Six thirty seven, seven hundred WLW were at Long. Next day in Richwood, it's the Cincinnati Tax Resolution powered by Tope Sheldon Roundtable Show. It's time for our standing Ovation from last week, presented by Ovation the Urban Resort where Cincinnati coming to the Newport come together.
We'll go with Jamar Chase.
He had the six catches, one hundred and ten yards, two touchdowns the long TD. He becomes the ninth player in NFL history to have UH six games. I think it is now of at least five catches one hundred yards and two tds. He ties Lance Alworth, who I was named after, and uh Antonio Freeman for the most in the first five years in the NFL. That's the Ovation Standing Ovation. America's River Roots Festival comes alive at Ovation Bourbon Beard Dining, live music, and panoramic skyline views.
Long Kentucky's Boardwalk Ovation the perfect spot for the riverboat parade in races. Don't miss River Roots Innovation, going on now through the twelfth Ovation on the River dot com without further ado. He's the man who joins us each week at six twenty by phone. What a treat to have him in person tonight he covers the Bengals for c l n S Media, host of the Jungle War podcast, The Man we call Trags, Mike Petralia, It is great to see you.
It is great to be here. I must tell you.
I am to be doing this in person, can cause lance. It gives a lot more personality when you are in person.
Yes, there's a lot more texture.
That's a key question. Let me see. We may be switching your mics here. There's the there's the realness of being here in person. It's not as easy as the bone. Oh you are back. You are back and ready to go. Yeah, Okay. What I was gonna say is I love.
In person because there's a lot more texture and animation and I'm into the conversation a lot more and I'm gonna get fat.
So there is that.
There you go, There you go.
Let me let me backtrack a little bit into the into last week once we heard Zach pivot from overwhelming support for Jake too.
This week, we'll see.
I think the writing was on the wall that something was coming. What was your initial reaction when it was Joe Flacco?
Curious, but he was the best option available. That was my initial reaction. Clearly, putting Joe Flacco, the arguably the most immobile quarterback in the National Football League behind the current Bengals offensive line doesn't intuitively make a lot of sense.
But he can sling it. As T.
Higgins told us in the locker room today, he can still sling it. He can move the ball downfield, and clearly Zach wants to get the ball downfield even if teams defenses are giving the Bengals wide open spaces in the middle of the field. I don't understand why Mike Gasicki and Chick Pace brown aren't bigger options in the middle of the wide open field, But that's because Zach wants to push the ball to T. Higgins and Jamar Chase and andre Yosi vasch as we finally saw last
Sunday against the Lions. He wants a quarterback that can get the ball downfield with authority. You were not getting that with Jake Browning. And that's why I think in large part the move was made. It also gives a rejuvenation to the locker room.
It sends I.
Asked T Higgins about this, does this message from the organization from the front office kind of kick you guys in.
The backside, saying you gotta get going.
You've got to win your one on ones, you've got to win battles at the line of scrimmage. Get open, and we'll get you a quarterback who can get the ball downfield to you with authority. So that was my initial reaction, But I do have my doubts. If the Bengals cannot run the ball, who's to say that Matt Lafleur and his defensive coordinator don't do everything in the world.
Throw the kitchen sink at the Bengals offensive line, which, as you mentioned before, News, I believe there's already some significant question marks at the two guarden positions or at the left guard position.
Anyway, Dylan pairschowd.
I don't think it's going to play this Sunday, but there's some significant questions, and Orlando Brown is not having.
A good year.
So you throw everything and Micah Parsons at the Bengals and see if Joe Flacco can get rid of the ball with any effectiveness.
Early in that game.
What a It was fascinating hearing Zach explain the car ride and what a crash course of intor into your offense it's what I mean you talk about speed learning, Holy cow.
Well, I mean he is an eighteen year veteran of the National Football League. He, as the expression goes, has pretty much seen every everything, knows all the answers that any defensive coordinator is going to throw at him. And there is institutional knowledge that is going to be beneficial there. But the institutional knowledge of not having work for Zach Or in the Bengals offense. That's what they're cramming right now. They're going to have a late night meeting again tonight.
They're going to be burning I don't know at the midnight oil, but is certainly going to be meeting late into the night to try and get in as much of the playbook as Joe can comfortably digest and be ready to execute on a Sunday.
The phrase I've heard a lot and you alluded to it, get the ball where it needs to go.
In this case t Higgins.
If you look at the numbers and the projections and how many the pace he's on, it's down from a year ago.
The catch rate is down.
I think Chase Brown is somebody who catching the ball out of the backfield running the foot there's I see those as being incorporated more along.
With a Mike is sicky. Does that make sense?
So here's something I think a lot of fans need to understand. This offense was designed with Joe Burrow's brain in mind, no pun intended. Joe Burrow processes at the line of scrimmage unlike any quarterback of the National Football League. And it's not close. And Zach Taylor will tell you that day in and day out, there is nobody that can process pre snap and even at the time the
ball is snapped, nobody can process like he does. Jake Browning does not have that ability, and we don't know if Joe Flacco does.
I mean, Joe Flacco.
Has a lot of experience, he has a Super Bowl ring, we all understand that, and he is a very well accomplished National Football League quarterback. But the offense is built around a quarterback who ad libs for lack of better word to put ad libs. Mentally, there aren't I don't know of another quarterback to come in and add lib
Zach Taylor's offense. That's the challenge that's obviously we saw that was the challenge with Jake Browning because people ask why wasn't Jake Browning in twenty twenty five like he was in seven Starts in twenty twenty three because the offense evolves, and again he cannot. He does not have the time to process that he had in twenty twenty three. He just didn't have the time this year. And we'll find out whether or not again if Joe Flacco can pick things up fast enough to be effective.
On Sunday, take.
A time out to continue more and more good stuff
with Trags. We're at Longnecks in Richwood, Cincinnati Tax Resolution powered by Tope Sheldon round Table Show presented by Postman Law seven hundred WLW Rolling right along through the first hour, first of three tonight from Long Necks in Richwood at by Postman Law, Cincinnati Tax Resolution power by Tope Sheldon Roundtable Show, Lance Bacallister Trags hanging out in this horable transition into some UC football talk with Keegan nickoson a Bearcat Journal.
Coming up at seven o six.
Let's review the drive of last week's game, brought to you by Driveway Dumpster in Cincinnati. Black and yellow does mean trash. Visit d dumpsters dot com. We'll go fourth quarter to the ten play drive sixty seventy three yards resulting in a fifteen yard score from Browning to Chase. That is our driveway dumpster's drive of the game, and we'll review last week's defensive play of the game. Brought to you by O'Connor, Achannie and Levy Attorneys. You know,
attorneys you trust. Visit OA l dash Law dot com. I've blown that read every week with Rocky sitting next to me, but you presented a calming presence and I read that flawlessly.
Make note of that. I read all the letters correctly.
Anything I can do to help plan I.
Pronounced the name of the law firm and their website very.
Smoothly and efficiently. And our defensive don't confuse me. I'll blow it. I'll blow it. You keep pushing me. Our dependsive play of the game. We'll go with Trey hendrickson the strip, sack and fumble. Tray had a big game on Sunday, Little things into bigger things. First, you tweeted a great photo today the owner met the quarterback.
Yes he did.
Joe Flacco spent about i'd say five to six seven minutes just chatting up Mike Brown and look Mike Brown was animated, and it's always good to see Mike animated and into it. Look, you say what you will about Mike Brown, Criticize him all you want. He's the top boss of the Bengals, and he bears the brunt of a lot of fans frustration. I get that there was not an owner in the National Football League who is more engaged or cares about his team and shows up
at every practice more than Mike Brown. And I think he is ninety one one glance think about that, and he's showing up at football practice on a random October day in week number six of the NFL season. He sits on his golf course a golf cart, and he watches practice. He's attentive, he sticks around for the entire practice. He chats up players here and there. Not often he doesn't, but today was a special occasion. The new quarterback that he hopes is coming in to help save the season
until Joe Burrow can return. I thought it was quintessential Mike Brown.
You're around and have been around Jake Browning every day. This is going to be a difficult week for him, obviously, with all that has happened him. He talked, give me a sense of how he's processing all of this.
Yeah, that's a great question. And I actually went up on my own today to Jake to compliment him on how he handled it on Wednesday with all of the news coming down, and he was ticked off. He admitted he was ticked off. The team told him on Monday that they were searching for a quarterback. The trade was made Tuesday. Wednesday, he started immediately onboarding with Joe Flacco, who,
by the way, is lockered to his immediate left. So we're asking all of these questions on Wednesday of Jake Browning, how does it feel? Have you ever been through anything like this? How can you come back? What can you learn? And Joe For half of the interview, not the entire interview, but half of the interview. The first half, Joe Flacco's right there, and eventually I'm sure Flacco picked up the smoke signals and was like, I need to clear out of here and give the man some dignity, some space
to answer these questions without me hovering over him. I'm sure that went through Flacco's mind. So anyway, and Browning was very frank. He said, look, I take responsibility for the eight interceptions and only six touchdown passes.
But I wasn't the only reason.
He said it in so many words, sure, and he's like, I'd like to think that there are other factors that contributed to our offense gaining less than two hundred yards and two of my three starts. And certainly he's referring to the fact that the offensive line struggled. They couldn't run the ball, and when you have those two factors thrown into the mix, it's going to be hard for
any quarterback to be successful. So, yeah, he was letting everybody know he understands that he played poorly, but there were other factors outside of his control that impacted the poor offensive production.
Sunday, they trail fourteen to three. At the half.
They'd run it seven times, had thrown it twenty three times. They averaged four point three yards of carrie. And my thought was at the half and I'm looking at the stats, and I say, wait a minute. One team is ahead fourteen to three and they've thrown it and passed it or run it fifteen times. Each other team is only down by eleven. They've only run it seven times and successfully in those seven times.
Is there a fair argument to be made.
They may not be running it well, but there's moments they do that they don't continue on that path.
Okay, I'm going to go back to the first drive of the season.
Lance. Remember what happened.
It was a thing of beauty, it was, and they rammed it right down the throat of one of the best defensive lines in the National Football League.
What happened to that?
Where was the desire? Where was the drive? Now?
I will grant you that Lucas Patrick, who is one of the best run blocking, good point offensive guards in the NFL, went down with injury. But that doesn't mean you just say, well, screw it, we can't run the ball anymore. No, you find a way and Dalton rise. Every guard loves to run block, every offensive lineman loves
to run block. But running is an attitude. And what happens is when one of or two offensive linemen go down, the Bengals retreat if you will, to what Zach Taylor's mo O and his DNA is football DNA, and that's throwing the ball all over the field. Well, that's great if you have Joe Burrow. It's not so great if you have a backup quarterback with no offensive line protection and no run game to speak of to keep him honest.
Before last week dead last in the NFL in both yards per game and yards per carry, and teams know that.
And that's why I'm saying.
You know, yes, the Bengals gained whatever it was, seventy yards on ten carries or something like that last week. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but that's terrific. But if I'm the Green Bay Packers again,
I throw the kitchen sink. I bring Micah Parsons from every gap possible and then some, and force the Bengals to show them that they're either gonna have maximum protection every single snap, which might be the case, or they're gonna become a legitimate fifty to fifty or fifty five forty five run pass team.
I thought, all things considered opponent offensive quality, the opponent they score at that moment. The defense, I mean, I can't rail on what the defense did. I kind of felt sorry for the defense at times. Is there progress you're seeing that's being made by this defense?
Al Golden spoke to us on Wednesday, that would be yesterday, and he said, I can sense that the guys are coming together more and more every week. They're understanding what the calls are. They're playing a lot of rookies. Schamar Stewart's injury aside. They are playing, obviously Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight Junior, two guys that I don't think they figured Barrett Carter would be playing as much as he has.
But because they've gone with a base defense, which is the four defensive down lineman, and then you have three linebackers in there, one of which can play like a Demetrius Knight play on the line of scrimmage. You need that many linebackers to be able to play and whatnot. And I think they've gotten a lot out of those rookie linebackers and they've been very, very good. They need Shamar Stewart on the field Sunday. I understand that it's a short week next week with the Steelers. They need
Shamar Stewart to be an impact. They know that if he's on the field, he can be not only on defense, but on special teams. We've seen all the block kicks all around the NFL this year. He can be one of those guys for the Bengals and they need him on the field. The one drive that disappointed me last week. Bengals have made it twenty eight to seventeen, and it was a game, yes, and they allowed the Lions to
march right down the field with very little resistance. Maybe they were worn out, maybe they just reverted to form, but they need There's still more consistency to be had on that defense.
Two questions will run a two minute drill. Let me do the second one first because I don't want to lose time on it. Layout for those listening, how they can read, watch and follow everything you were offering each day both Bengals and even reads.
Related online sel ands since with a y dot com have a column up there right now about Jake Browning and his great grands yep, and Ted Kara is playing for yet another experienced Super Bowl caliber quarterback, so that's up there now. The Jungle War postgame pod and also all of the audio and video from the locker room that is on my YouTube channel Jungle War Pod at
YouTube dot com and then online. There's a lot of locker room reaction today and from the podium of Jamar Chase and t Higgins that's up on my x page at Trags tr Ags.
You were in on the season wrap up with the Nick Crawl and Brad Mehtter earlier in the week. A number of talking points coming out of that. What anything anything jump out to you or give. But in closing, maybe a thought on something that came out of that earlier in the week.
Reds need to come up with some better hitters in the middle of the lineups, and I they don't have a budget yet, but they need. They know they need to be better situationally, they know they need more power in Great American Ballpark. They're tired of seeing other teams come in and hit home runs and the Reds some you've seen at Lance. They some weeks they turn into the big Red Machine. Other weeks they're the little Red Wagon.
Remember that great and late I may rest in peace, Dave Parker, but that's they.
Want to get away from that.
They want to be more like the Milwaukee Brewers and the Philadelphia Phillies, the LA Dodgers, teams that consistently put pressure on opposing pictures. So uh, and I think that starts in the minor leagues frankly. But what the other big takeaway is they have a lot of decisions to make on which players are gonna play which positions. That's, to me, probably the biggest takeaway. And you've got to figure out, what are you gonna do with Spencer Steer
and Sal Stewart to start next season? What's that going to be, Who's gonna play left field? What are you gonna do with Austin Hayes who is a free agent, He's probably gone. What are you gonna do with third base? You know, keep Brian or Sal Stewart there? What about center field? TJ Friedel, I will tell you, and I'm not trying to read too.
Much into this.
They like TJ Friedel, They didn't love the way he kind of wore down again at the end of the year, not necessarily injury, just he wore down because J. Friedel is not a big guy and God bless his heart, but guys like that can wear down, right and Nick nick Crawl made reference to that.
So what do you do in center field?
And the Matt McLean's shoulder, it's got to be fully healthy next year. We all know that Noelve Marte needs to take another step forward. They were very happy with that. And what to do with La Daily Cruz for now. He's your short stuff, excellent stuff as always. I really appreciate you making the trip out here. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Thanks for dinner, Budd.
You got it. He's dragged. Check him out, take a time out and continue.
Get a check on.
News and some UC football ahead. We're at Long necks and Rich with seven hundred WLW