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Speaker 1: In the NATI brought to you by bell Terra Casino

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Speaker 1: and Belterra Park on ESPN fifteen thirty, the official home

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Speaker 1: of the Cincinnati Bengals.

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Speaker 2: If you're an FC Cincinnati fan, you're gonna have to

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Speaker 2: like rearrange your entire life. I'll explain in twelve minutes.

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Speaker 2: That is a good old fashioned radio teas right there,

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Speaker 2: twenty three minutes after four o'clock. Now we're giving out

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Speaker 2: the time, we're playing blind Melon. We really are doing

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Speaker 2: a show like it's nineteen ninety four. Robert Wintroup is

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Speaker 2: with us. He writes a weekly Bengals column for Cincinnati Magazine.

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Speaker 2: You could read it at Cincinnati Magazine dot com, and

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Speaker 2: he joins us every single Thursday.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Robert, but in nineteen ninety four was a pretty

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Speaker 3: good year for me. I'm not going to complain about

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Speaker 3: your show. Going back in time. It was the good

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Speaker 3: old days when I was young and bright, fresh in

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Speaker 3: the world.

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Speaker 2: Bengals went three and fourteen in nineteen ninety four. Big

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Speaker 2: Daddy Dan Wilkinson was the number one overall pick that

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Speaker 2: didn't work out for us.

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Speaker 3: I like to think I had more to my life

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Speaker 3: than than justin Bengals. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, again going off a cliff rapidly.

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Speaker 2: For me, things have not changed one iota over the

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Speaker 2: last thirty one years. So I want to read a

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Speaker 2: small passage from your column this week about Joe Burrow.

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Speaker 2: Joe Burrow is back. He's so, he's back at practice.

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Speaker 2: He's not doing eleven on eleven stuff, any of that,

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Speaker 2: but inching closer to what we hope is a return

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Speaker 2: two weeks from tonight against Baltimore. We will see, but

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Speaker 2: you're right, Burrow will surely push to be out there

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Speaker 2: regardless of circumstances. Now, if the Bengals are playing in

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Speaker 2: games that matter at all, either to them or even

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Speaker 2: to the team they're playing, I don't think anybody should

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Speaker 2: have any issue with Joe Burrow playing. But if we

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Speaker 2: put like a Z or a Y or an ex ra,

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Speaker 2: whatever letter goes next to your team name when you've

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Speaker 2: been eliminated, should the Bengals tell him, Yeah, that's cool,

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Speaker 2: you want to play, Joe, but we're not gonna let you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I like to use a p okay pe for playoffs. Yes, well,

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Speaker 3: let me put it this way. The Bengals have forty

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Speaker 3: six million or so reasons to not tell him not

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Speaker 3: to play, right, I mean, don't like to pay people

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Speaker 3: not to work. More to the point, I mean, if

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Speaker 3: Zach Taylor and Duke Tobin go to him and say,

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Speaker 3: you know, in our wisdom and massive judgment here, we

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Speaker 3: think it's best that Joe you don't play. Joe can say,

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Speaker 3: who the hell you guys tell me anything? What have

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Speaker 3: you guys proven that I should listen to your judgment

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Speaker 3: on anything. It's gonna be tough for them. I think

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Speaker 3: they want to establish you know, it's just sort of

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Speaker 3: the nature of football. And Burrow himself is certainly gonna

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Speaker 3: want to be out there regardless, like I say, of circumstances,

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Speaker 3: because he has to prove to himself that he's ready

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Speaker 3: to get back out there and be able to play.

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Speaker 3: And if you say no, you can't be out there,

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Speaker 3: we're out of it because we lost the Steelers and

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Speaker 3: the Pats and there's no chance of us coming back.

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Speaker 3: Then you're going a whole year without him playing basically

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Speaker 3: in a real game. Did anybody want that? I don't

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Speaker 3: know that that's gonna be something we want to see.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of new wants to it, and like

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Speaker 3: you say, it's kind of dependent on the results and

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Speaker 3: if he's really even medically ready to come back for

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Speaker 3: that Thanksgiving the game, that's sort of up in the

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Speaker 3: air as well right now. But I think the Bengals

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Speaker 3: kind of want to establish a culture of guys playing regardless.

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Speaker 3: And if you have to be carried out in your shields,

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Speaker 3: you know, like Burrow has three times already in six years,

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Speaker 3: that's just the nature of the sport. And you know

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Speaker 3: they can trieven wrap them and bubble wrap, but you

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Speaker 3: know then he can come back next year turning camp

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Speaker 3: and get hurt in that capacity. It's the NFL, these

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Speaker 3: kind of things happen. I think all concerned within the

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Speaker 3: building there are more than happy to get him back

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Speaker 3: out in the field, regardless of circumstances. Like I say,

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Speaker 3: and even if the Bengals, you know, in their sort

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Speaker 3: of secret minds, think to themselves it's not a good idea,

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Speaker 3: I don't know that they're going to be able to

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Speaker 3: stop them.

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Speaker 2: I fear you're right. I wish in any game that

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Speaker 2: the Bengals are playing where it doesn't count that they

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Speaker 2: would protect the investment. But I find it hard to

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Speaker 2: believe that. If Joe says I'm playing that, they would

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Speaker 2: tell him no. The last few weeks, the offense has cooked.

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Speaker 2: Joe Flacco should be the best story in this sport. Instead,

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Speaker 2: he's a little bit of a footnote along with that.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, man. Look, you could say Joe Flacco

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Speaker 2: is doing a great job of getting rid of the

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Speaker 2: football quickly, and he's making this offensive line look good.

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Speaker 2: My eyes tell me, and I'm no expert by any stretch,

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Speaker 2: I feel like this unit has progressed nicely. Do analytics

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Speaker 2: support that? And might they actually be okay with their

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Speaker 2: offensive line going into next year?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, they definitely support it in the run game,

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Speaker 3: which is where he can really isolate it. And remember

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Speaker 3: how the running attack was at the bottom of the

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Speaker 3: barrel in the first month of the season. Now they're

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Speaker 3: up to ninth in DVOA and rushing. They're third, typeer,

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Speaker 3: third and EPA per rush. Now they've run it fewer

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Speaker 3: than any other, fewer attempts than any other team in

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Speaker 3: the league. That tends to help. And when we separate out,

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Speaker 3: we have a stack called adjusted lineyards that kind of

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Speaker 3: separates the line from the running back. In terms of

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Speaker 3: running plays, and they're you know, still down around twenty

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Speaker 3: fourth in that sense of the line. So they're not great.

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Speaker 3: But I think what you see is that they've switched

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Speaker 3: almost entirely. Now they're first in the league and running

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Speaker 3: man blocking schemes when they're running the ball, and you

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Speaker 3: know that when you have two rookies on the line

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Speaker 3: and a second year player, getting rid of some of

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Speaker 3: the complexity of those zone schemes that they wanted to

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Speaker 3: run is probably the best bet. And we should give

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Speaker 3: Scott Peters some credit for that. I mean, he gets

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Speaker 3: lost a lot. Talk about a guy you'd never hear

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Speaker 3: his name mentioned right now with Al Golden and the

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Speaker 3: defense sucking up all the oxygen. But he's taking a

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Speaker 3: unit that has a lot of young, inexperienced guys that

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Speaker 3: was struggling certainly with at the beginning of the year,

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Speaker 3: and it turned it into a decent unit. Are they great? No,

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Speaker 3: But you know, I think there's reason to be cautiously optimistic,

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Speaker 3: if not unbridled enthusiasm about them going into next year. Certainly,

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Speaker 3: you know, we would have said about Cordell Wolson after

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Speaker 3: his rookie year that oh, things are looking good. He's

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Speaker 3: turning up and then you know, he went straight down

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Speaker 3: the barrel. And that's what happens with Day three guys

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Speaker 3: like a Jalen Rivers. So I'd be caution against saying

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Speaker 3: that he's going to be an answer for the long

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Speaker 3: term future necessarily. But so far he's looked okay. He's

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Speaker 3: treading water, and obviously you have the other rookie deal

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Speaker 3: and Fairchild playing pretty well, Amariusmim's playing pretty well, and

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Speaker 3: take Care signed for next year. He'll be thirty three,

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Speaker 3: but they know what they're getting from him. Really, the

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Speaker 3: question mark is Orlando Brown. I think in a perfect

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Speaker 3: world they would try and look for his sort of

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Speaker 3: long to medium term replacement in this offseason, either in

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Speaker 3: the draft or free agency. But I don't know if

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Speaker 3: they can do that given the whole defense, and they

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Speaker 3: have to credit every asset they have toward that end

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Speaker 3: of the ball. So they may cross their fingers and

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Speaker 3: hope as the injury that he suffered last year bad

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Speaker 3: one gets further into his rear view that his play

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Speaker 3: takes another uptick. He can see that right now it's

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Speaker 3: still kind of affecting him, so hopefully it left tackle

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Speaker 3: is not a position. We're worried about next year. By

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty seven, we certainly will, but hopefully they can

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Speaker 3: hang on for another year there because the defense needs

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Speaker 3: all the attention right now.

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Speaker 2: Robert Wintrop is with this Rita's Bengals column at Cincinnati

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Speaker 2: MAGA dot com. You write about Trey Hendrickson's presence being

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Speaker 2: sorely missed. Because time with this franchise is a flat circle.

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Speaker 2: We're kind of left wondering the same thing about the

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Speaker 2: Bengals and Trey Hendrickson this year we were last year,

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Speaker 2: which is, can you really move on from him? To

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Speaker 2: not move on from him this coming offseason would likely

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Speaker 2: involve the franchise tag. Is there a world war? It

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Speaker 2: would make sense to apply that to him.

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Speaker 3: It's funny, you know, because I wrote it one breath

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Speaker 3: in the column. We may have seen his last down

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Speaker 3: as a Bengal already, right, I have no such information

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Speaker 3: about how bad his injury is, but it certainly didn't

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Speaker 3: look good at the time, and you know that certainly

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Speaker 3: hasn't improved over the last few weeks, so that would

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Speaker 3: obviously be bad. At the same time, it's almost like,

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Speaker 3: because he's injured, his value to the rest of the

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Speaker 3: league going into the offseason might be so depressed that

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Speaker 3: and his age obviously a consideration, and this is what

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Speaker 3: happens with older players. Kind of what the Bengals were,

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Speaker 3: you know, holding the line about all this time. They

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Speaker 3: didn't want to pay him because they were worried about

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Speaker 3: just what we've seen happen, him getting hurt. And I

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Speaker 3: guess it's a possibility that they can be able to

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Speaker 3: sign him for next year and not even necessarily even

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Speaker 3: invoke the franchise tag. Maybe they can come down and

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Speaker 3: you know, he's always said, Trey that he wants to

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Speaker 3: remain a Bengal. It's not entirely impossible that they find

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Speaker 3: a calming ground and just sign him to a slightly

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Speaker 3: lesser deal that you know, both sides feel good about

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Speaker 3: because he didn't get to show his wares on the

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Speaker 3: field this year, and he won't be able to get

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Speaker 3: a huge contract elsewhere. So I think there's no question

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Speaker 3: that even if you're Trey Hendrickson coming off a year

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Speaker 3: that's kind of lost in twenty twenty five, he'd still

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Speaker 3: probably be their best player defensively next year. They don't

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Speaker 3: seem to have be able to find a pass Rusher

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Speaker 3: with his salt without him, so I definitely think while

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Speaker 3: it's entirely possible we've seen the last of them, I

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Speaker 3: think it's possible he's back in stripes next year. Who

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Speaker 3: would have said that that a month ago or six

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Speaker 3: weeks ago. Hard believe. But as you say, things change

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Speaker 3: so rapidly around the Bengals, you have to have to

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Speaker 3: have an airstick bag at all times.

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Speaker 2: Trey Hendrickson has been an unending content machine. I'm not

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Speaker 2: ready to let it go. I need I need more,

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Speaker 2: I need more tray time.

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Speaker 3: Listen, all of us would be digging deep for material

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Speaker 3: without him. We definitely want him in stripes as long

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Speaker 3: as possible.

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Speaker 2: Treasure trove tray, no question. Robert wintrob Bengals column is

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Speaker 2: Cincinnati Magazine dot com awesome as always, Thank you so.

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Speaker 3: Much, Thank you, MO appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: That's our guy. Robert Wintroub read his column right now.

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Speaker 2: Cincinnati Magazine dot Com MLS is like changing its entire calendar,

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Speaker 2: and I think this is a good thing because you know,

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Speaker 2: my opinion matters. We'll do that next.

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Speaker 1: You've been listening to football in the NATI on ESPN

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Speaker 1: fifteen thirty, the official home of the Cincinnati Bengals,