Speaker 1: Do you want to be an American Scouts Long back
Speaker 1: at at seven hundred ww on the coldest winter morning,
Speaker 1: we had a long time six inches of snow over
Speaker 1: the weekend Saturday.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful if you watch it yesterday a little chili,
Speaker 2: especially ahead of the Bengals game. We had warnings danger
Speaker 2: with the cold tempts which means hypothermi and frostbite. Let
Speaker 2: me lay it out for you. The coldest day ever
Speaker 2: at pay Course Stadium yesterday, and you ask fans to
Speaker 2: get up early to clear the ice and snow from
Speaker 2: your driveways, Clear the ice and snow off your cars,
Speaker 2: buy extra clothes, probably drive on icy roads, pay to park,
Speaker 2: pay for seats, and the county taxi as well. They
Speaker 2: just shelled out over two hundred million dollars to upgrade.
Speaker 2: You get to the stadium for the Bengals Ravens tilt
Speaker 2: and then you have to clean your seats off yourself
Speaker 2: and sit with your feet and butts on more snow
Speaker 2: and ice to watch them lay a twenty four to
Speaker 2: nothing lopsided egg against Baltimore to be officially eliminated from
Speaker 2: playoff contention. Now for the third year in a row,
Speaker 2: what am i missing here. I don't think I'm missing anything.
Speaker 2: It is seatgate on this Monday morning on seven hundred WLW,
Speaker 2: we have Alisha Reese here and clean your own seat
Speaker 2: day at pay Course Stadium.
Speaker 3: Yesterday Alicia, welcome.
Speaker 2: We just paid two hundred and twelve million dollars, gave
Speaker 2: the Bengals counting money, taxpayer money to redo pay Corps
Speaker 2: and here we go again. You got to clean your
Speaker 2: own seats off. Now what are we doing here?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, Sloan, I would
Speaker 4: hope that the media this is frustrates me when they
Speaker 4: report this. In terms of the Bengals Least deal, it
Speaker 4: was not unanimous. I've voted against it. I did not
Speaker 4: support the two hundred and eleven million dollars last Tuesday,
Speaker 4: which has seemed really rushed. I said, now, what are
Speaker 4: we rushing to pay this two hundred and eleven million
Speaker 4: plus dollars to the Bengals when the least is eleven years?
Speaker 5: And we passed that.
Speaker 4: I did not support it. I didn't vote yet as
Speaker 4: that was passed before. We have passed the balanced budget
Speaker 4: that we have to do. We have the budget, the
Speaker 4: People's budget, which is due this week. We have to
Speaker 4: pass that by by Thursday. But it seemed to be
Speaker 4: a rush before this game to hurry up. We had
Speaker 4: to sell notes, check out more debt which comes with interest,
Speaker 4: and it was a rush. And we normally vote on Thursdays,
Speaker 4: but they were rushing. We got a pay, we got
Speaker 4: to upgrade the stadium for the future, and I kept saying, well, we.
Speaker 5: Do this before.
Speaker 4: Right now we got a budget where Prosecutor office may
Speaker 4: be laying off people. We haven't balanced it yet. We
Speaker 4: have a budget right now because of this lease that
Speaker 4: I voted against. The property text for homeowners is going
Speaker 4: to go up next year in a month, a couple
Speaker 4: of weeks, they're going to get their bills, and you
Speaker 4: didn't want to give the homeowners a break. But there
Speaker 4: seems to have been this rush or to vote on
Speaker 4: a Tuesday, I believe, or Thursday. They were saying, talk
Speaker 4: about it on Tuesday. But the rush a week before
Speaker 4: the budget is due to be passed to give the
Speaker 4: Bengals over two hundred million dollars. And then we we
Speaker 4: have Sunday with this situation where the seats aren't you know,
Speaker 4: the seats aren't aren't cleaned. Everyone else was making sure
Speaker 4: the city and everyone else was trying to make sure
Speaker 4: that the streets and all those things were clean. Because
Speaker 4: this wasn't like a surprise snow right.
Speaker 2: We saw this, We saw this coming. We saw this coming.
Speaker 2: He was coming to clean our driveways, our cars. But
Speaker 2: the good news here is that according to the team,
Speaker 2: in the NFL rule book, by the way, says that
Speaker 2: you're required to remove snow from the entire seating bowl
Speaker 2: before games. The NFL said, well, the Bengals did the
Speaker 2: bare minimum to meet that requirement. But it is not
Speaker 2: the first time this has happened. Happened a year I
Speaker 2: think two years ago where the seats weren't cleaned off.
Speaker 2: That is a fan safety issue during severe weather. And
Speaker 2: so what what enforcement mechanisms does a county have. Do
Speaker 2: you have any any saying their their ability to keep
Speaker 2: fans safe.
Speaker 4: Well, keywords you said was bare minimum, and that's what
Speaker 4: we've seen. There's been a bare minimum, and then it's
Speaker 4: on the backs of the taxpayers. One of the things
Speaker 4: I want to make sure, because you always got to
Speaker 4: read the fine print. When I get down to back
Speaker 4: down to the office, I want to ask the administrator.
Speaker 4: I want to make sure there's no small print or
Speaker 4: any written clause that turns it back on the taxpayers
Speaker 4: of Hamilton County because a lot of things that in
Speaker 4: the in these leases, they've been very uh, you know,
Speaker 4: being an ownership has been very good at flipping things back.
Speaker 4: You know, that has any cost association, it gets slipped
Speaker 4: back to the county. So, you know, one of the
Speaker 4: reasons I've been one of waits to hear from our
Speaker 4: administrator because I don't want to have something that he said,
Speaker 4: oh well, you know in this over here it was
Speaker 4: a little line and we agreed to pay for it,
Speaker 4: because there's a lot of things in that lease that
Speaker 4: in other other owners other markets, they you know, the
Speaker 4: team pays forward the ownership, and in our market there
Speaker 4: seems to be a lot of things that fall on
Speaker 4: the tax payers. And so I want to make sure
Speaker 4: before speaking definitively that that hadn't slipped in somewhere and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden it becomes you know.
Speaker 3: Mission counties. Well, the good news, isy a.
Speaker 2: I have a copy of the master agreement here and
Speaker 2: it is on page nine thirty seven, paragraph twenty eight,
Speaker 2: sub section eleven, double E. It says that any finds
Speaker 2: levied by the National Football League relative to snow removal
Speaker 2: shall be under the sole province and paid exclusively by
Speaker 2: Commissioner Alsia Reese Hamlin County.
Speaker 3: What do you make it?
Speaker 4: I know they love to hear that.
Speaker 5: That's why I said no.
Speaker 4: To this least, No to the least the.
Speaker 5: Least put it on.
Speaker 4: It's always and also don't want they say, well, now,
Speaker 4: you know, because we got these new changes and we'll
Speaker 4: slip it in and and that's what I hear. A
Speaker 4: lot of it always flips back to the to the taxpayers.
Speaker 4: And so that's where I have some concern and making sure,
Speaker 4: yes we do have facilities people, Yes we do have
Speaker 4: those things, but we should not be paying for all
Speaker 4: of the extras. And that's what usually happens to to uh,
Speaker 4: to us. What I've seen in my years of you know,
Speaker 4: my few years of being down there, it has been
Speaker 4: shocking to me. But but no, it was a flap
Speaker 4: of the face to to the to the fans. And
Speaker 4: we knew. Everyone knew that this weather was coming. They
Speaker 4: knew when the snow was falling. They even reported when
Speaker 4: it was going to stop falling. They knew that the
Speaker 4: the that it was going to get colder and all
Speaker 4: those kind of things. And at this at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, you have the word bear minimum. And
Speaker 4: that's what's been going.
Speaker 3: That's the subject on my show today. We'll get after
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk more about the bare minimums, because
Speaker 2: that really is what what the driver here is, uh,
Speaker 2: what the legendary cost cutting measures of teams have during
Speaker 2: the negotiations during contract Have you ever raised concerns with
Speaker 2: team ownership about a pattern of prioritizing profit and expenses
Speaker 2: over fan experience that coming.
Speaker 5: Well, we started with that.
Speaker 4: I said, well, wait a minute, because remember I was
Speaker 4: on your show and there were some concerns about the
Speaker 4: seats that are not in the club level where they
Speaker 4: can make more money. Remember I said, what about the
Speaker 4: seats up at the top when they were redoing seats
Speaker 4: brought broken the broken escalator. We were talking about that.
Speaker 4: So I have constantly been on fan experience when they
Speaker 4: come down there, whether they're coming down for a game
Speaker 4: or another event, but fan experience. And then remember they
Speaker 4: we got these reports about we we you know, the
Speaker 4: stadium didn't get good uh didn't get good grades nationally
Speaker 4: at the top. They even went into the food.
Speaker 5: Remember they talked.
Speaker 4: About the food for the for the team players families
Speaker 4: and uh, they also talked about help we got food.
Speaker 4: Remember for disability, a gentleman couldn't get to the restroom
Speaker 4: because it's not just it's not accessible throughout the whole stadium.
Speaker 4: I even talked about going into the stadium. They would
Speaker 4: have people. Uh they would say, well, no, you got
Speaker 4: to go all the way to the other side of
Speaker 4: a person walking with a walker trying to get to
Speaker 4: the sensibilities area. And I said, listen to all areas
Speaker 4: this twenty twenty, you know five all areas should be
Speaker 4: accessible in this day and climate. And so those were
Speaker 4: some of the things that we keep hearing that we
Speaker 4: are always doing the bare minimum with the top dollar
Speaker 4: on the taxpayers. Even in this deal, they come in
Speaker 4: and say, well, we're gonna do the bare minimum for
Speaker 4: the homeowners. Even though the homeowners were promised thirty percent
Speaker 4: were gonna do the bare minimum, and they went to
Speaker 4: four percent. So it seems to be a pattern of
Speaker 4: the bare minimum. I said, hey, we want to have
Speaker 4: more events there. Remember we wanted to have the WWE.
Speaker 4: I believe it was the smack down Summer summer swam right,
Speaker 4: they went to Cleveland. We at that time we hadn't
Speaker 4: even applied. So I came on your show you mentioned it.
Speaker 4: I said we should apply once again. We do the
Speaker 4: bare minim. Well, we can't have one event a year,
Speaker 4: and you know that's good enough. So it has been
Speaker 4: the bare minimum, bare minimum on their end, but the
Speaker 4: top dollar on the tax payer end.
Speaker 2: There's no Commissioner Lisha resh on this year, we're talking
Speaker 2: about shovelgate at pay Corpse Stadium and acting like this
Speaker 2: is hey, this is a rare weather circumstance. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've known about this for days in advance, and then
Speaker 2: we're gonna get bitterly cold temperatures on Sunday.
Speaker 3: That forecast was accurate.
Speaker 2: You planned for that kind of stuff, and we act
Speaker 2: as if or the response has been, well, it's like
Speaker 2: a while, it's a big deal. You got to stay
Speaker 2: in ice and snow. It's not like we don't get
Speaker 2: ice and snow in Cincinnati. And there are the cold
Speaker 2: weather stadiums, and I consider it's a cold weather stadium
Speaker 2: this time of year that they you don't see that happening.
Speaker 2: You know, now, if you get an event where it's
Speaker 2: snowing an inch an hour, it's going to be awfully
Speaker 2: tough to clear. We understand that we've seen that before,
Speaker 2: but the storm had ended, plenty of places were cleared off.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be that much to ask if they were
Speaker 2: clearing it as the snow fell before it turned to ice.
Speaker 2: How do you make sure that doesn't happen again? And
Speaker 2: I say that because I think it was the last
Speaker 2: time the Bengals were in the playoffs three years ago.
Speaker 2: I recall or maybe the year before, where the same
Speaker 2: thing happened. The snow fell and there was no adequate
Speaker 2: planning place to remove the snow and they said, I
Speaker 2: we'll do better next time. Your contemporary there on the commission,
Speaker 2: Stephanie Summer Dumas, said that we need to do a
Speaker 2: better job for next time. Well, this is the next
Speaker 2: time after three years ago. It doesn't seem like they
Speaker 2: care or the messages have been received. Do you have
Speaker 2: any influence in your position to make that happen?
Speaker 4: Well, I believe that the influence that the county commissioners
Speaker 4: had is when we went into the negotiation, and that's
Speaker 4: why everything in negotiation needed to really be on the
Speaker 4: table with you know, some type of penalty because you know,
Speaker 4: if someone goes in there and say they fail, you know,
Speaker 4: then there's a liability that could you know, fall on
Speaker 4: the county as well, the county taxpayers. When they filed
Speaker 4: that lawsuit about the restroom, they didn't just put the Bengals,
Speaker 4: they put they put Hamilton County. And then the Bengals
Speaker 4: ownership wanted to remove themselves from the lawsuit and leave
Speaker 4: it to the taxpayers. And so really these type of things,
Speaker 4: that's why I went to know on the on the deal,
Speaker 4: you've got to really and then be enforceable. It can't
Speaker 4: be Well, they made a call to the administrator and
Speaker 4: now he comes and we don't get to talk to
Speaker 4: each other. Three of us are on the county commission
Speaker 4: of to talk. That would be a majority, so there's
Speaker 4: only one person who can talk to all three of us,
Speaker 4: and so we end up saying one thing, and then
Speaker 4: he has a meeting and then they come out and
Speaker 4: then the next thing, I know, well, we're okay with it.
Speaker 4: We should have you know, we've got it again. If
Speaker 4: we hadn't rushed last week to do the two one
Speaker 4: hundred and eleven million dollars we'd had some leverage, but
Speaker 4: it's hard to have leverage. If you've given them the
Speaker 4: checkbook and you've written a blank.
Speaker 3: Check, that's over.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: I tried to have some Yeah, you talked about seat gate,
Speaker 4: has been homeowner gate. I mean, there's been a lot
Speaker 4: of gates down there.
Speaker 5: I mean it's a lot of things going on, but
Speaker 5: you got to take care of it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, you're negotiating the check book. That's where
Speaker 4: you have the power.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you hold it.
Speaker 2: Most I would say almost every other NFL team save
Speaker 2: maybe one except I don't know if there's an exception
Speaker 2: or not to that would look at in the public
Speaker 2: outcry going. Man, you know what, it's the fan experience.
Speaker 2: It's a bad look for the team. It's a bad
Speaker 2: look for the city and the franchise because things like
Speaker 2: this happen, not not frequently, but enough to establish a
Speaker 2: pattern if you go back in time, that they simply
Speaker 2: will do the bare minimum and don't care what the
Speaker 2: fans or the media or anyone else thinks for that matter.
Speaker 2: They only care about what their opinions are inside pay
Speaker 2: corps in the front office, and typically other teams would
Speaker 2: look at this and go, yeah, this, this gives our
Speaker 2: franchise a bad look. We better clean this up and
Speaker 2: fix it for next time. I think almost every other
Speaker 2: NFL team thinks that way, except the Bengals.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I can't tell you how they think. I just
Speaker 4: know that when I look at the actual deal. And
Speaker 4: when you have a chance, Remember we had to have
Speaker 4: a free watch party, Sloan, you and I. They said
Speaker 4: let's do what. It came from a It came from
Speaker 4: a fan that said let's do it. They were once
Speaker 4: said we can't do it, and then the next thing
Speaker 4: I know, they came back with it. We found a
Speaker 4: way to do it. Now we want to do it
Speaker 4: for ninety nine dollars. We wanted to have some free
Speaker 4: to get back to the fans every time we want
Speaker 4: to do. We wanted to have something to get back
Speaker 4: to the homeowners.
Speaker 5: And they said, now we want.
Speaker 4: All the money, and now we only can do four.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. So anything that doesn't.
Speaker 4: Make money, from what I've seen, it's always we'll put
Speaker 4: it on the If it costs money, the taxpayers, we
Speaker 4: want you to pay. If it makes money, then again
Speaker 4: then it's okay for them. And again there was so
Speaker 4: much pressure to pass this two hundred eleven million dollars
Speaker 4: right before. I don't know if they knew that the
Speaker 4: season was going to end or something, but it was,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: The administration said, we got it.
Speaker 4: We gotta go, said, this is an eleven year deal.
Speaker 4: Why we gotta do it so quick? We gotta do it,
Speaker 4: even before we balance the budget.
Speaker 5: We gotta do it.
Speaker 4: And now they've done it, and uh, it's two hundred
Speaker 4: eleven million dollars out a three hundred and fifty million
Speaker 4: we don't put. That's a pretty big front load. And
Speaker 4: now here we are, not even a week later, and
Speaker 4: now we're talking about, well, wait a minute, the seats.
Speaker 4: What wasn't now you know, well it removed from seat.
Speaker 3: You feed enough pigeons, you get fat, happy pigeons. That's
Speaker 3: what you get.
Speaker 2: Commissioner Lisha Reese on seatgate this morning on seven hundred
Speaker 2: W there's nothing you can do.
Speaker 3: It's over. But uh, it helps I think collectively to complain.
Speaker 4: No, I think it's you know, we got to bring
Speaker 4: these things up and and I'm gonna ask the administrator
Speaker 4: to see what really can be done, and it should
Speaker 4: be done. But I want to make sure Swan thank
Speaker 4: you for having me on. But I hope these media
Speaker 4: when they write that he said, commissioners passed two hundred
Speaker 4: and eleven million dollars. I didn't vote yes. Please it
Speaker 4: was two to one.
Speaker 3: We know, we know you made your case.
Speaker 4: We got it.
Speaker 3: I told you so. I told you so the I
Speaker 3: told you so. Alisha. I always appreciate you coming out.
Speaker 3: I have a great day.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this, but Alisha Reese
Speaker 2: did not vote for them. She always brings the heat,
Speaker 2: and God knows we need some heat this morning, especially
Speaker 2: if you suffered through yesterday's If you suffered through yesterday's game,
Speaker 2: uh and happened to go there, I'll bump you to
Speaker 2: the top of the call list here because we're going
Speaker 2: to examine from top to bottom the central idea of
Speaker 2: the segment of the show this morning, from Alicia to
Speaker 2: your calls coming up next after news, and that is
Speaker 2: the bare minimum, Bengals, the bare minimum. And if you
Speaker 2: just do the bare minimum, do you ever expect to
Speaker 2: win a championship in your lifetime? We'll get to that
Speaker 2: next on the show right after this on seven D
Speaker 2: all right, slowly rolling with you on this cold Monday
Speaker 2: morning on seven hundred ww that's a beauty of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: Though it'll get better. It always gets better, and and
Speaker 2: rather quickly. How crazy is this Rob Reiner thing that
Speaker 2: his wife, Michelle Singer he murdered yesterday, found dead near
Speaker 2: Los Angeles home outside of Brentwood. I believe prime suspect
Speaker 2: as their son. Holy smokes. And what's really weird was
Speaker 2: I got Saturday? I was flipping through some stuff and
Speaker 2: Spinal Tap two was on. Rob Ryan of course start
Speaker 2: directed that one and makes me want to go away.
Speaker 2: I watch the one, I guess, okay, but man at
Speaker 2: first one.
Speaker 3: Is just classic.
Speaker 2: It's classic thought and I was thinking the time, going god,
Speaker 2: Rob Briner, man talk about a guy just owns it,
Speaker 2: and now on a day later he's murdered.
Speaker 3: Crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, think of the movies he produced, Princess Bride,
Speaker 2: Harry met Sally, stand by Me, a few good men.
Speaker 2: I mentioned Spinal Tap, Misery with Kathy Bates and Stephen
Speaker 2: King Men, goest to Mississippi. Tons of great movies he
Speaker 2: made his director and of course you know, if you're
Speaker 2: old enough, remember him as Meathead. It all started with Meathead.
Speaker 2: Meathead is dead long lived meathead. There's a crazy story
Speaker 2: continue unfold. We'll follow that for you too. Rough day
Speaker 2: in the National Football yesterday, Micah Parsons and Pat Mahomes
Speaker 2: both going down with knee injuries, season ending knee injuries.
Speaker 3: DeVante Adams thought a hamstring. It was rough.
Speaker 2: Uh, so, you know, things could be worse, but how
Speaker 2: much worse could they possibly be? For us here in Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: we saw about six inches of snowfall on Saturday night.
Speaker 2: I like snow. I thought it was a beautiful snowfall.
Speaker 2: The better cold yesterday, no one likes. And ahead of
Speaker 2: the Bengals game, we had ample warning that there would
Speaker 2: be snowfall. We knew what was coming. Despite us often
Speaker 2: pointing fun and making fun of and rightly so, climbate terrorists.
Speaker 2: Now they got it right. And it was well, we're
Speaker 2: gonna get maybe four to five inch, okay, now, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 2: We're going to go four to eight and yeah, most
Speaker 2: of the avery six inches And of course he dangerously
Speaker 2: cold temperatures following that, so that means hype with thermi
Speaker 2: it means frostbrights. It was the coldest day ever at
Speaker 2: pay Court Stadium. You ask fans to get up early.
Speaker 2: You ask fans to clear ice off their driveway, snow
Speaker 2: off their driveways, off their cars, buy extra clothes, probably
Speaker 2: drive on icy roads, pay to park, pay for seats
Speaker 2: at the stadium, which, by the way, just last week,
Speaker 2: just last week, as Alisha Rees pointed out, we spent
Speaker 2: two hundred and eleven, two hundred and twelve million dollars
Speaker 2: to upgrade. And you show up after doing all that
Speaker 2: for a team that is just about da and you
Speaker 2: have to clear the seats off using your credit cards
Speaker 2: and your gloves, and you put all that snow where
Speaker 2: at your feet to stand on more snow and morice
Speaker 2: to watch them lose twenty for nothing and simply not
Speaker 2: show up and be eliminated from the playoffs for the
Speaker 2: third year in a row. As a Bengal fan, how
Speaker 2: does that make you feel? As a taxpayer, how does
Speaker 2: that make you feel? The scary part about this is
Speaker 2: the Bengals, and Alicia touched on it slightly, and that's
Speaker 2: the problem with this whole thing is it's the bare
Speaker 2: minimum Bengals. The Bengals have been a bare minimum team
Speaker 2: during their existence. That and I'm convinced that the Bengals
Speaker 2: will never win a Super Bowl in my lifetime, and
Speaker 2: I know how close we are. I'll get to that
Speaker 2: in a second. But we hear about all the seismic
Speaker 2: changes that have occurred since Burrow's arrival, you know, the
Speaker 2: ring of honor, on and on, which is true. There's
Speaker 2: been some changes, But the clear, unchanging, immovable fact, the
Speaker 2: irrefutable truth, is this team will always do the bare
Speaker 2: minimum required that existing is plenty. It's plenty, the bare minimum.
Speaker 2: If you look at the front office now, granted they've
Speaker 2: added some pieces here, but still the league's smallest front office.
Speaker 2: We have the small scouting staff and analytics the players
Speaker 2: at one time, and this goes back in history. Remember
Speaker 2: when players were told to hey, if you want gatorade,
Speaker 2: you got to stop at UDF and bring bring yourself
Speaker 2: with bottle of water.
Speaker 3: We got a drinking fount in here, we got bottle water. No,
Speaker 3: bring your own bottle of water.
Speaker 2: There was a time where I think it was a
Speaker 2: visitors locker room, or maybe it was also the homelocker
Speaker 2: and they had to use hand towels instead of full
Speaker 2: sized tolls. They only had hand tols. It was TJ.
Speaker 2: Huschman Zada. That said, the Bengals made us jockstraps the
Speaker 2: only option for player, So Willie Anderson went out and
Speaker 2: acts with his own money, bought jockstraps to the entire team.
Speaker 2: There are times where the Bengals refuse to pay for
Speaker 2: hotels for a team to stay at the hotel before
Speaker 2: home game. Hell, look what they did with Boomer sizing.
Speaker 2: If you, hey, we're gonna induct you in the Ring
Speaker 2: of Honor, We're gonna give you two complementary tickets, and
Speaker 2: if you want more, you got to pay for those.
Speaker 2: And also we're not picking up the tab for your
Speaker 2: travel or your accommodations. We saw the contract stands of
Speaker 2: legendary contract stands and makes one wonder why are we
Speaker 2: doing this? You wound up signing Trey Hendrickson anyway, you
Speaker 2: wind up signing Shamar Stewart over that standoff, and what happened.
Speaker 2: You're just consistently great among the worst teams in the
Speaker 2: league when it comes to that, the NFLPA, the player
Speaker 2: Sociation report cards. When it comes to the treatment of families,
Speaker 2: Bengal's always been at the bottom. Remember when the players'
Speaker 2: wives are breastfeeding their infants, their new boards on the
Speaker 2: bathroom floor. There's no family area there now. Granted, is
Speaker 2: that a luxury, sure, but you know, if the rest
Speaker 2: of the league is doing it, you probably should do
Speaker 2: that as well. And I bring it up because you go, well,
Speaker 2: what do you mean, Sloan, that they're not gonna win
Speaker 2: a Super Bowl in our lifetime? I think because the NFL.
Speaker 2: There's such parody in the NFL, unlike just about any
Speaker 2: other sport out there, that eventually you can stumble your
Speaker 2: way into the Super Bowl. You can stumble your way
Speaker 2: into greatness. And if you don't believe me, how did
Speaker 2: the Bengals get to the Super Bowl? Well, they drafted
Speaker 2: a guy named Joe Burrow. They got Jamar Chase. They
Speaker 2: have lost for so long and so legendary that they
Speaker 2: amassed unlosable players, players that are a lock to be
Speaker 2: successful because they're so good, because that particular draft class
Speaker 2: and that particular number one overall, Joe Burrow is so
Speaker 2: spectacular that he will defy odds, can change a game
Speaker 2: solely on his own ability. There are very few players
Speaker 2: like that. The Bengals got at least a couple of
Speaker 2: those guys. So you look at also the Bengals coming
Speaker 2: out out of nowhere after multiple two win seasons, and
Speaker 2: they came out And that's true. In the playoffs, it's
Speaker 2: about health. It's us about sneaking under the radar because
Speaker 2: you know you got an easier schedule and people don't
Speaker 2: see it coming. Like the Patriots. Such a darling story
Speaker 2: this year because no one saw that coming. I think
Speaker 2: if you follow Footblay did because you know the pedigree
Speaker 2: of Mike Rabel and a lot of the players they
Speaker 2: had in Drake May fantastic. Now they lost yesterday. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty happy as a Bills fan about that. But to
Speaker 2: that point, you know you don't see that coming. I
Speaker 2: think there's a big factor. Then you can prepare for
Speaker 2: that going wow, Bengals with the Super Bowl last year,
Speaker 2: we got it right for their schedule. Got toffer in
Speaker 2: what happened? You missed the playoffs now three straight years,
Speaker 2: and so because of your incompetence, because of the bare minimum,
Speaker 2: eventually water will find us, eventually get lucky. And I
Speaker 2: think as opposed to a pattern of hey, we've turned
Speaker 2: the Corners a franchise and now we have rebuilt everything
Speaker 2: to the point where we're going to see nothing but
Speaker 2: success in a dynasty here in Cincinnati. I mean that
Speaker 2: sounded good after Super Bowl and literally could have won
Speaker 2: that game. It was a quarter of a second. It
Speaker 2: was literally if Joe Burrow had a quarter of a
Speaker 2: second longer, it's a touchdown.
Speaker 3: Came over.
Speaker 2: Of course, the Rams went on and got the World
Speaker 2: championship and we didn't. And it's been downhill since that point.
Speaker 2: I was peak, and we went downhill after that. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: you make playoff appearance which you get bounced, and you know,
Speaker 2: three straight with that. So here we are again, and
Speaker 2: I think I'm just absolutely convinced you do the bare minimum.
Speaker 2: You may stumble in every twenty thirty forty years, but
Speaker 2: you're not going to build anything that's lasting. And that's
Speaker 2: where we are in Cincinnati. I think that that is
Speaker 2: a factual, sound indictment of this franchise.
Speaker 3: And it's not.
Speaker 2: Lost on me that just days ago, literally last week,
Speaker 2: the taxpayers of Hamlin County who got boned back in
Speaker 2: the nineties, we're on the hook for remodeling. Pay court
Speaker 2: of the two and two one hundred twelve thousand dollars
Speaker 2: or two hundred MS or two hundredwelve million dollars, which
Speaker 2: it was two and twelve thousand, two hundred and twelve
Speaker 2: million dollars. And once the check was once we got
Speaker 2: the dealing together, it's like, okay, we'll just go back
Speaker 2: to the way things were now. Granted, okay, a few
Speaker 2: things change, got a ring of honor. They opened it
Speaker 2: up for the the Sane ex Elder Game a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago. I thought that was great and that's
Speaker 2: going on. But wasn't that wiped out yesterday by showing
Speaker 2: up to your seats after all that and going, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, we can't move the snow and then to
Speaker 2: be told that, well, you just wipe them all.
Speaker 3: You just wipe it off.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have an usher. You just ask an usher.
Speaker 2: You want to wipe your seat off?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: By then it's it's a block ice, you know. Do
Speaker 2: we expect the seats to be completely clear? And I
Speaker 2: completely ice and snowflake for of course, not absolutely not.
Speaker 2: But there are plenty of other plenty of other cold
Speaker 2: weather teams that have a plan in place to deal
Speaker 2: with it. I was talking to someone saying, well, you're
Speaker 2: a Bills fan, you know how bad it is at
Speaker 2: pay Corps or not. How bad is it high Mark
Speaker 2: with the snow there like, well, you know, they pay
Speaker 2: fans to come twenty dollars an hour to shovel snow.
Speaker 2: They feed you, they give you food, they turn music on,
Speaker 2: they try to make it a good time and community thing.
Speaker 2: A lot of people show up on a pride to
Speaker 2: clear that stadium up. Why can't the Bengals offer people
Speaker 2: twenty bucks an hour and free food if they're doing
Speaker 2: that elsewhere to go, Hey, we got to extraordinary circumstances.
Speaker 2: We're fighting for our lives and help something like that goes.
Speaker 2: It's not cheap, that's help helping build community. But you
Speaker 2: got to pay somebody twenty bucks an hour, it's just
Speaker 2: cheaper to go. Oh the hell with it? Where they
Speaker 2: let the fans worry about themselves. That's horrible, absolutely horrible,
Speaker 2: And you know today should be the day a lot
Speaker 2: of other franchises would go. You know what, based on
Speaker 2: that performance, it's elimination. You guys got blown out twenty
Speaker 2: four nothing against the divisional rival. Just a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago. You throttled throttled up. You couldn't put up
Speaker 2: any points against this team against Lamar Jackson. You couldn't.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't someone have to pay for that? In most cities,
Speaker 2: in most NFL clients, the head coach would be canned.
Speaker 2: Today would be the day. And I think you know
Speaker 2: Zach Tayler's fine. No personal animus here. It's just the
Speaker 2: fact that if you lay that kind of egg at
Speaker 2: home with your season on the line, you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: coaching the NFL. There has to be a head rolling here,
Speaker 2: and whether it's his fault or not, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: But that's also the central theme. You could bring any
Speaker 2: coach in here, the naxtic man up, finding some new,
Speaker 2: brilliant offensive mind, some sort of new head. Plenty of opportunities.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of candidates out there that are well qualified
Speaker 2: and many overdue to be NFL head coaches. There's no
Speaker 2: shortages of people who want to run a team in
Speaker 2: this league. But does it really matter who you bring in?
Speaker 2: Does it matter who you bring in if the core
Speaker 2: body itself isn't healthy and this team has been healthy
Speaker 2: for a long time. How the history of the Bengals
Speaker 2: in the last thirty years has not been good. It's
Speaker 2: an aberration for them to make the playoffs, insane. They
Speaker 2: went to the playoffs is insane. They went to the
Speaker 2: Super Bowl. But again, water is self loveling, always finds it.
Speaker 2: And you know, here we are again the futility of
Speaker 2: the Bengals a third season where with this generational talent
Speaker 2: that you have, arguably the best quarterback that the Bengals
Speaker 2: have ever had, is wasting his prime years. Do you
Speaker 2: think anything is going to change? And it's just it's
Speaker 2: such a little thing, but it's a big thing at
Speaker 2: the same time, going are you making this big a
Speaker 2: deal over seats not getting cleaned off slan? I am,
Speaker 2: because it's indicative of the culture of this franchise. You know,
Speaker 2: you you disagree with the notion that they old nickel
Speaker 2: and dime. They throw nickels around like manhole covers, and
Speaker 2: they're notoriously cheap and frugal in that whole thing. But
Speaker 2: that's so tired and all. It's so tired. But again,
Speaker 2: it just keeps happening.
Speaker 3: And we just had this.
Speaker 2: I didn't bring it up much, but like, for example,
Speaker 2: the Ring of Honor thing with Boomer.
Speaker 3: You get two tickets.
Speaker 2: After that you gotta buy your own and you're on
Speaker 2: the hook for your own hotel and accommodations to induct
Speaker 2: a guy who whose name is going to be up
Speaker 2: there in that wall and that ring. For eternity, you
Speaker 2: can't pick up the flight in the hotel for this guy.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're worth billions of dollars. It's that kind
Speaker 2: of mindset that just continues to percolate from time to time.
Speaker 2: The snow removal thing is small, but it's part of
Speaker 2: a bigger picture that it's about profit over success. And hey,
Speaker 2: if you can make a profit and maximize your profits
Speaker 2: and not spend any money and still achieve success, then
Speaker 2: the team wins. But if you're a Bengal fan and
Speaker 2: you're expected to go and buy the merchandise, you buy
Speaker 2: the tickets, you buy the parking, and then get to
Speaker 2: the stadium to your seat, which costs a small fortune
Speaker 2: to attend an NFL game, to support a team that's
Speaker 2: literally on its last dying guests of the season to survive,
Speaker 2: to go to the playoffs in a snowbell's chance. If
Speaker 2: you have a snowball's chance, if you will and you
Speaker 2: go and you support that team, you got to feel like,
Speaker 2: why am I invested in? Why do I care more
Speaker 2: than the ownership? And I think it's just indicative of
Speaker 2: where we are and since then and have been. As
Speaker 2: long as things change, they sure stay the same. And
Speaker 2: we've seen this movie time and time and time again.
Speaker 2: I thought you turned the corner of the Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: and it turns out that was just Lady Luck rearing
Speaker 2: her head. Lady Luck was on your side that season,
Speaker 2: because since that has been typical Bengals. As they say,
Speaker 2: I don't know quite honestly what or how things change,
Speaker 2: But if they were a serious organization, would not they
Speaker 2: be changing head coaches and also moving on from Duke Tobin.
Speaker 2: I would say, who is also and probably has a
Speaker 2: bigger hand in this whole thing. Do they look at going, wow,
Speaker 2: we've got to get more bodies in here. We got
Speaker 2: to take seriously the preparation, the scouting and all that
Speaker 2: stuff should be in play. But they don't do that.
Speaker 2: They add little pieces, but now big ones. And so
Speaker 2: it stands the Bengals eliminated yesterday. But more important than that,
Speaker 2: the fan experience took a big step backwards. Scott's loan
Speaker 2: show seven hundred WW since.
Speaker 1: Now do you want to be an American?
Speaker 2: Tell me back on seven hundred w WELW I don't
Speaker 2: have to tell you about healthcare costs justin like since
Speaker 2: two thousand, they the number there has tripled in most cases.
Speaker 2: And we're tired, and I'm just talking about healthcare, but
Speaker 2: pharmaceuticals and everything. And we know what's kind of driving that.
Speaker 2: Congress is allegedly addressing it and trying to make things
Speaker 2: more affordable. I don't know how that's going to work
Speaker 2: with the HSASH. It's a big question. And we've talked
Speaker 2: to a lot of people at the receiving end, patients
Speaker 2: like me and you, healthcare providers, doctors, nurses, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Very well, very rarely we get a chance to talk
Speaker 2: to somebody in the inside, and we do today.
Speaker 3: It's Beth Kaiser.
Speaker 2: She's the West region president for Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield,
Speaker 2: joining the show. Good morning, How are you, Beth.
Speaker 7: Good morning, Scott's nice to be with you there in Ohio.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: So you know you hear the healthcare We don't have
Speaker 2: to tell you what happened to the assassination of the
Speaker 2: CEO in New York City last year, and a teams
Speaker 2: people certainly have it out for big healthcare companies and
Speaker 2: the like.
Speaker 3: How much of that is on you.
Speaker 2: I mean, you guys are caught up in this as
Speaker 2: well to some degree, but it seemingly always the dirty
Speaker 2: end of the stick is pointed at you guys.
Speaker 3: Is that entirely accurate?
Speaker 7: I would say that all stakeholders are filling pressure now
Speaker 7: to have you know, the affordability of healthcare.
Speaker 8: Be an issue.
Speaker 7: And so you know what we say at Anthem is
Speaker 7: Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, is that unaffordable healthcare is
Speaker 7: inaccessible healthcare. So it's a critical time for us.
Speaker 2: What is the latest affordability to numbers that you guys
Speaker 2: do internally show and how do our out of pocket
Speaker 2: increases in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana compared to other states
Speaker 2: outside the Midwest.
Speaker 7: Gosh, you know some people follow the Rand study from
Speaker 7: years ago, but certainly show that there's plenty of work
Speaker 7: for both of our states to do. But just to
Speaker 7: give you some facts, the US healthcare spending grew seven
Speaker 7: and a half percent in twenty twenty three, reaching nearly
Speaker 7: four point nine trillion, and as you know, that's continued
Speaker 7: to escalate. Prescription drugs spending alone increase more than eleven
Speaker 7: percent last year. So these trends are putting significant strains
Speaker 7: own individuals, employers, and government programs.
Speaker 2: And we also, let's face this demographic demographic issue. As
Speaker 2: baby boomers get older and older, they're going to use more,
Speaker 2: need more care, and there are few people at the
Speaker 2: end to pay for that, and so it overwhelms the system.
Speaker 2: And then you factor in people who need assistance, and
Speaker 2: it it's even worse.
Speaker 9: This is true.
Speaker 7: So that's one of the reasons addressing people's health from
Speaker 7: a holistic standpoint, looking at whole health is so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's part of the Republican plan. But I
Speaker 2: don't dismiss that because we all have a stake in
Speaker 2: our health. But I mean, let's face it. If the
Speaker 2: healthcare plan is, hey, take better care of yourself and
Speaker 2: your incentivis to do so, that that's fine. But so
Speaker 2: many people and it seemingly there's a story every day
Speaker 2: about someone who's you know, the drug cost or something
Speaker 2: for their kid or a loved one is so exorbitant
Speaker 2: they have to file for bankruptcy.
Speaker 3: That shouldn't be happening, but it is.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And delaying and skipping care can affect people in
Speaker 7: the healthcare system as well, So we have to keep
Speaker 7: it affordable because if those health issues that individuals have worsen,
Speaker 7: are they become harder to treat, they certainly become more
Speaker 7: expensive as well, And so that a lot of people think, well,
Speaker 7: that only impacts the individual, but actually it impacts more
Speaker 7: than the individual's health outcomes. It puts a strain on
Speaker 7: the broader healthcare system, and it drives up costs for.
Speaker 8: All of us.
Speaker 2: How do you determine who gets care for some specific
Speaker 2: disease lets, I don't know. It might be I mentioned
Speaker 2: the horror stories, right that someone who's denied care clearly
Speaker 2: they're sick, it becomes a news story goes viral and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden and maybe not you guys,
Speaker 2: but another health care insurance making sure, maybe like yourself,
Speaker 2: and others will go ay, okay, well we're going to
Speaker 2: take care of this person because of public pressure and
Speaker 2: the outcry. How are those decisions made at the granuar level.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would say many employers, individuals, families are determining
Speaker 7: how do they access healthcare? How do they make it affordable?
Speaker 7: And so we are addressing that by first looking to
Speaker 7: see the factors that are causing the increased health care costs.
Speaker 7: And those factors include an aging population, people with increased
Speaker 7: chronic conditions like you mentioned Scott, escalating drug prices, provider consolidation,
Speaker 7: fraud and abuse, as well as ongoing legislative changes. And
Speaker 7: then we're working to address that with the stakeholders that
Speaker 7: you mentioned as well.
Speaker 3: She's Beth Kaiser.
Speaker 2: She's a president of Blue Cross Blue Shilds and and
Speaker 2: Blue Cross Blue Shield West Region president. Talking about health
Speaker 2: care costs and the insurance end of this thing, one
Speaker 2: of the other elements here is consolidation. We've seen that
Speaker 2: accelerate tremendously here in our region, Beth, And how is
Speaker 2: that does that help with rates? And we also worry
Speaker 2: about rural areas too. We're in Cincinnati, you're out in Indy,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of country between us and you
Speaker 2: and across both of these states as well as Kentucky
Speaker 2: where rural hospitals and clinics are closing a record amounts.
Speaker 3: How do we address that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, And unfortunately, you know a lot of people think
Speaker 7: just what you mentioned that when healthcare providers going together,
Speaker 7: it may be lower costs, but often it means that
Speaker 7: patients have fewer choices and the prices actually go up.
Speaker 7: So what we're doing at ANT and Blue Cross Blue
Speaker 7: Shield to address those challenges is we're prioritizing strategies that
Speaker 7: protect affordability and enhance the value for our members. And
Speaker 7: the way we're doing that is we're creating benefits and
Speaker 7: contracts with our provider partners. It give people access to
Speaker 7: mini quality providers and at the same time, we're helping
Speaker 7: focus on the think using AI and data to make
Speaker 7: sure that we're cutting ways and avoiding unnecessary treatment, which
Speaker 7: also helps keep calls down. But when I speak specifically
Speaker 7: to waste and fraud and waste, there's things that now
Speaker 7: with AI as well as that we're allowed through billing
Speaker 7: to look at for unusual charges that may have occurred
Speaker 7: in the system, such as phantom billing where they're built
Speaker 7: for a service that didn't occur, double billing where they're
Speaker 7: bill twice, and then upcoding where they're charged for a
Speaker 7: service at a higher rate than what was provided.
Speaker 2: And one of the things you hear from government on
Speaker 2: this Beth is waste frawed abuse, waste fraud abuse constantly.
Speaker 2: But you know, I always contended that if you're a
Speaker 2: business like you are, and you're in the business of
Speaker 2: providing healthcare, but you have to be profitable, uh in
Speaker 2: you you probably do a better job than anyone as
Speaker 2: far as that and making sure that those people who
Speaker 2: are using the care, or vendors particularly are getting what
Speaker 2: they deserve, but not more or less.
Speaker 5: We do.
Speaker 7: It's important though, I mean, you know, we want to
Speaker 7: make sure or we're looking at individuals and members in
Speaker 7: their whole health, so helping them remain healthy longer in
Speaker 7: life and helping them have the tools and the support
Speaker 7: they need. Where in the past we were much you know,
Speaker 7: we were known health plans, were know more for you know,
Speaker 7: just managing the quality, the costs and administration of billing.
Speaker 7: We feel at Anton Blue Cross we shield that we
Speaker 7: have a larger role to play.
Speaker 2: Let's segue to pharmacy benefits. That's a big one PDM's right.
Speaker 2: Pharmacy benefit managers not quite sure what they do, but
Speaker 2: they drive the cost up. That is the constant cry.
Speaker 2: I guess that you probably hear. What percentage of premium
Speaker 2: increases can you attribute to prescription drug costs and specifically
Speaker 2: how do.
Speaker 3: You address that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mentioned just a minute ago that the prescription
Speaker 7: drug spending alone has increased more than eleven percent from
Speaker 7: last year. But what specifically, we've been focused on negotiating
Speaker 7: lower costs around specialty pharmacy as well. That's an important
Speaker 7: area for us, and our responsibility is to negotiate lower price.
Speaker 2: You know that's the model, but seemingly prices continue to
Speaker 2: spiral upward. Where's that coming from?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would just say that. I mean, we all
Speaker 7: want we all want access to the best and the latest,
Speaker 7: and we want to make sure we give our members access.
Speaker 7: So we feel like as we negotiate for better drug costs,
Speaker 7: especially around the specialty costs, that we can bring those
Speaker 7: costs down.
Speaker 2: I've had this happen personal experience, family experience with this
Speaker 2: to where there's times where insurance and we're Anthem Blue
Speaker 2: Crossbow Shield where we work here at iHeart and have
Speaker 2: very good coverage. I can't complain some people obviously you
Speaker 2: don't have that. Maybe your experience varies, but pay you
Speaker 2: a fair amount of money for that. Absolutely. When it
Speaker 2: comes to the pharmacy, though, I've noticed at times where
Speaker 2: we'll go in and say, okay, here's your prescription, Well
Speaker 2: how much do I pay out of pocket? And it's
Speaker 2: less or if I use something like good our ax
Speaker 2: with which is like a discount. Why would that occur
Speaker 2: if indeed we're negotiating the lowest prices? Why do Why
Speaker 2: are medicines cheaper if you get them out of pocket
Speaker 2: or use a discount?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that it depends upon the individuals. So
Speaker 7: in your case, I mean, this is the reason it's
Speaker 7: so important for us to be talking about affordability because
Speaker 7: without I mean, the individual's portion of being engaged and
Speaker 7: involved in their health and understanding what tools, what discounts,
Speaker 7: what their benefit structure looks like, helps them to be
Speaker 7: a more empowered member and to your point, be aware
Speaker 7: of costly options.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We're talking to Beth Guiser this morning on the Scots
Speaker 2: Loan Show seven hundred Wow. She's a regional president for
Speaker 2: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield talking to Ensure about what
Speaker 2: can be done about high costs and always, almost always
Speaker 2: we blame the insurance companies, but there's a lot driving
Speaker 2: that as well, and we're kind of getting into this
Speaker 2: morning here on the show in a limited time that
Speaker 2: we have. One of the other questions too, is surprise
Speaker 2: medical billing. You know, Trump in his first term said, hey,
Speaker 2: we know we're going to disclose prices, you're going to
Speaker 2: know what you're get coming in, and still most of
Speaker 2: those have not been hit. That is a huge complaint
Speaker 2: before federal legislation, and we've had a you know, the
Speaker 2: President doing that and moving even more I think in
Speaker 2: this term to do that. But we're still getting unexpected
Speaker 2: bills and costs despite the reforms. Why does that remain problematic?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would just say, first, we fully support the
Speaker 7: No Surprises Act because the intention was for it to
Speaker 7: protect patients from receiving surprise to healthcare bills. But as
Speaker 7: you mentioned, Scott, there have been some issues, some unintended consequences,
Speaker 7: some fraudulent behavior that have unintentionally raised those costs. And
Speaker 7: so we're committed at Vans and Blue Cross Blue Shield
Speaker 7: to fixing the No Surprises Act. And in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 7: we'll introduce the policy with hospitals for curb out of
Speaker 7: network specialists billing through in network facilities and so this
Speaker 7: will aid those specialists in wanting to join our networks,
Speaker 7: which will lower patient costs and whole facilities accountable for
Speaker 7: repeated non emergency use of out of network and so
Speaker 7: that will drive down healthcare call uh pers. So you
Speaker 7: can't do that, Scott though without faultful collaboration with our
Speaker 7: hospitals and our providers. Right right now, that's the key
Speaker 7: path to our affordability.
Speaker 2: Well, you have the collaboration, and I know there's price
Speaker 2: transparency tools out there and they're required, but the data
Speaker 2: and maybe it's because it's new, few consumers use them effectively.
Speaker 2: Are they confusing? And you know what's driving that? Are
Speaker 2: more people adopting it or just simply they don't know.
Speaker 7: We're seeing adoption, least specifically with our Sydney app. We're
Speaker 7: seeing great adoption because because of the unaffordability, many members
Speaker 7: are wanting to understand their benefit options.
Speaker 2: Beth, I brought this up before, and I would love
Speaker 2: your unvarnished point of view on this. You know, I
Speaker 2: go to my dey, we go to our doctor. You
Speaker 2: look in there, Okay, I've got a doctor. Maybe he
Speaker 2: has a PA or a nurse or something like that.
Speaker 2: And then you have five full of five people who
Speaker 2: just handle coding and billing and insurance and medicare and
Speaker 2: medicating and all that stuff, and as we know, it
Speaker 2: drives costs up. I always use the parallel to you know,
Speaker 2: you bring your dog into a vet and you know,
Speaker 2: canines felines use some and sometimes the same medicine or
Speaker 2: overlapping meds, and you look at that, go, Okay, that's
Speaker 2: pretty affordable my dog, cat or whatever comes to me.
Speaker 2: There's paperwork, there's bills that come for the next six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight months, and you forget what they're for, and it's
Speaker 2: this whole mess. If we simply took the edict and
Speaker 2: made it an edict for employers in America, Listen, you're
Speaker 2: no longer in the business of providing health insurance, can
Speaker 2: offer health insurance. You got buy to the free market.
Speaker 2: Is that better for you guys? Is it better for
Speaker 2: the patient?
Speaker 7: I mean, I believe that the reason that we want
Speaker 7: to make sure people remain covered is because if it
Speaker 7: becomes unaffordable for individuals. In some cases, many people are
Speaker 7: very reliant on their employer to help subsidize their healthcare call.
Speaker 7: And again, as I mentioned earlier, if unaffordable healthcare will
Speaker 7: become inaccessible health care, so it's important that they get
Speaker 7: the resources they need. And I think to your point
Speaker 7: on data, and I mean, how we need to become
Speaker 7: more efficient and effective with the way we work in healthcare.
Speaker 7: That's the job for all of us, and we're doing
Speaker 7: our part at anteon Blue Cross, Blue Shield by adopting AI,
Speaker 7: by adopting new data technologies, and providing coordination with our
Speaker 7: provider partners so that we have access to the whole view,
Speaker 7: to the whole health view of you, Scott, so that
Speaker 7: we can see your health holistically and that we can
Speaker 7: help aid in keeping you healthier longer.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 2: But I guess the question is more about compliance and
Speaker 2: things like you. You still have to obviously address compliance issues,
Speaker 2: but it seems there's a lot of things elements involved,
Speaker 2: particularly the government in our healthcare. Why can't I just
Speaker 2: buy a plan directly from you and like minded people
Speaker 2: do that? I think we'd say have enough money in
Speaker 2: the long run to be able to take care of
Speaker 2: the indigen and the people who really need it. Looking
Speaker 2: I had five years, what do you? And it's just
Speaker 2: going to continue to get worse. I mean we're going
Speaker 2: to start to see things level off. Or is it
Speaker 2: just simply a matter of demographics that I started with,
Speaker 2: where you're going to see baby boomers as they age
Speaker 2: out and eventually pass, we have a younger generation coming
Speaker 2: in replacing them as old folks, and so it goes.
Speaker 2: Is it simply just a numbers game that way, or
Speaker 2: is it going to level out in the next five
Speaker 2: or ten years.
Speaker 7: Well, my optimistic to you, Scott is that we're going
Speaker 7: to work together the stakeholders. They appreciate how urgent this is.
Speaker 7: Individuals understand that they certainly can access individual plans, but
Speaker 7: many again are reliant on the benefits and the subsidies
Speaker 7: that they have in place today. So we've got to
Speaker 7: make sure. You know, it's a delicate issue, right, But
Speaker 7: what I would say as a society, and what I'm
Speaker 7: hoping that in the next few years that will come
Speaker 7: together as stakeholders, is making the healthy choice the easy
Speaker 7: choice and allowing individuals to have more control over their
Speaker 7: health and their healthcare calls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that doesn't mean prices are going now. That's
Speaker 2: the biggest concern, and you know, we're probably pretty bad
Speaker 2: about that ourselves, and you know, you led with and
Speaker 2: it's a good point. If we took better care of ourselves,
Speaker 2: eight better you know, exercise, did all that stuff, then
Speaker 2: we'd need less health care. It makes it less expensive
Speaker 2: for everyone. But we don't do that. But it's not
Speaker 2: like we're alone. Other countries have the same problem, and
Speaker 2: yet here in America, our health care costs are out
Speaker 2: of control. Administrative costs in the US are substantially higher
Speaker 2: in other countries. What percentage of premium dollars goes to
Speaker 2: administration versus.
Speaker 7: Actual care, you know, that would be dependent upon the situation.
Speaker 7: But I'm not sure Scott, if you're aware that the
Speaker 7: majority of employers are self insured. So, and specifically in
Speaker 7: the states. I'm in Indiana next to you, ninety percent
Speaker 7: of our employers are self insured. So what that means
Speaker 7: is they're paying directly for the cost of a procedure.
Speaker 7: And as there's a small admin fee that goes on that,
Speaker 7: and as you know, health plans are regulated and the
Speaker 7: cost that we can charge for that is regulated by
Speaker 7: our government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that all factors into the cost as well,
Speaker 2: because the regulation adds a little bit more overhead in that.
Speaker 2: I guess that's the initial point. As it seems there's
Speaker 2: a lot of hands in the cookie here. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of money to be had here, but at the end,
Speaker 2: consumers suffer, and some people and I'm making the decision
Speaker 2: to go without healthcare, especially during these times where we
Speaker 2: talk about the ACA and all that being in jeopardy.
Speaker 2: Beth Kay is here West Region President for Anthem Blue
Speaker 2: Crossbowshield out of Indianapolis. Thanks again for the time, Beth,
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much, Scott, and I would encourage individuals
Speaker 7: that are interested in this topic to go to our website.
Speaker 7: It's www dot Anthem dot com. Forward slash Affordability in Ohio.
Speaker 7: Thank you Scott so much for the conversation.
Speaker 2: Well check news at about four or five minutes on
Speaker 2: the big one and the very latest of course on
Speaker 2: the shocking death of Rob Reiner. He and his wife
Speaker 2: murdered last night, well yesterday afternoon, I believe, with their
Speaker 2: home in Brentwood, California. So full details on that, of course,
Speaker 2: the shootings in Australia as well at Brown University. We
Speaker 2: continue to follow all that stuff and more here and
Speaker 2: these dangerously cold temperatures are about to change for the
Speaker 2: better in the coming hours as well.
Speaker 3: It's all ahead with news.
Speaker 2: Scott Sloane returns with mental health Monday, and Julie h
Speaker 2: just ahead on seven hundred WW.
Speaker 1: Everyone needs alb every on then and she's here to
Speaker 1: help us get our heads.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 2: This is Mental Health Monday with mental health expert Julie Hattershire.
Speaker 2: Now we started us back in COVID and continues on today.
Speaker 2: Of course, mental Health Monday every Monday morning, because let's
Speaker 2: face it, it's the coldest day of the year so far,
Speaker 2: and you're back at work.
Speaker 3: What is there to be excited and hopeful about?
Speaker 2: I ask, unless you are one of those just deranged
Speaker 2: individuals like Julie Hattersh here that's happy all the time,
Speaker 2: which I don't understand. Her happiness makes me miserable.
Speaker 10: This is what this does make miserable.
Speaker 3: How are you, friend?
Speaker 11: You?
Speaker 10: Good morning, my friend. I'm great, thank you. I'm in
Speaker 10: South Carolina right now, and it's sunny and thirty one,
Speaker 10: so slightly warmer than Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: This find of one likes you.
Speaker 2: You just drop that nugget in there. Yeah, it's thirty
Speaker 2: it's terrible, Ryan, we are you. I'm in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: It's thirty one.
Speaker 3: What do we gather?
Speaker 10: Well, I mean that's cold for South Carolina. They're treating
Speaker 10: it like it's really cold for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the way down to the Florida for that matter.
Speaker 2: Outside of the forecast. Let's get into this new sleep
Speaker 2: study that's come out here too, and the connections only
Speaker 2: sleep in mental health.
Speaker 3: What's the data showing.
Speaker 10: Well, So I thought this was a good thing to
Speaker 10: do because so many of us don't get enough sleep,
Speaker 10: and so many of us think that we don't really
Speaker 10: need sleep. I mean, I hear a lot from my
Speaker 10: clients I'll sleep when I'm dead. They've got things they
Speaker 10: want to accomplish and things they want to do, and
Speaker 10: they've got busy lives.
Speaker 6: But the more and more we.
Speaker 10: Learn about the connection between sleep and mental and emotional
Speaker 10: and cognitive health, the more important it becomes to get
Speaker 10: seven to eight to nine hours of good sleep most nights.
Speaker 1: And there's a.
Speaker 10: New sleep study out several actually that are really starting
Speaker 10: to hone in on the connection between sleep and depression,
Speaker 10: sleep and anxiety, and sleep and dementia, which I think
Speaker 10: is really important for those of us who are in
Speaker 10: our forties, fifties and six because early onset dementia seems
Speaker 10: to be on the rise in our country, and one
Speaker 10: of the theories is that it may have to do
Speaker 10: with how little sleep we actually get and how poor
Speaker 10: quality our sleep is when.
Speaker 6: We do get it.
Speaker 2: Sleep is relative though some people need ten hours, some
Speaker 2: people can get by with three or four allegedly, what's
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 10: Well, so, actually, one of the things that they're finding
Speaker 10: is that people actually don't perform well with less sleep.
Speaker 10: They become accustomed to it. So when you say get by, yes,
Speaker 10: they can get by with very little sleep, but they're
Speaker 10: not at their best and it takes a huge toll
Speaker 10: on them over the long haul. So you can become
Speaker 10: accustomed to very little sleep by you know, pumping yourself
Speaker 10: up with nicotine and caffeine and by just getting used
Speaker 10: to it, but it isn't actually beneficial for you. Your
Speaker 10: body doesn't truly adapt adequately to it. Most adults need
Speaker 10: between seven and nine hours of sleep. Some need more,
Speaker 10: a few need less, but most people, the best majority,
Speaker 10: seven to nine hours is the gold standard.
Speaker 2: There's a fine line here between back to mental health, Julie,
Speaker 2: in that you know, you get seven eight hours sleep,
Speaker 2: you're good, nine hour, seven nine hours, you said, But
Speaker 2: you start getting above nine hours for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: that signals a different issure.
Speaker 3: That signals depression, doesn't it.
Speaker 10: If you want to sleep a lot, it can, It
Speaker 10: can definitely signal depression. It can signal anxiety as well,
Speaker 10: that it's just too paralyzingly frightening to get out of
Speaker 10: bed and.
Speaker 6: To face the world. But the quality of the sleep
Speaker 6: you get.
Speaker 10: Is as important, or maybe more important, than the number.
Speaker 6: Of hours you get.
Speaker 10: So if you're in bed sort of us sleep I
Speaker 10: use air quotes around that nine hours, but you're actually
Speaker 10: only sleeping four of that and the rest of the
Speaker 10: time you're kind of tossing and turning and dozing in
Speaker 10: and out.
Speaker 6: That's not the same as getting.
Speaker 10: Three complete sleep cycles, which tend to run about two
Speaker 10: and a half hours.
Speaker 6: Okay, So.
Speaker 10: The quality of the sleep matters just as much as
Speaker 10: the number of hours you get.
Speaker 2: Because the question is, you know, as a licensed mental
Speaker 2: health therapist, is you are how do you assess whether
Speaker 2: patients sleep problems are the cause of the mental health
Speaker 2: issues or it's the other way that the mental health
Speaker 2: condition is disrupting.
Speaker 9: Your sleep exactly.
Speaker 10: And in the past, we have more thought that people
Speaker 10: with depression and anxiety didn't sleep well. We thought it
Speaker 10: was more that the depression in the anxiety and our
Speaker 10: health condition came first and sleep was one of the
Speaker 10: impacts of that. What we're now understanding is that it
Speaker 10: works both ways, that poor quality or inadequate sleep can
Speaker 10: cause or exacerbate mental health issues, and poor sleep is
Speaker 10: a symptom of mental health issues. So when I'm talking
Speaker 10: to my clients about this, what I suggest is we
Speaker 10: tackle the easiest one first, And for most people, the
Speaker 10: easiest one is Let's see if we can clean up
Speaker 10: your sleep hygiene. Let's see if we can get you
Speaker 10: more regularly getting said into nine hours of sleep a night.
Speaker 10: Let's take away screens at night. Let's cut down on
Speaker 10: the caffeine, let's cut down on the alcohol, and let's
Speaker 10: see what impact that has on the mood challenges that
Speaker 10: my clients are having. And because that is an easy,
Speaker 10: concrete one for most people to wrap their heads around,
Speaker 10: it doesn't often it doesn't require medication. Sometimes it requires
Speaker 10: some cognitive behavioral therapy, which works really well for insomnia
Speaker 10: and sleep disorders, but it typically doesn't require medication. It
Speaker 10: requires some habit changes, some lifestyle changes.
Speaker 2: And so when you do that to someone, say hey,
Speaker 2: you need to sleep more. And if they can do that,
Speaker 2: what changes in brain function do you see when they
Speaker 2: improve their sleep.
Speaker 10: Well, one of the things that sleep does, and we're
Speaker 10: learning so much more about it in the last few
Speaker 10: decades because we have functional MRIs, so we can actually
Speaker 10: put people in sleep labs, cook their brains up to MRIs,
Speaker 10: and watch what happens when they're asleep. One of the
Speaker 10: things we're learning that sleep does is it helps memory
Speaker 10: consolidation and it helps take out the mental garbage in
Speaker 10: your head.
Speaker 6: So if you get good.
Speaker 10: Quality sleep, it helps clear away all the clutter that
Speaker 10: keeps you from performing at your best, and it helps
Speaker 10: consolidate your thinking and your memories. So think of it
Speaker 10: as cleaning up all the papers on your desk and
Speaker 10: putting them in the right files, or on your desktop
Speaker 10: on your computer and putting them in the right file
Speaker 10: so you know where to find what you want when
Speaker 10: you're looking for it. That all happens in r EM sleep,
Speaker 10: BRIM sleep, and so people who get good quality sleep,
Speaker 10: their brains just tend to function more efficiently. They have
Speaker 10: less clutter they have to cut through to get to
Speaker 10: what they're looking for at night. It's like sleep cleans
Speaker 10: up your desk for you, or cleans up your desktop
Speaker 10: for you, so when you wake up, everything is where
Speaker 10: you can find it more easily, and it increases your
Speaker 10: tolerance for distress and irritation and frustration, so it keeps
Speaker 10: you from blowing up quite as easily when things don't
Speaker 10: go your way. It helps you keep your mood more
Speaker 10: regulated and that's better for everybody in your life as
Speaker 10: well as for you.
Speaker 2: She's Julie hattersh here, our licensed mental health therapist, Mental
Speaker 2: health money in the Scotsland Show on seven hundred WLW
Speaker 2: and new studies showing that sleep and getting seven to
Speaker 2: nine hours is critical because of your mental health and
Speaker 2: your mental health will software what kind of things manifest
Speaker 2: when you get like a like to sleep you talk
Speaker 2: about mental health?
Speaker 3: Is it depression?
Speaker 10: Generally, depression is one, anxiety is one. Irritability is huge.
Speaker 10: Most people will get really cranky when they get sleepy.
Speaker 10: And if you think about the impact that has on
Speaker 10: your relationships. Let's say you're someone who's chronically sleep deprived
Speaker 10: and you live with other people in your life. If
Speaker 10: you're perennially irritable and cranky and short tempered, they're not
Speaker 10: going to like you very much and they're not going
Speaker 10: to want to be around you very much, which means
Speaker 10: that you're going to be more isolated, perhaps less connected,
Speaker 10: and less loved and less having less fun in your life,
Speaker 10: which just may life seem bleaker and can certainly lead
Speaker 10: to depression. The anxiety ramps up when you're not getting
Speaker 10: enough sleep, so things that would normally not bother you
Speaker 10: too much can take on an outsized importance. You can
Speaker 10: become frightened or easily startled, or easily flip your lid
Speaker 10: at things that don't go well, so you're just more
Speaker 10: on edge much of the time, which decreases the quality
Speaker 10: of your life and the quality of your relationships, both
Speaker 10: at home and at work.
Speaker 2: So how do you balance those treatment recommendations if you're like, so,
Speaker 2: let's say a shift worker.
Speaker 10: Yeah, shift work is really hard, and shift workers have
Speaker 10: their own protocol and there are several out there and
Speaker 10: they should be following it for how to get the
Speaker 10: best possible sleep under the circumstances. The easiest kind of
Speaker 10: shift work for people to adapt to is when they
Speaker 10: work and off shift consistently. So let's say they consistently
Speaker 10: work nights or they consistently work evenings, so that they
Speaker 10: can just adapt their life to it. The hardest is
Speaker 10: when they have to go from sort of normal daytime
Speaker 10: hours to evening or overnight hours and then back to
Speaker 10: normal daytime hours again, so things like blackout shade so
Speaker 10: that they can get sleep during the day. Sometimes medications
Speaker 10: like melatonin can help. That would be something they should
Speaker 10: discuss with a physician.
Speaker 6: Which I am not.
Speaker 10: Making sure that they practice their best sleep hygiene no
Speaker 10: matter what shift they're working, not trying to catch up
Speaker 10: too much with the things they don't do when they're awake,
Speaker 10: and not trying to catch up too much on sleep
Speaker 10: when they can so that they're off their schedule.
Speaker 6: But that one is really really tough.
Speaker 10: Luckily, that's a relatively small percentage.
Speaker 6: Of the population overall, but if you are one of
Speaker 6: those people.
Speaker 10: It's really hard, and there are actual professionals and protocols
Speaker 10: that can help you maximize and optimize for that.
Speaker 2: What about that teenagers talk about sleep schedules because we
Speaker 2: expect them to get up early to go to school
Speaker 2: at the exact same time their body clock says you
Speaker 2: should be going to bed because they're.
Speaker 10: Night outactly exactly, So teenagers actually need as much sleep
Speaker 10: as children do, and children need a lot more sleep
Speaker 10: than adults do. They need closer to ten hours eight
Speaker 10: to ten hours. Teenagers actually need as much sleep. But
Speaker 10: the problem is that their clock, their biological clocks cir
Speaker 10: Katiean rhythm, shifts by about two hours later, and so
Speaker 10: they tend to stay up later. School tends to start earlier,
Speaker 10: and the reason for that, I've been told one of
Speaker 10: the reasons for that is so that the older kids
Speaker 10: are home when the younger kids get home from school,
Speaker 10: and or they've got practices or meetings in the mornings,
Speaker 10: and so they have to early, so they're chronically sleep deprived.
Speaker 10: We expect a lot out of them during the day
Speaker 10: in terms of school and sports, sometimes taking care of
Speaker 10: younger siblings, often working a job, and then when it
Speaker 10: comes time to go to added a reasonable hour, there's
Speaker 10: still two hours from being tired and from their bodies
Speaker 10: being tired. So teenagers have a really rough time. There
Speaker 10: are some school districts that are experimenting with a later
Speaker 10: start and a later end time for kids and finding
Speaker 10: that that has a lot of benefit to their ability
Speaker 10: to stay awake in school. I remember falling asleep with
Speaker 10: my head on the desk many a time. And also, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 10: stay awake in school, perform better in school, perform better
Speaker 10: in sport. It's challenging for a lot of other reasons,
Speaker 10: but some high schools are finding that that shift to
Speaker 10: a later start time is really beneficial for everybody involved.
Speaker 2: I fall asleep before during my show while I'm talking.
Speaker 2: That's to show you just how pervasive this whole problem
Speaker 2: is here when it comes to sleep, and so horrible.
Speaker 3: It's a terrible, terrible time.
Speaker 2: I think the reason why we forced kids to get
Speaker 2: up then and got laire and the outside their ball
Speaker 2: its class because it's to do it otherwise would be
Speaker 2: inconvenient for mom and dad, but also especially inconvenient for
Speaker 2: the teachers and the administrators because they don't They can't
Speaker 2: stay up that lad either.
Speaker 10: Right exactly. Yeah, we want kids to get up early
Speaker 10: and get on with their day. We want them to
Speaker 10: operate like we do in our lives with adults who
Speaker 10: go to work, but their biological clocks are very different
Speaker 10: than ours. And that does start to return back to
Speaker 10: adult hours in their early to mid twenties, but those
Speaker 10: teenage to early twenty years, they really are operating on
Speaker 10: a different biological clock than adults.
Speaker 6: Are most of the time. They will never be it's challenging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll never be a solution.
Speaker 8: For the bus is coming, Boss, get up getting bass
Speaker 8: the boss.
Speaker 3: What parents do exactly eight years?
Speaker 7: Boss, that's kind of boss.
Speaker 3: She's Julie.
Speaker 2: That bus now right, the bus is coming. It's mental
Speaker 2: health Monday in the Scotsland Show on seven hundred w OLW.
Speaker 2: How much is sleep apnea involved? I mean, every time
Speaker 2: you hear this, okay, you're not getting enough sleep, it's
Speaker 2: got to be sleep apnea. I'm not saying it's over
Speaker 2: diagnosed anything like that, but how common is that from
Speaker 2: your experiences that that that is the core of interesting what.
Speaker 10: I've read is been actually underdiagnosed in certain populations. So
Speaker 10: one of the one of the things that is common
Speaker 10: for women.
Speaker 6: In menopause is sleep apnea.
Speaker 10: But because we don't snore quite as loudly as men do,
Speaker 10: generally speaking, certainly there are women who do. It's not
Speaker 10: it's not tested for and caught as much. It's about
Speaker 10: the lowering of estrogen lowers our muscle tone and our
Speaker 10: throat and our throat.
Speaker 6: Muscles collapse when we hit menopause.
Speaker 10: So sleep apne is underdiagnosed in some populations and adequately
Speaker 10: diagnosed in others. Tends to be overweight. Men tend to
Speaker 10: be diagnosed adequately with sleep apnea. But sleep apnea obviously
Speaker 10: contributes to all of the symptoms that we've been talking
Speaker 10: about that that poor quality sleep does, but it also
Speaker 10: carries with it an increased risk of physical problems like
Speaker 10: heart attacks and strokes, and cognitive problems, high increased risk
Speaker 10: of dementia and early onset dementia because of the lack
Speaker 10: of oxygen to the brain associated with sleep apnea. And
Speaker 10: that's not the same thing as associated with just plain insomnia.
Speaker 10: There's no lack of oxygen to the brain and insomnia,
Speaker 10: but in sleep apnea there is, and so it has
Speaker 10: long ranging consequences as well as the more immediate consequences
Speaker 10: that we are aware of.
Speaker 2: All right, connection between mental health and sleep and before
Speaker 2: you probably could even not hear that last segment, Goh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I get that, but it's it's a lot deeper than
Speaker 2: you think.
Speaker 3: So talk to a professional. She's Julie hattersh here.
Speaker 2: She's our licensed mental health therapist in the Scotsland Show,
Speaker 2: practicing out of Clifton. Hey, Julie edb connected dot has
Speaker 2: let her be connected dot care. If you have a
Speaker 2: question or maybe a future topic for us to discuss.
Speaker 2: She'd love to hear you, Julie. Thanks again, Well chat
Speaker 2: next week. Stay nice and warm down in the Carolinas.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gotta go because the bus is coming. The bus
Speaker 2: is the bus is here. I gotta go, I gotta go.
Speaker 2: News is coming up in just minutes on the Big
Speaker 2: one seven hundred. Wo that includes the tragic and confusing
Speaker 2: murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. If you're just
Speaker 2: hearing this for the first time, they found his he
Speaker 2: and his wife both dead of stab wounds at their bed,
Speaker 2: and their son is now a prime suspect in custody.
Speaker 2: Will continue to follow that story as well. Just absolutely bizarre.
Speaker 2: Of course, we've had these cold temperatures, but for how
Speaker 2: much longer? I mean, we will get up to close
Speaker 2: to freezing today, but the rest of the weeks starting
Speaker 2: to look good. We got that, we got traffic, a
Speaker 2: lot of black ice out there. Just be advised you're
Speaker 2: gonna hit some of that today. If you're on the
Speaker 2: highways for suare a'ready hearing now day. That's kind of
Speaker 2: a steady drumbeat of those type of accidents from the
Speaker 2: police today, So just be advised. We'll do news and
Speaker 2: at eleven oh seven he's Kevin Werner from Ohioans to
Speaker 2: Stop Executions related to the Elwood Jones case, which County
Speaker 2: pillachers throwing Joe Dieters under the bus and Joe Deeters
Speaker 2: may respond to this whole thing nonetheless, is it time
Speaker 2: for the death bones to go away? Simply because of
Speaker 2: how inefficient it is and seldom used? It is Scott
Speaker 2: Sloan Show, Home of the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred
Speaker 2: WW Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: You Want to be an American Scott Bloon Show on
Speaker 1: seven hundred and W well Wan.
Speaker 2: One of the big stories that just happened is the
Speaker 2: name Ellwood Jones. He may recall this had been Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: While he has become the twelfth convict in the history
Speaker 2: of our state to be exonerated from death row after
Speaker 2: Hamilt County Prosecutor County Pilach announced that she is dismissing
Speaker 2: all and any charges against him, and nationally there are
Speaker 2: over two hundred exonerations. We know how the death penalty
Speaker 2: is supposed to work, but in practice doesn't work like
Speaker 2: it should.
Speaker 3: On that is Kevin Werner.
Speaker 2: He's the executive director of Ohioans to Stop executions. Kevin,
Speaker 2: welcome back.
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 9: Thank you? Scott him Well, good morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of, I don't know, a shocking
Speaker 2: surprising news. In the case of Countye pilach mate saying no,
Speaker 2: we should throw this out. Let's talk about this case.
Speaker 2: Most of us weren't around back then. In nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: four when he was convicted for beating sixty seven year
Speaker 2: old wrote to Nathan to death and blue ash it
Speaker 2: was aggravated murder, robbery and burglary. Here we are now
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five and he's completely exonerated.
Speaker 3: What's the narrative of that case? Refreshers.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, you know, missus Nathan was traveling into
Speaker 11: the area, you know, some kind of family. I think
Speaker 11: it was a wedding or a family celebration. And you know,
Speaker 11: Ellwood Jones happened to work at the hotel where she
Speaker 11: was murdered.
Speaker 9: And so.
Speaker 11: The narrative here, I think is that, you know, even
Speaker 11: back in nineteen ninety four, there was all kinds of
Speaker 11: evidence that mister Jones.
Speaker 9: Did not commit this crime.
Speaker 11: What happened though, I think investigators got that tunnel vision
Speaker 11: where started to sort of try to make things fit
Speaker 11: even when they did not, And it took decades for
Speaker 11: all of the evidence to come to come out. And
Speaker 11: what we know today is that four thousand pages of
Speaker 11: documents were withheld from mister Jones, and within those four
Speaker 11: thousand pages was all sorts of evidence that the viability
Speaker 11: of other suspects, the fact that you know, he could
Speaker 11: not have committed this crime. And so you know, thirty
Speaker 11: years later, we have finally for him a result that
Speaker 11: that you know, exonerates him. But you know, for the
Speaker 11: Nathan family, I can only imagine that this is this
Speaker 11: must be devastating. You know, they were told thirty years ago,
Speaker 11: we got the guy, We're going to get justice for
Speaker 11: your mom, for your family member. And you know, had
Speaker 11: they not withheld the evidence that was withheld, we certainly
Speaker 11: wouldn't be having this conversation today.
Speaker 2: And yeah, granted the evidence was held the four thousand pages,
Speaker 2: was there anything in there that directly showed that he
Speaker 2: didn't do this? Because as I recall that he worked
Speaker 2: at this hotel, he had a master key to the rooms.
Speaker 2: There was bruising on the victim that aligned with items
Speaker 2: found in his toolbox. Also the cut and shape, the
Speaker 2: byte pattern on him because he had an infection, and
Speaker 2: we know now that there's a particular bacteria that's only
Speaker 2: present in human saliva, and this type of infection you
Speaker 2: can only get from that type of contact. And so
Speaker 2: a bite, definitely we see that president not all the
Speaker 2: time because there's a particular bacteria he tested. He was
Speaker 2: swabbed and tested negative I believe for that bacteria if
Speaker 2: he carried himself. But this infection on his hand could
Speaker 2: only be gained by punching someone, possibly striking their teeth,
Speaker 2: punch in the mouth. And so those, as I recall,
Speaker 2: were the circumstances that led to his conviction. Are those
Speaker 2: disproven in the four thousand pages?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 11: What the four thousand pages show is that first of all,
Speaker 11: there's hepatitis bee was not something that mister Joe's ever
Speaker 11: had or contract, and that was part of what medically
Speaker 11: made it not possible for him to be involved in
Speaker 11: this in this offense. And so you know, I think
Speaker 11: what we have to recognize Scott is that you know,
Speaker 11: the investigatory techniques and the science that we have today,
Speaker 11: and when we look at crime scene evidence, what we had,
Speaker 11: what we haven't understand today, what we know today or
Speaker 11: that the theories that we had thirty years ago have
Speaker 11: been have been proven incorrect. Not related to this case,
Speaker 11: but things like shake and baby syndrome, things like certain
Speaker 11: kinds of bitemarks, things like certain types of uh, you know,
Speaker 11: blood piping, which used to be you know.
Speaker 9: Is it A, is it B? Is it a positive?
Speaker 11: Well, now that we have better techniques to figure out
Speaker 11: and use science to see whether or not someone is
Speaker 11: in fact culpable or did play a role in a
Speaker 11: homicide like those are the things that we need to do.
Speaker 9: And I give the.
Speaker 11: Prosecutor a whole lot of credit here because the easier
Speaker 11: thing would have just to be to continue this case
Speaker 11: and to continue the ape and continue to go down
Speaker 11: the road. But I think what the prosecutor's office did
Speaker 11: now was recognize that this is not in the interest
Speaker 11: of justice and the evidence that we have today, and
Speaker 11: when you stand that up next to the science and
Speaker 11: the techniques that we use today, Joe clearly that mister
Speaker 11: Jones could not have committed that offense.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think you said something critical there.
Speaker 3: A lot of people see this.
Speaker 2: At the time, the prosecutor was Joe Dieters, and that
Speaker 2: somehow that hey you know what, we just found a guy.
Speaker 3: Let's pin it all on him.
Speaker 2: You kind of intimated that's not what at least what
Speaker 2: you're thinking is is the fact that the science has
Speaker 2: gotten better over the years seems exonerated, not be because
Speaker 2: of any necessarily miss misdoings on the part of the
Speaker 2: prosecutors offer though, or are you making that contention still?
Speaker 9: Well, I think it's both.
Speaker 11: I think that both things certainly can be true. At
Speaker 11: the same time, it's hard to square a voluminous number
Speaker 11: like four thousand documents being withheld from a this was
Speaker 11: just the case of our science was wrong. I think
Speaker 11: that that the when you look back, you say, how
Speaker 11: did this occur? I think both of those things are true.
Speaker 11: I think investigators and prosecutors with held evidence that they shouldn't.
Speaker 11: I mean, the court found that. That's why mister Jones
Speaker 11: was granted a new trial that ultimately never happened. And
Speaker 11: the second thing, of course, is that you know, evidence
Speaker 11: today is different, and capital cases today, what would be
Speaker 11: brought is the death penalty case today, if ever, vastly
Speaker 11: different than the types of cases that were brought in
Speaker 11: the mid to nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: Okay, makes sense, Kevin orders here. Executive director of Ohio's
Speaker 2: Stop Execution Elwood Jones has just been exonerated from death
Speaker 2: row in the murder of Rhoda Nathanson back in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety four and are beating death and evidence. Cornem was
Speaker 2: with Hell in the court. The prosecutor sided with him
Speaker 2: on this one. And I think there's people that still
Speaker 2: think this is political. Connie Pilach comes in, Democrat, It's
Speaker 2: going to go, hey, you know, I'm know there's a
Speaker 2: different regime in town. I think some do you think
Speaker 2: some politics are at play here? Or does that even
Speaker 2: concern you because you're solely focused on justice.
Speaker 11: I don't think that it's politics. I think that it's
Speaker 11: a different view of the cases. Right is the prosecutor's
Speaker 11: job to uphold the conviction at all costs?
Speaker 9: Or is the prosecutor's job to do justice? And I
Speaker 9: think that.
Speaker 11: You know, when you have a changeover an administration, you
Speaker 11: have a different set of eyes that are looking at
Speaker 11: at at cases. And you know when you have things
Speaker 11: like all of these documents was held, and when you
Speaker 11: have you know, the science saying you know this, this
Speaker 11: person could not have committed this offense, you know, doing
Speaker 11: the right thing here with certainly to the charges. I
Speaker 11: don't think it's political as much as I think that,
Speaker 11: you know, there may be a different view towards these cases.
Speaker 11: Is our job to just uphold the convictions at all costs?
Speaker 11: Or is our job to actually figure out did we
Speaker 11: get it right? And in those cases when we didn't
Speaker 11: get it, it's the responsibility of the prosecutor's office to
Speaker 11: set a course that can begin to make that right.
Speaker 11: And I think that's what the prosecutor's office did last
Speaker 11: week with the Elwood Jones case.
Speaker 2: Maybe listening to this Kevin Werner and go, okay, well,
Speaker 2: it's justice for Elwood Jones after all these years?
Speaker 3: Is justice? So what about justice for rode to Nathan.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 11: I mean what we see here with this case is
Speaker 11: an example how the death penalty system fails across all sectors, right,
Speaker 11: And we're talking about failing victims family. So, you know,
Speaker 11: the trauma and sort of the readliving that that worst
Speaker 11: day thirty years ago is now right back front and
Speaker 11: center with the with the Nathan family, they probably have
Speaker 11: more questions than anybody at this point. And so what
Speaker 11: we see is when you deploy all your resources towards
Speaker 11: this one thing, the death sentence that will likely never occur,
Speaker 11: and you and you and you do that at the
Speaker 11: expense of making sure that victim family members have the
Speaker 11: resources that they need to move forward to heal, to
Speaker 11: kind of put their lives back together after.
Speaker 9: This kind of these kinds of events.
Speaker 11: We're doing it exactly wrong, where we're not taking care
Speaker 11: of the families who were involved in these kinds of
Speaker 11: horrific offenses. If we flip the script and put the
Speaker 11: resources toward those family members instead of trying to chase
Speaker 11: death sentences, I think that the Rona family, for example,
Speaker 11: would be in a different place today than they clearly are.
Speaker 2: The other argument of the saying is is you're making
Speaker 2: the case against the death penalty. I'm going, well, this
Speaker 2: is an example. It's the two hundredth person, two hundred
Speaker 2: and second person I think nationally to be exonerated. Ohio,
Speaker 2: that this is happening again for the twelfth time. One
Speaker 2: may turn around and go, well, this is what it
Speaker 2: should prove. The system works right because you have an
Speaker 2: appeals process, pellet process, you have interested parties, and so
Speaker 2: we're not going to execute anyone on death row. Who
Speaker 2: doesn't deserve it now. I think the other way to
Speaker 2: look at that is go, well, does that mean we
Speaker 2: have or will in the future, And that's a big
Speaker 2: question mark.
Speaker 3: We don't know.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so you know, big picture, we're forty four years
Speaker 11: into having this system. It doesn't work very well at all.
Speaker 11: It gets the wrong person. This is the twelve persons
Speaker 11: say there are other guys on Ohio's death row that
Speaker 11: have really concerning claims of actual innocence. Right, it costs
Speaker 11: an arm and a leg, and for what for thirty
Speaker 11: years later to overturn a case that leaves one family
Speaker 11: trying to put their lives back together, the other family
Speaker 11: trying to catch up on thirty years of lost time.
Speaker 9: I mean, that's what this system does. All it does
Speaker 9: is cause harm.
Speaker 11: And so even if you say we're absolutely certain that
Speaker 11: this person is we have the right person, you can
Speaker 11: effectively hold that person accountable by a much less expensive
Speaker 11: sentence and one where we're never going to have the
Speaker 11: one or did we execute the wrong person? Because Ohio
Speaker 11: has come frighteningly close. You know, if mister if Governor
Speaker 11: DeWine for example, had not caused executions and executions were
Speaker 11: just happening as they as they had under previous governors.
Speaker 11: You know, could Elmwood Jones have been executed in the
Speaker 11: past seven eight years. Yeah, I mean, this is what
Speaker 11: we're talking about. And so the death penalty just risks
Speaker 11: way too much and we're getting nothing in return except
Speaker 11: harm to county budgets to victim family members, and.
Speaker 9: So we should stop doing it.
Speaker 2: It feels like the all against execution that you've kind
Speaker 2: of won the war of attrition are And I will
Speaker 2: point that out because years ago, when I was younger,
Speaker 2: I thought, yeah, death penalty, it's fair eye for an eye, Biblical.
Speaker 2: It's like, there's some crimes that are just so heinous and
Speaker 2: so gross that the only way to do this is
Speaker 2: to execute. And people go, well, it's it's murdered to
Speaker 2: it's not because there's an absence of malice. You know,
Speaker 2: the person who murdered that woman in Blue Ash in
Speaker 2: ninety four had malice. Issue is murdered. When we execute someone,
Speaker 2: there's no malice. It's sterile, right, You're not doing out
Speaker 2: of hate, you're doing out of justice. It's a different motive.
Speaker 2: That said, though, it confounds me that so many people
Speaker 2: in victims' families is what I worry about, And when
Speaker 2: you talk about justice is the fact they've got to
Speaker 2: sit around for ten twenty thirty years or more and
Speaker 2: sometimes never. The odds of the person on death row
Speaker 2: dying of old age is greater than them seeing the
Speaker 2: executioner's hand, the needle, the electric chair, that the noose,
Speaker 2: whatever it might be, whether or the mechanism is and
Speaker 2: it seems like there's no justice there. For a long time,
Speaker 2: I was very pro death penalty, and I think the
Speaker 2: way things have changed where death penalty is not a
Speaker 2: death penalty anymore, essentially is a life sentence because you're
Speaker 2: a lot more likely to die of natural causes on
Speaker 2: death row or at the hand of another inmate than
Speaker 2: you would be from the executioner's hand. If that's the case,
Speaker 2: it seems like a tremendous waste of time, effort, and
Speaker 2: resources to continue fighting for something we don't use.
Speaker 9: That's absolutely correct, you know.
Speaker 11: And the other component that we have to think about
Speaker 11: and we talk about executions and the death penalty, and
Speaker 11: you know what the outcomes are is we put a
Speaker 11: lot of state workers and a lot of state prison
Speaker 11: officials in positions where they are negatively impacted, and they
Speaker 11: have post traumatic stress, and they have lots of mental
Speaker 11: health issues as a result of being part of the process.
Speaker 11: And so you know, add that other layer to this
Speaker 11: and it's just clearly not worth it. It's clearly not working.
Speaker 11: And we have, you know, for more than forty four
Speaker 11: years of evidence that shows us that, you know, one
Speaker 11: of the things we don't cost And I don't want
Speaker 11: to get ahead of what and where you know, lawyers
Speaker 11: what they may do for on behalf of mister Jones.
Speaker 11: But you know, we talk about the expense of the
Speaker 11: death penalty. We don't count the wrongful conviction awards that
Speaker 11: people get for millions of dollars for being you know,
Speaker 11: on death row for thirty years. So like you know,
Speaker 11: there's only going to be more more pain, There's only
Speaker 11: going to be more you know, problems that come along
Speaker 11: with these types of cases. And so again we should
Speaker 11: just stop doing it.
Speaker 2: He's Kevin Werner with ohioan to stop executions. Thanks again
Speaker 2: for the time, Kevin, appreciate the insight, great conversation.
Speaker 9: Thanks Scott.
Speaker 2: We'll get a news update here in just minutes on
Speaker 2: the Scott's Long Show. And the pain continues the pain
Speaker 2: of being a Cincinnati Bengals fan. Is this a turning
Speaker 2: point for the organization? Which has been said a lot
Speaker 2: a lot in the last several decades. I've been a
Speaker 2: Bengals fan, But is this a turning point? With the
Speaker 2: loss yesterday and especially how the fans are too to
Speaker 2: James Rapen is here, we'll talk about that coming out
Speaker 2: to heads for the lunch hour and Willie seven hundred
Speaker 2: ww Hoday Morning, Scott's Long Show, seven hundred WW. So
Speaker 2: with the munch how we're approaching one of the tops
Speaker 2: of conversation, as always this time of year, will be football,
Speaker 2: and that will be the fact that the Bengals are
Speaker 2: now eliminated completely from play off contention. Yes, fans to
Speaker 2: get up early, clear ice and snow, off driveways, off
Speaker 2: cars by extra closed drive on icy rose, pay to park,
Speaker 2: pay for seats, and just last week County taxpayers out
Speaker 2: there on the hook for over two hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: for the pay Corps upgrade. And then you get to
Speaker 2: your seat and you have to clean them and then
Speaker 2: sit with your feet and your ass on more snow
Speaker 2: and ice to watch them lose twenty four to nothing
Speaker 2: to Baltimore and get eliminated for the third year in
Speaker 2: a row. The Bengals will miss the playoffs with all
Speaker 2: this talent on offense for the third straight season. On that,
Speaker 2: James Rapine from Bengals Talk dot Com and Locked on Bengals. James,
Speaker 2: you were at the game yesterday, give me your take
Speaker 2: on the conditions.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was surprising. No on the seats as there was,
Speaker 8: And I totally agree with you. If I paid to
Speaker 8: go to that game and I was in the elements
Speaker 8: and doing everything that it took to get there, I
Speaker 8: certainly would expect my seat to close to it and
Speaker 8: that that wasn't the case. And then after that, fans
Speaker 8: obviously rewarded with a store performance on the field, and
Speaker 8: it really was not the way you want to make history,
Speaker 8: but certainly the Bengals did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I start to see the unraveling now. Granted, last
Speaker 2: two games here, Joe Burrow did not look like Joe Burrow.
Speaker 2: He said, one of the worst games he ever played.
Speaker 2: If you can't get up for an elimination game at home,
Speaker 2: and Joe Burrow loves says he loves playing in the
Speaker 2: cold and the pass. He's played very well in the
Speaker 2: cold over the last couple of games and maybe even
Speaker 2: since coming back from injury in the past two games.
Speaker 2: In particular, he doesn't look like Joe Burrow Joe. He
Speaker 2: looks like the bengalized version of Joe Burrow. He looks
Speaker 2: like Carson Palmer, he looks like Andy Dalton. He started
Speaker 2: to turn into that guy. Granted it's a small sample
Speaker 2: size of two games, but he hasn't even officially become
Speaker 2: bengalized after yesterday.
Speaker 8: I mean I wouldn't even say two games. I think
Speaker 8: he was the best player on the field in Buffalo
Speaker 8: for three quarters. Yeah, and that includes Josh as I
Speaker 8: wouldn't go full two games now, but no, he was
Speaker 8: awful on Sunday, and so bullvangalized. I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 8: My question would be why why did this team look
Speaker 8: like that? Why did they not have any answers at
Speaker 8: any point during the game and make any adjustments that
Speaker 8: worked in a winn or go home scenario? And that
Speaker 8: that's what's concerning to me, is they were a pickoff
Speaker 8: from the jump. But someone needs to figure out something
Speaker 8: to get some points on the board and get some momentum,
Speaker 8: and they just never not once could do that, and
Speaker 8: I think that at this stage it's fair to stay
Speaker 8: there too. Joe Burrow centric for lack of a better term. Now,
Speaker 8: if Joe doesn't go, they don't go, and they need
Speaker 8: to be able to go, even if Joe had an
Speaker 8: off game.
Speaker 2: Well NFL NFL's worst deference and several metrics here and
Speaker 2: that of course looked every part of it yesterday, although
Speaker 2: for you know, for the first half it was competitive,
Speaker 2: they were there, and then the wheels just fell off
Speaker 2: and it was too few and far between. They just
Speaker 2: simply couldn't score. Two interceptions, no touchdowns for Joe Burrow,
Speaker 2: two pick sixes in consecutive weeks. And this, by the way,
Speaker 2: also followed his side eye producing comments about not having fun.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine it was fun for him yesterday.
Speaker 9: What does that mean?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it certainly wasn't fun for him yesterday. And I
Speaker 8: think that's that's sick. Winning is fun. Joe's a winner.
Speaker 8: Joe's one, Joe one in high school, Joe one in college.
Speaker 8: Joe won early in his career here, and that's the plan.
Speaker 8: And so to think about this and to think of
Speaker 8: three straight years without missing the playoffs, like people in
Speaker 8: Kansas City are freaking out today because the Chiefs missed
Speaker 8: the playoffs once with Patrick Mahome, right, and obviously you
Speaker 8: have the injury and everything like that. But I even
Speaker 8: look and I think of how all right, well, Brian
Speaker 8: Peyton Manning, they never missed the playoffs in Indianapolis. Never
Speaker 8: Now did they run into Tom Brady and the Patriots
Speaker 8: and they stubbed or telling the playoffs when they shouldn't have. Yes,
Speaker 8: but they were winning twelve games a year, and so
Speaker 8: how in the world is this team with its talent
Speaker 8: not finding ways to win some of these games? And
Speaker 8: I mentioned Joe Burrow centric they went one in eight
Speaker 8: without Joe that that should be impossible. You should be
Speaker 8: able to go four and five without Joe. So you're
Speaker 8: not coming back and having to win out and all
Speaker 8: these ridiculous, ridiculous scenarios that we've really had to discuss
Speaker 8: for two years now. Oh, if they win out and
Speaker 8: this happens and the easter Bunny comes up, it does this, Well,
Speaker 8: they're gonna make the playoffs. Well, I don't want to
Speaker 8: talk about the Easter Bunny in December.
Speaker 2: It's like the Reds, you know, we got to find
Speaker 2: other teams need to screw up for us to win.
Speaker 9: That's right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the Doctors has four guys and maybe we can
Speaker 8: get two hits in a row.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, If you win, you control everything.
Speaker 2: James Rapeing from Bengals dot dot com Lockdown Bengals hashing
Speaker 2: up yesterday's cataclysmic disaster at pay Corps. Uh, the focus
Speaker 2: should be on the franchise.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: The entire team, as we all know, is built around
Speaker 2: Joe Burrow. Okay, and Joe Burrow says, look, winning means fun.
Speaker 2: I'm not having fun. I gotta I gotta win. I
Speaker 2: gotta have fun. Okay, So let's let's look at that.
Speaker 2: Examine that for a second. If you're not winning, that
Speaker 2: means you're not having fun. And if you're gonna keep
Speaker 2: him happy, you've got to make it fun again and
Speaker 2: start winning. Today should be the day after being eliminated
Speaker 2: from the playoffs, after being embarrassed twenty four to nothing
Speaker 2: and showing no push on offense and especially defense. Should
Speaker 2: today if this team were serious about that, I'm serious
Speaker 2: about winning, would Zach Taylor and or Duke Tobin be
Speaker 2: fired sometime today?
Speaker 8: I'm gonna answer. I'm gonna answer your question with a question,
Speaker 8: and it's the question that you have to ask any
Speaker 8: time you make a decision like that, do you think
Speaker 8: and this is the question Mike Brown has to answer,
Speaker 8: But I'm gonna ask you, do you think Zach Taylor
Speaker 8: is the man to lead this team to a super Bowl?
Speaker 2: I would say it doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: that you could bring in Andy Reid here, you could
Speaker 2: bring in the ghost to George Hallis, you could bring
Speaker 2: in Bill Belichick, you could bring in any of those guys.
Speaker 2: I don't think it matters in Cincinnati, and I think
Speaker 2: it's because of what we're talking about. They do the
Speaker 2: bare minimum all the time, and the bare minimum because
Speaker 2: a parody in the NFL will get you a playoff appearance. Hello,
Speaker 2: we'll get you an AFC title. Hello, we'll get you
Speaker 2: to the super Bowl, and you're an eyelash away from
Speaker 2: winning at all. That's not because of anything. I don't
Speaker 2: think now that you have a sample here of missing
Speaker 2: the playoffs since that Super Bowl in the last three years,
Speaker 2: James Repene, I think what to show you is the
Speaker 2: parody of the NFL that anybody can get lucky once
Speaker 2: and get into this is the fat was and I all,
Speaker 2: we've built this championship. No, the reason you got there
Speaker 2: was because you were so bad for so long. You
Speaker 2: have massed so many to first round draft picks and
Speaker 2: first choice choice that you it was unbeatable by sheer luck,
Speaker 2: by your incompetence. You stumbled into this. That's the way
Speaker 2: the NFL is set up. But it wasn't sustainable. That's
Speaker 2: the issue. That is not that's above Zach Taylor.
Speaker 8: I think that's a good answer. So that's one, and
Speaker 8: this is how I would answer it. And should one
Speaker 8: of those guys be out, I would not be against
Speaker 8: getting rid of anyone in the building because this is
Speaker 8: a once in a lifetime. A lot of people listening
Speaker 8: haven't seen a quarterback like Joe Burrow with a guy
Speaker 8: like Jamar Chaf and will never see and I'm thirty
Speaker 8: four and I'm not sure i'll see it again type
Speaker 8: of talent at Paid Course Stadium. I think Joe is
Speaker 8: the best quarterback in franchise history right now. I wrote
Speaker 8: a history book about the ben This is some young
Speaker 8: nist guy. Just no, I've looked at the Kent Anderson
Speaker 8: years and Boomer and all those things and so you
Speaker 8: need to have that urgency. And you're right though, it
Speaker 8: doesn't matter who's there. If that person that you get
Speaker 8: isn't able to make you change, isn't able to push
Speaker 8: this franchise forward. And I think that's where the conversation is.
Speaker 8: Marvin Lewis did it. He pushed it forward in two
Speaker 8: thousand and three when he got here. Obviously not far enough.
Speaker 8: I do think that they've made some changes in the
Speaker 8: Zach Taylor splash Joe Burrow era. Yeah, they need to
Speaker 8: whatever it's going to be, Maybe it is Zach, I
Speaker 8: don't know. But whoever's going to push them forward needs
Speaker 8: to push them forward now. And it doesn't feel like
Speaker 8: they have all the answers in the building.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, it was an example bare minimum, right, we
Speaker 2: bare minimum requirements to remove snow from the seats for
Speaker 2: the fans a week ago. We just spent over two
Speaker 2: hundred and twelve million dollars on extending the Bengals least
Speaker 2: for another eleven years, with all the improvements going on,
Speaker 2: and they turn around and go, yeah, you clean your
Speaker 2: own damn seats off.
Speaker 3: It's no big deal.
Speaker 2: Draymond Jones made some comments eye opening comments after the game,
Speaker 2: saying the Bengals weren't ready to play.
Speaker 3: It was too cold for them.
Speaker 2: There are times where guys take shots at teams and
Speaker 2: you go, it's them just chirping because of the division rivalry.
Speaker 3: I think he made some good points.
Speaker 8: I don't think the Bengals are ready one bit. I
Speaker 8: think it was an uninspired per playments. I think they were.
Speaker 8: I think they were somewhere else, somewhere else. And yeah,
Speaker 8: the defense made some plays early, and you know who
Speaker 8: was making plays, Guys that had to be right there
Speaker 8: because they're playing for jobs and contracts, right And it
Speaker 8: was good to see Miles Murphy with a couple of sacks.
Speaker 8: Demetrius Knight Junior. I've been very critical of stepping up
Speaker 8: and making some plays early, and so do you know what?
Speaker 8: They should have been up ten nothing, thirteen to nothing,
Speaker 8: fourteen nothing early in that game, and they weren't. And
Speaker 8: why weren't they? Well, the guys that Zach Taylor should
Speaker 8: be winning with Joe Burrow, jamar Chie, these guys would
Speaker 8: just were out of sync, completely out of sync. And
Speaker 8: I don't know why, but that why is an indictment
Speaker 8: on the entire team and how this season has gone
Speaker 8: because they should have came out with their hair on
Speaker 8: fire yesterday, putting out the snow on all the seats,
Speaker 8: and it was the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a letdown from beginning. And then
Speaker 2: James Rapine this morning chopping up the Bengals twenty four
Speaker 2: to nothing elimination loss there four and ten, now no
Speaker 2: hope of the postseason. Three years of this and James
Speaker 2: is over at Bengals Talk dot com, the only daily
Speaker 2: Bengals podcast locked on Bengals, and the book entered the jungles.
Speaker 2: Of course, the Bengals drafted seventeen defensive players. I believe
Speaker 2: it was the number since twenty twenty two. And how
Speaker 2: many of those guys have panned out to you know,
Speaker 2: to show you it's not just Zach Taylor, it's within
Speaker 2: the organization itself. How many how many defensive studs canna
Speaker 2: go wow, Okay, DJ Turner great?
Speaker 3: Who else?
Speaker 8: I mean that as of now, I do think I
Speaker 8: do think that Miles Murphy is showing a promigrant and
Speaker 8: he's gone from like a guy that you're wondering if
Speaker 8: he anything to oh, well, he can be a useful
Speaker 8: piece moving forward. And what his feeling is is interesting,
Speaker 8: and that's what the final three weeks of this year,
Speaker 8: that's what it should be used for. I honestly, because
Speaker 8: there's gonna be a lot of talk about Zach Taylor.
Speaker 8: I don't think the final three weeks should matter when
Speaker 8: it comes to Zach Fays. I think we've seen enough
Speaker 8: and you're making a decision one way or another, do
Speaker 8: tob and same thing, right your whatever your decision is.
Speaker 8: I don't think the results of these final three weeks
Speaker 8: should matter from that standpoint, because you know what I
Speaker 8: want to do. I want to evaluate all these young guys.
Speaker 8: I'm not necessarily focused on the result of the game
Speaker 8: as much as I am. All right, well, how's Minles
Speaker 8: Murphy progressing? How are some of these young guys progressing?
Speaker 8: Is Jordan Battle doing everything he can to be a
Speaker 8: building block because he's had an up and down season
Speaker 8: and even yesterday, nice interception, but it happens three plays
Speaker 8: after an awful misstackle where he should should have made
Speaker 8: the play in the gap on the running back, so
Speaker 8: that there are evaluation mode, for lack of a better term,
Speaker 8: is the way to describe it. But yeah, as far
Speaker 8: as overall stars on defense, Yeah, you might have DJ
Speaker 8: Turner and then as of now there's we're still star hunting.
Speaker 2: I would say, yes, I guess and any Shamar Stewart,
Speaker 2: you know, you look at some of the guys they
Speaker 2: drafted and go, okay, well, events is going to pay
Speaker 2: dividends and it hasn't. And again, you know, to the
Speaker 2: to the point you made about well, is it really
Speaker 2: Zach Taylor, I don't know. We changed coordinators from lou
Speaker 2: Ana Aruma, who did pretty well until the Colts cell
Speaker 2: A Park by the way, no fault of his, I
Speaker 2: don't think, but we have al Golden in there, and
Speaker 2: the statistically the defense, well, I think they've regressed. I
Speaker 2: just again, you keep bringing guys in that's not the problem,
Speaker 2: and I don't think it's a problem that'll ever get
Speaker 2: fixed until the ownership realizes that they're the problem.
Speaker 8: Well, I think ownership made that change because Zach Taylor
Speaker 8: said that's a change that needed to be made, and
Speaker 8: that's my words, not back, but that's that's how I
Speaker 8: kind of perceived it. And obviously it hasn't worked out.
Speaker 8: Now are there reasons for that?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I think so. I think the Bengals should have went
Speaker 8: out and been more aggressive and free agency to your point,
Speaker 8: and they didn't. And then in the draft it puts
Speaker 8: unnecessary pressure on Demetrius Knight, Jamar Stewart and all these
Speaker 8: guys that, yeah, may end up being good players, but
Speaker 8: you'll look at their pre draft evaluations, no one expected
Speaker 8: them to be plug and play starters right away. Yeah,
Speaker 8: And so that it's just a tough, a tough situation.
Speaker 8: Like I don't even know if al Goin's an awful coach.
Speaker 8: Obviously the Fats say he's an awful defensive coordinator in
Speaker 8: the NFL. I don't know if that's the case because
Speaker 8: of the talent issues. So what's wrong right now? Everything?
Speaker 4: Can it be fixed?
Speaker 8: Of course it can, but a lot of aggressive things
Speaker 8: need to happen for that to be the case. And
Speaker 8: I'm just not sure that the powers that be are
Speaker 8: willing to do that. They're still thinking about those seats,
Speaker 8: I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I mean those two things together, the abysmal
Speaker 2: loss of seats and everything else. They are oblivious and
Speaker 2: they simply don't care about what everyone else thinks about them.
Speaker 2: That's been a consistency as long as I've been a
Speaker 2: Bengals fan and.
Speaker 3: You as well.
Speaker 2: That's just as sure as the sun's going to rise
Speaker 2: and the east said in the west, that's a given. Especially,
Speaker 2: I will say let me let me went at one point.
Speaker 2: I think it's especially true now that the least extension
Speaker 2: for eleven years is done.
Speaker 8: I get it. I do get that, and that, no
Speaker 8: doubt was a huge factor in that building. I will
Speaker 8: say this, Mike Brown is the one that would sign
Speaker 8: off on any major change anything you're thinking of Zach, Duke,
Speaker 8: anything like that. He'd be the person that said, all right,
Speaker 8: we need to make this change. Not Katie, it's not Troy,
Speaker 8: it's not whoever else you think might be.
Speaker 9: Mike.
Speaker 8: He saw all those MPCs, he was there for that game,
Speaker 8: he saw against the division rival, with the season on
Speaker 8: the line, how awful that that performance was. That does
Speaker 8: hit them, they like he does take a note of that.
Speaker 8: I'm not saying that it's going to be the difference
Speaker 8: and Zach is going to be gone or this kind
Speaker 8: of I'm not saying that, but I do think that
Speaker 8: that's probably the first time this season where I look
Speaker 8: at it and I'm like, all right, well, what's your excuse?
Speaker 9: You had?
Speaker 8: Joe? The seasons on the line. You're at home. It's
Speaker 8: the team to be thirty two to fourteen two weeks
Speaker 8: ago and you get boat race and shut out for
Speaker 8: the first time in the Borough era.
Speaker 2: If that's not a wake up call, James, I don't
Speaker 2: know what is now we see you wait, I mean
Speaker 2: today the cases, man, it would be that like today tomorrow,
Speaker 2: that's a day where Zach and Duke Tobin especially, we're
Speaker 2: moving on from you guys. We've got to do something
Speaker 2: to show the fan base that we actually care about
Speaker 2: winning football games, not just making money. But here's me
Speaker 2: and you and everyone listening holding their breath. James, appreciate
Speaker 2: as always. We'll talk again next week, win or lose.
Speaker 2: Will you be here.
Speaker 9: All wait?
Speaker 2: I'm always. I appreciate you, buddy. Thanks again, Have a
Speaker 2: great day. James Rapine over at SI's Bengalstalk dot Com
Speaker 2: and Lockdown Bengals podcast. Scott Sluan Show with Willy on
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