Speaker 1: Hig and everybody. I'm Dan Horde, and thanks for downloading
Speaker 1: the Bengals Booth Podcast. When I'm sixty four edition as
Speaker 1: I visit with retiring sports columnist Paul Docherty from the
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Enquirer. Coming up, we'll discuss his relationships with Paul
Speaker 1: Brown and Mike Brown, find out what he learned while
Speaker 1: collaborating on a book with Chad Johnson, and discuss Zach Taylor,
Speaker 1: Joe Burrow, and much more. The Bengals Booth Podcast is
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Speaker 1: since Last Call Trivia. My wife Peg and I, along
Speaker 1: with our good friends Dave and NICKI, love to go
Speaker 1: out once a week to trivia nights at bars. And
Speaker 1: there's a company called Last Called Trivia that's got the
Speaker 1: concept down to a science. A host runs the show.
Speaker 1: You enter your answers on your phone, and the contest
Speaker 1: is designed to last for two hours, with prizes going
Speaker 1: to the top three teams. The only expense is whatever
Speaker 1: you eat and drink. The company runs trivia games in
Speaker 1: a wide variety of cities, so if you're interested in
Speaker 1: trying it sometime, just go to last called Trivia dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you wind up playing in Cincinnati and run
Speaker 1: into a team named the Utopians, well you've been warned.
Speaker 1: Before I get to my guest, here's an invitation to
Speaker 1: grab your yoga mat and join Hoode on Saturday, June
Speaker 1: twenty fifth at nine am for NAMA's Day Yoga on
Speaker 1: the Field at Paul Brown Stadium. Register now at Bengals
Speaker 1: dot com slash Yoga. It's presented by Nell in partnership
Speaker 1: with Kroger and Title Babe Period Bank. I moved to
Speaker 1: Cincinnati in nineteen ninety six, so for twenty six years
Speaker 1: now I've been reading the work of Cincinnati Inquirer sports
Speaker 1: columnist Paul Docherty. Like any great columnist, Paul is provocative
Speaker 1: and opinionated, and I frequently don't agree with him, but
Speaker 1: I'm always interested in what he has to say, and
Speaker 1: I marvel at his ability to write. This week we
Speaker 1: talked about his career and is more than three decades
Speaker 1: of covering the Bengals. Doc. Let's start with your news.
Speaker 1: You are retiring at the end of the month. You
Speaker 1: still have your fastball. Why and why? Now that's a
Speaker 1: heck of a question, one that I never really had
Speaker 1: a satisfactory answer for. I will be sixty four and
Speaker 1: a half. Dan. Within the past three four years, both
Speaker 1: of my parents have past, which got me to thinking
Speaker 1: that I'm still healthy, and I still have some time,
Speaker 1: and I still love things undone that don't involve the
Speaker 1: daily grind of inflicting my opinion on people. So it
Speaker 1: just seemed like it seemed like the right time, is
Speaker 1: all I can tell you, And I'm sure that's what
Speaker 1: everybody says, but it just it feels right. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that you say I still have my fastball. Sometimes I wonder.
Speaker 1: I didn't used to wonder, and I always wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to call my own shot, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. So um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: end of my end of June. You've written books, including
Speaker 1: one with Chad Johnson several years ago. Will you write
Speaker 1: more books? That's somewhat up to me and somewhat up
Speaker 1: to my agent. Yes is the short answer, as everybody
Speaker 1: who writes for a living. I plan on writing a
Speaker 1: great American novel. I'm not sure when, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about what, but I just I just know I'm
Speaker 1: going to get that done, you know, in my spare time.
Speaker 1: But if anybody needs a book written, give me a shout.
Speaker 1: I will definitely ponder. It'll be just finished a book
Speaker 1: on Nate Ebner. People might not know who Nate Ebner is,
Speaker 1: but Nate Edner is a guy from Springfield, Ohio who
Speaker 1: has three Super Bowl rings and played for the US
Speaker 1: in the two thousand and sixteen Olympics as a member
Speaker 1: of the rugby team. Fantastic story. A guy who arose
Speaker 1: from from nothing, walked on at Ohio State having not
Speaker 1: played high school football, and ended up being a valued
Speaker 1: member of special team, so valued that he got drafted
Speaker 1: higher than Tom Brady by the way he yeared a
Speaker 1: year later, but higher, and his first love was rugby,
Speaker 1: had to ditch rugby to Good Ohio State to play football,
Speaker 1: came back to rugby six years after he uh After
Speaker 1: six years of not playing the sport, made the US
Speaker 1: Olympic team in twenty sixteen. His father was a junkyard
Speaker 1: proprietor in Springfield and one of the one of the
Speaker 1: craziest people I've ever had the pleasure of writing about.
Speaker 1: His father was murdered in the junkyard by one of
Speaker 1: his supposed customers who thought that his father had done
Speaker 1: him wrong. And when that was when Nate was nineteen.
Speaker 1: And the book is more about the relationship that Nate
Speaker 1: had with his dad than about sports, although a big
Speaker 1: chunk of it is sports, given that he played for
Speaker 1: the Buck Guys and Bill Belichick and was an Olympian.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's a long, long answer to a short question.
Speaker 1: And that's the last book. The next book is is
Speaker 1: yet to be, but I'm looking forward to it. What
Speaker 1: was the most interesting thing you learned about Belichick from
Speaker 1: collaborating with Nate, Well, probably nothing that nobody else people
Speaker 1: don't already know about Bill Belichick. Nate, Nate was pretty
Speaker 1: protective of Bill. Bill was totally supportive of Nate's Olympic effort.
Speaker 1: The US first game, in uh first match in the
Speaker 1: sixteen Olympics, they broadcast on the big screen at Gillette
Speaker 1: Stadium during practice so his teammates could see Nate play Bill.
Speaker 1: Bill would a great student of American history, especially UH
Speaker 1: War type history, and would quiz his players on various
Speaker 1: aspects of you know, if it were if they were
Speaker 1: in OTAs on June six Bill would demand that they
Speaker 1: know the importance of June sixth, nineteen forty four, which
Speaker 1: was of course the d D Landings. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: but but by the same token, Bill kept his distance
Speaker 1: with everyone. He had no favorites. He saved his harshest
Speaker 1: criticism for Tom Brady essentially to show the rest of
Speaker 1: the team that, you know, even this guy can be ripped,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to rip him. Kept his distance from
Speaker 1: from everybody, and I'm not sure any player on the
Speaker 1: team really knew Bill Belichick. And I got the impression
Speaker 1: from Nate that that's exactly how Bill wanted it. All right,
Speaker 1: this is a Bengals podcast, so let's get to some
Speaker 1: Bengals topics. You started covering the Bengals in eighty eight,
Speaker 1: just in time for Super Bowl twenty three, a team
Speaker 1: that included Boomer Asias and Chris collins Worth, Anthony Millenio,
Speaker 1: Solomon Wilcotts and several other players who are would don't
Speaker 1: forget Icky Woods and others, famously talkative, famously colorful. Was
Speaker 1: that team a sportswriter's dream? Yes, m yeah, I have
Speaker 1: very fond memories of spinney Field, which sounds crazy if
Speaker 1: anybody knows anything about spinney Field. I used to say
Speaker 1: that spinney Field was where the CIA would interrogate spies
Speaker 1: on weekends. But Um, boomer and and the entire offensive
Speaker 1: line occupied a corner of the spinney Field locker room,
Speaker 1: way way way far in the back, and we would
Speaker 1: they would let the media in at lunchtime, and those
Speaker 1: guys would always be there. And if if you wanted
Speaker 1: your ego taken down, you paid a visit to the
Speaker 1: boys in the in the back corner of the locker room,
Speaker 1: because they'd be sure to do it and rip you
Speaker 1: for everything from what you dressed like to what you wrote,
Speaker 1: uh that that kind of thing, and also gave you
Speaker 1: great stories. Those guys were great. Um, the Icky story
Speaker 1: was great. Obviously, everybody knew that Paul Brown did the
Speaker 1: shuffle at the Super Bowl. Um, and there were there
Speaker 1: were good just good people, not only good players, and
Speaker 1: fun to be around. But but good guys, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, Anthony Munios was on that team. Obviously, Boom
Speaker 1: Boomer himself was as chatty as as they came back then.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun then, And like every rookie,
Speaker 1: I thought, Hey, we're gonna do this every year. This
Speaker 1: is a young team. In fact, age wise, it resembled
Speaker 1: last year's Bengals team in terms of the ages of
Speaker 1: the players. Um. Yeah, we're gonna do this a lot,
Speaker 1: and as we know, we didn't do it a lot.
Speaker 1: Is that a cautionary tale for how we feel about
Speaker 1: the current team? Um? It is for me. Um And
Speaker 1: I've been accused that once or twice over the years
Speaker 1: of being a debbie down or you might not know that, damn.
Speaker 1: I mean, but um, I yeah. It's very very hard
Speaker 1: to repeat to get back to the super Bowl the
Speaker 1: next year. So much is working against you. This team
Speaker 1: is better on paper than last year's team was at
Speaker 1: this time, but last year had a certain magic to
Speaker 1: it that I don't know if they can duplicate. I
Speaker 1: hope they can schedules a lot harder. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was looking at it this morning. They play at Dallas,
Speaker 1: at New Orleans at Tennessee at Tampa Bay at New England,
Speaker 1: my goodness. And they've got the bills at home in
Speaker 1: Kansas City at home, so we'll see. They stayed relatively
Speaker 1: injury free last year. They stayed COVID free, don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if any team could repeat that or that
Speaker 1: had that kind of chemistry or Zach loves to call
Speaker 1: it the culture, you know, the culture, And I kind
Speaker 1: of pooh pooed that for a few years, and I
Speaker 1: was wrong. Zach was right. The culture was important, The
Speaker 1: culture mattered. The culture helped them tremendously last year. Do
Speaker 1: they have the same culture this year? I don't know,
Speaker 1: So again, long answer, short question, we shall see. Paul
Speaker 1: Dougherty is our guest. What do you remember about meeting
Speaker 1: Paul Brown? The first time I met Paul Brown was
Speaker 1: in April of nineteen eighty eight or was it eighty nine,
Speaker 1: eighty eight. He gave me a tourist Spinny Field, and
Speaker 1: I understand Dan. Before that, my job from my previous
Speaker 1: two stops along the road in Dallas and in New
Speaker 1: York was covering college football national college football, and as
Speaker 1: such I made frequent visits to places like Oklahoma in
Speaker 1: Texas and UCLA in Ohio state where the players like
Speaker 1: in high school, I used to say that the players
Speaker 1: cars were nicer than the teachers, while the players car
Speaker 1: or the students cars were nicer than the teachers. The
Speaker 1: players cars in college were nicer than the assistant coaches,
Speaker 1: and the weight rooms were massive because the whole idea
Speaker 1: was to impress recruits with all this stuff. Right, So
Speaker 1: with that in mind, I'm in Cincinnati and Paul Brown
Speaker 1: takes me into Spinny Field and they had indoor outdoor
Speaker 1: carpeting on the floor. It was invariably kind of wet
Speaker 1: for some reason. They had those wire mesh lockers like
Speaker 1: you had in high school, so if you threw dirty
Speaker 1: socks in there that smelled, at least they could air
Speaker 1: out a little bit. And they had one twenty inch
Speaker 1: color television bolted to the back wall. And Peb could
Speaker 1: not get over the fact that they had a television
Speaker 1: in the locker room. He said, I've never known a
Speaker 1: foot a television to help a team win a football game.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, with my background, man, what what what
Speaker 1: have I gotten myself into here? That said, I've been
Speaker 1: told that that Peb gave me his last interview. I
Speaker 1: don't recall that. I don't remember what we talked about,
Speaker 1: but he was always great to me, same as Mike
Speaker 1: has always been great to me. And I wish that
Speaker 1: I had gotten there a little earlier, you know, before
Speaker 1: he passed, and been able to appreciate him more and
Speaker 1: learn more from him than I did. He once referred
Speaker 1: to Mike as charming in an exasperating sort of way.
Speaker 1: Explain why, Yeah, that still holds true. I mean, Mike,
Speaker 1: Mike is Mike, and Mike will never change, and that's
Speaker 1: one of one of the many things that I like
Speaker 1: about Mike. Um. Yeah, he never at least I don't think.
Speaker 1: I haven't asked him, and I planned to in the
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks. He never took personally the criticism
Speaker 1: and man, I leveled Mike over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Never not took mine and never did not take my call,
Speaker 1: never said no to an interview. When we had the interviews,
Speaker 1: he was He was pleasant, but on the other hand, intractable.
Speaker 1: For many years, Mike was Mike, and Mike was going
Speaker 1: to do it his way and if you didn't like that, well,
Speaker 1: he didn't really care. If he never took exception to
Speaker 1: something that you wrote. Was there a flip side to
Speaker 1: the coin? Did he ever pay you a compliment for
Speaker 1: something he wrote? Yes? Yes, I wrote a book about him,
Speaker 1: a memoir about raising my daughter Jillian, who has Down syndrome.
Speaker 1: Mike read the book unbeknownst to me. I didn't send
Speaker 1: him a copy or anything, and I got, as is
Speaker 1: Mike style, I got a two page handwritten letter back
Speaker 1: from Mike essentially saying it was a wonderful book and
Speaker 1: that he learned a lot about well, obviously my family,
Speaker 1: but about raising a child with a disability, and how
Speaker 1: much he liked the book. And I still have that letter.
Speaker 1: In fact, for many many years, I had it under
Speaker 1: the glass on my desk in my office here at home,
Speaker 1: and I glanced at it occasionally. A remarkable thing for
Speaker 1: him to do. What's the nastiest confrontation you ever had
Speaker 1: with a player coach? I don't, I don't know. There
Speaker 1: There aren't many of those. Um, Carl Pickens was a
Speaker 1: strange guy. I don't know if I had a nasty
Speaker 1: relationship with Carl, but he was just different, you know.
Speaker 1: I one year he gave me a really great interview
Speaker 1: right before the season, and I wrote a pretty complimentary
Speaker 1: column about him, not necessarily about football, but just about him.
Speaker 1: And the next day after we had a probably half
Speaker 1: an hour interview where he was very cordial and gracious.
Speaker 1: The next day he acted as if he didn't even
Speaker 1: know who I was. You know, hey, Carl, how's it going?
Speaker 1: Walked right past me. I had Louis Billips, the old
Speaker 1: the old cornerback who was now deceased, who actually gave
Speaker 1: gave up a touchdown to John Taylor in the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl in eighty nine, threatened to kill me, and I
Speaker 1: believed him. He said, if you ever write another word
Speaker 1: about me, I will kill you. And I never wrote
Speaker 1: another word of that. Uh. Mike brim another corner who
Speaker 1: was also deceased, UM, got in my face once about
Speaker 1: I'd written a tongue in cheek. I thought funny. He
Speaker 1: did not about how the Bengals were had a great
Speaker 1: win over by last week. They overcame all the odds
Speaker 1: and managed to beat By and Mike took exception of
Speaker 1: that and made an example of me in the in
Speaker 1: the locker room in Pittsburgh one time. UM. Other than that,
Speaker 1: I athletes in general. Man, I just think if if if,
Speaker 1: if you write honestly about them and try to talk
Speaker 1: to them and show up after you write it, most
Speaker 1: of most of them over the years have been okay. Football, baseball. Whoever,
Speaker 1: How would you describe your relationship with Sam White? Mum,
Speaker 1: For the longest time I could, I could honestly say
Speaker 1: that Sam White was one of the few people in
Speaker 1: the world that I didn't like. Um. When Sam was
Speaker 1: coaching here, he tried to coach the world instead of
Speaker 1: the football team, and I made note of that on
Speaker 1: several occasions, and we got into it once after a
Speaker 1: game in a press conference. He said, you can't keep
Speaker 1: your mouth shut, and I shot back, neither can you,
Speaker 1: And went downhill from there. In later years as I
Speaker 1: did stuff about those teams, and I'm not sure why
Speaker 1: I did it, what the context was, but I had
Speaker 1: occasion to call Sam two or three times maybe in
Speaker 1: the ten years or so over for his death and
Speaker 1: we we we made amends, and he was great. He
Speaker 1: had some great stories, and he was another guy that
Speaker 1: was that was cut from different cloth. It was a
Speaker 1: lot more social than Carl Pickens was, but they both
Speaker 1: had their their quirks. Um. I didn't I didn't like
Speaker 1: the fact that he made an example of Lisa Olson,
Speaker 1: the reporter in the Bengals locker room when they had
Speaker 1: that big controversy way back when or before that. Sam
Speaker 1: had been okay with any female in the locker room
Speaker 1: just about any time. There was a woman named Melanie
Speaker 1: Houser who wrote for the Houston Post way back in
Speaker 1: the day, and every time the Bengals would play the Oilers,
Speaker 1: Melanie would come up to Cincinnati for the week before
Speaker 1: the game and write stories. And Sam couldn't have been
Speaker 1: nicer to her and made sure she got in the
Speaker 1: locker room I was taking care of and and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he was anti Lisa Olson. But anyway,
Speaker 1: nobody cares about that. Sam was a good man. Um
Speaker 1: Like I said, his reach occasionally exceeded his grasp, and
Speaker 1: I disagree with that. And we had some run ins,
Speaker 1: but at the end we'd made peace, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: about that. The nineties were rough. You coined the expression
Speaker 1: the Lost Decade. Then Marvin Lewis arrived in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three and turned things around pretty quickly. What's Marvin's legacy?
Speaker 1: Marvin's legacy is of a Sisyphus who actually wins. Who
Speaker 1: gets that damn boulder up the hill before it rolls
Speaker 1: back down on him. I hope and I think that
Speaker 1: people appreciate and respect the job that Marvin did here,
Speaker 1: because without Marvin there would be no Zach Taylor. Marvin
Speaker 1: was able to get some things done here that nobody
Speaker 1: before him had gotten done. He was able to convince
Speaker 1: Mike that you know, hey, I actually know what I'm
Speaker 1: doing here. Please, you know, work with for me and
Speaker 1: let's not butt heads. Mike, to his credit, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: was okay with that iman. Mike still called most of
Speaker 1: the shots, but Marvin got some concessions. He got enough
Speaker 1: that he was able to turn this thing around. I
Speaker 1: give Marvin all the credit in the world. He moved
Speaker 1: mountains here. He changing I mean turning about changing in culture. Marvin.
Speaker 1: Marvin changed the culture, and it lagged at the end.
Speaker 1: I think with Marvin's interest in the gig, but his
Speaker 1: legacy should be that this is the guy that made
Speaker 1: everything else after it possible. Paul Dougherty is our guest.
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that you collaborated with Chad Johnson on
Speaker 1: a book following the two thousand and five season. What'd
Speaker 1: you learn from going back to his childhood haunts and
Speaker 1: getting to know members of his inner circle. I learned
Speaker 1: that it had to be incredibly difficult for Chad to
Speaker 1: make his way in the world as a kid, not
Speaker 1: knowing who his father was and having his mother essentially
Speaker 1: leave him at her mother's doorstep his grandmother because she
Speaker 1: couldn't deal with him and Chad. I think I don't
Speaker 1: remember Dan, I think Chad was five. I mean, imagine
Speaker 1: that you've never known your father and your mom decides
Speaker 1: I'm moving to Los Angeles, Chad, but I'm not taking you.
Speaker 1: I think that impacted every aspect of Chad's personality. Chad
Speaker 1: had a deep desire to be loved, not just by
Speaker 1: people close to him, by the world. I'm playing Freud
Speaker 1: here and I don't even have a degree in psychology,
Speaker 1: but this was a no brainer. I thought all of
Speaker 1: what Chad did, all the things that made Chadd, were
Speaker 1: a result of his mom dropping him off at grandmom's
Speaker 1: and never coming back. Well, if his objective in life
Speaker 1: was to be loved, he achieved it. I think so.
Speaker 1: I I tired of Chad's andys. I got bored with
Speaker 1: him more than anything else because it was the same
Speaker 1: stuff over and over again, but interested White did it,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think he's a fairly be loved figure
Speaker 1: around here and certainly, if not the best, one of
Speaker 1: the best receivers they've ever had. And that says a lot.
Speaker 1: The Bengals have had a lot of good receivers. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of what ifs in Bengal's history. Greg
Speaker 1: Cook's injury, Tim Cramri's injury, Jeremy Hill's fumble. The list
Speaker 1: goes on and on. What if Kimo von Alhoffen never
Speaker 1: made contact with Carson Palmer's left knee. I think they
Speaker 1: definitely win that game, and after that it's the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Who knows, I Mike Crystal balls have been in the
Speaker 1: shop for thirty years and I have no idea. But
Speaker 1: but you're right, that was a game they were going
Speaker 1: to win. That team had the confidence that this past
Speaker 1: year's team had. The fact that it was Pittsburgh didn't
Speaker 1: didn't phase them. You know, that team would never have
Speaker 1: lost in two thousand and fifteen to the Steelers the
Speaker 1: way that team did the same as that this this
Speaker 1: past year's Bengals team. Um, yeah, I mean the last
Speaker 1: past Carson threw was that bomb to Chris Henry, right, correct.
Speaker 1: I mean that was how many plays into the Bengals
Speaker 1: offense their their game that day, I don't know, two three? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they had the confidence. They knew they were
Speaker 1: gonna win, and they would have that day had had
Speaker 1: Carson not been hurt. Are you sympathetic to Carson Palmer
Speaker 1: and his legacy of the Bengals? Yeah? Yes, and oh
Speaker 1: yeah I am, because he got over on Mike and
Speaker 1: I anybody that can do that, I don't know. His
Speaker 1: sympathy is the right word admiration, and he had a
Speaker 1: point and everybody took it well. It was well taken
Speaker 1: by everybody except probably Mike on the other hand. Enough already,
Speaker 1: I don't need to hear Carson anymore talking about how
Speaker 1: bad the Bengals were back then. I mean, they weren't right,
Speaker 1: and the team did things that Carson wanted. They got
Speaker 1: him wide receivers, they had a good offensive line. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I understood Carson's beef at the time,
Speaker 1: but at some point you just gotta let it go.
Speaker 1: Where is Andrew Whitworth on your Mount Rushmore of athletes
Speaker 1: that you've enjoyed talking to over the years. Oh, top
Speaker 1: ten five three. I don't know. He was just a
Speaker 1: a rock. I mean it was the same way with
Speaker 1: the media that he was as a player, dependable on
Speaker 1: a solid you know, spokesman, senior senior I want to
Speaker 1: say senior citizen, but you know what I mean, elder statesman. Right.
Speaker 1: I loved Andrew Whitworth. I don't know anybody who didn't. Um,
Speaker 1: and letting him go was one of the bigger mistakes
Speaker 1: a franchises made in the last twenty years. Did you
Speaker 1: feel that way at the time or is it the
Speaker 1: hindsight of the draft picks that that failed. No I.
Speaker 1: I was pretty sure they would do what they did. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's always a business with the Brown family. Never
Speaker 1: forget that. It's a business with most everybody, but especially
Speaker 1: for them because it is their business. Um. No I.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a bad decision because even if
Speaker 1: he was not vintage Andrew Whitworth, he was a huge
Speaker 1: part of that team, of the character of the culture
Speaker 1: of that team, and to let him go like that
Speaker 1: was going to have an impact no matter who they drafted.
Speaker 1: As it turned out, as we know that the picks
Speaker 1: to replace them weren't exactly. Stirling Paul Docherty is our guest.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the current Bengals. Have your feelings about
Speaker 1: Zach Taylor done a total one eighty over the course
Speaker 1: of three years. Yes, yes, I'm I'm not embarrassed or
Speaker 1: whatever to admit it. I believe it or not. I
Speaker 1: make a mistake every once in a while. My dad
Speaker 1: had a post in his office that I never made
Speaker 1: a mistake in my life. I thought I did once,
Speaker 1: but I was wrong. That's kind of how I was
Speaker 1: with Zach. Zach came in without big credentials. Dan, you
Speaker 1: know that he was not some hotshot NFL coordinator when
Speaker 1: the Bengals hired him. When he was coordinating the offense
Speaker 1: that you see, the offense that you see wasn't very good,
Speaker 1: and I thought he was in over his head. To
Speaker 1: his everlasting credit, he proved me wrong. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could not have been more wrong about Zach Taylor
Speaker 1: than I was. He When he talked about culture in
Speaker 1: his first year and he and into his second year,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a cop out. I thought, I
Speaker 1: understand the importance of culture, but it's sort of a
Speaker 1: nebulous thing. If you have it, you have it. If
Speaker 1: you don't, you don't. It disappears as quickly as it appears,
Speaker 1: and you never can really pinpoint why. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could say this guy left and that guy left and
Speaker 1: they were a big part of what we did, but okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know, hard to define. And him using that
Speaker 1: fact that you know, we're not playing well right now
Speaker 1: because I'm building a culture, buying himself time with sort
Speaker 1: of a excuse in my book. But like I said,
Speaker 1: he was right. He got the guys in there that
Speaker 1: you wanted to get in there. Everybody meshed obviously, you
Speaker 1: know all this stuff. Everybody was cool with everybody else.
Speaker 1: They pulled for one another, they cared about one another,
Speaker 1: all the sports cliches, and it mattered. So bravo to Zach.
Speaker 1: It certainly helps to have Joe Burrow. Of course you
Speaker 1: refer to him as Saint Joel. Yeah, aside from his
Speaker 1: play on the field, what has he done for this franchise?
Speaker 1: Legitimized it, made it, made it cool to be a Bengal.
Speaker 1: I've written that a few times. That still makes me
Speaker 1: laugh at having been here as long as I have.
Speaker 1: Anybody that told me twenty years ago that it would
Speaker 1: be cool to be a Bengal. I said, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: the fifth beatle Um. Yeah, and he is. Not only
Speaker 1: not only has his play elevated everything they do, but
Speaker 1: but his u rock solid belief in what Zach is
Speaker 1: doing is bringing others along, including all these offensive linemen. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, did he rent space at the precinct that
Speaker 1: to get all those guys there, I don't know, or
Speaker 1: a his house at least got him to his house
Speaker 1: and preached the good word of the Reverend Zach and
Speaker 1: that Obviously, the results speak for themselves. They retooled the
Speaker 1: offensive line this offseason without it didn't even seem like
Speaker 1: they were trying that hard to do it. Not to
Speaker 1: discredit the effort, obviously took a lot of effort, but
Speaker 1: those guys signed so quickly and so easily, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: all it seemed like all they were waiting for was
Speaker 1: somebody to ask him to play for the Bengals. And again,
Speaker 1: if you if you were around in the dark days
Speaker 1: in the Lost decade of the nineties, saying something like
Speaker 1: that would have you committed. So yeah, he is the
Speaker 1: center of everything. As a sports fan, it's great when
Speaker 1: your team is great, goes to the super Bowl, plays
Speaker 1: in the World Series, whatever. But I've made the statement
Speaker 1: that I don't think there's anything better as a sports
Speaker 1: fan than when it's completely unexpected, like it was last
Speaker 1: year for the Bengals. Was that one of the more
Speaker 1: magical things that you've seen? Oh yeah, yeah, it's up
Speaker 1: there with maybe the ninety Reds wire to wire. Back then,
Speaker 1: we thought they had a decent team and we thought
Speaker 1: that Lupinella would be a good manager. Nobody knew that
Speaker 1: they'd go wire to wire and sweep a heavily favored
Speaker 1: A's team in the World Series. It's it's like first love,
Speaker 1: right Dan, It's it's you get caught up. It's new,
Speaker 1: it's different. You get caught up in the magic, the
Speaker 1: romance of it all. And last year certainly was was
Speaker 1: magical and romantic, no doubt. It's probably. Yeah. If I
Speaker 1: had a rate, um, that would be number be number one.
Speaker 1: Where they go from four to eleven and one to
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. Come on, do you have a love
Speaker 1: hate relationship with football? Yeah? Yeah, I do. I it
Speaker 1: may be the best entertainment we have. And I'm not
Speaker 1: just talking sports, I'm talking everything, movies, television, whatever. The
Speaker 1: melodrama the real drama. Uh, not much on TV beats
Speaker 1: the NFL unless it's you know, Breaking Bad or The
Speaker 1: Wire Right I watch. I watch a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's as good as it used to
Speaker 1: be for a few reasons, but it's still the best.
Speaker 1: I don't like the NFL's hypocrisy. I don't like the
Speaker 1: way the NFL dealt with Colin Kaepernick. I don't like
Speaker 1: the way, in my opinion, the NFL seems to care
Speaker 1: about things only when it feels that if it didn't care,
Speaker 1: it would lose money. The whole image thing gets me
Speaker 1: a little bit, but there's no denying that as an
Speaker 1: entertainment products, it's the best thing going. Got a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes left before I have to wrap this up.
Speaker 1: You've had opportunities to leave over the years for various
Speaker 1: media outlets. Why did you stay? That's a great question.
Speaker 1: And this is gonna sound hokey and corny and whatever,
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying it because I need to make friends,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't matter anymore. I stayed. He stayed for
Speaker 1: primarily family reasons. I had a chance. I had two
Speaker 1: chances to go to the La Times in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: and I spent a lot of time out there with
Speaker 1: a real estate agent drive me all over Orange County.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to raise my kids in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I had no desire to to have them go to
Speaker 1: school out there. And that's gonna sound crazy because people
Speaker 1: think I'm some flaming liberal, which I am not, and
Speaker 1: that's a whole nother podcast, Dan, But I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to raise them in Los Angeles. I hate traffic.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to get stuck in traffic my whole
Speaker 1: freaking life. I called Bob Verdi, who was a respected
Speaker 1: older columnist a Chicago Tribune years ago, and I asked
Speaker 1: him should I take this job? And he said, let
Speaker 1: me ask you something And I said, okay. He said,
Speaker 1: are you happy where you are? Yeah? Are you making
Speaker 1: reasonable money? Yeah? Do you get to cover almost everything
Speaker 1: that that the quote unquote big guys in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: New York, Chicago cover? I said yeah. He said do
Speaker 1: they treat you well? Yeah? Most of the time. And
Speaker 1: he said, what's your problem? And I you know, that's
Speaker 1: when it hit me. Along with the family stuff, that um,
Speaker 1: the only thing that I that would have made me
Speaker 1: want to move to Los Angeles to work for the Times.
Speaker 1: Was ego was to say, hey, I worked for the
Speaker 1: La Times. You don't, and that it didn't mean that
Speaker 1: much to me, And so we decided to stay. And
Speaker 1: what I thought back in my youth would be a
Speaker 1: three to five year deal here when I signed on
Speaker 1: an eighty eight, I'm still here. They can't get rid
Speaker 1: of me, and now I get to walk away on
Speaker 1: my own, of my own volitions. So I guess it
Speaker 1: worked out. It sound a little like our mutual friend
Speaker 1: Marty Brennaman. Yes, yeah, I think yeah. Marty felt the
Speaker 1: same way, and he took far less money to hang
Speaker 1: around with the Reds, and he could have gotten Eddie
Speaker 1: gone to Boston, for example, they wanted to hire him.
Speaker 1: I think Chicago the Cubs at some point had a
Speaker 1: flirtation with Marty. But yeah, pretty much the same. Doctor
Speaker 1: has been fun. Thank you for making me laugh, thank
Speaker 1: you for making me think. Over the years, I think
Speaker 1: you know what I think of your work, and we
Speaker 1: are definitely going to miss you on a daily basis
Speaker 1: online and on a regular basis in the Enquirer. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Dan. I think you're the best I've told
Speaker 1: you so, and I've written that as well, so I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're not leaving either. That's going to do it
Speaker 1: for this episode of The Bengals Booth Podcast, presented by
Speaker 1: Ultimate Bengals. Download Ultimate Bengals ahead of the twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: please subscribe to this podcast and if you have a minute,
Speaker 1: give it a rating or share a comment that helps
Speaker 1: more Bengals fans find us. I'm Dan Horde and thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to The Bengals Booth Podcast