Bengals Booth Podcast: Crying

You'll want to hear what Hayden has to say. The Bengals Booth Podcast is presented by Alta Fiber future Proof Fiber Internet Elevate your connection with Alta Fiber, by Cattering Health, the official healthcare provider of the Bengals, by Bengals Picks and Ultimate Bengals Free to Play with tickets and signed merchandise up for grabs, and by pay Corps, the official

HR software provider of the Bengals. 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 Jerry World. I've called several games at AT and T Stadium over the years, including the Cotton Bowl last New Year's Eve, and the place never ceases to amaze me.

It's palatial, it's grandiose. It reeks of money. I jokingly quoted Ron Burgundy before the game and said that it smells like rich Mahogany. It's kind of an obnoxious display of wealth. But I must admit there's nothing in professional sports quite like it. Now, let's get to Sunday's game.

What is it about the Bengals and backup quarterbacks? They helped launch a Hall of Famer's career when Don the Magic Man Makowski got injured against Cincinnati back in nineteen ninety two and Brett Farve came off the bench to

lead the Packers to a dramatic win. They lost a playoff game to the immortal T. J. Yates of the Texans in two twelve, and last year, the Bengals were an eleven and a half point favorite when the Jets had to start Mike White, and he threw for four hundred and five yards and three touchdowns in a three point New York win. This time around, it was Cooper Rush, making just his second start in five NFL seasons. He gave the Cowboys an adrenaline rush on their opening drive,

second down and eight at the Cincinnati ten. Elliot in the backfield behind. Rush takes the snap, fakes to Elliot, rolls to the right, looks, throws into the end zone, a leaping catch, and a touchdown Noah Brown in the back right corner of the end zone. The Cowboys have their first touchdown at this season, and it comes on the opening drive in Week two, with their backup quarterback

running the show. The Bengals immediately answered with a forty three yard field goal by Evan McPherson, but on the Cowboys second drive, they found the end zone again. Cowboys line up in an I formation backfield. We'll see if the quarterback Rush keeps it. Nope, he's gonna give it to Pollard, and Pollard knights in for the touchdown. Appropriate.

They gave him the opportunity to score after he did most of the work to get them down there, and Dallas has scored touchdowns on its first two drives with Cooper Rush at quarterback and taking a thirteen to three league rush through for two hundred and thirty five yards with one touchdown, no picks, and a passer rating of ninety five point five. Here's Mike Hilton, who just getting the ball out quick into this playmaker scance. You could tell he wasn't trying to make no mistakes. You know,

he weren't taking any deep shots. So it's like, you know, he's just planning into the scheme and just taking when he was given him. Rush was rarely pressured and only got sacked once. The Bengals quarterback, on the other hand, Burrow back to throw under pressure trying to scramble. Micah Parsons will come up with his first sack of the game, hops on Burrows back and sacks him for a three yard loss. Burrow was sacked six times and hit nine times.

They have a great rush, one of them, I would say top two or three best rushes in the league. They got to Marcus Lawrence, Micah and they do a really good job with their picks in games too, and so you know early in the game you're gonna have those, and you know, I can do a better job to getting the ball up quickly. But I thought for the most part, we protected the ball well in those situations.

And that was my goal this week. The Bengals did not have any turnovers in the game, but still couldn't score a touchdown in the first half, and the Cowboys added to their lead in the final minute. Jake McQuaid from Elder High School is the long snapper for the Dallas Cowboys. It's had a good long NFL career after playing at Ohio State. Here comes the fifty four yard

kick and it is a line drive that is good. Wow, that looked like a one iron Yeah, barely had trajectory and he just rocketed it through to get the Cowboys a two touchdown lead with nine seconds left and a half. For the second straight week, the Bengals dug a seventeen to three first half hole. Here are Joe Burrow and Joe Mixon. You'd like to start faster. Obviously, no touchdowns

in the either first half. It's not up to our standard, and so you know, we'd like to start faster, but you know, the defenses that we're getting earlier are always different than the ones that are on film, and so I think that that probably plays a part in it. But we just got to do a better job of adjusting faster. I felt like, you know, as a whole, Like I said, we got to take an initiative. Everybody, you know, coaches, players, everybody's involved with everything, you know

what I'm saying. So I'm not gonna no fingerpoint or nothing like that. I mean, we got to take it upon us to you know, come out and execute, be ready to play. And you know, for some reason, it seems like we've been coming up short in that area. We've been starting off slow, you know, little penalties here Art has been killing us and having to get back on track mass So you know, for real, we's just

got to execute more. They executed much better in the second half, driving for field goals on their first two possessions. It'll be a fifty yard attempt from the right hash McPherson one for one today. Yet from forty three in the first quarter, here comes his kick. Distance is not a problem, and it is good from fifty yards away. Money Back has never missed on the road between the

regular season and the playoffs. He's twenty six for twenty six on field goal attempts, remarkable, and he made a twenty seven in a row late in the third quarter to pull Cincinnati within eight. Heading to the fourth, beginning at their own twelve yard line with twelve and a half minutes to go. The Bengals put together an incredible nineteen play drive that took nearly nine minutes off the clock. There were three third down conversions and one fourth down convert.

Burrow waiting for a shotgun snap Parsons rushing on Jonah Williams. Here's a pass caught by Jamar Chase. He got inside of Digs and made the catch at the nineteen to extend the drive. On fourth and six, and with less than four minutes to go in the game, the Bengals finally scored a touchdown second and goal from the five, three fifty seven to go. The Bengals trailing by eight. Burrow waiting back at the ten for the snap from Keras Joe has the ball looking left, scans to the right.

Joe can run, but he throws into the end zone by te hanging for the test down maybe and the Bengals are a two point conversion away from tying this game. The ball is placed with a front tip at the two yard live the Bengals trying for a game tying two point conversion for the second week in a row. They will go empty. As Burrow waits for the shotgun snap, Joe has the ball from the ten, looking telling god

By Boyd to tie the game. Night with three minutes and forty five seconds left in regulation, what a tribe. Nineteen plays eighty three yards and the Bengals score eight points to pull even. Here's Zach Taylor on the marathon drive. That's just what was needed at that point in the game, you know, And that's the position we put ourselves in. But our guys answered the bell. They made some tremendous plays, some tremendous one on one plays, some great throws, tremendous protection.

You know, about everybody I can think of stepped up on that drive to help us go score. And you know, the protection was tremendous on the two point play. Joe really had all day back there and allowed TV to separate on that world routing. So you thought, those guys really came together and put the drive together when we needed it. Unfortunately, the next time out we weren't able

to do that. The next time came about a minute and a half later, as the defense forced to punt to give the offense a chance to drive for a winning score. But on third and three at their own fifteen yard line, Burrow through a pass short of the sticks and Tyler Boyd got tackled after a one yard game. The heads went out first of all, so we're screaming a play in and it's unfortunate that the one play in the game is the last play in the game, but you know, we feel like we had to get shot.

I think that one of their guys just fell off on TV. I've got to see the clip, but I'm not sure it was a guy covering him initially, just fell off and made a real good play. The Bengals had to punt, and the Cowboys got the ball at their own thirty five with fifty seven seconds to go. Three straight Cooper Rush completions put the Cowboys in position to score the only points they would need in the second half. Maher Is sets he has two fifty yard field goals this year. Here comes his kick. It has

the distance. It is good. The Cowboys win on a fifty yard field goal at the gun. Cooper Rush beats the Bengals in Dallas a fifty three yard or an overtime last week, and a fifty yard or on the final playoff regulation this week. The final score Dallas twenty, Cincinnati seventeen. Here are Joe Mixon, Joe Burrow, and Ted Harris. Our defense been playing the ass off I mean, you know, they had little, you know, hiccups here and there, but at the end of the day they bawling on defense.

We gotta do whatever we gotta do on offense to you know, counter what's been going on. Man. So, like I said, everybody got to take initiative on each other and uh, you know, execute starfass and we've got to finish these games. Two is tough, but there's no panic. We've lost two games in a row before. We lost two games in row several times last year. A lot of football have to be played. We're gonna have to get all this cleaned up. We got a long season

ahead still obviously own two to start the year. Not how we all visualized it going into this campaign. So, you know, but there's nothing we can do now about that game. We're go get back to work and you know, we got the New York Jets on Sunday afternoon. After the game, Dave Lapham spent a couple of minutes with Zach Taylor, coach. It's a tough league. Boy, it's a it's a it's a play here, a play there. Seems like first down was a little bit of an achilles

heel today. Yeah, the first half it really got us. They just weren't efficient enough. They did a nice job, we didn't do a good enough job and put us behind the chains there. But I thought we regrouped in the second half and gave ourselves a chance. Down fourteen points to start the game in two weeks now, but your team just fights back. I mean they tied the score in both football games. That tells you a lot about their their character, their fiber, all the things you

need to know there, it doesn't it. I got to find a way to help us put ourselves in a lead so you know we can play the way that we know we're meant to play, because being down two scores two weeks in a row is not how we want to do it. But again, we've got such great leadership, such great talent in the soccer room that I know we're gonna get it done. And we just got to catch ourselves from being too frustrated after knowing to start because it's a long season ahead and we just got

to take care of this next week. Did they give you any looks different than they had own, or that you may be anticipated, either up front or on the back end. I wouldn't say that. You know, there are some things that were in our control in the first half that we just didn't execute well enough. And they were really good defense. They're really well coordinated. We've known that dating back to every game we watched last year and the first week as well. So that's just on

us to regroup and be better next week. They were not going to let you throw the ball over their heads. I mean, they were going to make you play, you know, the intermediate to short routes. That that was going to be something on an every snap basis. How frustrating was that, Yeah, you're not giving yourself a chance to when you're having the inefficiency where we had the two false starts, we had a sack on first and ten, we had a

negative roun you know. So there was just some things that I could help us be better, for sure, to put in a better position to put pressure on the defense. You mentioned that they had a backup quarterback that had been there five years and he was in a quarterback room as a player with the offensive coordinator, so they know each other to they know what he can do and can't do, and they didn't have to change their offense. He just went out and executed. Yeah, he's been there

for a reason for a long time. They obviously got a taught to trust in him. I thought he executed their offense. Royal ball coach appreciate it. I know. Uh, you know. It's two close ones like this one and overtime one of the gun. Tough life in the National Football League, it really is. Yeah. It. Had the Bengals won, they would be tied for first in the AFC North.

The Steelers lost at home to the Patriots. The Ravens blew a twenty one point halftime lead and lost to Miami, and Cleveland had a thirteen point lead with less than two minutes to go and lost to the Jets, who scored a touchdown, recovered an onside kick, and scored another touchdown to win by one. In other words, the Bengals squandered a golden opportunity. Now time for postgame analysis. In this week's Radio Guys Recap, lap I would describe the

basic mood in the locker room is stunned. I think the Bengals thought facing Mitchell Trubisky in week one and Cooper Rush in week two probably should be two and L and their own two. Yeah, obviously digging big holes. You know, you put yourself behind fourteen points to any team in the NFL, It's it's not a good place to be. And uh, they've had to dig out of those holes and twice have done it. But they have to figure out a way to get off to a

faster start. I thought first down inefficiency was the kind of the story of the day for the offense. They found themselves in too many second and third and long situations as a result, Goes six for seventeen on third down two hundred and fifty four yards offense three point eight yards per play, and mentioned at one point that, you know, it looked like the passing game was in a box. You know, they just weren't going to allow

them to throw the ball over their heads. So going to have to figure out ways to get that alleviated. And and then you know, guys for them stepped up and had the game of their life. I mean Brown, who would have thought that he was targeted five times, five catches, nine one yards over eighteen yards of catching a touchdown. No one, no one expected that to be the case, that's for sure. So the longest passing play was nineteen yards. You talked about how opponents are not

going to allow them to go deep. Is it because the safeties are playing back? Is it because the rush is getting there too quickly for for Burrow to even attempt a deep ball. I think it's a combination, you know, I think it's uh. You know, initially, the safeties are going to are making sure that Joe doesn't think about putting it up there because you know, are they going to work to the sideline and uh, and if Joe decides to run a deep ball to one of his

outside receivers, is a safety going to be an issue there? Um. So then by the time you know, you get off of that, now where are you're looking at? How much time is there? So it's a combination of both, really coverage and rush or glove over the hand, you know, and same thing with protection and deep ball. You know, you have to you have to give the quarterback an opportunity.

He has to have confidence that it's not going to be a you know, just a quick glance, you know, he's going to have some time to really evaluate things before he has to come off of it. And right now it's it's just disjointed. Do they have to run teams out of this? Is that the bottom line? Yeah? I mean I think I think you get that running game going to the point where it's like, he's do you want to die the slow death or the fast death?

And honestly, most teams are gonna try to die the slow death anyway, but at least make them mix it up a little bit more, you know, it makes change some things up. If you get that running game going, you have a complimentary situation going, you have a balanced attack. You know, it's much tougher to play defense that way, but if you know you've got the running game controlled and you can put seven in the box to do it,

click cover two all day long. The Bengals defense has played well enough to win, I think, in the first two games, but there are negatives. One takeaway in two games, two sacks in two games, and they've given up game drives at the end of regulation today and an overtime last week. Yeah, that's true. I mean, you know, you look at their at their raw numbers. I mean, they're They're obviously not. They're not terrible. They gave up five point seven yards a play on the day, but they average.

You know, the Cowboys rushed Foe hundred and seven yards and they averaged four yards a carry. Um. And I know, in the perfect world you would want to have the running game controlled a little bit better than that. So make a Cooper Rush have to rush his decision making process and make him think like he has to take a chance here. They're um, he was too comfortable for too much of the football game. Almost all the football game, he was he was just too comfortable, and he had

confidence that he could execute the offense. Kellen Moore had confidence you could execute the offense. And I thought Kellen Moore called a good game. Mixed it up well, and uh, you know they did just enough in both phases, you know, to to win the football game when they had to do. You think at this point it's, you know, business as usual. You go back to practice, you do what you did last year to go to the Super Bowl. Or do they need to mix it up in some way two

games into the season. Yeah, I mean it's not you know, you only have a game out. Everybody's one and one except for you. Um, you know, you go back to work, but there has to be a sense of urgency because now you're two games down. You know, you have you have fifteen games left in the season. You can still obviously control your own destiny, but you've you know, it's it's an NFC loss, which if you're going to lose a football game from a tiebreaker standpoint, that's the one

that you'd probably pick to lose. But you certainly don't want to circle any games to lose. That's that's obviously not in your mind. That's not your mindset whatsoever. So um, there's just a few things to clean up, and uh, but you got to get cleaned up quickly because I mean, you know, everybody in this league is capable. I mean there are upsets are single week. Look what the Jets did today, you know, and they've got to go to New York. Look what happened last year in New York.

So it's uh. I was talking to Ted Garrett Carris in the post game. He says, look, I know what the next two games are like. That's the division that I played in, and I know what it's like to you know, to play these football teams. Look what the Miami Dolphins did today. Look what the New York Jets did today. That's the next two opponents. So you know, they're not going to be a situation where ah yeah, I get up on them and it's an easy out.

They're gonna they're gonna fight you. They're gonna fight you tooth and nail. Josh Allen, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson still to come. And they had the opportunity at home against Mitchell Trubisky and on the road against Cooper Rush and didn't take advantage of it. That stings, it, does it does? I mean, you know, I know you can, you can kick yourself in the butt about it, but then you have to move on. You have to forget about it as best you can and move on because

you can't go back. There's nothing you can do about about the past, whatsoever. All you can do about is take care of the future. And you know, maybe you knock off a couple of quarterbacks that people weren't expecting you to knock off. That's just you know, life in the National Football League. But you have nobody to blame

but yourself. So a road game against the Jets is next, and the Bengals will once again face a backup quarterback, not Mike White this time, but thirty seven year old Joe Flacco, who threw four touchdown passes in that win over Cleveland. Let's turn the page and get to this week's fun Facts interview, where we get to know the person under the pads. Time for some fun facts with Bengals tight end Hayden Hurst from Jacksonville, Florida. Were you a big Jaguars guy as a kid, and if so,

did you have heroes that you looked up to? So I rooted for the Jags a little bit when I was a kid. It was tough because they were always, you know, pretty bad. Ironically enough, my dad is actually from Pittsburgh, so I grew up a Steelers fan a little bit, but that quickly went away, getting drafted by Baltimore and now playing for since. So it's kind of

funny how life works itself out. You played some football as a kid, but you were a phenom as a baseball player, as a pitcher, specifically, How old were you when you started to dominate and started to hear that word prospect? As soon as I could get on the noun from kid pitch. I was always playing one or two years older, just because of how hard I threw. Like I said, I think by the time I was eight or nine years old, I was pitching against you know, like ten to eleven twelve year olds, And it was

just always that way until I got to Pittsburgh. I imagine it was flattering and fun. But did it put a little pressure on you to just be, you know, that guy at such an early age. Not really. I think I was just so naive that I just picked the ball up and was better than people, so I just threw it past people. I didn't really think much of it. I didn't really break the game down. I just I knew what my arm talent was capable of, and I just went out there and threw the hell

out of it. We're doing fun facts with Hayden Hurst. The ball draft is very different from the NFL Draft. You can be selected when you were in high school and that's the way it fell for you. You were chosen by the Pittsburgh Pirates, signed a contract as a teenager, had a pretty good chunk of change in the bank. Again, all of that is good, exciting, flattering stuff, but in retrospect. Was it too much too soon, you know, getting all that money as an eighteen year old and never having

left home. I don't know if I was mature enough to handle it at the time, you know, given my life path, but I think it was kind of the best thing for me because I think eighteen year old Hayden Hurst, if he had gone to Florida State, I don't know if I'd be playing sports still, I probably would have made some bad decisions. So it's kind of all part of a plan. You know. My dad was like, football is always there. If you want to, you know, take the money and run, so to speak, with the Pirates,

try it and if it works, awesome. If it doesn't, go back and play football. So I definitely took that into consideration when I was signing with the Pirates, and it's all kind of worked out. It's kind of funny how we had it all planned. We're chatting with Hayden Hurst. Avid baseball fans have heard the term Steve blast disease, which is used to describe players who basically lose the ability to throw the ball where they want to. It's

happened to pitchers, it's happened to position players. It's happened to major League All Stars and it happened to you. There's frustration, there's confusion, there's embarrassment, and it led to a dark time in your life. Can you describe what that was like? To put it into terms, It was like waking up and being in hell every single day for about three and a half years. Because you play this game growing up and it's just easy. You picked the ball up and you throw it harder, you throw

it by people, and it's just it's really easy. And then all of a sudden, you can't even warm up on the foul line. You start questioning your ability, questioning your purpose. It really affected me off the field. You know. Obviously on the field, I didn't really get into games and stuff like that was really just on bullpens. But you know, off the field, it really kind of sent me into a spiral. So made a life change in twenty twenty fifteen to give up baseball and just kind

of go do other stuff. Walked on in South Carolina and you know, really kind of fell in love football. You've been very candid about rock Bottom, which was a suicide attempt. Did almost taking your life ultimately save it? It gives me just a little bit of perspective, you know, when things are a little bit hard in the NFL, you know, trying to learn playbooks or you know, learn a run scheme or pass schemes. Um, I'm able to kind of reflect at the end of the day and

be like, hey man, you know you've been through way worse. Um. Like I said, I wouldn't wish what I went through and those you know, five six years upon my worst enemy. Um, it was awful, like I said, waking up every day, it was just I felt like I was living at hell and I just couldn't get out of it. I felt like I was trapped and there was nothing that I could do, no amount of money that I could spend, m nobody that I could talk to that could fix it. It was tough, it really was. But it taught me

a lot about myself. You've tried to use your experience to help others through the Hayden Hurst Family Foundation, trying to help kids and military veterans battling depression and anxiety. What's it like when you hear from a kid or a parent who says, your story is my story, and you're helping save my life. It's better than anything that could happen on a football field to me truly, not that I don't love the game. It's done wonderful things

for me in my life and my family's life. But I know what it's like to be in that headspace. So when someone comes up to me and shares, you know, this is my story, this is what I've been through, I understand that frame of mind and what it's like to be in that situation. So having just the courage to even come up to someone random as myself and tell your story, it's extremely courageous, and that's how we're going to start, you know, getting ahead of this mental

health thing. So you made that switch from baseball to football and walked on at South Carolina. Did you have any idea what you were doing playing football at that level? Yeah. My first year, my freshman year, that had me at receiver and it was basically, you know, go run by this guy or go physical, go catch this ball. It wasn't until my sophomore year with Will must Champ where they really started, you know, breaking down the XS and O's telling me, you know, you're gonna be a tight end.

You're gonna have to learn you know fronts, you know, coverages, things like that. So that's really kind of what sped up my you know football iq. Um. But yeah, at first it was like, hey, just go run past this guy. Hey, hey go up, I'll jump this guy. So it was kind of fun. You certainly look like a football player, he's sixty four two fifty. Does football suit your personality as well? Absolutely? You can ask anybody in my family.

I think that I'm a psycho. So, you know, in anybody in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization when I was there, whenever they saw me and they're like, to, you're a football player playing baseball? What are you doing? Um? I kind of I felt it a little bit when I was younger, just because you know, I was the guy that just threw hard and I had off speed pitches too, but it was just I would get i'd throw a ball, I get pissed and try to throw at ninety nine,

you know, and it's just it doesn't necessarily correlate in baseball. So, um, I think I've kind of found my way in football. You know, I can go up and make a catch or out run a guy, or get physical or you know, when I get pissed off. I can go run fast, start hit somebody harder. So I think absolutely it definitely suits who I am. We're doing fun facts with hayden Hurst. In Greek mythology, the phoenix is a creature that dies

and rises from the ashes. I've read that you had a painting of a phoenix on your apartment wall in college. Is the legend of the phoenix inspirational to you? One hundred percent? It was actually my mom's I guess when she was in high school. She did theater. There was a gift that she had received and I saw in our house one day and I kind of, you know, looked it up and I understood what the phoenix was and what it stood for. I kind of did some

more research and really really understood what it was. And it's kind of ironic how it fits into my life and kind of where I was, who I was, and kind of who I've become. All Right, a few wildcard topics for hayden Hurst. Do you have a spectacular mane of red hair? How much time and effort is required to maintain it? It's a lot like sometimes like right now, it's getting a little long, so you know, it comes out of the helmet a little bit too far, so

I need to get it trim before Sunday. My girlfriend definitely helps with the products, and she's on top of her stuff with you hair care, so I'll mooch off of her and her things. And if I'm not looking quite up to par, you know, she kind of gets me right, so it's perfect. I assume she likes the hair and the beard. Yes, she does. She's a big fan. She's a big fan of the beer. That's kind of why it gets as big as it does. I kind

of have to tame it from time to time. But you know what she once she gets Do you have any hidden talents necessarily that I can think off the top of my head. I'm a pretty I know everyone thinks you know NFL player. These guys are so cool. I'm probably one of the most simple and boring NFL players you could probably come across. You know, I'm big on family. I'm big on relaxing when I get home. As far as like a talent, nothing really decides of doing the whole two pro sport thing. Other than that,

what do you like to spend your money on? My family not big on buying you know, luxury things for myself. You know, I'll get a Chevy Tahoe. It's about as fancy as I get. But kind of what I've been through in my life, and I tell my family this all the time, you know, I don't really it's a blessing for me to still be here. So everything that's kind of happening now in my life, I consider it a bonus because I never thought that I would really

be here. So it's cool to be able to spoil them make their lives easier because, like I said, you know, I've got perspective of how hard it can be. You know, nothing that life throws at me from you know, twenty nine years on out is really gonna phase me from what I've been through. Final question, this is kind of deep. If you could meet anybody in history, athlete, actor, statesman, religious figure, whoever it might be, who would that person be.

Ronald Reagan. I've read a lot of his books. I've actually I'm reading a book right now become his like famous quotations from history. Just a really great leader in my opinion. You know, whatever side of the fence you may fall on, I just think the man that he was during the times and what he was able to accomplish. Just a great leader. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Have a great season, yes, sir, I appreciate it. Aiden is off to a great start in a Bengals uniform.

He's had five catches in each of the first two games. That's going to do it for This episode of the Bengals Booth Podcast presented by Alta Fiber future Proof Fiber Internet elevate your connection with Alta Fiber by Kettering Health, the official healthcare provider of the Bengals, by Bengals Picks and Ultimate Bengals Free to Play with tickets and sign merchandise up for grabs, and by Paycord, the official HR

software provider of the Bengals. 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.