Bengals Booth Podcast: Better Together

play next level fantasy football with fantastic Bengals prizes. Get it now on the App Store and Google Play. And 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 wherever you get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since exercise soreness. The Bengals run to the Super Bowl was one of the greatest five and a half month stretches of my life, but it wasn't

filled with much exercise. In fact, if you look up the words sloth in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of a bald man with glasses who looks very familiar. Now that the season is over. I'm trying to be more dedicated when it comes to working out, and I have the soreness that comes with it. Not pain, mind you, just the soreness that occurs in the early stages of an exercise routine that mostly goes away when you do it regularly. So here's to feeling some exercise soreness. It

beats feeling disgusting. Now time to talk free agency with Dave Lapham. All right, lap You've had a few days to take a closer look at Alex Kappa and Ted Carriss. You recorded a great podcast with offensive line coach Frank Pollock about those guys. What are the Bengals getting in those two interior offensive linemen. I think they're getting class acts in both cases. I think they're both very intelligent. I think they're both very alert to everything environmentally and

their surroundings. I think they're aware of everything that needs to get done. And they both seem to be really good communicators and understanding than the importance of communicating at a high level. And all I can say is I'd love to play right between the two of them. After seeing them up here at the press or, I was duly impressed with what they had to say and how they had to say it, and just the interaction with each other. I mean, it just it was very very

comfortable for me to observes as a form alignment. I think that they're going to be major additions not only to the offensive line room in terms of leadership, but to the football team in terms of leadership. And I think they will. They'll be looked upon you for leadership because they're in the prime of their career and they've gone to the pinnacle. They won the big one, and this team got there, got to the doorstep just could

not quite open the door and finish it. So I think I think these guys are going to have a major impact on the football field. Off the football field, in the locker room, in the community, every place there can be an impact, I think these two guys will be part of it. Ted Carriss played left guard for the Patriots last year. He played center for the two seasons prior to that one in Miami. Went in New England, Zach Taylor definitively said no, ifs ands or butts, he

will be our center. Right Trey Hopkins is let go starting center, and this guy is who they've they've tagged to me, if I'm Hill, lights a fire under me to get better. You know that that they're not quite there. They're not going to say, all right, you're the incumbent, You're our starting center. Carris is going to line up at the center position. Now if Hill has shown improvement, you know, the fact is that Kariss has played both guards and center, that the all three interior line position

aspect of his resume is extremely attractive and appealing. Versatility is very very important in this era, particularly on game day when you only have seven or eight guys you know that are that are up and able to play. So it's a source of motivation for Hill. But Kiss, they were very adamant. It was part of the process

of recruiting him. Here's what we're going to do with your very defined role, but we do expect that you still would be able to go to left guard or right guard if in fact, injury or something else determined that we would need help there, and he could do that.

So it's it's a very comforting feeling, I think, to have a guy with that type of versatility, and not only you project he might be able to He's played in the NFL's there's game tape that you can look at, and he performed well enough to win football games in the National Football League at all three spots. That is worth a ton. It's almost priceless. Alex Kappa was one of the first free agents announced on Monday, if not

the first. Twenty seven years old, four years in the NFL, A Super Bowl ring from Tampa Bay a couple of years ago. Frank Pollock did not want to say he was the number one guy on our list, but clearly he had to be very high on whatever list they put together for the Bengals to get that done as quickly as they did. Yeah, and you know, you start to Okay, let's put in the criterion. Here's here's what we want to spend, and we'd like to be able to get both these guys, so or we'd like to

be able to get two. Maybe not both of these guys. We'd like to be able to get too. So here's here's what we were thinking we're going to budget for offensive line free agency initially, and here's the ones that are exorbitant. They're they're out of that out of that price range. You know, we're not going to be able to buy a mansion. We'll have to settle for a

five bedroom house. And they got they got you know again, William Jackson, he goes to Washington, gets big bucks and they get a Woozier and they get Hilton for the same same money. Two for one. Sheriff goes to Jacksonville from Washington for big bucks. They get these two guys the same money two years in a row. They've done a two fur It's pretty darn good. And you had more than one position that needed help in the offensive line and even in the interior the offensive line, so

I think they handled it remarkably well. I think, you know, they targeted these guys as ones that would fit all that criterion and Bloom either good capita to engage in the process pretty quickly, and it's a good thing they did, because Tom Brady called him shortly after and he basically said, you know, a little too late, Tom, and too far down on the road. And I admire that because we've seen guys from Nigga on deals that they've agreed to.

And Ogan Joby unfortunately didn't pass his physical, so he doesn't get his contract with the Bears that was agreed to. But but other guys have changed their mind. I look at that as a as a very very admirable trait that Kappa has, Tom Brady calling them the goat saying, you know, come on, come back, run it back with us in Tampa, and he's like, you know, I've given my word here too far along. I admire that, you know, And so that tells me something about his character as well.

Those good values you learn at Humboldt State, I think exactly right, Humboldt their humbolt at Humboldt State, and uh yeah that, how about how about that? That's a heck of a thing too. You talk about a guy that everybody, everybody has development at a different age and rate and all those sorts of things. But you know, not obviously coming out of high school, not a guy that everybody

was drooling over. But he goes and some guys are late bloomers, and he's one of those guys that probably bloomed late physically and he had all the all the other things. You don't become a glass eater, as Frank Pollock likes to call a tough guys, you know, overnight. Um, in some cases you do. I shouldn't say that. But this guy obviously has had a love and desire for football for a long time for him to and he finally gets to, you know, the highest level you can

get to, and you're living your childhood dream. So I'm not gonna let a broken arm stop me. And uh, you know, I get an injury there in my leg, I don't know exactly who it is, and let me see if I can go, can't go? X race, Mr, it's broken, Okay, I mean that dude. You know i'd uh, I definitely do a tag team wrestling match with that dude. So, speaking of glass eaters, it's no secret that l Collins

is visiting the Bengals. We are recording this conversation about three twenty five on Friday afternoon, so by the time the podcast is posted, who knows. Maybe he has agreed to a deal with the Cincinnati Bengals. But I asked Frank Pollock about him at his news conference. He said I loved coaching him in Dallas. He is a glass eater, he loves film study. He made it abundantly clear that he would love to have him as his right tackle if the Bengals can win what now becomes a free

agency sweepstakes for his services. And how about that you get the center, right guard, and right tackle in free agency potentially, My goodness, you can't have so much more than that. You know, the Kansas City Chiefs had quote the formula last year. They got two starters in free agency and two in the draft. Oh, I prefer three in free agency because the draft is a crapshoot and it's not an exact science, at least in free agency.

It's not an exact science there either. Sometimes you go from one system to another it just doesn't work out for whatever reason. But you've got more chance for success because you've seen the guy play at that final level and be able to operate and compete and win battles individually and collectively as a team at that highest level.

So if you can get three starters in your offensive line in one free agency period, I mean, last year they built their defense through the draft and the offense and defense through free agency and offense through the draft. It might be the reverse of it this year, you know, I mean they may spend their free agency dollars offensively, uh, you know, primarily and then and then get after the defensive needs in the draft. But I mean that would

be that would be big. And you look at Collins, I mean he was undrafted, you know, and Frank Pollock took you know, molded that clay and really believed in him. And Collins responded to Frank Pollock's methodology as techniques, his schemes, his hand placement, his foot where he responded to all of it. And they've got a relationship to me, I think, you know, dinner Rubies with a precinct or wherever is great. Jeff Rubies, got great food, great restaurants, teammates, it's all important,

it's all great. But the fact that I know what Frank Pollock's all about, and I have a chance to go back to the coach to basically allow help me start a professional career that has lasted a few years. And I get a chance to go back and continue that growth and development that coach who I owe so much, that'd be a big deal in my evaluation process, really big deal. The last time we did a podcast, we talked about some of the possible red flags where Lyle

Collins is concerned. He missed all of twenty twenty with a hip injury. He had a five game suspension last year for recreational drug use. Wasn't he didn't test positive. He missed his tests, which may indicate that he thought he was going to test positive. But in any case, I spoke to somebody in Dallas about him this week. He said, great guy, well liked by his teammates and coaches. Uh, don't have to worry about the suspension being some sort

of this is a bad guy issue. It's not the case at all now with the hip obviously part of the process of visiting Cincinnati has to have that checked out by the Bengals medical team. Absolutely, look at Larry Ogan job like we just talked about. You know, it's like he goes up to Chicago and their doctors say, uh, two dicey too risk. He's not He's not ready right now. He still needs to heal whatever the case may be.

M So yeah, I mean it's it's going to be. Uh, the physical is going to be a big, big part of it. You know. Unfortunately, those issues probably hurt his value and that they were trying to trade him, um and they're doing no takers, and so nobody wanted to give up anything to get him. All right, let him go, let him go to free agency and uh, and the

Bengals were just watching the waiver wire. I mean they're just they're just laying in prey man and then just waiting and then just jumped at the at the chance to get in the process and again. And I think, you know, one of the big reasons that's that he's here so quickly after he hit the waiver wire is Frank So I just finished it. I think I think it's going to happen. It's just a question to win.

I want to get back to Trey Hopkins for a second, because Zach did make that announcement on Friday that in addition to the signings of Kappa and Carress, they were

letting Trey go. And you know, we had conversations during the course of this past season where you would bring it up unprompted, more or less saying, hey, this guy deserves a lot more praise and credit than he's getting to come back from a torn acl in the final game of the previous season, to be back in the starting lineup for opening Day when maybe he wasn't physically even close to one hundred percent, But did it for his team, did it for his teammates. He deserves all

the praise in the world. You know, Baker Mayfield's up there in Cleveland pitching about the fact that you know, I laid it on the line for the Cleveland Browns playing hurt, and all he's doing is, you know, every form of social media that you can utilize. He propping himself, you know, jocking himself about doing that. Trey Hopkins did that even I mean, to have a knee reconstruction in January and to come back and be there for training camp and then play every every snap basically of the

regular season. And I talked to him, you know, a couple of times during the course of the season, I said, how is it. How you doing, how's it going physically? He was a it's tough, man. I mean, it's it's it's a challenge, you know, it's a grind. He was trying to rehab and play at the highest level of football, a National Football League center, particularly when nose guards were over him. I mean, that's that's just brutal what he tried to do. And he did the best he could.

I'm sure, you know, he knew he wasn't putting his best performances on tape. Uh, you know, that compared to other years when when he played at a much higher level, but he was limited. I mean literally with a lot of times he was on one leg, you know, and I'd watch him sometimes and I'd be like, oh my gosh, man, you know he's just and then you know when Hill went in there, you know, he brainlocked a few times.

And like Frank Pollock said at the at the presser, and this term that I used for for Hopkins as well, the ultimate example of a pros pram and just an unbelievable communicator, super intelligent and recognize fronts immediately and get the correct call out fast, I mean very very quickly. And that for an offensive line man, that means a ton a ton, you know, particularly if you there's some

kind of a problem. You get the line of scrimmage and there's like ten seconds on the play clock and it's like, oh man, we gotta gotta get this done, like right now. Trey was very capable of doing that and never in any kind of a panic mode. That stuff's all big, all very big. And I think because of all that he had, he had a presence in the locker room guys, guy's respected and admired Trey Hopkins.

So there's a locker room present and stare you know, c j Uzama's locker room presence is going to be missed, and rightfully so, I think on a much lower key, less publicized, you know standpoint, I think I think Trey Hopkins will as well. You know, when they were doing things at the Freedom Center, who was one of the guys front and center up there making statements on behalf of the football team. Trey Hopkins says something. Yeah, Trey essentially wrote the statement that they made that day in

front of the Freedom Center. You brought up. Cj Uzamo gets the three year, twenty four million dollar deal with the Jets to take his place at least for a year. The Bengals have reached a deal with Hayden Hurst, twenty eight years old, four years in the NFL. Former first round draft pick by the Ravens. Hasn't had great statistics in the NFL. He's a former professional baseball player, started out after high school with two years of minor league baseball,

but obviously has great physical tools. If you are the twenty fifth overall pick in the draft, yeah, and he's just found himself in situations, Um, you know, with the Ravens, he's behind Mark Andrews, you know, and with Atlanta they draft hits, and you know, it's a it's a tough situation. He had one year where he had I think over fifty catches and over five hundred yards and a handful of touchdowns. I think he can produce at that level.

I think he's I think he's capable of that. UM. I do think he's athletic enough to you know, be an effective route runner, catches the football well enough, and then also, you know, put his hand in the dirt at the end of the line of scrimmage and be a factor in the running game. He's six four, two hundred and sixty five pounds. I mean, he's a he's a big body kid, you know, a strong kid. And uh and I think I think, uh, you know, coach Casey and coach Pollackle will maximize what he can bring

to the table in terms of the running game as well. So, uh that that was a good move. You know, it's a one year deal, a show me deal, a prove it deal, so highly incentivized. Um. He realizes that his football future is going to be, you know, largely determined by how it goes next year and he's got a quarterback that can give him the football, you know, and uh, I think I think it's a I think it's a definition of a good deal. I think both parties benefit.

He had six touchdown catches two years ago with the Falcons. Defensive lineman Jaron Reid is visiting. Apparently Cincinnati is not the only place he's going to visit. It doesn't sound like this is a if I like it, I'll sign kind of thing. It sounds like he wants to take a few different visits and check out the possibilities out there.

But what do you think of Jaron read the player? Yeah, I mean I think I think with Ogan JOEBI actually didn't he didn't go, but he's he's not under contract, he's not part of the Cincinnati Bengal mix at this point. I think in his absence, getting somebody that can fill that rotational need that they have. Um. You know, they obviously committed a lot of dollars to b J. Hill and he earned it rightfully, so but he was in the rotation. They got two paw back, so you know

that that's big. So if they can if they can get a guy like read that would uh, that would be a nice nice get as well. And as we know, I'm talking about it all the time, you know, you know, all levels of football games are one and lost in the trenches, and the Bengals have gotten better in the trenches offensively, and they're trying to make sure that they addressed their their needs and issues inside as well with

the signing one of their own. Um PJ. Hill gets gets a well earned, well deserved contract and they're not done. Y interesting to see what happens with Ogan Joe, because I got the impression that the Bengals did not rule him out medically, they would have been interested in resigning him now that the deal that the Bears offered to him and that he agreed to was far beyond what the Bengals had room to pay or were willing to pay.

But if they wanted to resign him and didn't have medical issues at the time, I imagine there's still a path for him possibly to come back on a shorter deal, although a lot of the money has been committed to others. Yeah, I mean b J. Hill got a lot of the dough that then he was hoping he might get, and they both knew it. They both knew that one was going to get it and the other one was going to move on and uh, you know, get it somewhere else.

But based on the fact that okay, well, Chicago's medical team failed them. They have a need and they didn't they didn't feel comfortable enough, how much does that devalue his arrangement. I could see potentially where he stays with the banks for another one year proven deal. You might have to, Yeah, you might have to based on what happened up in Chicago. You know, it's like, all right, well that this multi year, a multimillion dollar thing has

gone up in smoke. Potentially, and maybe too early to tell, there may still be somebody else that would kick the tires and see what kind of dollars anybody that would who has the dollars left to kick the tires and uh and spend them on him. So I would think that if, if, if the terms and conditions of a contract changed drastically, Menal's right in a hunt because he enjoyed it here. He had great success here, loved his teammates, loved his coaches. There's been no bridges burned. It was

everything was done on a high class level. The parting of the ways was done as well as it can be done. I don't see any problem with it. Eli Apple is back on a one year, four million dollar deal. Now just one year. Does that make it seem to you that there's a high possibility or probability that cornerback is going to be one of their top draft picks. Yeah, I mean I look at that as you know, four million dollars on a one year contract to a corner is not like whoa, you know, that's not like why

the hell would they do that. I look at it as a as a very expensive premium of insurance policy, you know. I mean, I think they've I think they will probably address that position. I don't know if it'll be a first round pick, but I think it'll be a pretty high pick. And I mean they may they may double down. They may take a couple of corners, you know, one and in in day two or even potentially day three. They may take him in day two, in day three and not day one. I don't know,

but I do I imagine that, uh that there. They'll probably swing the bat a couple of times in the draft at that at that position group. But I do. Really, I don't think it's lip service. When Louie and Rumo talks about having confidence in Eli Apple, he really does,

you know. I think he's uh, he's He's taken a lou feels like I've been with this guy through all of it, you know, thick and thin, and sometimes in situations like that, you really celebrate the successes with him even more so, you know, and and the failures are like, you know, yeah, that didn't work out, but we can get over that, we can work it, we can work through that, so that that uh, that relationship that is big,

big for the player and big for the coach. Last thing, when are they when are they going to invite you to take part in one of these precinct dinners with all of these offensive linemen. Man, I'll get I'll get a state borrow any day of the week, and I'll go medium rare as well. I might even go more rare than medium rare. I'll be, I'll be. I'm not eating any glass, but I'll eat some raw meat. There's

no doubt about that. That's going to do it. For this episode of The Bengals Booth podcast presented by Ultimate Bengals. Download Ultimate Bengals ahead of the twenty twenty two season. It's free to play next level fantasy football with fantastic Bengals prizes. Get it now on the App Store and Google Play, and if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to this podcast and if you have a minute, give it a rating or share a comment that helps

more Bengals fans find us. I'm Dan Horde and thanks for listening to the Bengals Booth podcast.