have been talking about another 12-sack day for Burrow because Orlando Brown can't freaking, he couldn't block my grandma right now, and she uses a walker.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

I mean, so he might need one after that performance. Like that might be it was bad. And again, it goes back to my frustration with forever with like Zach Taylor. Like, all right, I'm not saying you know this guy's bad, but he's having a bad day, and it became very evident that he was gonna get worked. I don't uh I'm an idiot, but I would have expected to see like get the man some help on the left, right? Like put a tight end over there. Yes, it's it messes up your entire you know offensive scheme because you have to sacrifice a receiver or a running back to protect your quarterback, but I don't know that I saw any sort of like amazing performance that we miss out on had we done that. Right. But it's like, yeah, just recognize he just does it. I feel like as a head coach, and and in another group chat, I called him an egomaniac because he refuses to let go of play calling duties for the offense, and that's just an ego move. Like, there's no inexcusable in the NFL. You're just doing it because it makes you feel like a big boy. Uh like you don't have the ability to ski. Like, get it get a mirror, sit down, and and have a conversation with yourself, Zach Taylor. Right? It's okay. Self-compassion, right? In mental health circles, they say, you know, self-compassion is is important, perhaps sometimes more than understanding and growth. It's you just have to forgive yourself and be kind to yourself. It's cool, man. You're a head coach. You've got the top job. It's okay. It's hard. Say it with me, Zach. It's hard to be the head coach and the offensive coordinator, too. It's hard. It's I'm not a failure if I let someone call the offense. I'm still successful. Anyway. Yeah. It's just that it's just the dumb stuff that you just don't see the adjustments. But here's where I'm coming from. I'm actually all this is coming from a good place. My frustration is with the offense, even though we're winning. And it's like two weeks in a row, we're like, oh, look at him complaining. You're winning, Jared. Shut up. I'm thinking ahead to games against teams that if we make a playoff run, we're gonna have to account for how they play. The Bills, the Chiefs, the Ravens. You can't sleep on the Steelers like we've agreed, even though they don't look particularly good, they're still Pittsburgh. They're still gonna annoy us. They're still not gonna be like a walkthrough game. Right. So yeah, like it's the Texans have got to be, I gotta believe that they're I think their defense is good and is good enough. But then I think about some of the mistakes our defense made, our slow start offense versus some of the real playoff competitors we're gonna face. And I I I wonder, I can't visualize how we win. I can't see what we're doing that I go, oh, we would apply that technique besides the D-line. That obviously goes without saying, that's gonna show up. But I think about playing the Bills or these other teams like in the playoffs, and it's like I don't know what we do. Uh so I want to see that stuff now so I can start getting excited about a playoff run.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

I mean, I'm putting the card before the horse here, but no, I I mean I think if you look at if you want to take that moon leap right ahead, you know, I think the Bills offense scares you, right? Uh caring. They, I mean they went up against the same team we went up in arguably a little healthier than we when we played them and they hung 36 on them, right? Now you scored 20 points today, which isn't a slouch, I'll give you that. But you know, um who was I looking at the Ravens, I think are scary. Um, you haven't seen the Chiefs play yet, but the Chiefs are the Chiefs are scary. And you know, I know I know last week was a real big stinker, but um if that Broncos offense can do anything with Bo Knicks, their defense is scary too. And then, you know, I mean, so if you want to look ahead, you know, I I don't know, I'm not as sold on the Steelers as you are. Um, but they look they didn't look they didn't look good today, that's for sure on defense. Um and but um I mean the Ravens are real, don't don't get me wrong there. Browns will see what they're gonna end up being. They might be annoying coming out of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

That's another team division rival where even when they they're they're they've been trash as long as they've been alive, but when they play Cincinnati, it's never a pushover, and they've often, depending on what sad era we were in, have won. So yeah, but I'm just saying, like, even in our division, even the teams that don't look good right now historically have played us real tough and or get in our heads or both. So it's like, where's the the talents there? Uh without question, all that I can come up with, all that's left to make them like truly dominant is there's gotta be scheme. There's gotta be play calling, there's gotta be a design for the way the games work, how you get these guys open. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

I hope it comes, you know, I hope it comes to life uh a little bit here over the next couple of weeks. I mean, we've said it, we said it last week. I hate to say it again this week because we know it gets late real quick in the NFL when you're not winning football games. But 2-0 is a great start, don't get me wrong. Um, I think it's it's really good. I think the story, obviously, these first two has been the defense and how how improved it's been from a year ago, where we were the second worst defense in the league. And, you know, I think that's that's all exciting. But I think as Bangle fans, we're still allowed to have questions about yeah, yeah, Chase had a good game today. That was good, but you know, 11 penalties by and large from your offense. I know they weren't all on the offense, but you know, you've got penalty issues, you've got protection issues that are gonna have to be solved up front. Um, and you know, you've got an offense that's yes, you're two and oh, but it doesn't look like it's hitting yet. And at what point do we got to start asking the questions about, okay, I'm just a dumb fan, but I know back-to-back jet sweeps the exact same play out of the exact same formation may not have been the greatest decision when you're trying to sock away a football game against a really good team and not give them the football back. Like, um, you know, I'm I'm not usually a blame the coach kind of guy, but you know that's what I'm here for. I I I don't disagree that the play calling at the offense in general has not seemed in stride these last two weeks. Maybe today was a step towards that. I hope it was, but um there's definitely, I think, oddly enough to say, I think you've got more questions on the offensive side of the ball than you do the defensive right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

Which is bananas. It's it's like can't we just have a good balance of both sides being good? Must we sacrifice one for the other? Can't we just have something nice? Dude, it goes back to my mind where teams that are show me a team that has been consistently like a real playoff threat season after season where they have all the talent where the head coach is also trying to call the offense. Like they exist. I know they do. I'm not saying it's never happened, but by and large, if we sat down and did the math, maybe we can do it, you know, off mic, but like I would wage. Teams like the Bills, the Chiefs, there is an offense, offensive coordinator. You are letting somebody do nothing but scheme and run the offense. When consistently the problem to my untrained eye is that I gotta stop you.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:15

Andy Reed calls his own plays. I was so when I said that out loud, I was like, does Andy Reed do it? I was gonna say, I am not here to call Zach Taylor Andy Reed, but um I will just say that Andy Reid uh does call his own plays. So let's not go that far. But for but not everybody's Jamar Chase, not everybody's Andy Reed. Not everybody has Patrick Moams on their squad. I I get that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Um, look, you got Joe Burrow and you've got elite receivers. You're not Andy Reed, my guy. Like, no matter how desperately you want to be, you're not. I know myself.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

I want to tell you you're wrong, but I sit here today not really being able to make that statement, Jerry. Like it's something is missing. That's all I can say for sure, is that yes, you're tune oh. Yes, that that's great. The defense looks awesome, but I can also say that from this football team with this group of football players, with the talent that we have on that side of the ball, something's missing, man. Something is still missing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:19

Yeah. And it's my I should be, I should be overjoyed with a victory. We're 2-0. Our division rivals all lost. Don't get me wrong, I am I'm much happier than if we'd have lost. Like, oh, it'd be a very different tone. You can only imagine. But I'm like, it's it's it's such an ugly 2-0. It feels something feels off. And, you know, I don't know when we're gonna see it. If we start seeing that offense play and use the weapons they have and establish a level of dominance against even really good defenses, then it's like, okay, now we've got a complete team, and Joe Burrow's urgency around that, you know, now's the time starts to click. And I start to go, maybe he can push this through. But okay, amazing defense, and you bring back like the whole O line, I think, like one of the few teams in the league that has that consistency in there, and you still have the weapons and nice people, and that's what you're seeing trot out on the field offensively against a good. You should be able to be good against a good defense. I don't care how good the defense is, yeah. Like be better. That's the point if you're trying to be the Bengals you you want to be.

unknown 1:08:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

If you want to, if you want to sneak your way into a wildcard slot that you luck out and win and eke your way there, okay. Right? They're playing at that level. They're playing at a we win our division, we get a wildcard berth, and maybe miracles happen, right? Everything resets, we're all playing from zero again, blah, blah, blah. But if you're trying to be a dominant team and you spend all this money on this offense, and now the defense, but you can't get both sides of the ball clicking, like you're not gonna be the dominant team that walks in and wins the Super Bowl, period. You're just not, because you're gonna run headlong into teams that do behave that way consistently, and they're gonna humiliate you. And we're gonna be talking about how it was a good season, but the offense just never really found out who it was, never really got in rhythm, which would be just gut-wrenching, because yeah, like I said, there's a lot of money in play this year that isn't gonna keep all these players around next year necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:27

Yeah, I agree. I think um hopefully we sit here next week and we talk about um I I don't I I'll I'll stop short of what I was gonna say. We talk about both sides of the ball really showing up and really coming to play against a game that nobody in that locker room or this city should have any trouble getting up for, right? You're playing the Steelers, uh, is that right? Yeah, Steelers next week. Steelers week next week. Steelers Week next week are already, right? It's gonna feel like fall here in the Natty, uh, which is good. It's supposed to be like 72 degrees here next weekend. Like, this is a game where you should, your team should, your city should be like, hey, clearly our biggest rival. We've got a great shot here if both sides of this football team can show up, right? Um, and I I'm gonna throw in a special teams. I don't know what what you gotta do, but special teams great opening kickoff today, which I thought was good. A little weird that the kid that the kid, young kid, got blocked into that punt. That could have been really bad. So maybe you might want to kick kick that one out. But Evan McPherson could make it from I think he can make it from the river at this point.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:54

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:55

He like both of those fields in the one that didn't count were deep field goals. I mean, we've had some good kickers here, we've also had some bad kickers here. And I don't I don't know where you put this kid and you don't tell him, hey, we need this field goal, go make it. And he's like, Coach, it's too far. I think he'd kick it from 70 at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:20

100%. He would and and it would be real close if it didn't, if he didn't make it. He's a game changer. I was thinking about that. Like your ability to pull points out of a failed offensive drive with a kicker like him to get something on the board where otherwise you'd have just been punting, is it is a game changer. Like your opponents have to be like, they're gonna score points on this, and we we did our best. We shut down their elite offense, and then here comes this guy, and he's gonna put three on the board from way back. What do you do about that? I did find it a little bit gratifying. They stay the Texas trotted their kicker out and tried to hit a long one, and it just flat up, it was accurate, just didn't have the leg behind it, right? And it's like, yeah, yeah, you ain't McPherson, my guy. Like, you can uh you know, keep hope alive.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

The dude's a game changer, and you gotta have that. I mean, it it like you said, you keep the pressure on the defense, and like it or not, a guy hits a 58-yarder on you as a defense, you're demoralized because you did exactly what you said. You're like, look, we've shut down this high powered offense. Zach Taylor helped us, and we get that, but you know, we shut him down, and they're gonna trot this kid out, and he's gonna get it from 58. He might get it from 61, he might get it from 65, and that's as a defense, it makes your margin of error that much slimmer. And it's gotta be demoralizing every time.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:44

Absolutely kid's amazing. Because getting it as a as a defensive team, I gotta imagine when you stop the offense from and they have to punt, you're that's what you live for, right? Besides a turnover, right? But in terms of just normal course of the game, that's absolutely what you strive, you strive to do. And then you you didn't, though, because here comes this dude and he's gonna put three where there should have been zero. And you're like, oh, well, I at least it wasn't six, you know, something like that. Just trying to I agree. At least it wasn't a touchdown.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:15

We don't talk a lot of special teams on before and after, but man, I had to give the kid a shout out. His leg is unreal right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

Uh dude, you read my mind. That's exactly where I was going. I was like, hey, we normally just skip the special teams part of this side of the podcast, but like, my God. And like Myers is kind of he's fun watch returning. Like I feel like he he legit had a I mean, he didn't break anything huge, but when he's returning the ball on a kickoff or punt return, like he's got that energy. Like, you feel like he might break it. Like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:48

He was a turf monster for breaking that opening kick though today. If he doesn't stumble, oh yeah, there got the guy may have had the angle on him. I don't know how fast Myers is, but if he didn't trip, it might have been seven-nothing out of the gate.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:04

Uh real, it would have been real close. Yeah. Or or deep into the red zone because he was off to the races, but yeah, Trevor Bomb got him. He was so yeah, it's it's you know, okay. So we got two out of three sides of the ball. How about that? Let's end on a high note. Two out of the three sides. We got a dub. And just in case anybody's listening, and most people in any kind of podcast format, you skip the outro music because who cares? But I will, little teaser, we are we are varying the outro music this season based on the results of the game. So so far, everybody's been treated to an uplifting, positive outro. God forbid, I mean, if if the unthinkable happens and we lose a game, uh there will be a commensurately uh downtoned outro as well. So stick around for the outro as you're listening to the podcast, just to fully, you know, we just try to drive home the feels. And I think I'm gonna work on some custom intro music for Steelers Week, because now we got that coming up, and that's basically a uh like a holiday in Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:03

A little teaser.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

You're good at this radio thing, but we're gonna we're gonna try to get some some custom intro music for Steelers Week just to just to keep the energy high. The Bengals win a game. We said they would. It did not happen the way that I thought it would, or that I hoped it would, but who cares? Because they won. And, you know, so now it's on to the Steelers. And let's see if we can't start the season 3-0 and sit atop the division. That'd be nice. I'll take that. Steelers week. Hood. Hood.