Bengals Booth Podcast: A Sobering Sunday

join me for postgame analysis. Plus, in this week's fun Facts interview, I'll talk to Bengals tight end Mason Shrek, who will tell us what it was like to arrive at the University of Buffalo right out of high school and have to try to block Khalil Mack. All of that is straight ahead, But first, here's a quick reminder that you can have the latest edition of this podcast delivered right to your phone, tablet, or computer by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, or pod Bean. It's the greatest invention

since the backspace key. If you are roughly as old as I am or older, you remember typewriters and white out yes kids back in the day. If you are typing something on an actual piece of paper and made a mistake. You either rip the paper out of the typewriter and started over, or you opened a little bottle with this white paint like liquid, took out a tiny brush and covered up your mistake, then waited for the liquid to dry before starting to type again. Now you

simply hit the backspace key and continue. It's glorious. Now let's get to the game. According to the guy who owns skin Quest Tattoos in Kansas City, people requesting to have Patrick Mahomes's face tattooed unto their body is becoming increasingly popular in Kansas City. He estimates he's had twelve to fifteen requests so far and that number is likely to grow after the clinic the twenty three year old

quarterback put on against the Bengals. Of course, it helps to have weapons like running back Kareem Hunt, who led the NFL and rushing as a rookie last year and had one hundred forty one combined rushing and receiving yards. On Sunday night, on second and ten, he hands it off to Kareem Hunt, trying to run wide to the right Drake Kirkpatrick. She slowed him down but didn't tackle him. Now, Hunt hurdles a Bengal, runs inside to ten and finally

gets brought down at the six yard line. I'll tell you that's vision and balanced for Kareem Hunt and Drake Kirkpatrick has him and they pulled both guards. Kirkpatrick kind of gets around the outside and just basically it was almost like square dancing dozie dove, just ring him around and let him go. Here's Bengals linebacker Preston Brown on the challenge of tackling Kareem Hunt. You gotta really want to tackle that guy. He's not gonna just except that

he's gonna tackle. He's gonna keep fighting, jump over you try to get as many yards as you can. I mean, he wants to square. Every time he gets the ball, he can tone away. He runs and he can catch the ball too. Mahomes is under center, he'll drop back to throw, rolling right, cocks the arm, throws caught near the two yard line, Hunt extends the ball toward the pylon,

touchdown Kansas City. That was the final play of a ninety five yard touchdown drive by the Chiefs on their opening possession, and Kansas City led seven nothing all right, We knew the Chiefs were going to score. But last week the Patriots beat the Chiefs forty three to forty because New England didn't make mistakes. The Patriots never punted in the game and didn't have a single penalty enforced

against them. The Bengals were not quite that sharp. They had eight penalties, they punted five times, and early in the second quarter they botched a punt when it was hard to tell what happened. On fourth and nine at their own forty four, Clark Harris appeared to snap the ball directly to the personal protector, Clayton Fedgelum, who didn't seem to be affecting a fake punt. The disaster gave

the Chiefs the ball the Bengals thirty two. So what happened Coach Lewis and miscommunication and it shouldn't happen, especially against the Chiefs, who took advantage of the short field to make it fourteen nothing. Mahomes under center, drop straight back to throw a pocket closes, throws off his back foot, caught at the thirteen yard line. The receiver escapes it's hut, charging toward the forward right pilon and he is well one official is standing at the five. The other gives

the touchdown signal. Now did he step out of bounce at the five yard line? Is that official marking the ball? No, he's not, so it's going to be a touchdown for Hunt. That was Hunt's second touchdown, grabbed from Mahomes as he ran right through the arms of Vantes perfect after catching the ball. Here's Jesse Bates on the Bengals tackling woes.

That's something that we struggled with tonight. And obviously those guys are our Pro bowlers and they're really good for a reason, so you know, you just gotta tackle and get better at it. Ling fourteen nothing, The Bengals finally looked like the team that entered the game sixth in the NFL and scoring. Aj Green had four catches for seventy two yards on a seventy seven yard drive that cut the Chiefs lead in half. Dalton the shotgun on third down and goal from the four for the Bengals

down by two touchdowns. Andy catches the shotgun snap not Buyers not at the goal line by you Zama. Touchdown Bengals. You Zama broke out the macareina after that touchdown catch because he figured it was game on with the Bengals only trailing fourteen seven. I wouldn't have danced if if I hadn't thought that, honestly, I'll just handing the ball to the the ref and ran off on the sideline. Yeah. I mean, we drove the ball down the field and scored, and I was like, all right, nice, here we go.

This is what this is kind of the drive we needed to spark us and we'll come back and you know, well, we'll continue scoring. And that just didn't happen. Instead, the Chiefs dominated the final two and a half quarters. It's third down in six as a result of the five yard penalty. Be homes back to three. Looking over the middle, cocks the arm, throws it into the end zone and

it's the easiest touchdown he will throw all year. His tight end, Demetrius Harris, former college basketball player, reels in a seventeen yard TD. At the half. It was Kansas City twenty four Cincinnati seven. Here's Preston Brown. They got a great offense on that side, and Andrew Ree is doing some stuff to confuse the defense, going to get schemes a lot of four to the side, five on one side. A lot of things you don't see in America football, more Canadian type stuff. How they get everybody

on the side, but they do it well. Kansas City's first play of the third quarter was a fifty yard pass that helped make Kareem Hunt's fantasy owners really happy. Hunt lines up to the right of Patrick Mahomes, who waits for the shotgun. Snap. Now, Hunt motions to the quarterbacks left. They give it to Kareem Hunt, looking to add a rushing touchdown to his two receiving touchdowns, and

he's got it. Kansas City scores again. Man so many weapons to choose, and the Chiefs beleaguer defense on a pace to allow the most yards in NFL history going into the game, even put points on the board against Cincinnati. From the twenty five, Dalton drops back to throw his pass over the middle, intercepted, running it back to the twenty the ten, the five touchdown Ron Parker with a pick six for the Kansas City Chiefs. Those last two touchdowns came nine seconds apart and made the score thirty

eight seven in the third quarter. The Chiefs were allowing nearly twenty nine points a game going in the Bengals only scored ten on Sunday night. Here are c j Uzama and offensive lineman Bobby Hart. It's tough SA BETA team like that, any team, honestly, but I mean a team like that playing the way that we did offensively and hurting ourselves what we did. That's a great football team. That's definitely, you know, the top one of the top teams in the AFC. So you know, shoot, we got

this sea how we match up against him? So then you gotta put at a lot of work to do. The only question left in the fourth quarter was how ugly the final score would be. The answer forty five to ten. Mahomes in the shotgun with Kareem Hunt to his left, fumbled the snap. Mahomes scoops it up Scramble's left, throws touchdown right at the forward left pylon, and Tyreek Hill, who dropped the touchdown pass a few plays ago, gets his touchdown catch. After all, just like Andy Reid drew

it up fumble the ball. You know, it looked like he was his zone read. It looked like he wanted to hand it off to the running back and he couldn't because he fumbled the football. And then he came out to his left. It's like, okay, well, I'm not even going to do the zone read part of it to Kareem Hunt. I have to throw it Patrick. Mahomes finished with three hundred and fifty eight passing yards, four touchdowns, and a passer rating of one twenty three point seven.

And here's a final nugget about him. Last year, the Saints had the eleventh pick in the draft, and head coach Sean Payton called Drew Brees to tell him him there was a good chance they were going to draft Mahomes to be his successor. They didn't want Breeze to be blindsided by the news. But then the Chiefs sent two first round picks and a third round pick to Buffalo to move up from the twenty seventh pick to the tenth pick in order to take Mahomes. He could

be sitting the bench in New Orleans right now. Instead, he's good for business at skin Quest Tattoos. Here are final thoughts from the locker room on a thirty five point l from Marvin Lewis, Jesse Bates, and Preston Brown. You got to commit ourselves to being in will first off, move the football by running the football, and you know, we didn't want to get into a throwing type game like that. And you know we didn't play well enough the next two well enough, we had to sustain make

first downs today. That was the key element. This one is gonna be hard to swallow. Just because is in front of everyone, everyone was watching him. I think we're excited to show people what we can do, and we didn't do that tonight. So you know, like I said, lat mean this week, we got another opportunity next week to go in to the bye week with a win, and you get this thing back roll in the right way. Everybody in the world is watching the Sunday night game.

You want to go out and have a great showing. But we just didn't do it enough on defense. I mean, we know what an offense like that, you got to hold them to at least twenty one points to have a shot to win, and their defense is playing out standing the night. So we had to be better in their defense, and that's how every game goes, and we just weren't the better defense. Now, time to bring in

my broadcast partner Dave Lapham for postgame analysis. Lap coming into this game, we knew the Bengals were going to need to play extremely well to knock off the Chiefs at home, particularly on defense. When you play poorly, it becomes a blowout. And that's what happened tonight. Yeah. I think that the Kansas City Chiefs are the fastest offense in the National Football League, and you can't simulate it

when you're getting ready for him in practice. If you could simulate it, all those guys as simulators be playing, so you get a look at where they our, informations, how they're lined up, window addressing all those kind of

things that Andy Reid might do. But you get in the game and it's happening on twenty five miles an hour as opposed to thirty miles an hour when you were working against it in practice, in terms of the comparison and the speed of the players, and I mean, they were not ready for what attacked them tonight's football game, and they tackled accordingly. They were never in position to

make tackles. They missed more tackles, and I think you can count you run out of fingers, and you know it was just you have to tip your cap to greatness in the in the Kansa City Chiefs played great tonight and the Bengals were far from it. And you know it wasn't their best performance defensively nor offensively. I mean the Kansa City Chiefs people were like, oh, it'll be you know who has the ball last, It's going

to be trade and touchdown after touchdown. Everybody was looking forward to that on a big national stage of Sunday night football. In the in the offense, you know, they laid an egg as well. I mean they were dinosaur eggs laid by every phase. That's the mystery because going into the game that are giving up an average of four hundred and sixty eight yards a game, dead last in the NFL by twenty eight yards. So it wasn't close. The Bengals got two hundred and thirty nine yards of

offense and scored ten points. They get behind, they couldn't run the football even when they weren't behind, They couldn't run the football as effectively and efficiently as they wanted to do it. And then you get behind to this football team, you have to throw a little bit more than you want to, and then you get behind by more and now you're all disjointed, and you know, special teams coach Lewis when I asked him about him the

post game. Instead of miscommunication, you know, it shouldn't happen. So I think a fake was on, or Clark Harris heard something that he thought a fake was on and he snapped the football to Clayton Federalum and the fake wasn't on and it got obliterated. And short field, so you can't, you know, give the Kansas City Chiefs a short field. Mahomes is drooling over that kind of stuff. So instead of complimentary football, it was non complimentary football.

Every phase didn't support the other one. So I mean it was a stinker, you know, And unfortunately it happened on Sunday night football in front of the world, you know, at least the nation and probably the world. And as a form of player, that sticks with you because your friends, your family, You're embarrassed. You're embarrassed. I remember losing nationally televised games, not like this, just losing the game. You just have a hard time getting over losing like this.

It's brutal. That's a brutal, brutal night for sure. The Bengals have Pro Bowlers on defense, Carlos Dunlap Geno Atkins. Will Jackson looked like a future pro bowler last year. Preston Brown tied for the NFL lead in tackles last year, and yet seven games into the season, the defense really hasn't played that well. Vantes Burfett has been a pro bowler, and it's disjointed. It's just not cohesive. It's not being it's not put together. They've had substitution issues in some games.

They've had assignment mistake issues and games you know, quarterbacks are going on double snapcounts to make the tip blitzes and then there's no check if the quarterback I mean Ben Roethlisberger fourteen blitzes, he recognized twelve of them, and you got to check out of it. If he's got it cold, they don't check out of it. I mean, it's just it's tough to watch sometimes. They're just they're not playing cohesively. They're not playing as one unit, you know, offense,

I mean defensive line, linebackers and secondary. You know, it's uh, they're being there are multiple mistakes being made at every level. And the miss tackles against the Kansas City Chiefs tackling's effort, you know, and uh, I mean, at least getting yourself in position to make tackles. You're gonna have a few.

You're not gonna tackle these guys every time, but you can't miss them every damn time either, And give them so many yards after catch, so many yards after contact, spin moves, you know, after contact, so much separation, they can't close the space. And like we talked about before the game, they have so many guys that can make you miss in space and then run away from you, and they did a lot of it. That's what they did.

They not only made a miss and look silly. Some guys can do that and don't at breakaway speed, and other guys are breakaway speed but can't make you miss. These suckers have both, and they showed it, and they showcased it. Man, they're a bunch of show dogs. It's hard not to conclude after a game like this that the Chiefs are a much better team than the Cincinnati Bengals. Now, a lot can change over the course of the rest of the season. The good news for the Bengals is

that the Chiefs are now under their division. The Ravens, Steelers and Browns are Baltimore loss, Cleveland loss the Steelers had to buy. The Bengals at four and three are still obviously in decent shape, but they've got to go home and take care of business. Yeah, in the Kansas City Chiefs still have the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens

to play. They've beaten the Steelers, beating the Bengals, you have to hope that they sweep the AFC North and they're very capable of doing that because the Bengals lost one to them. So now they've lost the division game. They lost another conference game today. They lost two games in a row that you know are tough pills to swallow. You know, you lose a division game at home, that's like losing two games. Then you go on the road

and you get blown out. So you lose a heartbreaker at home to a division rival, and then you get your doors blown off on Sunday Night football. You get a regroup and regroup fast. Because Dirt Cutter and Marvin Lewis were college roommates, but there ain't no sympathy there. Dirt Cutter will try to do everything you can to

beat Marvin Lewis, and Marvin knows that. And Cincinnati Bengals better realize it as a football team, Tampa Bay is not going to be at field the least bit sorry for him, and they gotta get back on the winning track.

If they can go into the bye week with a five and three record, you know they're worst case scenari They're gonna be tied for the division lead at the halfway mark and they're tracking for a ten and six season if they duplicate that, and they need the time to heal up and watching on pregame, Billy Price moving well, Gievanni Bernard moving well. They're gonna start to get bodies

back and that that's going to be helpful. You know, if you can be five and three at the bye, heal up, start getting some bodies back that can make contributions, not just guys, but guys that are starting football players or major contributors in sub packages, you know it's going to help you. And right now they're limping and creeping to the bye week for sure. Thanks Lap. Now time for this week's fun facts segment, as you get to

know the person under the pads. Time for some fun facts with Bengals tight end Mason Shrek from Madina, Ohio, about a half hour south of Cleveland. How do you describe your hometown. It's a small hometown, but it was a great place to grow up. What do your folks do for a living. My dad is a insurance salesman, risk management and insurance. My mom is just to stay at home on aside from football, what were you into as a kid? A lot of golf, Just a lot

of different sports. But my dad and my brother are a big golfer, so whenever I get the chance, I go out and play a lot of golf. I saw an interview somewhere where you said that you dreamed of being a professional football player, basketball player, or golfer. So you must be at the final of the three. Yeah. I didn't know what it was going to be growing up. I just know that I love playing sports, and you know that I want to be a professional athlete. Doing

fun facts with Mason Shrek. You were a high school quarterback. Did you get to throw it much or did your team mostly run? I had four head coaches in four years, so I did a little bit of everything. My senior year, I threw it a lot. My junior year, I threw it about seven times a game, but we were pretty

good that year. So it didn't matter. Was it beneficial and in terms of learning a lot of football to have that many head coaches, Yeah, it made the transition to tight end that much easier just knowing, you know, the whole scheme of the game. It really helped out. For college. You went to the University of Buffalo. Why, they originally had offered me as a quarterback, and I want to play Division one football. And I got there.

I saw a lot of potential in the guys and there's no better than going up against Khalil Mackie first day, So describe that it was a rude awakening for me. I didn't really know who he was at the time, so my first day, it was a long day. Actually went in the locker room after called my mom and said, Mom, I don't think I'm gonna make it here. But once I kind of found out who he was, you know, it made it that much better for me. So, Khalil

mack almost ended your career as it started. What did you study there and what interest might you have after football is finished? Um? I studied communications. You know, I don't really know what I want to do yet. I'm trying to, you know, ride this thing out as long as possible and then cross that bridge when it gets here. Hopefully that is many many years to come. We're doing

fun facts with Mason Shrek. You got drafted late in the draft by the Bengals last year, and you almost or I guess you had agreed to sign with another team when you got the phone call from the Bengals. Yeah, my agent had a contract in place, and you know, we had it set up that I was going to go to Philly if it wasn't here, And you know, I'm just so happy that I was drafted. I was a dream come true for me. So you know, I

love to be in Cincinnati. When the phone rang, did you think it was Philly or did you know the Bengals or the Cincinnati area code? Yeah? I saw the five one three area code and actually talked through the scout Andrew Andrew Johnson before, so I kind of I kind of had a feeling that it was going to be Cincinnati. But when I saw the five one three number, my heart dropped. And you know, as obviously coach Lewis, So that was it was a dream come to you

in a day. I'll never forget, you said an interview interview. You cried, Yeah I did. Uh yeah, I'm pretty emotional guy. So when that happened, it was pretty pretty special. And you know, having my whole family there was pretty special. So we're doing fun facts with Mason Shrek. You got injured last year in the preseason and spent your rookie year on injured reserve. What did you do? I? Uh, you know, I made the most of every day and

I went in and worked out every day. Um. I went into all the meetings, took a bunch of notes, you know, just as if I had been playing. So um, you know, the only thing I missed out on is obviously practice and playing. So you know, it's kind of a learning year, learning experience for me, and I got to kind of see where, you know, what I need to be doing just preparing for a normal game week, you know, in the years years to come. Him. So, do you fully feel like a member of the team

under those circumstances? Um? Yes and no. Um. You know, obviously it's hard not being out of practice, and you know kind of you have to kind of stay the way in meetings and stuff like that. So um, but you know, it's it's good to be finally back in the swing of things here now, So it's pretty it's a it's a lot better this year. So you show up at training camp this year fully healthy, with eight

tight ends on the roster. Did you go into camp thinking I'm trying to make the practice squad or did you think if I play well, I can make the fifty three man roster, which obviously you did. You know, I didn't. I didn't really think about that a whole lot um. You know, I just kind of just made

the most of every opportunity. I keep you know, I keep saying that, but you know, that's that's kind of what I went into every day mentally saying, and just make the most of every every opportunity, every chance I got. You had a big game in the third preseason game at Buffalo, which, as we mentioned earlier, is where you played college football. Talk about great timing with a lot of friends and family looking on. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

As the first time I've been back since I left after my pro day, So it was pretty cool to be back there and just see, you know, seeing my head coach at you know, at school and stuff, and be able to go visit the campus and see some of the guys, and it is pretty cool that that was kind of my breakout game back in you know, back at school. So we're talking to Mason Shrek. We discussed the phone call you got from Marvin Lewis on draft day, described the phone call you got when you

were informed that you made the team. If there was a phone call, maybe you don't get a call under those circumstances. Yeah. I was out to breakfast my fiance and I got the call from coaches, and you know, he just told me straight up, you're gonna be a you know, you're gonna be on our fifth three man roster and I'll see his Sunday. I said, yes, sir, thank you, I'll see his Sunday. So it was kind of short and sweet. But you know, I want to know other way. Did you add a mimosa to that

breakfast to celebrate? No, I had a morning meditation at first watched though, So it was nice, healthy little drink. That's good, the healthy option. All right, a few offbeat questions from Mason Shrek as we wrap up fun facts. Your all time favorite athlete, Oh man, I don't even know if Tiger Woods is top three. Jerry Rice you know, I grew up a Raiders fancy he's top three and Lebron James because he's from Akron, Ohio. So it's interesting

a Raiders fan growing up south of Cleveland. And Jerry Rice was the guy you chose, obviously know more for his forty nine Ers days than his Raiders days. Yeah, just you know, we got to I got to meet him when I was growing up, so I was pretty cool. How did that happen? My dad had a client at the i X Center and that's that's where the Raiders flew their plane at. And you know, we got to go there and kind of stand by the plane as

the guys were walking getting on. So we had our Raiders jerseys, our Jerry Rice jerseys on and he came up and personally signed us. It was pretty cool. Is there a picture of the young Mason Shrek with Jerry Rice. I don't think it's a picture, but there is a jersey still hanging up in the basement. That is pretty cool. All right. How about the stupidest way you ever hurt yourself as a kid man playing in a wagon going

off of a ramp. I fell off and I don't remember what I actually hurt, but I just know that I got hurt falling off the wagon, so sounds painful. If you could have lunch with somebody famous, living or deceased, who would it be? Either my grandpa who passed away who I never got to meet, or one of those three athletes. I think would be pretty cool. All right. Final fun fact for Bengals tight end Mason Shrek. How many Shrek jokes have you heard over the years? Honestly,

not too many crazy ones that got me upset. I when that movie came out in two thousand and one, I was pumped up. My whole family was pumped up, and we've kind of rode with it ever since. So my parents got the little Shrek sticker on the side of their jerseys when they wear it to the game, So we take full pride in it. We love it. So it is a good movie. Yeah, yes it is, of course. Hey, congratulations on a tremendous camp in preseason and making the roster and best of luck this year.

Thank you. I appreciate it. That's fun facts with Mason Shrek. Unfortunately, Mason Shrek was on crutches after the game with a bulky brace on his left knee. Hopefully his injury isn't too serious. The Bengals have already lost tight end Tyler Iffer for the season with his ankle injury and tight end Tyler Craft for several weeks with a foot injury. That's going to do it for this episode of the podcast.

If you haven't done so already, don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or pod Bean and give it a rating or leave a comment. Your feedback has been awesome and five star ratings are really helpful to help more Bengals fans find this podcast. I'm Dan Horde and thanks for listening to the Bengals Boot Podcast.