Speaker 1: Hike and everybody. I'm Dan Horde and thanks for downloading
Speaker 1: the Bengals Booth podcast. The Let's give them something to
Speaker 1: talk about. Addition, as we discuss the verbal diarrhea being
Speaker 1: spewed from coast to coast about the Bengals in the
Speaker 1: possible number one pick in April's draft Joe Burrow And yes,
Speaker 1: I said verbal diarrhea. A Dan Horde rant is coming up,
Speaker 1: and with the NFL Scouting Combine a little more than
Speaker 1: a week away, I'll pick the brain of the Bengals
Speaker 1: Director of College Scouting Mike Potts. The Combined, by the way,
Speaker 1: will be the bengals first opportunity to sit in a
Speaker 1: room and have an extended conversation with Joe Burrow and
Speaker 1: many of the top prospects in this year's draft. All
Speaker 1: of that is straight ahead, but first, here's a quick
Speaker 1: reminder that you can have the latest edition of this
Speaker 1: podcast delivered right to your phone, tablet, or compute by
Speaker 1: subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or pod Bean.
Speaker 1: It's the greatest thing since blowpops. So I got home
Speaker 1: from work last night and sitting at my desk was
Speaker 1: a grape blowpop courtesy of my thirteen year old son.
Speaker 1: You remember the Blowpop. It's two treats in one, a
Speaker 1: hard candy shell with a chewy bubble gum center. It's
Speaker 1: the Charms Candy Company's best selling product of all time,
Speaker 1: and I can see why they've been making kids and
Speaker 1: dentists very happy for more than half a century. Now,
Speaker 1: let's get to football. By now, I'm guessing you've heard
Speaker 1: or read story suggesting that Joe Burrow does not want
Speaker 1: to play for the Bengals, or that the Heisman Trophy
Speaker 1: winner shouldn't want to play for the Bengals. Let's start
Speaker 1: with the first part, the notion that the LSU quarterback
Speaker 1: does not want to play in Cincinnati. I've listened to
Speaker 1: three recent interviews featuring Joe Burrow. He was on the
Speaker 1: part in My Take podcast in December, the day after
Speaker 1: winning the Heisman, and he did two national radio shows
Speaker 1: during Super Bowl week, the Dan Patrick Show and The
Speaker 1: Rich Eisen Show. I recommend listening to all three interviews,
Speaker 1: especially the part of My Take interview from December sixteenth,
Speaker 1: where Joe shares some great stories about his two years
Speaker 1: at LSU. It's at the very end of a long
Speaker 1: podcast In all three interviews, Burrow speaks enthusiastically about potentially
Speaker 1: being the number one overall pick in this year's draft.
Speaker 1: The only possible thing that could raise any doubts about
Speaker 1: his desire to play for the Bengals happened on The
Speaker 1: Dan Patrick Show on January thirty first, when Patrick asked
Speaker 1: if being the number one pick or going to the
Speaker 1: right team is most porton. Burrow answered as follows a
Speaker 1: combination of both. You want to go number one, but
Speaker 1: you also want to go to a great organization that's
Speaker 1: committed to winning, committed to winning Super Bowls. Because he
Speaker 1: didn't specifically say I want to go number one and
Speaker 1: be the guy that turns things around in Cincinnati, members
Speaker 1: of the media have their story and they are running
Speaker 1: wild with it, and their logic usually goes as follows.
Speaker 1: Carson Palmer quit the Bengals and since retiring, has questioned
Speaker 1: their commitment to winning. Joe Burrow is training for the
Speaker 1: draft under Carson's brother, Jordan Palmer. A plus B equals clickbait.
Speaker 1: Never Mind that a few weeks ago, Burrow said the
Speaker 1: following to Bloomberg News quote, whoever wants to pay me
Speaker 1: the money to play the game of football. I'll play
Speaker 1: for him. It doesn't matter to me or that. In Midjauary,
Speaker 1: his dad, Jimmy Burrow said in a radio interview quote,
Speaker 1: if the Bengals do draft him, he's going to be happy.
Speaker 1: He'll look at it as a challenge, but he'll be
Speaker 1: confident that eventually they can win a lot of games
Speaker 1: there in Cincinnati. Now, I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: I trust Joe's dad more than I trust Mike Florio
Speaker 1: from Pro Football Talk. Still, that didn't stop PFT from
Speaker 1: using the following headline on February eighth. Does Joe Burrow
Speaker 1: hope the Bengals don't draft him? They follow that headline
Speaker 1: with six hundred and thirty four words on the subject
Speaker 1: when they could have gone with four. We have no idea.
Speaker 1: Media outlets have a lot of time and space to
Speaker 1: fill between now and the draft, and they're always looking
Speaker 1: for stories with sizzle. Thankfully, there's a chance that this
Speaker 1: one will die soon. It's standard operating procedure for the
Speaker 1: top draft prospects to hold a news conference at the
Speaker 1: NFL Scouting Combine, which gets under way a week from Sunday.
Speaker 1: Here's hoping Joe Burrow buries this story much like he
Speaker 1: buried Oklahoma in the National semifinal game when he threw
Speaker 1: seven touchdown passes in the first half. Now, let's get
Speaker 1: to the second notion that media outlets are hammering that
Speaker 1: Joe Burrow shouldn't want to play for the Bengals. Listen,
Speaker 1: I get it. The team hasn't won a playoff game
Speaker 1: since January of nineteen ninety one, and they've certainly made
Speaker 1: their share of mistakes since their five year playoff streak
Speaker 1: ended in two fifteen. But it wasn't that long ago
Speaker 1: that the Bengals were being widely praised for their astute
Speaker 1: roster building. It took me all of about a five
Speaker 1: minute Google search to find the following four stories. NFL
Speaker 1: dot Com August of two twelve. Cincinnati Bengals suddenly resemble
Speaker 1: a model franchise since an Eddie Enquirer October of two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen, the Bengals became the beacon of consistency
Speaker 1: and a role model for roster construction. CBS Sports, also
Speaker 1: October of two thousand and fifteen. Agents take how the
Speaker 1: Bengals turned into one of the NFL's model franchises. Yahoo
Speaker 1: Sports June of two thousand and sixteen, Bengals might have
Speaker 1: the deepest roster in the NFL. I'm sure I could
Speaker 1: have found a dozen more stories from that time period
Speaker 1: that basically say the same thing. So what's happened since? Well,
Speaker 1: the Bengals had a bad draft in two thousand and fifteen.
Speaker 1: Cedric o'boyhey and Jake Fisher didn't work out, making the
Speaker 1: departure of Andrew Whitworth especially damaging. Then in the next
Speaker 1: four drafts they had brutal luck were their first round
Speaker 1: picks as will Jackson, John Ross, Billy Price, and Jonah
Speaker 1: William missed much or all of their rookie seasons. And
Speaker 1: while the Bengals historically have not gone after high priced
Speaker 1: free agents, they basically did that two years ago when
Speaker 1: they picked up Cordy Glenn. Technically it was a trade,
Speaker 1: but Cordy had three years left on one of the
Speaker 1: priciest offensive line deals in the NFL. When the Bengals
Speaker 1: acquired him. This year, he spent nearly two months in
Speaker 1: concussion protocol. Now, I've been broadcasting the games for nine years.
Speaker 1: In that timeframe, the Bengals are one of only ten
Speaker 1: teams to make the playoffs. Five times their winning percentage,
Speaker 1: despite going two and fourteen this year, still ranks thirteenth
Speaker 1: best in the NFL. None of that is good enough.
Speaker 1: The goal is to win the Super Bowl, and with
Speaker 1: the first pick in this year's draft, the Bengals are
Speaker 1: in a position to acquire the type of player that
Speaker 1: can ultimately help them get there. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to this week's guest. Mike Potts is the Bengals director
Speaker 1: of college scouting. He joined the team in twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: after spending four years working in the scouting department for
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Falcons. With the combine coming up shortly followed
Speaker 1: by on Caps Pro Days, I thought it would be
Speaker 1: a great time to pick his brain about the process
Speaker 1: of putting together this year's draft class. Mike, the NFL
Speaker 1: Scouting Combine begins in a little more than a week.
Speaker 1: Because halving the number one overall pick raise the stakes
Speaker 1: or change anything about the combine from your perspective, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it makes it a lot more important obviously
Speaker 1: for us, because you don't want to be picking at
Speaker 1: that spot every year. Hopefully we're never picking there again.
Speaker 1: It's obviously a rough season that you have to go through.
Speaker 1: To get to that point. But that's the spot that
Speaker 1: we're in, and to answer your question, it is important.
Speaker 1: You know, you can obviously narrow it down to fewer
Speaker 1: guys as opposed to if you're picking, you know, at
Speaker 1: the latter half of the first round, there's a lot
Speaker 1: more guys that you have to have rank and see
Speaker 1: how the board falls, So it is easier to narrow
Speaker 1: it down to a smaller number of guys. But it's
Speaker 1: it's obviously a pick where you're gonna want a difference
Speaker 1: making guy that can that can change the franchise for you.
Speaker 1: So so it's obviously a very important selection for us,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna do all the homework that we need
Speaker 1: to do to make sure we make the right choice.
Speaker 1: You mentioned having guy's ranked last year. For example, when
Speaker 1: you're taking the eleventh choice, you can list guys one
Speaker 1: through eleven, and then when it's your pick, maybe number
Speaker 1: four is still there, maybe number six is still there,
Speaker 1: whatever that helps you make your choice at number eleven.
Speaker 1: You've got number one this year, but you've also got
Speaker 1: number thirty three, So will you do a one through
Speaker 1: thirty three in preparation for that second pick? We will,
Speaker 1: and even further. You know, well, we're as of right now,
Speaker 1: we're picking at sixty five at the top of the
Speaker 1: third round, and then we'll see exactly what our number
Speaker 1: is going to be at the top of the fourth round,
Speaker 1: because there'll be some compensatory selections there that end end
Speaker 1: up getting released here over the next several weeks as
Speaker 1: far as um you know, at the end of the
Speaker 1: third round, so that'll push us back a little bit
Speaker 1: from that traditional it would be the ninety seventh spot.
Speaker 1: We may be at one hundred or something like that,
Speaker 1: but we'll probably stack the board up to at least
Speaker 1: our our fourth round pick, and then there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of moving parts from there, you know, depending on
Speaker 1: what you take at one or thirty three, or if
Speaker 1: you move around, if you trade up, if you trade back,
Speaker 1: you may address certain positions and then we'll readdress or
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we'll reorder the board there from there as
Speaker 1: far as by position, and you know, we may value
Speaker 1: a certain position over another one according to what we
Speaker 1: did on day one of the draft. We're speaking to
Speaker 1: the Bengals director of college Scouting, Mike Potts. From your perspective,
Speaker 1: what is the most valuable part of the combine. I
Speaker 1: think it's the medicals for sure, you know, to get
Speaker 1: that many three hundred and some players all in the
Speaker 1: same spot, and Indianapolis is a phenomenal location for it.
Speaker 1: The logistics and you know, everything that they have ironed
Speaker 1: out from for doing it there for a long time
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, they really do a great job
Speaker 1: with it. And that's that's the majority of the information
Speaker 1: we get is the medical. That's the that's the most
Speaker 1: important thing, I would say. And then and then from
Speaker 1: there the interviews, dialing in on on who these players
Speaker 1: are as people. You know, we talked through their coaches,
Speaker 1: we talk to their support staff when we go through
Speaker 1: these schools as scouts on visits. But it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it means a lot more looking at the player in
Speaker 1: the eye and hearing it from them, so that that
Speaker 1: part of it is is big. And then all obviously
Speaker 1: the athletic testing is a huge part of it. But
Speaker 1: if I had to, if I had to say, one
Speaker 1: was the you know, the most beneficial thing that we
Speaker 1: get out of it will be the medical. It's a
Speaker 1: good follow up to my next question because the staff
Speaker 1: got to coach some of the top prospects at the
Speaker 1: Senior Bowl, including quarterback Justin Herbert, but Joe Burrow to
Speaker 1: a tone of Violela, Chase Young, and some of the
Speaker 1: other top candidates for the draft. We're not in mobile.
Speaker 1: Will this be your first opportunity or the team's first opportunity.
Speaker 1: It's in a room and visit with those guys. It
Speaker 1: will be. Yeah. You know, sometimes as a scout, when
Speaker 1: you go through to a smaller school, they'll bring that player,
Speaker 1: they may only have one prospect, and they'll bring that
Speaker 1: player in to talk to you face to face during
Speaker 1: the fall. But it's not that way. You know, when
Speaker 1: when you're at a big SEC, a SEC big ten
Speaker 1: type of school, you know they have you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty prospects that that could end up having
Speaker 1: a chance of getting drafted. So you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: not the way it works. So so yeah, this combine
Speaker 1: is the first time we will get a chance to
Speaker 1: talk to the guys that we haven't already interviewed at
Speaker 1: the at the All Star Games in January. The interview
Speaker 1: process at the combine is intriguing to be because it's
Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes of speed dating. Explain how that works, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's actually it was changed this year to
Speaker 1: we used to get sixty interviews. Now we only get
Speaker 1: forty five, and they lengthen them from fifteen minutes to
Speaker 1: eighteen minutes now. Um, So that that was part of
Speaker 1: the logistical adjustments they had to make with moving the
Speaker 1: workouts from during the day to now at nighttime and
Speaker 1: prime time on TV. UM. So that uh, you know
Speaker 1: that that throws those a little bit of a wrench
Speaker 1: in our schedule, but um, but you know, we'll adjust,
Speaker 1: and it is it is nice to have an additional
Speaker 1: three minutes with these guys, you know, maybe some extra
Speaker 1: tape that we can throw on to ask them a
Speaker 1: specific question about, you know, whatever the play may have
Speaker 1: been on such and such game. Um. You know, in
Speaker 1: the third quarter, you know, you can really dial in
Speaker 1: on some of those details. You can get a good
Speaker 1: feel for their personality, their intelligence. Um, you know, even
Speaker 1: even some of their leaderships, leadership and charisma will shine
Speaker 1: through in that setting. So it's really beneficial. I know
Speaker 1: it's only in this case eighteen minutes fifteen minutes in
Speaker 1: the past, but you do with with interviewing those guys
Speaker 1: back to back to back, you can make comparisons and
Speaker 1: and it's uh, it's really beneficial for us. I think
Speaker 1: I think you get more out of it than you
Speaker 1: would think, you know, just just thinking about it going
Speaker 1: in with um, you know, having never been in one
Speaker 1: of those, uh, one of those interviews, I think you
Speaker 1: do get a good out of it. But then there'll
Speaker 1: be other guys that we want to bring into the
Speaker 1: facility on a on a visit into into Cincinnati to
Speaker 1: our facility to do more work on in those interviews.
Speaker 1: Do you have a standard list of questions that you
Speaker 1: basically ask everybody or is it highly tailored to each player?
Speaker 1: A little bit of both. There there's some basic questions
Speaker 1: that we like to get out of the way in
Speaker 1: the beginning, you know, get the guy talk and get
Speaker 1: them comfortable, UM, and then we'll we'll dive into um
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, the early portion of the
Speaker 1: interview will be more so their personality intelligence, just basic
Speaker 1: questions like that. UM. Some of them are repeats and
Speaker 1: some of them are are a little more tailored to
Speaker 1: the guy. And then when we when we have him go,
Speaker 1: you know, look at the tape with the position coach,
Speaker 1: it'll be more specifically tailored to that guy, and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know how he learns. You know, they'll they'll tell
Speaker 1: us about their offense or defense and just talking through
Speaker 1: x's nose. And a lot of times the players are
Speaker 1: a lot more they're a lot more comfortable in that
Speaker 1: setting talking about football. Then they then they maybe are
Speaker 1: things off the field. So it's a it's a good process.
Speaker 1: We're talking to the Bengals Director of college Scouting Mike Potts.
Speaker 1: After the Combine, the scouts and the coaches will go
Speaker 1: to pro days from coast to coast. You'll get to
Speaker 1: see players that were not invited to the Combine. But
Speaker 1: is there anything else about the pro days specifically that
Speaker 1: you find valuable? I think, um so. So I'll sit
Speaker 1: down with with all of our position coaches and all
Speaker 1: of our scouts at the Combine. A lot of what
Speaker 1: we do is based on guys that maybe didn't work
Speaker 1: out of the Combine for a medical reason or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. And so that would be a
Speaker 1: guy that you know, some of our coaches or scouts
Speaker 1: haven't seen in person, so we'll schedule it that way.
Speaker 1: Um So, it may be a guy that we're seeing
Speaker 1: work out. You know up close and personal for the
Speaker 1: first time. So that's that's one big benefit we get.
Speaker 1: And then you know, if it's a you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't go in every school in the country
Speaker 1: this year as a scout. So if it's a school
Speaker 1: that maybe I didn't hit during the fall, and you know,
Speaker 1: likewise with with some of our other scouts and coaches,
Speaker 1: they may have a connection on the coaching staff or
Speaker 1: support staff at one of those schools, so you can
Speaker 1: follow up and do more homework on the prospect's personality
Speaker 1: and things like that, and you know, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just more of you know, to further further the amount
Speaker 1: of amount of information we get on the guys as
Speaker 1: both players and people. Your territory during the season includes
Speaker 1: the SEC. So roughly, how many times do you think
Speaker 1: you saw Joe Burrow into a Tundavilela over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, Oh, I'd have to, I'd have to
Speaker 1: count it up. I've seen them both multiple times at
Speaker 1: in both a game setting and in practice. I would
Speaker 1: say over the past two years, I probably had five
Speaker 1: or six live exposures at least to both of those guys.
Speaker 1: Like I said, in multiple different settings. So that's I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm big on that as as a scout. I
Speaker 1: think in order to have conviction and really really feel like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the guy that we need to take, you
Speaker 1: need to see him in person. You need to seem
Speaker 1: at a game, especially the quarterback position that you mentioned.
Speaker 1: With those two guys, you want to see how their
Speaker 1: teammates respond to them on the sideline, you know, you
Speaker 1: want to see how they interact with everybody. You want
Speaker 1: to see how they respond to adversity, you know, taking
Speaker 1: a big hit or throwing an interception, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: And those are things that you can't pick up as
Speaker 1: far as as far as just just watching the film.
Speaker 1: You were a college quarterback and went to training camp
Speaker 1: with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Zach Taylor was a highly successful
Speaker 1: college quarterback. Duke Tobin was a college quarterback. Mike Brown
Speaker 1: was a college quarterback years ago. In a draft where
Speaker 1: you are in a position to take the first choice
Speaker 1: of any quarterback in this draft, if that's the way
Speaker 1: you elect to go, is it advantageous to have so
Speaker 1: many quarterbacks in the building. Absolutely, you know, different guys
Speaker 1: have different experiences and being in the huddle and you know,
Speaker 1: changing protections at the line of scrimmage, reading coverages, having
Speaker 1: been in that position is invaluable in my opinion. And
Speaker 1: to have guys that have done it at different levels,
Speaker 1: you know, at different levels of college football, at different
Speaker 1: levels of professional football. Um, you know, the more, the
Speaker 1: more perspectives, the better in my opinion. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: and we'll get together, you know, scouts, coaches, you know,
Speaker 1: whether you play the position or not, everybody you'll get
Speaker 1: together and and have opinions on this thing. And and
Speaker 1: you know, we'll work our way through it, and we'll
Speaker 1: and we'll make the best selection for the Bengals. Where
Speaker 1: do you think this draft is deep? Oh? Man, it's
Speaker 1: it's a good draft. I would say off the top
Speaker 1: of my head. Both lines of scrimmage are very strong.
Speaker 1: The receiver class has been as has been widely publicized,
Speaker 1: is UH is a very strong group. So those are
Speaker 1: the two that that stand out off the top of
Speaker 1: my head. Um. You know you mentioned some of these quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: There's there's UH there's some good quarterbacks. And then you know,
Speaker 1: at the top of the draft end and you know
Speaker 1: that you could potentially get in the second, third, fourth
Speaker 1: round as well. Um, so, I think we're really excited
Speaker 1: about about a lot of different positions. I couldn't just
Speaker 1: sit here and say, you know, there's one position that
Speaker 1: it's really deep at um you know, glaring way way
Speaker 1: above the rest. We are meeting at two in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: You had a meeting with the staff earlier today. What
Speaker 1: are the types of things that you guys are meeting
Speaker 1: and discussing right now? So this week we've been meeting
Speaker 1: about the unrestrictive free agents, as far as our game plan, putting,
Speaker 1: putting together target lists, as far as who we want
Speaker 1: to attack in the in the free agent market on
Speaker 1: the pro personnel side of things. So we've been doing
Speaker 1: that this week, organizing everything, you know, getting the ownership,
Speaker 1: the scouts and the coaches altogether and everybody on the
Speaker 1: same page as far as as far as getting the
Speaker 1: plan together. And I think that's went really smoothly. Everybody's
Speaker 1: everybody's had some you know, really really good discussions and
Speaker 1: it's been really productive. So we've been meeting on that
Speaker 1: this week, and then next week what we're gonna do
Speaker 1: is go through all the underclassmen. I think there was
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty one of them that came out
Speaker 1: early for the draft this year. So we'll be meeting
Speaker 1: on all those guys next week. We already have grades
Speaker 1: on all those guys, and we've been watching them all fall.
Speaker 1: It's just we like to wait and and wait till
Speaker 1: they officially declare for the draft before we before we
Speaker 1: actually study and talk about their character and their medical
Speaker 1: and what, you know, how we see them as a
Speaker 1: player and and everything. We'd like to wait until they
Speaker 1: actually come out for the draft and or officially in
Speaker 1: the twenty and twenty draft before you know, we you know,
Speaker 1: we meet on the seniors in December. We couldn't meet
Speaker 1: on some of the juniors that we think are going
Speaker 1: to come out, but they then you end up it
Speaker 1: ends up being inefficient if you if you end up
Speaker 1: talking and using time on guys that don't actually end
Speaker 1: up declaring early for the draft. So that's what we'll
Speaker 1: be working on over the over the next couple weeks,
Speaker 1: and that'll take us right into the combine. We're talking
Speaker 1: to the Bengals director of college scouting, Mike Potts. The
Speaker 1: first day of the draft is April twenty third. When
Speaker 1: will your draft board take shape? Well, well, we'll have
Speaker 1: these Like I said, we'll have these meetings next week.
Speaker 1: That'll that'll put the juniors and the seniors altogether for
Speaker 1: our initial draft board going into the Combine. We'll go
Speaker 1: through the Combine in the pro day process, make some
Speaker 1: tweaks here and there, and then we have our final meetings.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, the first two or three weeks
Speaker 1: roughly of of April is when we'll do that. So
Speaker 1: it'll be it'll be pretty much set the I would
Speaker 1: say a week or so before the draft, it'll be
Speaker 1: pretty much set. And then we're always, you know, all
Speaker 1: the way up until the day before the draft, we're
Speaker 1: making last minute tweaks, um. But you know, it'll be
Speaker 1: set position by position, how we see those guys ranked.
Speaker 1: And then we have to combine all those positions together
Speaker 1: and like you said, rank them one to thirty three,
Speaker 1: rank them one to sixty five, you know, and so forth. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, because if if so and so goes, then
Speaker 1: you know, this is our plan. If if this guy goes,
Speaker 1: who's who is uh, you know, our our top ranked
Speaker 1: guy three selections before our our pick, then you know
Speaker 1: we move on to this guy. You know, so, um,
Speaker 1: we just have to be ready for for every scenario.
Speaker 1: And um, like I mentioned earlier, we have to be
Speaker 1: ready for trades. If there's a guy that we have
Speaker 1: ranked in our top ten and you know we're at
Speaker 1: pick twenty five and he's still there, we have to
Speaker 1: be prepared to have a plan of attack to to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, see what it would take to acquire a
Speaker 1: player like that. It's almost like you have two top
Speaker 1: ten picks this year because you get Jonah Williams back,
Speaker 1: the first offensive lineman taking in last year's draft, who
Speaker 1: unfortunately did not play. How does Jonah compare to the
Speaker 1: top offensive tackles in this draft? Oh, he's He's right
Speaker 1: up there. Jonah was a guy I think we uh,
Speaker 1: we all were very high on. Um. You know that
Speaker 1: I'd have to go through player by player to compare
Speaker 1: him one by one, but you know he would he
Speaker 1: would be right at the at the top. You know,
Speaker 1: equal two are better than the majority of the of
Speaker 1: the guys in this draft. Um, in my opinion, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody you know that that's my opinion. You know,
Speaker 1: every scouter coach may have a slightly different opinion, but
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think too many people would say
Speaker 1: he'd be, he'd be far off from from what's available
Speaker 1: in this draft. So obviously it was really unfortunate that
Speaker 1: he couldn't play at all his rookie year. But like
Speaker 1: you said, it is a it is gonna be nice
Speaker 1: having him back for the twenty twenty season. People have
Speaker 1: stories to write and talk shows to fill. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of chatter between now in April twenty third and
Speaker 1: Joe Burrow name has come up in a wide variety
Speaker 1: of places. Are you listening to all of this Joe
Speaker 1: Burrow talk? No, I don't think you can. You can
Speaker 1: listen to it. There's got to be, you know, headlines,
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be headlines regardless of what the situation is.
Speaker 1: I think. I think from our perspective, we're just worried
Speaker 1: about what's going on in this building. You know, We're
Speaker 1: we're watching the watching the film. We're calling these players
Speaker 1: coaches on the phone, and and getting gathering more and
Speaker 1: more information as we go throughout the process. And like
Speaker 1: you said, for for the first time in a week
Speaker 1: and a half or so, at the combine, we'll have
Speaker 1: the first time to sit down and look look these
Speaker 1: guys in the eye and talk to on face to face,
Speaker 1: so you know that that stuff is out our control.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna who's gonna make the headlines and who's gonna
Speaker 1: create stories, whether they have credibility or they don't have credibility. Um,
Speaker 1: so I think we would be you know, it would
Speaker 1: be taking us away from what's really the most important
Speaker 1: thing at hand for us. It would be taking us
Speaker 1: away from that if we were spending too much time
Speaker 1: worrying about what's what's in the news. So you get
Speaker 1: to talk to forty five guys at the combine for
Speaker 1: eighteen minutes apiece? Do you have that list of forty five?
Speaker 1: We do. We actually had to submit that on Tuesday
Speaker 1: of this week, so we have we submit that to
Speaker 1: the Combine and through the league and we have those
Speaker 1: forty five guys set and we will, like I said,
Speaker 1: will be a lot of them will be will end
Speaker 1: up being an underclassman just because we we coach a
Speaker 1: lot of these guys at the Senior Bowl. So we
Speaker 1: do have that leg up advantage on on some teams.
Speaker 1: As far as the exposure that we got to a
Speaker 1: lot of the seniors at the at the down down
Speaker 1: in Mobile. So that is uh, that is something that
Speaker 1: we're going to use to our advantage and use the
Speaker 1: information that we gathered for that week down at the
Speaker 1: Senior Bowl. And there still will be seniors that we
Speaker 1: that we do formal interviews with the combine, but I
Speaker 1: think this gives us a chance to to really focus
Speaker 1: on on some of the underclassmen that we don't you know,
Speaker 1: have as much face to face exposure with At this
Speaker 1: point in the process. It's a really busy time for
Speaker 1: you and the other guys on the staff. I know
Speaker 1: you're gonna be spending a lot of time on the
Speaker 1: road coming up sell best of Lockin. We look forward
Speaker 1: to April twenty third, twenty fourth, and twenty fifth. Absolutely, Dann,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. That's going to do it for
Speaker 1: this episode of the podcast. If you haven't done so already,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: if you have a minute, please give it a rating
Speaker 1: or share a comment. Five star ratings help more Bengals
Speaker 1: fans find this podcast. I'm Dan Horde, and thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to The Bengals Booth podcast.