I have week run. We'd love being here. Love to see you here as well. We love talking with our next guest. He covers the Bengals for c l NS sincywth Y dot com, host of the Jungle Roar podcast on YouTube, to welcome in the man they call Trags. Mike Petralia, How you doing.
I'm doing well, Lance, How are you?
I am well? Give us, give us a Joe Flacco update and your read on the situation as it relates to playing on Sunday.
He didn't practice today, he was limited officially on the injury report. He threw the ball based on what the media was able to witness in the open portion of practice this afternoon inside the structure down the street from pecor And I think that's a good sign. I mean, he's in uniform. He went through one of the more important days, of course, that's Thursday install and I think he's probably going to be able to give it a
go on Sunday against the Bear. I think a telling sign will be if he speaks before the media tomorrow. The Bengals postponed any media availability with the starting quarterback on Wednesday, meaning they didn't want to commit to Flaco or Jake Browning on Wednesday, postponing it to Friday. So if it's Flaco tomorrow, that's pretty good indication that he will start.
I think.
Also, Zach Taylor acknowledged to us on Wednesday that Blacko told him he has every intention of doing everything he needs to do to get his shoulder ready. It's a sprained ac joint, and from what I'm told, that can be a very painful injury. But certainly he was able to get some quick treatment before the last series of the game on Sunday, return to the game and do
what he did. I think it probably did impact his ability to throw then, but he's had, you know, five days now to work that shoulder over, and I think he'll probably probably give it a go on Sunday. The Bengals certainly could use them.
I tried. Have you gotten any more information does come out about the feared and dreaded defensive players only meeting.
Well. Jamar Chase was the latest to chime in today and I thought it was interesting he, as a captain of the offense and a team captain himself, met with Geno Stone, who was not a King team captain but certainly a leader in the secondary, and Jamar told us that he told Geno Stone to not worry about it too much. You can only control what you can control, meaning the players shouldn't try to worry about doing too much on defense to account for the lack of plays.
In the past.
Do what you can do, control what you can control, and let the chips fall where they may. But what he also said toward the end of it is make sure you guys stay together as a unit. And I thought that was interesting from Jamar acknowledging the fact that they're going through, you know, the grinder right now.
They are, no.
Question in the crosshairs of everybody, media, fans, privately, certainly, I think inside the building they're in the crosshairs of talent evaluators, and I think some people want major changes and right now those changes, while perhaps warranted, are not realistic because there's no options to go to. They've already tried to bench Cam Taylor Britt, They've benched Logan Wilson. There are not a lot of other chips to push
to the middle of the table at this point. And I think that's Jamar Chase's point today that it is what it is, play to your best ability, We got your.
Back, trag's in and around all that's gotten sideways with this team. The offensive line, much criticized early, seems to have settled in to open up the running game and provide a little bit more protection for the quarterback and Lance.
You can look directly to the running game for as a reason for that, because how many times over the course of years in covering football have we all been told, Rocky, to you, two offensive linemen loved to run block right, They love to get their hands dirty, get physical at the point of attack, and move forward. And when you're under center as a quarterback, that is, you know, the physical mechanics of the run game are easier and more
functional as opposed to running it from the shotgun. And the Bengals have been much better as a running team when they've gone more heavily with the under center run game. And that's that was the case with Joe Flacco against even Green Bay. Of course, we saw it against Pittsburgh.
We saw it last Sunday against the Jets, and I think that's one reason the offensive line looks a little bit more confident, and certainly if you can play action out of the under center formation, there are plays to be made, and I think again Flacco look pretty comfortable doing that on Sunday. Certainly, offense put thirty eight points
up on the board enough to win. But you do have to like the fact the way the offense looks, especially the run game with them running under center a lot more track.
Of course, the problem with the defense is the tackling, the biggest problem. I've been reading a lot about tackling drills and dummies and pads and rolling donuts and stuff and practice. What can you tell us about that?
Well, there's only you can't really do live tackling at this stage of the season. Rocky and one and Zach Taylor was asked about that on Wednesday, and he said, there are other things we can do. He didn't want to get into it because I don't think he wants to get, you know, into the details and take the risk of saying something that might be in violation of
the CBA. I really think that's what that's about. But you know, the things that you mentioned that the big wheels that we see come out in training camp, you know, trash barrels, they're all kind of drills. I think the Bengals are probably spending more time on that. In the limited time that we got to see Jerry Montgomery work with the defensive linemen on Wednesday yesterday, he was getting very aggressive and working on timing with his defensive linemen.
And I think, you know, as much as there's been emphasis on the lack of tackling going on with the Bengals, they also have to win at the point of attack defensively, and they haven't been doing that well either. So that's I think another area where the Bengals they just need to get more physical in the defensive trenches if they're going to win some of these battles and get pressure on the quarterback. They have eleven sacks. That's tied the
third worst in the National Football League. So while yes, tackling is a problem, no question, they have to get after the court. They have to give some type of inkling that they are going to threaten the space of the quarterback. Otherwise, quarterbacks inherently going to drop back and figure they're not likely to get to me. So maybe I can take an extra second or so to look over the secondary and find a target.
Trags tell everybody how they can and by the way, you're good, bad and ugly of how they get to a tipping point and fight for relevance is an excellent piece today. Tell everybody how they can read, watch and follow.
You can follow that piece as well as my earlier piece this week about where the organization is and who's to blame at celns Sincy with a wide dot com. You can certainly follow all on my locker room interviews and the piece from Jamar Chase or the clips today from Jamar Chase that's up on the X at Trags tr Ags and as always the Jungle War Bengals postgame pod myself and Richard Skinner Skinny of Local twelve that is on YouTube dot com Slash Jungle War Pod.
Excellent as always, Thank you, Sarah. We'll talk next week. All right, gentlemen, have a good one. There you go. Mike Petralia Trags checking in when we continue. I want to ask you about and your question him about tackling sparked my curiosity of just run us through when we come back. Some things tackling drill wise you did with Colts and Titans as an NFL player. As we roll on, he is rocky, I'm Lance. We thank you for being here and if you're in the house. We've got to
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