Let's talk Bengals. A week that's included a statement from Mike Brown, Zach's declaration his coaching staff expected to return, and tomorrow's much anticipated Duke tob A news conference. My Guest, Next Guest covering it all for Local twelve, Local twelve dot com. That must mean we're welcoming in skinny, Richard Skinner, How are you?
I'm good? Lance are you?
I'm well? I'm curious. What do you make you've been You've been around the Bengals and covering the Bengals for years and decades. What do you make of Duke deciding to talk tomorrow.
I think it was a decision that was probably made above him, and they just said, hey, man, you're gonna have to go answer for some of the stuff because Zach Taylor gets asked a lot of questions about personnel, and a lot of times Zach, in fairness, the first to that's a question for Duke and Mike. Petralia famously a couple of weeks ago said well, we don't get yest talk to Duke, and Zach's comeback was, well, I'm
sorry for that. It was one of the great Tay tayes I've seen in a long time in a press conference. And that was Zach being you know, you know, nasty. It was I think he was taken aback by Mike's response. It was great because we requested Duke a bunch uh and I get a lot of a lot of general managers in the league don't talk on a regular basis, and we're not asking for a regular basis. We asked a bye week, which seemed like a perfect time when you're sitting at three and five and on the cuspop
of not making the playoffs. As things progressed, it seemed like a perfect time and this felt like a perfect time. And we asked last week as a group and they capitulated, and credit to them for doing so, because I think this isn't everybodys looking at it is like, this is our press conference, This is Duke's press conference. This is Duke's chance to answer questions that you, as a fan want to know. You know, I know people are gonna go, well,
you should be fired. What do you think we're gonna answer? No, that's not gonna happen. I mean, one of my one of my favorites was there was there was a reporter that came in from a stony years ago and he joked at one guy in his country when I came in to do a story on Marcus Hunt, and he famously told the story of I think it was a hockey team, the Stony hockey team, where reporter walked up with us with his tape recorder and simply said, you're
a disgrace. Please respect, Please respond. No, we're not. We're not going there with this. There's a level of respect, but there have to be some tough questions to ask. We've all talked to the group about you know, how to ask them and what to ask and make sure we all get the i's dotted and teased cross and hopefully it comes across that way and hopefully Duke. Hopefully
Duke responds that way. He doesn't come out with with with dis the blazing and he could he could just shut everything down and go I'm a genius and you guys are idiots and don't ask me questions. I don't think that's gonna happen, Skinny.
Is there something or things in particular you're most curious to hear him address?
Yeah, two things. One does the buck literally stop with him on draft night? I think it does. I think we all believe it does. Does it stop with Mike? Does it stop with Paul Brown? You know, Paul Brown, the grandson of or Mike brown son and grandson of Paul Brown. To stop with him, to stop with the coaching staff. I mean, somebody has to make that answer on draft night, right Like I'm making the call. You guys can all give your opinions, but here's the call,
and I'm making the call on this. We don't have to all be in agreement, but I'm making the call. Who makes that call? And then I'm a big believer of if you ask to do this, why do you believe you're the guy to get this team out of the whole personnel wise and fix this roster? It hasn't worked the last three off seasons. And that's a long time in the NFL. I mean, John Harbaut just got fired after one bad year and it was probably time.
I mean, things run its course. We know that lace things run its course, but he's borderline a Hall of fame coach, and the Ravens said, Yep, this is not acceptable. You're gone, and so why should you get a fourth off season? Duke Tobin to fix this roster. What makes you think you're gonna do it? Comment from Mike the other day to State where he said, we're gonna and I'm paraphrasing completely here, but we're gonna look at all avenues, uh to to you know, how we do business, how
we do things? All right? Does that mean you're gonna change the way you scout? Does that mean you're gonna change the way you evaluate? Are you going to suddenly go, yeah, We're gonna do production over traits? Trades over production hasn't worked. Let's do production over traits. Is that a case? Is it? We're gonna add more scouts? I'm interested. I'm fully interested in that. I mean, if you're gonna, if you're gonna look at all things in your organization to make things better,
a few more eyeballs wouldn't hurt. Now. We talked to Duke at the combine. He said, no, I'm good. I got enough voices, I got enough people to see things. Do you though, I mean, honestly, do you because it hasn't worked for the last few years, and in this day and age where things changed constantly in every business in our business, right like twenty years ago. Twitter wasn't a thing, and Facebook wasn't a thing, and TikTok wasn't a thing, and you know all these things. You know,
blogs weren't a big thing. They were a little bit of a thing, and they were a big thing. Uh you tube wasn't a thing. For the most part, things change and evolved. Can you guys change and evolve too? And how do you do it?
If there's one thing working in their favor this offseason? It's obvious that their needs are mostly centered on one side of the ball, on the defensive side. Is is the defense fixable in one off season?
It wasn't twenty twenty one, right, I mean you brought in Mike Kilton, you brought in cheetoh Chi. You might have come the year before them excuse me, Cray Anderson came. I mean it was a little bit fixable and they did it. Now can you do that again with the money you have? I think you can. So you have about five or six spots you probably have to fix. That seems like a lot, But can you fix four or five of those? I think you can. You can do it through free agency and the draft.
If you do it right, it's getting other are there contract extensions that you consider to be layups that should be on the table this offseat, is it?
Yeah? I don't a good way ups because they're always you know, contentious, right. Uh, you know DJ Turner should be extended, dak So should be extended. I did a story today on all the all the current free agency the Bengals have. What do you do with Joseph Osai? What do you do with Cam Taylor Britt? What do you do with Believe it or not? Geno Stone? I mean, it's not like you've got a pleasure of safeties at
the moment. Do you look to go, hey, Gino, let's sign you for one year proven deal as a backup, not as a starter. Don't get me wrong. He can't be a starter by any stretching imagination. You have to either go through free agency or the draft to fix that spot. You know, Joe Flacco, you have a bunch of free agents you have to think about too.
Uh.
But yeah it can't. Yeah, I think it can, but you have to be really judicious with everything you do.
Is the Trey Hendrickson story, uh finished here?
And I think it has to be. I mean I even wrote because he was one of the free agents obviously, right, So I addressed that top of the top of the line, excusing, you're not gonna franchise tag if it's twenty six and some change, and probably gonna be higher than that. But that's where the franchise tag number is the moment that's too steep for a guy who just had major surgery,
who is has just already. He turned thirty one in December, so he's gonna turn thirty two into next season late and the next season, but he's gonna turn thirty two. Didn't have great production. Twenty six mil for a guy like that is extraordinarily steep. Do you let him test the market? Maybe the market doesn't respond to him the way he thinks to smile, like, hey man, when I'm healthy, I'm a starter. Whos gonna get you sixteen sacks, seventeen sacks,
fifteen sacks. Maybe the rest of the murder goes, No, you're not. You're thirty one goaler in the thirty two coming off major surgery. You didn't produce a whole lot this past year. No you're not. And at that point maybe he does. But it feels like there was so much animosity between both sides last offseason. It just doesn't seem salvageable or fixable. I think the the more realistic possibility is the Joseph Osaide situation, where you go, all right, man,
go test the market. If you get start money. We are not We're not gonna respond to sort big time starter money. But if it's what we did last year, one year, six and a half mil, we'll bring you back. But yeah, Trey, it feels like that ship is sailed.
He is Richard Skinner from Local twelve or T minus, eighteen hours and fifteen minutes away from Duke Tobin talking tomorrow afternoon. You're going to be all over it for reaction to listeners how they can read watch follow along?
Yeah, follow me on Twitter at Local twelve skinny and at Local twelve dot com, Slash Sports slash Bengals. It's five no offense. I mean, you guys have run on your sister station a bunch of promotions for this, this epic press conference. I hope we make it epic. I hope people are not disappointed. But it's been I've listened to the soflows. I'm like, wow, is this like a president speaking about some national tragedy? Or just a is a practial general manager talking about a football team. But
I get it. Man, Hey, I'd promote the crap out of a lance.
I would too, Skinny, you're a good man. Good catching up.
Thank you?
All right, particularly all right, there you go, Richard Skinner Local twelve, Local twelve dot com. Let's take a time out of continue big night. Last night history made biggest, the highest ranked win in program history for the UC women. I was there with Kelly. We checked it out last night. We'll talk with head coach Katrino Meriweather about it as we roll on with RNL Carrier Sports Talk presented by Kelsey Chevrolet seven hundred WLW