Speaker 1: Hi, get everybody. I'm Dan Hord and thanks for downloading
Speaker 1: The Bengals Booth Podcast the right now. Addition, as we
Speaker 1: take an in depth blook if the Bengals chances of
Speaker 1: winning a third straight AFC North title with an annual
Speaker 1: guest on this podcast, Robert Windrab. Robert writes about the
Speaker 1: Bengals during the season for Cincinnati Magazine and prior to
Speaker 1: each season. He is among the writers featured in the
Speaker 1: FTN Football Almanac formerly known as the Football Outsiders Almanac.
Speaker 1: If you're going to buy one preseason guide about the NFL,
Speaker 1: the Almanac is the one to buy. Plus, I'll talk
Speaker 1: to the star of the Bengals preseason opener, Tyson Anderson
Speaker 1: about having as many interceptions in one quarter against the
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Speaker 1: season two and I don't want to give anything away,
Speaker 1: but I will share this The show features some of
Speaker 1: the best celebrity cameos of all time. Now let's get
Speaker 1: to my first guest. In this year's FTN Football Almanac,
Speaker 1: the voluminous data projects the Bengals to win ten point
Speaker 1: two games and gives them a thirty percent chance of
Speaker 1: winning twelve or more. Those projections are about as good
Speaker 1: as any team in the NFL, and yet there's a
Speaker 1: team in their own division with better numbers, and it
Speaker 1: might not be the one you think. I discuss that
Speaker 1: and all things Bengals with the guy who wrote the
Speaker 1: chapter about the team in this year's edition, Robert Weintraub. Robert,
Speaker 1: let's start with this shocker from this year's Almanac. While
Speaker 1: the Almanac projects the Bengals to be one of the
Speaker 1: best teams in the NFL, the Cleveland Browns are actually
Speaker 1: projected to have more wins and finish on top of
Speaker 1: the AFC North. Why the love for Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Nobody has to give it to them, right? You know,
Speaker 2: I almost walked off the Almanac in protest when I
Speaker 2: saw that myself. Most of it is just a minor
Speaker 2: mathematical noise. You know, we play the season out one
Speaker 2: million times to arrive at these figures, and that obviously
Speaker 2: incorporates a wide, wide range of possibilities. So you know,
Speaker 2: that's not exactly the Almanac saying put all your money
Speaker 2: on Cleveland to win the AFC North this year. What
Speaker 2: it is saying is that the projection system really likes
Speaker 2: it when you add players in the off season and
Speaker 2: improve upon perceived weaknesses. Like the Browns did on defense,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't like it when you lose starters like
Speaker 2: the Bengals did in their safeties for example. You know,
Speaker 2: that's probably just that is enough to swing it towards
Speaker 2: the Browns. And obviously, with the Shawn Watson at quarterbacks,
Speaker 2: so much depends on him, and he's such an unknown quantity.
Speaker 2: A lot of that is taking on faith what the
Speaker 2: Browns have done sort of without Watson. So there's a
Speaker 2: bit of you know, quasi mathematics going on there, you
Speaker 2: should say. And really what's important is that if you
Speaker 2: look at the margins where the Bengals have, you know,
Speaker 2: in thirty percent of those seasons won twelve or more games.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked about this last year and we wondered,
Speaker 2: you know, why why are the Bengals not Super Bowl favorites? Essentially,
Speaker 2: and I pointed out then the key is that, you know,
Speaker 2: for many years they were projected to have a strong
Speaker 2: percentage of seasons where they won five or fewer games,
Speaker 2: and hardly any when they were going to win twelve
Speaker 2: or more. Now that's completely flipped and it's you know,
Speaker 2: much more likely that they win twelve or more be
Speaker 2: aka a Super Bowl contender than they are winning five
Speaker 2: or fewer. Obviously, the only way we can see that
Speaker 2: happening is if Joe Burrow hurts his calf again or
Speaker 2: some other body part. We don't want to go down
Speaker 2: that road and speak it into existence. But the point
Speaker 2: is they're a very strong team. The Browns are good too,
Speaker 2: and I think we all know that the Ravens are
Speaker 2: good too, and they're projected to be right there in
Speaker 2: the mix as well. So much of this comes down to,
Speaker 2: you know, so many small and really unpredictable factors that
Speaker 2: to you know, take his gospel, and maybe this is
Speaker 2: heresy coming from somebody who wrote for the Almanac, but
Speaker 2: to take those numbers as gospel saying that the Browns
Speaker 2: are definitely going to win and the Bengals will be
Speaker 2: in second. Really you shouldn't take it that way. They're
Speaker 2: all strong teams and they're all going to be in
Speaker 2: the mix, both in the AFC North and the greater
Speaker 2: AFC playoff picture.
Speaker 1: Let me follow up on additions and subtractions for the Bengals.
Speaker 1: I think at the end of last year, many of us,
Speaker 1: maybe most of us, assume that Jermaine Pratt would be gone,
Speaker 1: but that von Bell would stay. It turned out to
Speaker 1: be the other way around. Are they better off the
Speaker 1: way it ultimately played off played out or no, I.
Speaker 2: Mean better off. That's difficult to ascertain. You really have
Speaker 2: to ask lu Man and Rumo that question. I suppose.
Speaker 2: I think both provided obviously pros and cons to losing them.
Speaker 2: I think Pratt would have been a difficult player to replace,
Speaker 2: just for what he brings, and he's a really calm,
Speaker 2: sort of a sledgehammer in the Almanac. He plays very
Speaker 2: physical style that the Bengals don't have in a lot
Speaker 2: of other positions. And if he had been replaced with,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the guys like a Keen Davis
Speaker 2: Gaither or the other reserve players that the Bengals have
Speaker 2: in linebacker, you're sacrificing, you know, just a physical presence
Speaker 2: and some weight really there. And he plays so well
Speaker 2: alongside Logan Wilson. That's something I think would have been
Speaker 2: difficult for the Bengals to replace. Not that von Bell
Speaker 2: isn't difficult to replace, but they obviously already had a
Speaker 2: free agent, excuse me, a number one draft pick in
Speaker 2: Dax Hill sort of ready to go for Jesse Bates,
Speaker 2: and they realize, well, if Monan we can sort of
Speaker 2: double up on that, get another high premium draft pick
Speaker 2: in Jordan Battle, and you know, bring in Nick Scott
Speaker 2: kind of go with the numerical approach to replacing Vaughan,
Speaker 2: replacing his leadership and what he and Bates brought in
Speaker 2: terms of communication and veteran savvy. It's difficult to quantify us,
Speaker 2: especially for a metrics based organization. I don't think anybody
Speaker 2: doubts that they will be missed, and that certainly early
Speaker 2: in the season, I think as well just where you'll
Speaker 2: see it probably more. And the idea is that they
Speaker 2: new kids grow into the jobs. They're obviously faster and
Speaker 2: a little bit more physical than Bits and Bell maybe
Speaker 2: at this point in their careers. So you're sacrificing a
Speaker 2: little bit of that savvy for just pure athletic ability,
Speaker 2: and hopefully when the number, when the playoff crunch or
Speaker 2: the postseason crunch comes, those guys are ready to go
Speaker 2: and provide at least close to the same amount of
Speaker 2: you know, production that Bell and Bates game is.
Speaker 1: Our guest is Robert win Traby writes regularly about the
Speaker 1: Bengals for Cincinnati magazine and wrote the Bengals chapter in
Speaker 1: the FTN Football Almanac this year. I want to go
Speaker 1: back to the draft because you wrote a very positive
Speaker 1: article on the digital pages of Cincinnati Magazine about the draft,
Speaker 1: and you actually have a unique perspective about Miles Murphy.
Speaker 1: You have been following him for years, correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean following him sounds like I've been stalking
Speaker 2: him for years. I wouldn't say that's the case. I
Speaker 2: do live in the Atlanta area, and Miles, of course
Speaker 2: played down here, grew up down here, and you know, yes,
Speaker 2: so I've been watching him, and like all players who
Speaker 2: are great high school players, as Murphy was, I was
Speaker 2: very interested in where he would go to university and
Speaker 2: hope that he would not go to the University of
Speaker 2: Georgia as so many others do down here. I just
Speaker 2: don't want to see Georgia roll up all the players
Speaker 2: who are five stars or from down here. And he didn't.
Speaker 2: He went to Clemson, and I think that was a
Speaker 2: good choice for him. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 2: maybe he would have benefited a little bit from George's
Speaker 2: ability to crank out incredible professional grade defensive linemen because
Speaker 2: I think Murphy did underachieve a bit at Clemson. There
Speaker 2: were various factors involved in that. They had some defensive
Speaker 2: code changes there. The entire Clemson programs seemed to go
Speaker 2: through a bit of a you know, for there by
Speaker 2: their standards, a down cycle a little bit in Murphy's
Speaker 2: last couple of years there, his fellow lineman had some
Speaker 2: injuries and he was playing a little bit out of
Speaker 2: position then sometimes, so you know, there were some mitigating
Speaker 2: circumstances there, But there's no question that he has all
Speaker 2: the specs of a classic NFL defensive lineman, and not
Speaker 2: just as a point. You know, we think so much
Speaker 2: about defensive ends in the NFL as just pure edge
Speaker 2: rushers and you know, the Trey Hendrickson type who just
Speaker 2: get after the passer. But really, what I think we'll
Speaker 2: see for Murphy, certainly in the beginning of his career,
Speaker 2: is more like what Sam Hubbard brought when he was
Speaker 2: just breaking into the league, which is really setting the
Speaker 2: edge strong run defense. Even when he was not playing
Speaker 2: great against the pass it comes, and he was certainly
Speaker 2: a strong run defender, has a really good use of
Speaker 2: hands and is very quick in that sense against the run,
Speaker 2: which is a sort of unheralded trait. I think we'll
Speaker 2: see him contribute in that sense, and he might come
Speaker 2: off the field on third downs and play the first
Speaker 2: couple down, spell Hendrickson a little bit, play against the
Speaker 2: run more as a rookie, and maybe into the second
Speaker 2: year and then really, you know, hopefully develop into the
Speaker 2: all round kind of edge player that a first round pick.
Speaker 2: And certainly that he has the qualities that he can
Speaker 2: evince in the NFL, no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: Did their approach to the draft suggest anything to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I write about this in the Almanac, and I
Speaker 2: think you see big picture that the Bengals and the
Speaker 2: Kansas City Chiefs are really eyeing each other from across
Speaker 2: the Midwest there a little bit, and are sort of
Speaker 2: going and drafting and arranging their rosters with one eye
Speaker 2: on each other. We saw that when the Chiefs drafted
Speaker 2: a bunch of defensive players who were faster after getting
Speaker 2: really blown off the turf there by. The Bengals offense
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one saw the effect of that last year,
Speaker 2: especially in the championship game. Their their speed on defense
Speaker 2: really showed up against the Bengals and that AFC title game,
Speaker 2: I hate to bring up and every time I think
Speaker 2: about it, it makes me more angry. But the Chiefs give
Speaker 2: them credit. They played well defensively in that game, and
Speaker 2: I think in this sense he saw a little bit
Speaker 2: of the same thing. The Bengals really kind of drafted
Speaker 2: and went for more speed all the way through the lineup,
Speaker 2: really especially on defense. The defense in large part because,
Speaker 2: of course, the offense is where all the money is
Speaker 2: about to be going when Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase
Speaker 2: and t Higgins assumedly signed their big contracts, so they
Speaker 2: had to get younger, they had to get cheaper, and
Speaker 2: they really wanted to get faster on defense, and that
Speaker 2: I think really was a big part of their draft
Speaker 2: strategy and why they went after a lot of these
Speaker 2: guys on the defensive side of the ball who can
Speaker 2: really run. DJ Turner obviously, and Murphy for a big guy,
Speaker 2: can really run. Battle is certainly no slow and Chase
Speaker 2: Brown has excellent speed as well. So I mean, that's
Speaker 2: that really seemed to me the overarching theme of the draft.
Speaker 2: Of course, you know in the war room they might
Speaker 2: not have been thinking that way at the time, but
Speaker 2: looked like that's what they were trying to do from
Speaker 2: a big picture perspective.
Speaker 1: Robert Wintraub is our guest. You can follow him on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Rob Wine Rob w e i n The
Speaker 1: big offseason move was big landing six eight, three hundred
Speaker 1: and forty five pound or Lander Brown Junior to play
Speaker 1: left tackle. What does the data tell us about him,
Speaker 1: how good he is and the impact that a better
Speaker 1: offensive line will have on Joe Burrow in this offense.
Speaker 2: Well, I hate to bring up the fact that Orlando
Speaker 2: Brown actually led the NFL in pressures allowed by our
Speaker 2: charting stats. Now, part of that is because he also
Speaker 2: played the most snaps I believe of any left tackle
Speaker 2: on the league, or maybe you a second, but you
Speaker 2: know so percentage wise that was not the case. But
Speaker 2: sheer counting numbers, he had more pressures allowed than anyone.
Speaker 2: That was also a factor. Bit of the way Kansas
Speaker 2: City plays, the Patrick Mahomes kind of running around schoolyard
Speaker 2: style kind of allows for more pressures. At the same time,
Speaker 2: I think you'll see that, you know, the Bengals, the
Speaker 2: way they want to play Burrow, getting the ball out
Speaker 2: much faster, a much more rhythmic style of offense will
Speaker 2: help Brown He certainly wasn't that way in Baltimore either,
Speaker 2: when Lamar was kind of doing the same thing, kind
Speaker 2: of running around and you know, giving up a lot
Speaker 2: of pressures because of the time he spent in the
Speaker 2: in the backfield looking for receivers. Burrow doesn't play that
Speaker 2: way at all, So I think you'll see that number
Speaker 2: come down. And what he does mainly is just kind
Speaker 2: of raise the talent floor to a place where it
Speaker 2: hasn't been before, certainly not in the last several years
Speaker 2: and certainly not in Joe Burrow's career here in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: So that can only help. And you move Jonah Williams
Speaker 2: over to right tackle, and you know, dare I say it,
Speaker 2: maybe he's a better right tackle than he is a
Speaker 2: left tackle. I mean, stranger things have happened. He played
Speaker 2: right tackle at Alabama. All the word out of training
Speaker 2: camp has been that he looks pretty natural over there.
Speaker 2: And then you know, if you settle that issue. Obviously,
Speaker 2: we know that the interior part of the line has
Speaker 2: been pretty much settled. Ted Carris with a great season
Speaker 2: last year that was really kind of unheralded. Everybody loves
Speaker 2: him because of his personality, but I don't think he
Speaker 2: got the credit for being really strong against the past
Speaker 2: like he was obviously, you know, Alex Kappus, that's new
Speaker 2: standards for toughness and Cordy el Bolson looking to make
Speaker 2: that leap from year one to year two after starting
Speaker 2: every game, you can only get better from there. I
Speaker 2: think right now you're looking at a team that you know,
Speaker 2: they went up from I think thirty first to sixteenth
Speaker 2: in our adjusted sack rate from twenty one to twenty two.
Speaker 2: Are they going to make another fifteen slot leap to
Speaker 2: the number one spot in the NFL? Probably not, But
Speaker 2: if they can move up just into the top ten,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, all we've ever wanted is Joe
Speaker 2: Burrow behind a top ten offensive line, right and even
Speaker 2: more important, if they can run the ball in that
Speaker 2: sort of same with that sort of same effectiveness, that
Speaker 2: just makes the offense even more dangerous. You know, we
Speaker 2: brought Joe Mixon back and a rookie behind him, and
Speaker 2: Chase Brown is sort of an unknown quantity to the
Speaker 2: running game. Joe struggled a bit last year and what
Speaker 2: we call second level and open field yards. He wasn't
Speaker 2: breaking tackles very much, so it'll be incumbent upon the
Speaker 2: offensive line really to make the running game work more
Speaker 2: than it has in the past, necessarily, and I think
Speaker 2: you have the talent to do so. And you know,
Speaker 2: barring injury, which obviously was their bulge at the end
Speaker 2: of the season last year, they're in as good a
Speaker 2: shape as they've been on the offensive line since, you know,
Speaker 2: the glory days maybe of Willie Anderson in there or there,
Speaker 2: I even go back to the Munos Montoya days. Let
Speaker 2: let's not go crazy, but they're certainly in a much
Speaker 2: better place than they've been in recent memory. And that's
Speaker 2: a good thing.
Speaker 1: Well with Robert coming up, but first, here's a quick
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Speaker 1: talked about mixing and brown. You write in the Almanac
Speaker 1: that the Bengals are thin at running back and tight end.
Speaker 1: So let's move to tight end. Are you buying Irv
Speaker 1: Smith Junior as a viable replacement for Uzama and Hayden Hurst.
Speaker 2: With all the money in my pockets, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: only about fifteen bucks right now, So maybe I'm not
Speaker 2: putting too much money on the line there. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously with Irv it's all about his health. I mean,
Speaker 2: he certainly has the talent to do so he can
Speaker 2: certainly be a viable replacement for as you say, Uzama
Speaker 2: and Hurst, both of whom's sort of you know, had
Speaker 2: similar careers as talented but not exactly productive tight ends,
Speaker 2: or they got paired with Joe Burrow, and Burrow got
Speaker 2: them both huge contracts at the end of his one
Speaker 2: year with both of those guys. So if as long
Speaker 2: as Eric can stay on the field, which he has
Speaker 2: not really been able to do in the past, I
Speaker 2: don't see any reason why he wouldn't. It helps in
Speaker 2: a bit that the Bengals, you know, they really value
Speaker 2: tight ends schematically the way a lot of other teams do.
Speaker 2: They hardly ever play two tight ends, they hardly ever
Speaker 2: go with multi running backs either, which is part of
Speaker 2: the reason why I think that their strategy overall was
Speaker 2: sort of to, if not minimize, then you know, to
Speaker 2: sort of put those two positions on the back burner.
Speaker 2: They play mostly three wide receivers, and they want those
Speaker 2: three wide receivers to win individual battles, and they play
Speaker 2: out of empty lot schematically speaking, more than almost any
Speaker 2: team in the league in all those factors. So you know,
Speaker 2: you don't need earth Smith to be a Kelsey or
Speaker 2: a Gronk kind of player. You just need him to
Speaker 2: be a guy like a Hearst or Nuzama who takes
Speaker 2: the pressure off up the middle of the field, who
Speaker 2: defenses have to honor and to make the occasional big play.
Speaker 2: Let Joe Burrow do the rest. And there's no reason
Speaker 2: to think why. As long as he's healthy, the Bengals
Speaker 2: have something in him, No question he has the talent
Speaker 2: to do so.
Speaker 1: So when the Bengals drafted Joe Burrow, you coined my
Speaker 1: favorite expression about him. He oozes awesomeness out of every
Speaker 1: pore except for his calf. As it turns out, right now,
Speaker 1: as you looked at the data from last year, does
Speaker 1: anything jump out about Joe Burrow's growth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's tough to ooze out your calf
Speaker 2: ports when you have the compressions leave on it, right.
Speaker 2: I think that was the problem there. It blocked his awesomeness. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, we talked about it last year, which was
Speaker 2: that you were surprised that he had a difficult time
Speaker 2: in the red zone from an efficiency standpoint, And what
Speaker 2: jumped off the numbers this year was the his dramatic
Speaker 2: improvement in that area, which you know, we were hoping
Speaker 2: for all sort of knew he had it in him.
Speaker 2: And then you know, this is Joe Burrow we're talking about.
Speaker 2: There's nothing he can't do. So it was just a
Speaker 2: matter of sort of getting the offense to kind of
Speaker 2: rally around him a little bit and make those red
Speaker 2: zone efficiency plays. And they did so, and they were
Speaker 2: you know, something else that left off was that they
Speaker 2: were you know, not just top eight, I believe in
Speaker 2: red zone offense, but also on defense, and they were
Speaker 2: you know, top five and late and close situations both
Speaker 2: on offense and defense, and top three in the offense
Speaker 2: and third down percentage, you know, and they were extremely
Speaker 2: good in what we call situational football. The cliche, I know,
Speaker 2: but it's true. And you know, we were talking about
Speaker 2: how small the differences between the Bengals and the Browns
Speaker 2: and the Ravens. Something that's been so critical to the
Speaker 2: Bengals success over the last couple of years has been there,
Speaker 2: you know, really excellent job in these critical situations, both
Speaker 2: on both sides of the ball. And obviously with Burrow,
Speaker 2: you know, he's proven now that that's what his that's
Speaker 2: when he it really shines the most, is when you
Speaker 2: need it the most and when you need him to
Speaker 2: make plays, whether it's a big you know, touchdown, leading drive,
Speaker 2: or just getting a first down to kill the clock.
Speaker 2: So now that he has that kind of red zone
Speaker 2: bugaboo out of his system, if it even was a problem,
Speaker 2: might just been one year sort of statistical non entity,
Speaker 2: but he only had that small sample size to draw
Speaker 2: up from, I think, you know, as long as he
Speaker 2: can keep up those kind of numbers in those important situations,
Speaker 2: we obviously know the talent that is surrounding him, they'll
Speaker 2: make the big plays. The little plays that Burrow continues
Speaker 2: to make will spell the difference in keeping the team
Speaker 2: right at the top of the AFC Pact.
Speaker 1: A couple more questions for Robert Weintraub, who writes about
Speaker 1: the Bengals for Cincinnati Magazine and wrote the Bengals chapter
Speaker 1: in the Football Almanac this year. The AFC is loaded.
Speaker 1: The quarterback gauntlet is incredible in the conference this year.
Speaker 1: So I assume that the team that somehow makes it
Speaker 1: through this gauntlet is going to do so by the
Speaker 1: most narrow margins imaginable. Is that basically what the data
Speaker 1: tells us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, they got to play us. Let's remember
Speaker 2: that that's certainly an important element in this tough as
Speaker 2: the schedule might look. When the other teams look at
Speaker 2: it and they have to play Cincinnati, that's not a
Speaker 2: good thing either. Now, I think that gets lost sometimes.
Speaker 2: And surprisingly enough, the schedule this year, and this is
Speaker 2: always sort of you know, what looks like a harder,
Speaker 2: soft schedule at the beginning of the year might never
Speaker 2: turn out to be that way by season's end. You
Speaker 2: never know. That the league is full of surprises, and
Speaker 2: that's what makes it so compelling. But by our numbers,
Speaker 2: the Bengals schedule this year is pretty average, right in
Speaker 2: the middle of the pack. Their efficiency of their opponents
Speaker 2: is exactly zero. Meaning it's not positive. It's not negative.
Speaker 2: It's a very workable schedule. The schedule rotation, of course,
Speaker 2: brings you know, the NFC South at the NFC West
Speaker 2: and the AFC South, which at least on paper again
Speaker 2: seems like a good thing. Of course, you have a
Speaker 2: very tough division and that's always going to be something
Speaker 2: that kind of is an anchor to the Bengals in
Speaker 2: comparison to other teams around the league. But that's just
Speaker 2: there across the bear. But you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: that the Bengals approach it that way. I think they
Speaker 2: look at every game like they got the best quarterback,
Speaker 2: or at least, you know, one of the best quarterbacks.
Speaker 2: They don't worry about, you know, oh god, we have
Speaker 2: to face Trevor Lawrence this year, we have to you know,
Speaker 2: face Josh Allen again this year or whatever again. I
Speaker 2: think that mantra they got to play us. You know,
Speaker 2: it sounds it looks great on a T shirt, but
Speaker 2: it really is sort of an organizing principle of the
Speaker 2: team now. And think how far and how much that's
Speaker 2: changed over the last couple of years. When you know,
Speaker 2: all we ever thought about was, oh, here comes you
Speaker 2: know the Steelers, we got to play the forty nine
Speaker 2: ers this year whatever. And now the shoes on the
Speaker 2: other foot and teams run the league think to themselves, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: we got to play Cincinnati. I mean that just that
Speaker 2: in itself, that kind of mindset. It's not really a
Speaker 2: metrics or an analytics thing necessarily, but it's great as
Speaker 2: a Bengals fan to know that that exists around the league.
Speaker 1: All right, final thing for Robert Weintraub. I grew up
Speaker 1: in New York State. We got the New York City
Speaker 1: TV stations on cable, so I watched Mets games, Yankees games,
Speaker 1: Knicks games, Nets games, Rangers games, Devil's games, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You are doing something called the New York City one thousand. Now,
Speaker 1: we all like lists. I've never heard of anybody tackling
Speaker 1: a list included one thousand things on it. Explained the
Speaker 1: New York City one thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess the best way to explain it is
Speaker 2: not so temporary insanity. I just, you know, I started
Speaker 2: to think about it. I'm from New York too, in
Speaker 2: case people don't know from the city, and you know
Speaker 2: I except for the Bengals, I'm obviously a big New
Speaker 2: York sports fan as well, and I just got a
Speaker 2: big fan of history as well, both sports history and
Speaker 2: sort of great New York and American history. And it's
Speaker 2: just I started thinking about all the incredible stuff that's been,
Speaker 2: you know, gone on through the years there, and I
Speaker 2: start thinking about the wide range not just the teams
Speaker 2: you mentioned, but all the boxing and horse racing and
Speaker 2: golf and tennis and everything else that goes down in
Speaker 2: New York. And for some wild, insane reason, I decided
Speaker 2: to not just make a list, but to write about
Speaker 2: each one of these. So I have a sub stack,
Speaker 2: like so many other people in the media these days, called,
Speaker 2: as you said, the NYC one thousand, and you can
Speaker 2: go to that substack anytime and check it out. And
Speaker 2: you know, the sheer volume of games over the years.
Speaker 2: You know, sports have been going on in New York
Speaker 2: City for about one hundred and forty years plus now,
Speaker 2: and I just, you know, I started at fifty, and
Speaker 2: then I went to one hundred very quickly, and that
Speaker 2: became five hundred very quickly, and then I wanted to,
Speaker 2: you know, include all these great athletes and names and
Speaker 2: people who go through there, who've gone through the city,
Speaker 2: even just for one off appearances like a Muhammad or
Speaker 2: you know Bill Russell in all time greats like that,
Speaker 2: and right about those, and so very quickly it got
Speaker 2: to the one thousand, and I'm counted down. I'm somewhere
Speaker 2: in the eight hundreds now, so you can. It's all
Speaker 2: archived though, and sometime and probably about ten years, we'll
Speaker 2: get to number one. But the issue is that it
Speaker 2: all had to happen in sort of the New York
Speaker 2: City footprints, So it's not you know, Super Bowl three
Speaker 2: where the Jets won down in Miami, that doesn't count.
Speaker 2: It's got to happen in New York. So that's my
Speaker 2: little you know, conceit with the whole thing. But there's
Speaker 2: even with that, there's more than enough teams and or
Speaker 2: I should say matches, events, games, fights, horse races to
Speaker 2: really make that list difficult to marrow down, surprising as
Speaker 2: it sounds, and you know, one of these days, before
Speaker 2: I shuffle up this mortal kill, I'll get to number
Speaker 2: one and share it with all of you. But the
Speaker 2: more people who check it out, I do think you'll
Speaker 2: be entertained and maybe learn a few things along the way.
Speaker 1: Very entertaining based on the ones that I've read so far,
Speaker 1: and since you're in the eight hundreds, I'm guessing it's
Speaker 1: going to be quite a while before we get to
Speaker 1: a thirty nine year old Jimmy Connors in the nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one US Open, which might be my favorite New
Speaker 1: York City area sports moment.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. Yeah, that's definitely high up on the list,
Speaker 2: and it sort of encompasses a lot of what New
Speaker 2: York sports is about. Electricity, personality, incredible, you know, display
Speaker 2: of athletic ability and that. You know, the way I
Speaker 2: rank these events is not just by you know, on
Speaker 2: the court, field whatever. That's one category, but it's also
Speaker 2: you know, is it a Hall of Fame person, a
Speaker 2: Hall of Fame athlete involved, Is there you know, something
Speaker 2: that really meant something to history involved or was it
Speaker 2: just a one off it was important to New York itself?
Speaker 2: Obviously at Connors at the US Open kind of hits
Speaker 2: all those sweet spots along with others. There were some
Speaker 2: that were higher, and there were even some ten matches
Speaker 2: that might have been a little higher. But that's way
Speaker 2: up on the list for sure. And you know, Jimbo,
Speaker 2: a Californian really came to encompass a lot of what
Speaker 2: New York City and New York City athletics and that
Speaker 2: personality is really all about. So he's made the list
Speaker 2: in a couple of other areas as well, So if
Speaker 2: you're not just a football fan, but a fan of
Speaker 2: any other sport, you can definitely find something to enjoy
Speaker 2: in the list, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Highly recommend the Almanac again this year. Your chapters about
Speaker 1: the Bengals and the Browns are both outstanding. We look
Speaker 1: forward to your weekly articles about the Bengals on the
Speaker 1: digital pages of Cincinnati Magazine and I always appreciate your
Speaker 1: time this time of the year. Thanks so much, look
Speaker 1: forward to continuing to read the NYC one thousand.
Speaker 2: Greatly appreciate it. Dan, have a great season, and give
Speaker 2: my love to your broadcast partner Dave Lapham as well.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a fan of New York
Speaker 1: City sports to enjoys Robert list of the top one
Speaker 1: thousand events. His writing is the fun part. If you're
Speaker 1: interested in check kicking it out, just search for NYC
Speaker 1: one thousand sub stack. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Bengals picks and Ultimate Bengals. They're free
Speaker 1: to play with tickets and side merchandise up for grabs.
Speaker 1: Find both inside the Bengals App. Week two of the
Speaker 1: preseason takes the Bengals to Atlanta on Friday night, and
Speaker 1: while it sounds like the starters might get a few snaps,
Speaker 1: the backups will still see most of the action. That
Speaker 1: includes young players like second year safety Tyson Anderson, who
Speaker 1: had two interceptions in a span of about eight minutes
Speaker 1: in last week's loss to the Packers. I spoke to
Speaker 1: the twenty four year old this week. Tyson, you are
Speaker 1: the star of the preseason opener last Friday night. You
Speaker 1: had two interceptions, including a forty three yard at pick six.
Speaker 1: It had to be thrilling for you. Could you sleep
Speaker 1: after the game?
Speaker 3: H No, I ain't really sleep too much. I was
Speaker 3: just up and joining with my family. Honestly, we just
Speaker 3: kicked it out all night. Honestly, was just at the
Speaker 3: houses on each other company.
Speaker 1: You're from the Toledo area, so you had a bunch
Speaker 1: of folks down for the game.
Speaker 3: Yep. My dad, my mom, grandparents, sister, her friends and
Speaker 3: family friend was there too, so we had a lot
Speaker 3: of people.
Speaker 1: You had two interceptions in the game. You had two
Speaker 1: interceptions in your career at Toledo. Was it bad luck
Speaker 1: at Toledo or is there something about the things you've
Speaker 1: learned here or the defense you're playing in now that
Speaker 1: helps explain that two interceptions in one half performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll probably say Toledo just had a few dropped
Speaker 3: opportunities too. So just making the most of my opportunities
Speaker 3: when I have the ball hit my hands, just making
Speaker 3: sure I come down with it. That's more so been
Speaker 3: in my emphasis because I know I dropped a few
Speaker 3: at Toledo. And now obviously coach lou just putting us
Speaker 3: in in great situations in our dB coaches, Coach Chuck,
Speaker 3: coach coach Rob just giving us knowledge to go out
Speaker 3: there and play fast and make plays.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up lou Anroumo because after the
Speaker 1: game you were naturally bombarded by reporters and you kept
Speaker 1: saying time and time again, coach Anarumo puts us in
Speaker 1: great position to make plays. So what stands out about
Speaker 1: playing for him now for one year?
Speaker 3: I mean he's just a players coach. The guys just
Speaker 3: rally around him. Like I said, he just always puts
Speaker 3: us in great positions, got up prefer of things we
Speaker 3: do defensively that kind of just a lot of stuff
Speaker 3: that we do to kind of throw quarterbacks off and
Speaker 3: throw offensive coordinators off, and we do a good job
Speaker 3: of protecting the end zone and things like that. So
Speaker 3: he for sure does a great job just switching it up,
Speaker 3: getting us in and out of calls. Uh, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: We're visiting with safety Tyson Anderson. I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people have seen the footage of your teammate Mike
Speaker 1: Thomas almost moved to tears after the game because he
Speaker 1: was so happy for you and so proud of you.
Speaker 1: What did that mean to you?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, man, I always tell everybody my family back
Speaker 3: home and I was going through all I was going
Speaker 3: through last year. He was always one dude I know
Speaker 3: I could always talk to, always could lean on, and
Speaker 3: it was always Mike. Whether I was me going and
Speaker 3: watch film with him, what I was him invited me
Speaker 3: to his house on Thanksgiving when my family was three
Speaker 3: hours away, and just kicking it with his family and
Speaker 3: his kids and stuff like that. So Mike, man, he
Speaker 3: just a legend in my eyes. And then playing the
Speaker 3: game a long time, and no matter what in this league,
Speaker 3: you really don't meet too many people like him to
Speaker 3: kind of get back to the younger guys like he does,
Speaker 3: and just happy to be in influenced by just having
Speaker 3: a part of my life. For real.
Speaker 1: You had a hamstring injury last year, so the last
Speaker 1: time that you played prior to last Friday night was
Speaker 1: the final preseason game last year. What did you miss
Speaker 1: about playing in football games last season?
Speaker 3: Just the crowd, the reactions of the crowd, and then
Speaker 3: just that brotherhood. It just when you make plays and
Speaker 3: things like that, and your guys just celebrating with you,
Speaker 3: and just being out there that camaradie and just being
Speaker 3: with your brothers and just not want to make mistakes
Speaker 3: because you don't want to let the guy next to you.
Speaker 1: Though you weren't able to practice for most of the
Speaker 1: year last year, you did get to at the very
Speaker 1: end of the season around playoff time. What did you
Speaker 1: do during your rookie year?
Speaker 3: Honestly, just a lot of a lot of bodywork, obviously
Speaker 3: a lot of lot of resting, and then just sharpening
Speaker 3: up on understanding the playbook so cause I know, if
Speaker 3: I know the playbook, it allows me to play a
Speaker 3: lot faster, and that's kind of the things that I
Speaker 3: that I took on and just implement different things for
Speaker 3: my body, just chiropractic work, acupunctual massage, pilates and things
Speaker 3: like that, just to because last year, obviously I was
Speaker 3: shortened because of injury, and this year I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to do everything I can just to stay healthy and
Speaker 3: stay available.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're different physically from all the
Speaker 1: things you described.
Speaker 3: Uh, for sure, just got a lot stronger, a lot
Speaker 3: more flexible. Those are the two biggest things.
Speaker 1: We're talking to. Tyson Anderson. You're playing for a spot
Speaker 1: on the fifty three man roster this year. What do
Speaker 1: you think you need to show the coaches in order
Speaker 1: to earn one of those spots.
Speaker 3: I'd probably just say just continue to just be myself,
Speaker 3: be humble, be accountable, just fly around. Just make all
Speaker 3: the players that come my way and and everything else
Speaker 3: will handle itself. That's all I can do is take
Speaker 3: care of me, control my controllables, and I'll go handle
Speaker 3: the rest.
Speaker 1: One of those things that is controllable is your effort
Speaker 1: on special teams. And it looks like you are willing
Speaker 1: and available to do everything and anything that Darren Simmons
Speaker 1: asked you to do.
Speaker 3: No, for sure, man, me and coach Simmons got a
Speaker 3: pre relationship. He's just trying to earn that trust, like
Speaker 3: it's all it's about. If he don't trust you, if
Speaker 3: the coaches don't trust you, there's no way you gonna
Speaker 3: be out there on the field. So just earn that
Speaker 3: trust that I can be in the right spot at
Speaker 3: the right time, knowing that I can do the right
Speaker 3: assignment when it need to be done, and knowing I
Speaker 3: can do that assignment properly with the right technique at
Speaker 3: all times. So that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: Two great players and leaders at your position left at
Speaker 1: the end of the year, Jesse Bates and Von Bell.
Speaker 1: When that happened, did you look at a greater opportunity
Speaker 1: to contribute at the safety position this year?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you for sure see that. And I'm so
Speaker 3: thankful for those guys, just like Mike Thomas, just an
Speaker 3: environment a lot to me as well, just the knowledge
Speaker 3: and they approach the game and just how they they
Speaker 3: were true pros. So just to watch that and sit
Speaker 3: back and just observe how they watch film observe how
Speaker 3: they were attentive in meetings, observed when they walked into meetings,
Speaker 3: observe all those things that made them great. Was just good.
Speaker 3: The good to see. So yeah, obviously I'm leaving for sure.
Speaker 3: Somebody got to step up, and I've been grinding for
Speaker 3: a year or now to show them that show, the
Speaker 3: coaches show, everybody improves myself that I can be.
Speaker 1: To God, you showed it in week one of the preseason.
Speaker 1: Best of luck in doing it again in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. We'll continue to stock days and
Speaker 3: get better.
Speaker 1: That's Tyson Anderson. Friday's game in Atlanta kicks off at
Speaker 1: seven thirty and our pregame coverage on the Bengals Radio
Speaker 1: Network gets underway at six. That's going to do it
Speaker 1: for this episode of the Bengals Booth podcast, brought to
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Speaker 1: more Bengals fans find us. I'm Dan Hord and thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bengals Booth podcast