Speaker 1: Hi and everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Hord and thanks for downloading the Bengals Booth Podcast.
Speaker 2: The Everything's Gonna be ah right. Addition, as the Bengals
Speaker 2: open the season with a lackluster performance, to put it nicely,
Speaker 2: losing their opener at Cleveland twenty four to three. Coming up,
Speaker 2: you'll hear radio replays and locker room comments from players
Speaker 2: and coaches. Then, in this week's fun Facts Conversation, team
Speaker 2: president Mike Brown joins me to discuss high expectations, the
Speaker 2: booming business of the NFL, and responding to letters from fans.
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Speaker 2: get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since the players
Speaker 2: who join us on our weekly radio shows. Dave Lapham
Speaker 2: and I host two shows together every week, The Bengals
Speaker 2: Game Plan Show on Wednesday nights from six to eight
Speaker 2: and the Bengals pep Rally Show on Friday afternoons from
Speaker 2: three to six. At nearly every show, a current player
Speaker 2: joins us, and in addition to spending an hour with
Speaker 2: us on the radio, they always sign autographs and post
Speaker 2: for pictures during the commercial breaks. Last week, Orlando Brown
Speaker 2: Junior and Nick Scott were our guests and they were
Speaker 2: awesome with fans. We don't know our guests yet for
Speaker 2: this week, but we do know our locations will be
Speaker 2: at the Holy Grail Banks on Wednesday night and Wings
Speaker 2: and Rings in Fairfield next to Jungle Gyms on Friday.
Speaker 2: Hope to see you there. Now, let's get to Sunday's
Speaker 2: frustrating season opener. On a dreary, rainy and gray day
Speaker 2: in Cleveland, the Bengals got the ball to begin the
Speaker 2: game and immediately connected on third down and nine on
Speaker 2: a twelve yard pass from Joe Burrow to Jamar Chase.
Speaker 2: That was their longest pass completion all day and their
Speaker 2: only third down conversion in eight tries in the first half.
Speaker 2: Shotgun snap blitz coming Burrow in trouble and Joe will
Speaker 2: be sacked. Didn't lose much. He lost two yards as
Speaker 2: he tried to run forward, but he does get sacked
Speaker 2: by Okunquo. A free agent acquisition, and the Bengals will
Speaker 2: bring in rookie punter Brad Robbins. That was a familiar
Speaker 2: theme as the Bengals punted on their first seven possessions.
Speaker 2: Here's Tyler Boyd on floundering on third down.
Speaker 3: That hurt us a lot.
Speaker 4: Does We've got ourselves on stand out there and converted,
Speaker 4: you know, and third down especially because we know that's
Speaker 4: when man covers is gonna come in. That's when the
Speaker 4: one on one upportunities come in. That's when we make
Speaker 4: the big plays. Let's us see, and you didn't say
Speaker 4: because they got the best of us.
Speaker 2: The Browns weren't much better in the early going. Their
Speaker 2: first six drives included four punts and a fumble, but
Speaker 2: they did manage to get on the scoreboard early in
Speaker 2: the second quarter. The snap, the placement, the right footed kick,
Speaker 2: a high spinning and over end kick, and it was
Speaker 2: given the Cleveland Browns a three to nothing lead. It
Speaker 2: was still three to nothing late in the half when
Speaker 2: the Browns put together the best drive that either team
Speaker 2: had all day. It featured five first downs covered sixty
Speaker 2: seven yards and ended with the game's first touchdown, second
Speaker 2: and ten from the Bengals thirteen. Watson's a quarterback draw.
Speaker 2: He's at the ten to five touchdown Cleveland. The Browns
Speaker 2: led ten to nothing at the half. The Bengals defense
Speaker 2: was playing okay, but the offense was anemic. Here's Ted karras.
Speaker 5: Our defense was executing. They gave us a lot of
Speaker 5: chances to win the game.
Speaker 6: We didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Second half highlights in a moment, But first reminder that
Speaker 2: the Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by Alta Fiber,
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Speaker 2: Design to take your home, business, and community to a
Speaker 2: new level. Elevate your connection with Alta Fiber. The Bengals
Speaker 2: offense came to life to begin the second half, getting
Speaker 2: help on a pass interference penalty to drive within field
Speaker 2: goal range. Bengals trying to get on the scoreboard here
Speaker 2: in the third quarter, trailing by ten, McPherson's kick is
Speaker 2: and it is good to put Cincinnati on the scoreboard
Speaker 2: for the first time in twenty twenty three. They were
Speaker 2: only down by a touchdown and things really started looking
Speaker 2: up when the Bengals got a takeaway. On the Browns
Speaker 2: next possession, Watson walks up to the line of scrimmage,
Speaker 2: now backs up into the gun left foot in front
Speaker 2: of right. He catches the shotgun snap fakes the Chubb
Speaker 2: does a whirly bird before scrambling to the left. Couple
Speaker 2: of bottles taken down.
Speaker 1: There's a penalty flight, but the passes intercepted. Dax Hill
Speaker 1: has the ball running up the near sideline and he
Speaker 1: goes out of bounds at the fifty yard line.
Speaker 2: But after driving to the Cleveland thirty three Joe Burrows
Speaker 2: deep ball to t Higgins was broken up at the
Speaker 2: last instant by Cleveland safety Grant Delpit. Here's Higgins on
Speaker 2: that key defensive play.
Speaker 5: I mean, at the end of day, it was a
Speaker 5: great playful. He put his hand up at the right time.
Speaker 5: If he didn't do that, that's a catch.
Speaker 2: If he hadn't, it probably would have been a game
Speaker 2: tying touchdown. Instead, the Bengals had to settle for a
Speaker 2: fifty one yard field goal try. Bengals trying to score
Speaker 2: field goals on back to back possessions in the second
Speaker 2: half after being shut out in the first to kick
Speaker 2: his Oh no is wide right. It is no good.
Speaker 2: It was money Max, first missed from fifty plus since
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. The Browns answered with a field goal
Speaker 2: to take a thirteen to three lead to the fourth quarter,
Speaker 2: and kicked another one early in the fourth to make
Speaker 2: it sixteen to three. The Bengals were running out of
Speaker 2: chances and Zach Taylor knew it as the Bengals went
Speaker 2: for it on fourth and four from their own thirty one,
Speaker 2: with ten and a half minutes remaining, Fourth out and
Speaker 2: four shotgun snap to borrow. Joe scrambling to the.
Speaker 1: Right, sacked by Miles Garrett inside the twenty. Miles Garrett
Speaker 1: with his first sack of the season, and it comes
Speaker 1: at a great time.
Speaker 2: It'll give the Browns the ball in the red zone,
Speaker 2: and four plays later they were in the end zone.
Speaker 1: Watson throws a pass caught in the end zone by
Speaker 1: a sliding Harrison Bryant for a Cleveland Brown's touchdown.
Speaker 5: And Deshaun Watson is doing is uh. He's skipping to
Speaker 5: the fifty yard line and now coming back to celebrate
Speaker 5: with his teammates. This game means a lot to Deshaun Watson.
Speaker 2: The Browns won it twenty four to three, and it
Speaker 2: was a brutal day for Joe Burrow. Unlike last season's opener,
Speaker 2: where he threw four interceptions, Joe didn't have any turnovers,
Speaker 2: but he only completed fourteen of thirty one pass that's
Speaker 2: forty five percent, the first time Joe has ever completed
Speaker 2: less than half of his throws in fifty NFL starts,
Speaker 2: including playoff games. Joe finished with eighty two passing yards.
Speaker 2: His previous low was one forty eight, and Joe's passer
Speaker 2: rating of fifty two point two was also a new
Speaker 2: career low. The Browns defensive backs deserve much of the credit.
Speaker 7: They got really good corners. You know, Denzel and Emerson
Speaker 7: are two of the better corners in the league. I think,
Speaker 7: you know Newsom is a is a great nickel too,
Speaker 7: So they got a great secondary. Obviously, we weren't good
Speaker 7: enough in me putting the ball in the right place
Speaker 7: and in our one on one situations. We just didn't
Speaker 7: come out on top today.
Speaker 2: But as good as the Browns were defensively, Burrow just
Speaker 2: looked off. The five weeks of training camp that he
Speaker 2: missed surely was a factor.
Speaker 7: The quarterback doesn't perform in training camp. You know, that
Speaker 7: was obviously something that I would have liked to have done.
Speaker 7: But there's no excuses. It's obviously not very good today,
Speaker 7: so we got to be better.
Speaker 2: Consider the Joe threw eight passes for t Higgins and
Speaker 2: didn't complete any of them. He threw nine for Jamar
Speaker 2: Chase and completed five for thirty nine yards. And Chase
Speaker 2: is now public enemy number one in Cleveland after making
Speaker 2: a crack about the Browns fifty yard line ELF logo
Speaker 2: last week that was turned into bulletin board material. I
Speaker 2: was among the reporters who talked to Chase after the game.
Speaker 2: We're not accustomed to seeing the offense struggle to the
Speaker 2: extent that it to today. How would you describe today's game?
Speaker 3: Went too good on offensives. I fell into some conditions
Speaker 3: who weren't ready for for real, so they got to
Speaker 3: be ready to execute the next time.
Speaker 2: Conditions as in weather yep? Did you just feel flat?
Speaker 2: How would you describe how it felt out there?
Speaker 3: None just was going always for real. We had good
Speaker 3: Lott Hag opportunities they play man, I mean, we had
Speaker 3: good looks. We just didn't execute on'em.
Speaker 2: Jill missed about five weeks. Were you guys are little
Speaker 2: out of sink?
Speaker 3: Probably that's probably what it was. Probably that, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, I don't, don't. Nobody really knows to
Speaker 3: we look at the film. You gotta execute. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: keep blaming that on the conditions, but that's what they
Speaker 3: looked like for us and play.
Speaker 8: Do you think the offense was just out of sync
Speaker 8: aside from the other the just things that normally don't
Speaker 8: happen for all happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't get a lot of stuff going
Speaker 3: our way, you know what I'm saying. We had a
Speaker 3: couple of drop passes on boats on our end, which
Speaker 3: was getting rested a couple of times. They just didn't
Speaker 3: execute when we had the looks.
Speaker 5: What about their defense? They seemed to be real aggressive
Speaker 5: in what they were doing in terms of pressure and coverage.
Speaker 5: With was the weather of factor there? Did you decide
Speaker 5: to get more aggressive?
Speaker 3: Do you think the game plan for what they defense
Speaker 3: what we had we already was expecting it. They did
Speaker 3: exactly what we was expecting. Like I said, we just
Speaker 3: didn't take advantage of the opportunities that they gave us.
Speaker 9: More exact said after the game that this was not you,
Speaker 9: This performance was not this team. Yeah, what do you
Speaker 9: think when you put your finger on why you guys
Speaker 9: just worked yourselves today.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he I don't know. I don't
Speaker 3: know how to answer that.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 9: Honestly, we saw this team last year started to go
Speaker 9: and too, and you guys still in the AC Championship.
Speaker 9: We know slow starts are going to derail the season,
Speaker 9: which is how frustrating is it to have the build
Speaker 9: up start the season to come here and.
Speaker 10: Not play well.
Speaker 3: It's frustrating because I called the ass l's and we
Speaker 3: just lost to some ls. So I'm pissed on my party.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm pissed on that. And like I said, man,
Speaker 3: we got missed opportunities. We didn't capitalize on that and
Speaker 3: we lost. So that's how we lost. John, I guess.
Speaker 8: Bullet and more Maiturion with all the el stuff and
Speaker 8: all that, what do you what did you make of
Speaker 8: all that?
Speaker 10: Did you drop the league?
Speaker 5: Made up?
Speaker 3: He just want to have some attention, so he just
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: How prepared are you for the for the blowback that
Speaker 7: might come with the comments you made and then the
Speaker 7: result of this game.
Speaker 3: We'll blow back. I mean, did you say, if he
Speaker 3: got me saying something I'm saying right now, he's soft.
Speaker 3: If they soft with me saying l's and that the soft.
Speaker 2: Then there's a gigantic ELF in the middle of the
Speaker 2: field in Cleveland. It's not like Chase just randomly called
Speaker 2: the Browns elves. But whatever, Cleveland won the game, their players, coaches,
Speaker 2: and fans get to gloat until they meet again in
Speaker 2: the final game of the regular season. Meanwhile, the Bengals
Speaker 2: overcame an zero and two start last year, but they
Speaker 2: can ill afford another one. Here are Burrow, Orlando Brown Junior,
Speaker 2: and Tyler Boyd.
Speaker 7: Week one doesn't define anybody's season. Obviously, not very good
Speaker 7: out there, but anybody that watched saw that. But we've
Speaker 7: been in the spot before. We've come back stronger and
Speaker 7: had great years. So that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I don't want to use the word frustration.
Speaker 5: Then it's definitely disappointing, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: that's football, and it's not always going to be perfect,
Speaker 5: you know what.
Speaker 4: I mean, It's it's other games and we'll have other
Speaker 4: opportunities to prove ourselves right, because I think overall we
Speaker 4: played great difference heck of a game offense. We started
Speaker 4: getting things going, but we never got consistent at moving
Speaker 4: the ball. And say whatever you want about the weather,
Speaker 4: but Day was out there making plays. The Browns made
Speaker 4: plays enough plays to win SAM So we didn't make
Speaker 4: enough play. That's what it gonna come down.
Speaker 7: So it's one week obviously not up to our standard,
Speaker 7: not up to my standard, but you got sixteen more
Speaker 7: of them, so we're it's gonna keep trucking.
Speaker 2: Speaking of trucking, Brown's running back Nick Chubb finished with
Speaker 2: one hundred and six yards on eighteen carries in ten
Speaker 2: career games against the Bengals. He's top to one hundred
Speaker 2: yards six times. There aren't many running backs that have
Speaker 2: that much success when DJ Reider is on the field
Speaker 2: for Cincinnati. I spoke to the Bengals defensive tackle about
Speaker 2: the dismal opener. I'm sure that was the total opposite
Speaker 2: of what everybody in this room expected. You just came
Speaker 2: out and really couldn't see it to get much going,
Speaker 2: particularly in the offensive end.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think we came out we were a little
Speaker 6: flat this was the team in general.
Speaker 5: But that's tough for you. Got to get back to.
Speaker 6: The drawing board. I know it's such a cliche you're saying.
Speaker 6: I hate saying that obviously, but we got I'm not
Speaker 6: going to to do a thing a lot of guys.
Speaker 6: I'm in our team. On our team, that good guys
Speaker 6: played a.
Speaker 1: Lot of good balls.
Speaker 6: So I mean, we not tripping off.
Speaker 5: Who we are.
Speaker 6: We just gotta go out there and do it. The
Speaker 6: guys can't start flat.
Speaker 2: Is it fair to wonder if the Bengals need to
Speaker 2: change the preseason approach and play some guys more. Do
Speaker 2: you think that's a factor at all.
Speaker 6: I don't know if that's it. I think it's more
Speaker 6: so like you know, if you don't, I know.
Speaker 5: You need the reps.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 6: I know people talk about that, but the fu Yeah,
Speaker 6: you wake up on Sunday, it's snow, the grass, everybody's
Speaker 6: ready to go. I don't think that's the thing, Like
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying, Oh, we blame it on
Speaker 6: There is language. Nobody has like a what happened? We
Speaker 6: came out flat? We got meat? They need us? How
Speaker 6: goes sometimes?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 6: And unfortunately that's how it's going on our opening the
Speaker 6: last couple of years, so we just we gotta really
Speaker 6: get on it.
Speaker 2: The touchdown late in the first half, did you feel
Speaker 2: like that was a a a big momentum swing for
Speaker 2: Cavelent It was three nothing at the.
Speaker 6: Time, Nah, cause we came out and gotta stop. So
Speaker 6: I don't. I wouldn't call it that, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying, like, Oh, it's just the end of the world.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 6: We came out and gotta stop three out the next
Speaker 6: So I didn't think it was a big momentium shift.
Speaker 6: I think, well, we just didn't do it. His great
Speaker 6: guy and they got put in some tough spots and
Speaker 6: didn't find a way out of them, you know, So
Speaker 6: that's just really what happened.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't think that that kind of that moment was
Speaker 6: the momentum shift.
Speaker 2: You didn't play in the game here last year, but
Speaker 2: the Bengals obviously have had a lot of trouble in
Speaker 2: this building. Is it frustrating to come here and just
Speaker 2: play poorly again things.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's really frustrating. You never wanna go anywhere and
Speaker 6: play powardly. We talk like you didn't start riding fortunately
Speaker 6: in our division. We'll get to see him twice, so
Speaker 6: we gotta come to us next. You can't really gotta
Speaker 6: scrap this game, you know, I can't really think.
Speaker 10: About it anymore.
Speaker 2: We know with this offense, it's only a matter of
Speaker 2: time before they get it rolling. Is it almost hard
Speaker 2: to believe when they struggle as badly as they struggle today, you.
Speaker 6: Know what they're used to and you know, we just
Speaker 6: go out there encourage them to get back to that
Speaker 6: and they'll get back to it. It's not it's definitely
Speaker 6: different when they don't, you know, but get that people
Speaker 6: out of the days. Man, it happens, and you can't
Speaker 6: expect you to be perfect every day. Fortunately, might this
Speaker 6: lead it expect you to be perfect other Sunday And
Speaker 6: I just wentting this Sunday. So guys gotta get back
Speaker 6: to the daring board. I think a lot of guys
Speaker 6: pride Hurst got it, so I think it would be
Speaker 6: a good thing for us. You know, we've been able
Speaker 6: to bat it out of this back against the wall
Speaker 6: the last two years, so we'll be able to get it.
Speaker 2: Does appreciate your time, Thank you to out no Doubt.
Speaker 2: The Bengals Booth Podcast is brought to you by Bengals
Speaker 2: Picks and Ultimate Bengals. They're free to play with tickets
Speaker 2: and sign merchandise up for grabs. Find both inside the
Speaker 2: Bengals app Now time to hear what Zach Taylor had
Speaker 2: to say after the game, as he spent a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes with Dave Lapham coach.
Speaker 5: Obviously, twenty four to three outcome wasn't what you were
Speaker 5: looking for, but coming out of this football game, just
Speaker 5: the good news just seemed to come out of it
Speaker 5: pretty darn healthy.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we'll look at that, but obviously we want to
Speaker 8: come out of here with a win and healthy. You know.
Speaker 8: But it's a long season, so we got to make
Speaker 8: the corrections that we can control and be ready to
Speaker 8: go next weekend's Baltimore.
Speaker 5: In your mind, what are some of those corrections that
Speaker 5: you feel like need to be made that you can't control.
Speaker 8: There's gonna be a lot of hidden yardage in just
Speaker 8: all over the field, you know that presented us with
Speaker 8: field position and then third down clearly on offense, we
Speaker 8: were two fifteen or three fifteen, and that's that's not
Speaker 8: going to beat anybody. So there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 8: of things we can.
Speaker 5: Clean up defensively, particularly in the first half. Two takeaways.
Speaker 5: You didn't turn the football over, you went plus two.
Speaker 5: You know, that's that's going to win you some football
Speaker 5: games when other things are ironed out.
Speaker 8: There's no question, you know they did. They did what
Speaker 8: we needed them to do, and we went for on
Speaker 8: fourth down in their territory and they gave up seven
Speaker 8: points right after that, had the two turnovers. They really
Speaker 8: had field position working against some of the entire game
Speaker 8: and held up for us well. So you know, I
Speaker 8: thought that there was there was a lot of winning
Speaker 8: things that are defense did today.
Speaker 5: If I'm not mistaken, I think Joe put a glove on.
Speaker 5: I mean, what was it that bat out there with
Speaker 5: that reign. I mean, if it's just drizzling a little
Speaker 5: bit that can make a football Darren slick with that
Speaker 5: rozin on it.
Speaker 8: It was as bad as as we've had since I've
Speaker 8: been here, you know. So that's an element that factors
Speaker 8: into the game. And we got to be ready for
Speaker 8: as team and start to adjust and again win on
Speaker 8: those little small thrings in all three phases to help
Speaker 8: ourselves and just didn't do good enough job of that today.
Speaker 5: Did Cleveland do anything defensively that surprised you at all,
Speaker 5: or they were very aggressive in their posture on just
Speaker 5: about everything they did.
Speaker 8: I guess, yeah, sure, and you should be. You know,
Speaker 8: they're the first half when it gets wet and it's
Speaker 8: gonna be hard to throw it and we're gonna have
Speaker 8: to lean on the run game. So they did a
Speaker 8: good job of that stuff.
Speaker 5: So now as you get ready for the for the
Speaker 5: Baltimore Ravens, you get them at home. And I mean,
Speaker 5: what did you tell your football team in the locker
Speaker 5: room right after this football game?
Speaker 8: We got to clean this thing up tomorrow, put this
Speaker 8: one behind us, and be ready to see the team
Speaker 8: that we know we are next week when we play
Speaker 8: Baltimore at home.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you're exactly right. I mean, the last two
Speaker 5: years this team went to the Super Bowl, went to
Speaker 5: the SC Championship Game, and last in Cleveland both years.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's not like you don't throw the baby
Speaker 5: out with the bathwater, right.
Speaker 8: Yeah. People will make a lot of it because it's
Speaker 8: Week one and there's been a lot of focus on
Speaker 8: this game, but again, we know that this can be
Speaker 8: a long season and we just got to put it
Speaker 8: behind us and make the corrections and get ready for
Speaker 8: next week.
Speaker 2: A home game against the Ravens is coming up next.
Speaker 2: Baltimore opened the season with a twenty five to nine
Speaker 2: win over the Houston Texans, and it was a tough
Speaker 2: weekend for football fans in Pittsburgh. The pitt Panthers lost
Speaker 2: a home game to the UC Bearcats on Saturday night,
Speaker 2: and the following afternoon on the same field, the Steelers
Speaker 2: lost to the San Francisco forty nine Ers thirty to seven.
Speaker 2: Before we get to this week's fun Facts interview, here
Speaker 2: are a couple of takeaways from Sunday's loss. Number One.
Speaker 2: People are not going to want to hear this, but
Speaker 2: I am more concerned about how good the Browns looked
Speaker 2: than how bad the Bengals looked. Joe Burrow and the
Speaker 2: Bengals will bounce back, they always do, but the Browns
Speaker 2: looked like they are going to be formidable in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three. Deshaun Watson didn't throw the ball very well,
Speaker 2: but if he continues to improve and gives the Browns
Speaker 2: solid quarterback play this year, they'd be tough to beat
Speaker 2: in the AFC North. The strong up front on both
Speaker 2: sides of the ball, have really good cornerbacks and one
Speaker 2: of the best running backs on the planet. I didn't
Speaker 2: see a glaring weakness on Sunday. Observation two. Did not
Speaker 2: playing the offensive starters in the preseason lead to another
Speaker 2: lousy opener. It's impossible to say for sure, but Zach
Speaker 2: Taylor is no dummy, and I don't think he's stubborn.
Speaker 2: It's probably worth changing the preseason plan just a bit
Speaker 2: to at least try something different. Then again, if Joe
Speaker 2: Burrow hadn't strained his calf in the second practice of
Speaker 2: training camp, the offense might have put thirty five points
Speaker 2: on the board. Observation number three. If the new starting
Speaker 2: safeties were the biggest question mark going into the season,
Speaker 2: I thought they got off to a great start. Dax
Speaker 2: Hill had an interception and six tackles, including two for losses,
Speaker 2: and Nick Scott tied for the team leaden tackles with eleven,
Speaker 2: matching Jermaine Pratt. I also thought rookie DJ Turner looked
Speaker 2: excellent in his snaps at cornerback. The Bengals Booth podcast
Speaker 2: is brought to you by Kettering Health, the official healthcare
Speaker 2: provider of the Bengals. With more than one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty care facilities and fifteen hundred care providers. Kettering Health
Speaker 2: is committed to guiding you to your best health. Visit
Speaker 2: ketteringhealth dot org to learn more. My Fantastic fun Facts
Speaker 2: guest this week is Bengals President Mike Brown, and I
Speaker 2: should point out that our conversation was recorded before the
Speaker 2: team's record setting contract extension with Joe Burrow. Here's Mike, Mike.
Speaker 2: This is the Bengals fifty sixth season. Joe Burrow's got
Speaker 2: three years of experience under his belt. Your coaching staff
Speaker 2: is in its fifth year together. Basically, I don't see
Speaker 2: any glaring weaknesses on the roster. Does this year feel
Speaker 2: different to you in terms of expectations.
Speaker 10: I know better than to have expectations. We've played well
Speaker 10: the last two years. We had good teams. We went
Speaker 10: to the Super Bowl, too, AFC championship games, and we
Speaker 10: won the divisional title back to back. That's pretty good
Speaker 10: recognition that we had a good team. But when you
Speaker 10: look forward, you have to be careful not to claim
Speaker 10: too much. You have to go out and do it again.
Speaker 10: You have to prove it over. It's never easy. Those
Speaker 10: other teams they think that they're just as good or better,
Speaker 10: And I know we have good teams in the division
Speaker 10: to contend with. It will be a real challenge, but
Speaker 10: I also know that we have a pretty good base
Speaker 10: to start after it.
Speaker 2: It's not in your nature to make bold proclamations. Was
Speaker 2: your dad the same way, Oh?
Speaker 10: He was much more so. He used to as a
Speaker 10: coach always make sure that if they won a game,
Speaker 10: that was a great victory and everyone should recognize. It
Speaker 10: is the case that some of the people in the NFL,
Speaker 10: the league, they go out and beat their own tub,
Speaker 10: hoping that people won't come. I've seen that done by
Speaker 10: some very successfully for some reason. When they go down,
Speaker 10: it's been so long since they were bragging about their
Speaker 10: future that hardly anyone remembers it. But to me, that
Speaker 10: would be embarrassing. And I was raised by my father
Speaker 10: to the less you say, the better.
Speaker 2: Your daughter, Katie has been praised league wide for her
Speaker 2: ability to manage the salary cap. Are you amazed by
Speaker 2: her grasp of a very complicated matter?
Speaker 10: Well, I know, Katie, I'm not amazed. She was a
Speaker 10: math major and an economics major in college. She's quite
Speaker 10: bright enough. She can figure that stuff out. Sometimes I
Speaker 10: think she thinks I'm too dumb to understand it. But anyway,
Speaker 10: I rely on her, the team countseling her to handle this.
Speaker 2: The NFL is approaching twenty billion dollars a year in
Speaker 2: annual revenue. What do you make of the popularity and
Speaker 2: scope of the NFL in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 10: Well, I can't count to twenty billion, But I don't
Speaker 10: think about the money. I honestly got down. I just
Speaker 10: think about having it run the right way. That means
Speaker 10: you win. It means you people behave and live the
Speaker 10: way they should and are part of the community. It
Speaker 10: means you keep the contentious stuff restrained, and money seems
Speaker 10: to have a way of being contentious. The less said
Speaker 10: about it, the better. As far as I'm concerned, Let's
Speaker 10: just focus on the games. That's what people really are
Speaker 10: interested in.
Speaker 2: You've been known over the years to read and respond
Speaker 2: to the letters sent to you. We're living in an
Speaker 2: email world. Now do you still get letters and respond
Speaker 2: to them?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 10: I do. Just a short while ago, lady that I
Speaker 10: wrote back to said, well, you like maps, so here
Speaker 10: here's a map, and it's a map of the settlement
Speaker 10: of Ohio. And how that was, how that went forward,
Speaker 10: and it's really quite fun for me to look at it.
Speaker 10: I do like it. Also sent a book to read.
Speaker 10: I hesitated getting books from people because I like to
Speaker 10: pick my own. But anyway, yes, I correspond to people
Speaker 10: and occasionally I run aground, but more often not it
Speaker 10: works out.
Speaker 2: Okay, the NFL allows cameras everywhere. In this day and age,
Speaker 2: we've got hard knocks. Netflix recently had a multi part
Speaker 2: quarterback show that was very entertaining. Do you watch any
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 10: Stuff less than I probably should? I watched some of
Speaker 10: When we were on the Hard Knock Show. It got
Speaker 10: to be a trial. You'd be in your office and
Speaker 10: these guys would just march right in and PLoP down
Speaker 10: and take pictures of whatever you were doing. Then a
Speaker 10: lot of it. Most stuff with me just got cut
Speaker 10: out because there wasn't anything that anyone wanted to say.
Speaker 10: But it could be Oh, I wouldn't say annoying, surprising.
Speaker 10: Let us say you knew what was going on, so
Speaker 10: you had to be ready to handle it. But it
Speaker 10: was it was different.
Speaker 2: We're having this conversation just before the beginning of training camp,
Speaker 2: which obviously takes place across the street from pay Course Stadium.
Speaker 2: Do you miss going to places like Wilmington and Georgetown?
Speaker 10: I do. I happened to like the old ways. I
Speaker 10: don't know at this stage whether I would be up
Speaker 10: to it, but training camp had a way about it
Speaker 10: that was integral to the life, the football life, and
Speaker 10: it was fun to be around the players. And quite honestly,
Speaker 10: if you talk to the old ones, they liked it.
Speaker 10: They talk about what they did at training camp and
Speaker 10: the pranks they played on each other and stuff like that.
Speaker 10: It's conducive to wonderful memories. I'll say that. Yet I
Speaker 10: like this way too. It's certainly nice to be able
Speaker 10: to go home at night and we're right across the
Speaker 10: street from the practice field. It's good for the people
Speaker 10: here in Cincinnati. They can come down and watch if
Speaker 10: they choose. So there are a lot of pluses to
Speaker 10: having it the way it is now.
Speaker 2: We've all heard the staying patience is a virtue. Many
Speaker 2: of your fellow owners aren't very patient with their coaching staffs.
Speaker 2: You historically have been. Do you feel like you were
Speaker 2: rewarded with your patients. For Zach Taylor and seeing how
Speaker 2: he's grown, was acs.
Speaker 10: An excellent coach. The first two years here were hard.
Speaker 10: He was a young coach. He's probably getting hold of himself,
Speaker 10: but it took a while for him to put the
Speaker 10: team together the way it worked for him, and I
Speaker 10: think that's been accomplished. We have some good players. The
Speaker 10: problem going forwards will be to how do we keep
Speaker 10: the good players enough of them? That's what I worry
Speaker 10: about these days. Zach has proven himself. If you have
Speaker 10: a coaching record like his, where you go to a
Speaker 10: super Bowl, where you go to a couple of AFC
Speaker 10: championship games and win the division back to back, you
Speaker 10: have proven your merit.
Speaker 2: Part of the fun of being a sports fan are
Speaker 2: the rivalries. Who do you consider at the Bengals' biggest
Speaker 2: rival these days?
Speaker 10: Whoever we play next? But our natural rival is Cleveland,
Speaker 10: But somehow Cleveland has drifted off to consider the Steelers
Speaker 10: their natural rival Baltimore and we pound on each other
Speaker 10: pretty good, yet we're sort of far away. And now
Speaker 10: Kansas City Mahomes told Joe that I guess we were
Speaker 10: going to have a rivalry or something like that, So
Speaker 10: now we have another one to be a rival with.
Speaker 2: You said to reporters earlier today, this is a time
Speaker 2: for Cincinnati sports to shine. Clearly, you're cognizant of the Reds'
Speaker 2: recent success. I know how closely follow the Reds, but
Speaker 2: also FC Cincinnati. You see going to the Big twelve
Speaker 2: xavior basketball's historical success. You seem to be kind of
Speaker 2: caught up in all of it.
Speaker 10: Well, it's quite extraordinary. A lot's going on in Cincinnati
Speaker 10: in sports, good things, and I think that this adds
Speaker 10: to the life here in town. I like sports. I
Speaker 10: think a lot of men doing women as well. It
Speaker 10: just lifts the spirits of the community when it goes right,
Speaker 10: and right now it looks like it's going right.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure to pick your brain. Appreciate the time.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mike, good to be with you. That's going to
Speaker 2: do it for this episode of the Bengals Booth podcast,
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