Hi, gain everybody. I'm Dan Horde and thanks for downloading the Bengals Booth Podcast. The future is us to see. Addition, as I talked to Sports Illustrated senior writer Connor Orr about his bold predictions that the Bengals will win the Super Bowl this year with MVP quarterback Joe Burrow. Plus, I'll talk to rookie receiver Charlie Jones about the origin of his Chuck Sizzle nickname, and then I'll introduce you to an unsung hero in turning the Bengals into Super
Bowl contenders, strengthen conditioning coach Joey Bose. The Bengals Booth Podcast is brought to you by Alta Fiber, future proof fiber Internet capable of delivering multi gigabit speeds designed to take your home, business, and community to a new level. Elevate your connection with Alta Fiber. Now 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 the Apple TV local radio option. Apple TV became the primary home of Major League Soccer this year. Every MLS match will be streamed on the app for the next decade, and Apple TV has added a feature that I love for obvious reasons. You have the option to listen to the local radio broadcast as you watch the match. There's a little audio icon on the screen. You click that, and then you choose whether you want the TV announcers
or the home team's radio announcers. So, for everybody who has told me over the years that they would love to listen to lap in me but just can't do it because of the annoying delay, which I totally get, here's hoping that Apple TV has pioneered a feature in its coverage of soccer that will soon make its way to the NFL. Now, let's get to my first guest. This week, Connor Or from Sports Illustrated came out with a list of one hundred bold predictions for the upcoming
NFL season. Four of the one hundred involved the Bengals, including his pick of Cincinnati over San Francisco to win the Super Bowl. Connor, you have come out with one hundred bold predictions for the upcoming NFL season. Some are tongue in cheek, most of them are pretty serious. Let's start with number one, The Bengals will defeat the forty nine ers in Super Bowl fifty eight. How did you land on Cincinnati and San Francisco making it and then Cincinnati winning the Lombardi So I.
Think these two teams' best best in body. This trend that I've been seeing in not just football, but in sports as a whole, and that is, if you're aligned with organizationally, with your coaching staff, with your scouting staff, with your training staff, with everything, you tend to have a hidden depth or a hidden quality of talent that
is just better than other people. And I think Cincinnati and San Francisco are two teams that to me are sort of your ideal, ideally set up organizations, right, you know, especially with the Bengals. You know everyone will make fun of, oh, they only had X number of scouts a couple of years ago, right, But with that creates an intimacy that doesn't exist in other departments between your scouting staff and
your coaching staff. And I can confidently say that, let's see they get hit with a big wave of injuries, I think that they have better players that we don't know about than other teams would have in similar situations, if that makes sense. And forty nine ers similarly, right, they blow you away with their depth and there you know their caliber of player from one to fifty two, And so I think through the rigors of a season that ends up meaning a great deal.
What did you think of the Bengals' free agent moves excuse me, specifically landing Orlando Brown junior and then their draft class led by Miles Murphy.
I think it has you know, to me, it's funny right where you know it takes time for an organization to shake whatever you want to call it. You know that automatic thought that people have that comes with it, and you know people don't consider the fact that since Zach Taylor's been there, I think they've been a top five free agents spending team almost every season, and the commitment with which they've stood behind Burrow and done moves I think specifically to be like, we're here to make
your life easier. It's just different, you know, and you know you see that that's how the good franchises are doing it. And so I think any time that you can use free agency to profess your faith in your quarterback, I think that all rolls downhill. I mean That's why I was so happy with what the Bears did this offseason too, because I think they're starting that the process from the ground up, right, and whereas Cincinnati has sort of embodied that at least over the last few years.
We are chatting with Sports Illustrated senior writer Connor or So prediction number one Bengals over forty nine ers in the Super Bowl go right to prediction number one hundred that Joe Burrow will win his first MVP Award. Now in Vegas, the top three guys in terms of the odds are Burrow, Mahomes, and Alan not necessarily in that order. So this is not a wildly bold prediction, but I'm intrigued by the sentence Joe Burrow will win his first MVP Award, implying that there might be multiple MVPs in
his career. How boldly do you consider this prediction that Joe Burrow is going to be this year's MVP.
Yeah, I mean I thought that was kind of one
of the easier ones. And you know, I guess as somebody who does you know who has to do one hundred predictions, right, you know, you don't want them to all be chalky and It's easy to say that Patrick Mahomes is going to win the MVP Award, But I think that there's a couple of factors in there too, where just like Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, there becomes a fatigue with certain players who are so great over certain periods of time, Whereas Burrow I think still has
that element for voters that if he has a big season and they make it to the Super Bowl and they win the Super Bowl. I think that's something that you know, is easier for us to accept as sort of the voting public. It's like, Okay, here's the new guy, here's the next whatever whatever, and so yeah, I mean,
I think it'll be the first of many. I mean, I've you know, I did the SI cover story on him last year for the Football Preview issue, and I've always said, like I mean, and other people backed this up in the story, like he's the closest thing we have to a sort of long term talent in the league, Like somebody that will be able to play the game the way that he is now when he's forty years old, and if he wants to keep doing it that way, you know, you can have a lot of success in
between there. He's functionally mobile, he's smart, he's committed determine all that kind of stuff. So I feel like this could be the first of a handful.
For sure. You came to Cincinnati to do that cover story last year. Joe doesn't do a ton of interviews, one on one interviews other than the news conferences that he has to do as an NFL quarterback. What were some of your big takeaways from spending one on one time with Joe?
Just how you know, and it's such a cliche, but what you see is what you get kind of thing, you know, and kind of how just you know, there wasn't anything guarded, There wasn't anything dishonest. I mean, I think with certain players, you can certainly tell that they're trying to get something across to you. There's a message, there's a point to why you're there or why you've
been invited there. With Joe, I mean, you know, his day probably would have been a whole lot better if we didn't have if he didn't have to do it at all, you.
Know, But within that, I thought that there was a lot of you know.
Mutual respect, you know, respectful of my time, which is you know, I'm getting older. It's rare, you know. And but and just this mutual consideration. I'm not someone that's in there to ruin his day. We can have a fun conversation and we can talk about things that really matter to him in life, and you know, and and he's going to be honest about it.
And you know, I just thought just.
Different, very very down to earth, very you know, the kind of person that you could bump into and if you didn't know he was Joe Burrow, just to have a really nice you know, have a beer with him.
You know.
We're chatting with Connor Or from Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter at connor Or. The cover story on Burrow wasn't just about Burrow. There was plenty of other Bengals stuff in there, including some great stuff about Zach Taylor and his wife and how much they love working and living in Cincinnati. There was a great anecdote in there about Zach Taylor dropping the kids off at school the morning after the AFC Championship went over Kansas City.
A couple of years, they get home at two in the morning, He's up at six to take his kids to school. Did it stand out to you how good of a fit Zach Taylor is in Cincinnati and with the Bengals organization.
You know, it's funny.
I mean, you know, some of my best friends live in Cincinnati. There was a chance that I would have worked in Cincinnati earlier in my career, and you know, when you talk to people from there and you talk to people who live there, it's just sort of that expectation like this is how this community is, and it just sort of brings you in, it sort of embraces you as long as you love it back, you know
what I mean. If you know, it takes a certain kind of person to love I think Cincinnati, but if you do, it is you know, it's it's a it's a heaven on Earth kind of place. And with Zach, I mean, you know, it's funny to hear his wife tell the story about like how we just knew that this is where we always want it to be and to be so definitive about that, and you know, I think that's part of the reason why this has worked.
I think it's part of the reason that Mike Brown was you know, patient with him, you know, and after two of those first two seasons, you could see a lot of guy owners moving on at that point, and it's fostered this sort of really good relationship, and not every coach has that where you're comfortable and you can exist in a city like Zach Taylor can exist in Cincinnati.
Let's get back to your one hundred bold predictions. Prediction number ninety three, Joe Burrow will do something cool with his contract so that the Bengals can re sign all of his wide receiver friends. Keeping Burrow, Chase, and Higgins is probably going to cost about one hundred million dollars a year going forward. It's a big chunk of the cap. Do you think it's feasible?
I think anything is feasible within the salary cap. I'm a believer in what a lot of agents have told me. And granted this is agents right, and they want to be paid the commission to sign the player to the contract, but that the salary cap is ultimately sort of the best excuse that any GM or owner has in modern times, right. And there are teams who are willing to work around it, work through it, spend the money now whatever you know, however you want to structure, and there are teams that
are less willing to do it. But I mean, nothing in the way that Cincinnati has acted over the last three years led me to believe that they're trying to save money here, you know, I mean, this is this is an investment for sure.
What might something cool be?
You know, it's funny.
I mean, there are quarterbacks who come out and I'm not saying he's gonna do what Tom Brady did, certainly not. I mean, you know, the best quarterback, he's maybe one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the NFL. You know, I think you do have a responsibility to your peers into the players Association to reset the market there.
But is there way that you can structure the contract, whether it's front loaded, backloaded, whether some of the you know, some of the guarantees fall in a certain kind of way where you create little pockets.
Of available cash.
And I think that there is and it's just a matter of you know, Joe, I think is unique because here's a guy who is from Ohio, who is committed to building this thing in Ohio. Nothing about anything that anyone around him has ever said leads me to believe that he wants to ever be anywhere else. And you know, maybe your opinions or life can change in some in
some different way over the course of time. But if you know you want to be somewhere for so long, I think certainly you can get creative with the numbers. I mean, Patrick Mahomes signed a ten year deal and within that creates a lot of space for them to do different things.
Bold prediction number ninety eight. Jamar Chase will win the Offensive Player of the Year award. It's safe to say you expect monster numbers from Jamar Chase this year.
Yeah.
I think that we're going to be in one of those situations where defensively we're going to be in one of these years where it's year three maybe where you want to say it's sort of the Vic Fangio thing. And within that, I think there's going to be a lot of evolutions defensively, And with that, I think you're going to see offenses start to struggle anew again. And when whenever you see kind of an offensive breakthrough, there's
always a defensive counterbalance. And during those counterbalance years, you always see that ingrained relationships between quarterbacks and wide receivers end up doing really well. And these are guys who know each other, These are guys who understand each other really well, and I just think, you know that this could be one of those years where they have the ability to stand out.
Non Bengals Bold Predictions. Do you think DeAndre Hopkins winds up in Cleveland?
It's the only place that makes sense to me. And I know that you know he wants to play for the Chiefs and the Bills. That's great. Yeah, I do too. You know, I would love I would love to be the head coach of the Chiefs.
And I'm not saying that they don't want him.
I'm sure there's some interest there, But I think Cleveland probably has the most money, and I think Cleveland probably has the most interest in having Deshaun Watson be successful for myriad reasons, and so I think you should feel that responsibility to do whatever you can to make sure Deshaun Watson is comfortable. And I don't think Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples, Jones and Elijah Moore is really doing it for me as a wide receiver corps and I wonder if he feels the same way.
You did not stack the AFC North in your one hundred Bold Predictions. But what do you think which of Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland is most likely to challenge Cincinnati for the crown.
This is so hard. I think Baltimore is gonna have
a really good seaton. I mean, this division is going to be a gauntlet, and it could be one of those I know it's a cop out when and I said this about the AFC West last year, so buyer beware, but you know, it could be one of those things where the well in, the last place team in the division has nine wins, you know, And you know, I think that Baltimore, to me, is probably your second place team that's not so far behind, presuming that Lamar Jackson's healthy,
and I think that that offense is going to look a lot different and sort of really cool and with with Munket in there. So but I like Pittsburgh a lot, and I've talked to a lot of people who really like Pittsburgh.
I think Kenny Pickett could break out my I.
Would say the dividing line there would be I like Jackson a little bit more than I like Pickett, and so I have it I have That's how I would have it. I would have it Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland.
All right, final thing for Connor Or from Sports Illustrated Bold Prediction number ninety two, The love of your life will announce plans for a divorce midway through the second quarter of a Cardinals game. We happen to be doing this interview on my wedding anniversary.
Is there something anniversary?
Thank you very much. Is there something that you know that I should be worried about?
Are the Cardinals on the schedule, because you got.
To be Yeah, the Cardinals are on the Bengals schedule. It's a road game. I maybe I should bring Peg with me on that road trip, just make sure. Yeah.
I mean, I think this is a good reminder for everyone out there to just take your significant other out and make sure they know you love them.
But no, I would say that just in general.
I think if you take your significant other to a lot of Cardinals games, that's a hard lot in life, you know, so at some point you can.
Think of it.
Connor, I really enjoyed the one hundred Bold predictions. Obviously the ones about the Bengals will please my audience, since you are very high on Cincinnati and very high on Joe Burrow, and hopefully we will cross paths Super Bowl Week, when you are days away from seeing that prediction come true.
Looking forward to it, and thanks for having me.
Some of Connor's one hundred bold predictions are tongue in cheek, including this one, number thirty four. A happily rowtunnd German Man, initially dressed as Andy Reid, will streak across the football field in Frankfurt's stadium wearing only a mustache. That sentence made me laugh, although the mental image is profoundly disturbing. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by Paycorp. More than twenty nine thousand customers trust Paycoorp to help
them recruit, pay, engage, and retain employees. Learn more at paycoorp dot com and by Kettering Health, the official healthcare provider of the Bengals, with more than one hundred and twenty care facilities and fifteen hundred care providers, Kettering Health is committed to guiding you to your best health. Visit ketteringhealth dot org to learn more. One of the Bengals rookies arrived in Cincinnati with a great nickname, Chuck Sizzle.
That's what Purdue fans started calling wide receiver Charlie Jones. Last year. I talked to Charlie about the origin of the nickname and his chance encounter with a Bengals legend over the weekend. Chad Johnson tweeted a picture of the two of you over the weekend. How'd you meet?
He was staying at the hotel that the rookies are staying at and so I just ran into him, said what's up. Got to talk to him for a little bit, So it was cool.
Are you old enough to really remember his Bengals career?
Oh yeah, Oh yeah. That was one of the guys out that I've been, you know, watching as a kid. So it was cool to It's cool to get to meet him in person.
He seemed excited about the possibility of you being with his former team.
Did he express that Yeah, definitely, definitely. Like I said, I got talked for a little bit and he was excited and I was excited. So it was cool, all right.
Explain the origin of Chuck Sizzle. Uh.
It started my first game last year at Purdue Gus Johnson. We were playing Penn State and he just he just started calling me out of nowhere, and it's stuck all year.
He loved saying it anytime he had a Purdue game.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was over and over again. That was his thing.
So I see the gear. Do friends and family members wear it? The shirt chuck Sizzel shirts and stuff like that.
Yeah, they got a good amount of shirts. Did they wear it every once in a while?
Have guys here started calling you that?
Uh no, not really, No, not yet, not yet, not yet.
We're visiting the Charlie Jones. You've got the number fifteen, that was your Purdue number. I think you were sixteen at Iowa. Do you feel like there's good mojo there? Were you happy to get it?
Yeah?
I was happy to get it. Stick with the number. It grew on me last year, so I'm happy to be in it again.
You reference that Perdue debut where Gus Johnson coined the nickname twelve catches one hundred and fifty something yards against Penn State. I believe how important was that game in your first game at Purdue to kind of establish all right, I'm here to do some damage.
Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously it was a big game to begin with, and then kind of, like you said, just to prove that you know, I'm here, I'm a receiver. I can do this in this league, and that's that's really why I went to Purdue is to prove that. So to come out and start off like that was was was pretty cool.
So your Purdue quarterback in childhood buddy Aiden is with the Raiders. Correct. You guys been in frequent contact during the OTA.
Yeah, we're both busy, so we've called a couple of each other a couple of times. But yeah, I'm very happy for him. Worked really hard to get here and he's in a good, good situation.
It's almost a year to the day since you transferred from Iowa to Purdue, and it's obviously worked out incredibly well. Do you reflect it all a year later about that life changing decision.
Every once in a while, you know, I've been pretty busy, so it's don't really get to think on it too much. But but yeah, it's crazy that it was a difficult decision for me in the time, and looking back on it, you know, it's exactly why I made that decision to be in the situation i'm at now's you know, I'm just I'm just blessed to be in it.
So you've been with t and Jamar for a couple of weeks. Tyler Boyd join the festivities today. Let's start with the first two guys. Anything stand out from watching them and studying their practice habits.
Yeah, definitely, just just getting to watch the way they operate on a daily basis, whether I'm out, I'm on the field with them, or we're in the meeting room. I'm just just picking up little things, And that was that was my goal for you know, the first couple of weeks, just learn as much as I possibly can. I feel like that's going to be the goal of
my whole careers. Every day I'm trying to learn, trying to pick up new things and be in a room with guys like this who who who've been pretty established has been has been awesome for me.
And now the Tyler's here, that's a guy who plays a spot that you're likely to see a lot of snaps at. Will you really be focusing on the things that have made him so successful?
Yeah, definitely, just just trying to be a sponge and just trying to absorb as much knowledge as I can. You know, see the way we worse for him, what he does that I can do, that's gonna work for me. So just really just being a student of the game and and trying to take what they do and add it to my toolbox.
So we're chatting like forty five minutes after practice ended and you just walked into the locker room. Are you grinding well after practice stops?
Yeah, definitely got a lot of things that need to work on.
You know.
I feel like I'm in the position I am today because of the hard work. So so that's not changing at all.
What's Coach Walter's been like, it's.
Been awesome, just another guy to learn from, really really breaks it down, makes it makes it simple for for the new guys, and just really been helping us ever since we we got drafted. He's been, you know, helping us the whole time. So it's been awesome being a room and he's someone that's done it, you know, which is awesome. So he's got a lot of knowledge, and same thing with with the other guys in the room. Just been learning, taking new things.
Apprecia your time, appreciate it. If Charlie has early success as a receiver and or return specialist, I suspect there will be a bunch of Chuck Sizzle merchandise out there. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by Bengals Picks and Ultimate Bengals. They're free to play with tickets and sign merchandise up for grabs. Find both inside the
Bengals app. Here's a quick invitation to grab your yoga matt and join who Day on Saturday, June seventeenth at nine am for Namas Day Yoga on the field at pay Corpse Stadium. Register now at Bengals dot com Slash Yoga. It's presented by you by Cotex in partnership with Kroger and Title Babe Period Supply Bank. My final conversation this week is with Bengal's strength and conditioning coach Joey Bose.
Joey has been in that role since Zach Taylor arrived in twenty nineteen, and, like the Bengals head coach, Bose was an outstanding college football player before getting into coaching. Joe your story is really interesting to me because before you got into strength and conditioning coaching, you had quite a playing career. You run back to back rose ball winning teams at Wisconsin. You spent four years in the
Canadian Football League. You were a CFL All Star. How unusual are you among your peers in that sense.
Oh, I don't know if I'm unusual. I was lucky when I was younger, you know, to go to the University of Wisconsin, be around some great coaches and be on some really good football teams. And then I was one of those guys that wanted to play in the NFL. And maybe it was a step slow or a little bit too small to do that.
So I went up to the Canadian.
Football League and played up there for you know, four years, And really, I think my experience as a player has helped.
Me in the field of work I'm in.
Now, were you in any NFL tryout camps? Did you get a shot with anybody? You know?
I after my second year in the CFL, I mean the All Star team up there, and I had a couple you know, late now looking back at it, late December, early January workouts with teams, But no, I was never on an NFL roster.
You played with Ron Daine when he won the Heisman Trophy. Who are some of the best guys you played with and against?
Oh?
Wow?
With you know, Ron Daine was a great player. Chris Chambers was a wide receiver. He went in the second round. He was a really good pro for Miami. Jamar Fletcher was a year older than me, played corner. He won the Jim Thorpe his junior year.
He was a first round draft pick. Those are a couple of skill guys that were really good.
Michael Bennett, the running back for Minnesota, played with Michael for a year against you know, I was obviously Tom Brady was probably the best player.
Looking back at it, it was his I guess it was his senior year.
He was split in time with a guy named Drew Henson, and Drew Brees played against.
Him a couple of times.
Is it Purdue?
So I was in.
That old you know, late nineties, Big ten, early two thousands.
There's some good players that back then.
I know you had seven picks in college. I think maybe that was the CFL. It's not seven picks somewhere. I'll take it.
That might be a little generous generous, but I'll take seven.
Sure. That sounds good to me.
Did you get anybody good like Brady? Anybody stand up? You know?
I don't think so.
I had a scoop and score against Indiana, but I think we're getting beat pretty bad that game.
So I don't.
Antoine Randall L maybe was a quarterback, but I don't know if I got any.
Of those good guys.
Antoine Randall L gave the Bengals fits when he was a Pittsburgh Steeler. But in any case, there visiting with Joey Bose. You're from southern California. How did you wind up in Madison, Wisconsin?
You know, I went to I was real lucky growing up. I went to Modern Day High School, which had a tremendous still does, tremendous football program, great sports growing up in Orange County.
There.
I went to mad and got recruited by a couple of schools coming out, and after my junior year, Wisconsin offered me a scholarship and we took a summer trip going into my senior year there and really fell in love with the campus and the coaching staff and committed. I guess midway maybe November through my senior year, and I would do it all over again. I was very lucky to pick the University of Wisconsin. Anything stand out
about those two Rose Bowl wins? You know, I was a young guy, was a true freshman my first year, so going back to California was big because when I committed to Wisconsin, I had a lot of buddies and friends around the neighborhood, you know, saying.
What are you doing?
Why would you go to Wisconsin.
So I think our first year going back, we played Juicecla. That was gratifying, you know, to pick a school, and then I was a special teams kind of dying player. Then my second year, I was the nickel and we actually played Troy Walters Stanford in the Rose Bowl and Troy was Blittan the cough winner.
He was the big receiver. We had to stop that game.
But I was very fortunate to be around some good players, some good coaches, and we were those first two years pretty good at Wisconsin.
So I mentioned you went to the Canadian Football League. You were a Calgary Stampeder. Did you enjoy the CFL? I did.
It was fresh out of college. I probably wasn't ready for the working world at that time, and so football in sports was kind of all I knew, and I was lucky I got on Calgary Stampede's.
I played up there for four years. I had a good time.
It's a little bit different structure than the National Football League. I don't know what it's like now, but back then there.
Wasn't an off season.
It was showed for training camp and if you were in shape, you had a chance to make the team.
But I had met some good people up there and had a good experience.
Joe Burrow's dad, Jimmy, famously played in the CFL. If you guys traded CFL stories.
You know what.
I did not know that, but now that I do, maybe i'll bring that up. I saw Jimmy, my brother in law, is now the defense coordinator at Ohio You, and so we went up there for Easter and I saw mister Burrow out of practice and we talked for a little bit.
And obviously he's got a big legacy at Ohio You. So I didn't know he played.
The cefalough now to discuss the Jimmy Burrow. So your playing career ends, It's time to get a job in the real world. Did I read correctly that you started out selling cars?
My father was in the car dealer business, and at that time I kind of thought maybe that's what I wanted to get into, So I started working for my dad.
I worked there for three months and was miserable. Two and a half of those months, I realized I had.
No passion for what my dad had a passion in and quickly realized that that something in athletics.
Was the way I wanted to go.
And so I went in and told my dad, Hey, I don't think this is working for me.
He said, I thought you would have quit, you know, two months ago.
So I got done with that, and then my brother in law was a defensive line coach at Importia State University, and so I went there as the safety's coach and assistant strength coach.
As a GA.
I was there for one semester and then that summer I got a job at the University of Nebraska. And that's really when my coaching career started.
And is that when you met Zach.
I did meet Zach that year. He was just getting done playing. He was around for maybe the first three or four weeks of the season, and then he went to the CFL. And then the following year we both went to Texas A and M University together.
So you guys are both kids at that point realistically, did did you think this guy is going places someday?
You know, we hit it off right away.
It was one of those guys that we had a lot in common, whether we sports or football or whatever. And so we hit it off. And then he went to the CFL. And then the next year he went to Texas A and M as a graduate assistant, and I went there as an assistant strength coach, and two young coaches that were Uh he was engaged at the time, but I was single. And we spent a lot of a lot of weekends together and and you know, time.
Around the office. Uh, those are some good times at Texas A.
And now, how did you gravitate towards strength and conditioning as opposed to being a secondary coach or a position coach.
You know, I thought I wanted to be a secondary coach when I when I first started in at Nebraska, I was a kind of a they called it video intern at the time.
It was kind of like a quality control job.
And I realized there very quickly that I spent all my waking, like early in the morning or late at night.
I was always in the weight room. Uh. I loved the physical aspect of it.
I did not enjoy, you know, the three hours of breaking down tape or some of the analytics stuff that these guys do as much as I thought I would, but I did realize I love the preparation of it and on.
The field stuff.
And so that's really when I realized that Nebraska that hey maybe I'm in the wrong I in the right place,
but in the wrong position. And then I went to Texas A and M. I was fortunate the guy, the Dave Kennedy, who was the head strength coach at the University of Resk at the time, we happened to hit it off when I was at Wisconsin, he was at Ohio State, and so I tend to be in the weight room a lot during those days and we would, you know, talk, And so when he got the job at Texas A and M, he had called me and said, Hey, I think you'd be pretty good at this.
Come down.
I'll teach you what you don't know. And I was very fortunate to get that opportunity.
We're chatting with Bengals strength and conditioning coach Joey Bose. He went from Texas A and M to Fresno State, then Illinois and then you got a call from Zach to come to Cincinnati when he got the head coaching job in twenty nineteen. Did you want an NFL gig? Did you want to work with him. What appealed to you about this job?
I think both. Obviously, you know, I knew what kind of guy Zach was.
I knew what kind of leader he was, and so when the opportunity to come work for him and to be a part of his staff came up, you know, obviously I jumped at that. And you know, the National Football League is the top, the top, you know, level of this field, and so as a young coach, when I was at Fresno State or even Texas A and M, you know, I always thought what it would be like to be in the National Football League and be around
the most elite players on the planet. And so, like I said, when when Zach called me, I was very very happy to jump on board.
So you did an interview with my colleague Jeff Hobson shortly after taking the job for Bengals dot Com and you said, this is before you've worked with any of the players or anything. You said, my job is to help implement the culture that Zach Taylor is trying to implement, which now to me seems amazing that even before all of that talk of the Bengals culture had started, that was your mission from day one.
Yeah, I think knowing Zach for as long as I've known him, I think that, like the word culture gets thrown around a lot, which is kind of the energy that he wanted in the building on a day to day basis was important to him and something that that I feel is very important.
And so I guess I did say that back back then. I didn't realize that, but.
You know, I feel like now going into year five, we've really established what we do, how we do things, the energy that's in the building, and that starts with the players that we have in the front office, the guys that they brought in, the drafted or free agents, the guys that were already.
Here that are still here. And I'm just really fortunate to be a part of it.
Year one was tough. Year ones are often tough, But you started zero to eleven. How'd you get through it?
Ah, that was tough. You know, I got a great family.
I got three little boys that when I would come home, you know, they weren't worried about winning a lot losing. They just want to see Dad, And uh, you know that that's a big part of it. And I think too, like knowing that eventually kind of seeing what's happening now, Did I see what has happened?
Probably not, you know, I thought we had.
A chance to kind of break through and establish being a good team. But we stayed the course and we were very consistent in our approach and what we've done. You know, Year two wasn't much easier, you know, I think we went two wins to four wins.
Uh And then obviously year three was a really big year.
But we take a lot of pride in how we've done things and the consistency that we've done it. And I think now we're seeing, you know, all that hard work payoff.
A little bit.
Year three was a good year. That was an understatement. As you guys went to the Super Bowl, what was the highlight of that experience for you?
Well, I think the playoffs. I think I think getting to the playoffs and then and then winning that first playoff game was I know, in this building was a big deal, you know. And then you know, you're kind of playing with house money after that, you know, and then we go to Tennessee and last second kick, and I just remember vividly, like the locker room, the players and how happy everybody was. I think those are the memories when I close my eyes I think.
About Let's talk a little bit about the current team. Joe Burrow is noticeably more well defined, I guess would be my description of him just from being around these OTA periods. Describe working with Joe Burrow.
Joe's great to work with. He is I've said this before.
He's got an elite work ethic and which I don't think you know. Everyone sees how great he is on Sundays, and he is, he's a superstar in the league.
But the way he carries himself, his leadership, and then his work ethic.
I mean, he's a guy that puts in the work to be as good as he is in every aspect, whether it's in the weight room, whether it's his nutrition, his conditioning, his speed work. Joe really does put in the work to be a great quarterback.
He has a trainer that he's worked with for several years. Everybody on this team has worked in college weight rooms, a lot of great strength coaches and things like that. How do you deal with that at the NFL level where these guys already have programs that have been successful for them.
Yeah, I think it comes down to communication and the relationship that we have with the players and being able to talk to them, Hey, what have you done over the off season? What do you like doing, what do you not like doing, explaining our program to them and why we do what we do, and the players buying
has been really good, you know. And during the season our job is to help make them feel as fast and as fresh and as strong as they can on Sundays, and so far we've had a lot of success doing that.
At the NFL Combine, they measure speed with a forty yard dash. How do you guys measure speed?
You know?
We use a catapult system to track our players during player during practice, and that gives us a number on how much distance they've run, how fast they're running. A multitude of different data points that we can look at, but that's how we measure speed.
And we have a Garrett Swanson, it's our sports science coach.
He is always on a computer a practice, So if you ever come to practice, he's on the computer with a tablet in his hand, so we get instant feedback of how fast or how well these guys are moving during practice. That's how we track it during practice, and then obviously how we communicate it during the week with our players to make sure on Sunday we're moving good.
In terms of brute strength, moving mass. Who is the strongest player on the.
Team I'm gonna get in trouble?
Feel free to name a few hurt anybody's feelings.
DJ Readers at the top of the list, BJ Hills at the top of the list, Ted Carris, Alex Kappa. Those are just a few guys that I can name that that are pretty pretty strong. We have a lot of a lot of strong players.
But those are just a few. And the fastest another one that's gonna get me in trouble. Jamar's up there.
T Higgins is up there, Cheetoh is up there, Cam Taylor Britt is up there. Tyson Anderson would be up there, Dax Hill would be up there. There's a couple guys that are battling for that twenty two mile an hour spot. And we've seen, you know, we've seen some really high speeds over the years, but those are a handful.
We got a really fast team right now, really fast.
And rookie DJ Turner is going to add his name to the list, I'm sure after running a four to two six forty at the combine. When he came into the building, I asked him, are you looking to put on some weight get bigger? And he said, well, speed is my thing, not necessarily size. So how do you balance questions like that?
Yeah, that's that's a great question. I don't want to take away the trait that's got them here, right and for him at speed, agility and how well he moves. Now, obviously we want to get him stronger along the way, and if we can put a little bit of size on him, great, because we all know it's a physical game that they're going to play on Sunday. But we want to keep our you know, greyhounds, greyhounds, you know,
we want to keep our big guys big. We don't want to try to take away the trait that makes them, you know, what they are. And so dj would be a great example. He's not the biggest guy in the world, but he moves really well, and so we wouldn't want to do something in the weight room that would hinder his ability to do what he does best.
You have some behemoths on an NFL roster, How do you determine ideal body weight for a guy that's that big.
It's tough.
You know. We got a lot of data over the years of different guys and by position and what they weigh, and everyone's different, right, So you know, if you play offensive line, you don't have to be three hundred and thirty pounds, you know, but we would like to see our O lignement three hundred plus depending on what position they play in the O line obviously is another factor. And then where the player feels most comfortable and how well do they move at that weight?
Right, So bigger is better if they can move the same.
So you know, I always say I never want to put on size at the expense for how well they move. How we determine that, it's there's a number of things we do.
We do body fat calculations.
And parameters by position, and we give all of our players in a signed weight when they leave here for the summertime and then they come back. But body weight is something we track weekly here at the Bengals.
Is there an exercise or a test of some sort that you think is the best gauge of athleticism.
I'd say pull ups, you know, being able to being able to handle your own body weight, right, And so in my experience. You're you're talking about your fastest guys are gonna be able to do the most pull ups generally. Also to being able to handle your own body weight
is a big deal. There's a number of different exercise I'm a big single leg guy for their lower body, right, and so we do a lot of split squats or single leg stuff in the weight room to help, you know, maximize their ability on the field.
Describe the meaning of FAT as in p H a.
T physical hungry, accountable teammate. And so that's something that we came up with the first first year here. That was the first team meeting, I believe, was that what is a Bengal physical, hungry, accountable teammate who was willing to do anything to get the job done.
And so you can see we put on the wall in the weight room.
The FAT acronym just kind of came if we weren't thinking that at the beginning, but it's kind of turned into that, and that's something that that our scouting department, our coaches, our strength staff, we put a premium on it.
Guys, being physical, hungry, accountable teammate.
Your job has become very high tech. How do you keep up with the latest advancements in technology and analytics and everything else involved.
You know, there is a lot of stuff. It's changed tremendously since since when I played.
I mean, we didn't have any of this stuff.
I'd even say in the last geez five seven five to seven years. It's it's really, you know, changed with the tracking units and what we can do with the Tendo units and stuff in the weight room. You know, we are looking into all this stuff constantly, We're reading about it constantly. But I also think you've got to be able to trust your instincts and what you see with your eyes and have some of the technology confirm that.
We don't want to go too far down the analytics track where we're missing something right now in front of our eyes. But it has been the Catapult system for us has been tremendous for how we practice and giving us a gauge of how hard a practice is for our team.
Final thing for Bengal Strength and Conditioning coach Joey Bose, I have a piece of a goal post from nineteen ninety nine when the UC Bearcats were not very good. Oh boy, but they upset ninth ranked Wisconsin at Nippert Stadium. Doug Rossfeld, who is Zach Taylor's right hand man with Cincinnati starting center in that game, the fans stormed the field. They tore down the goal post. I got a chunk. What do you remember about that day at Nippert Stadium? If anything, it.
Was not a good bus ride home. I know that. I know we we were. That was my sophomore year.
We were ride and high and we came in maybe it was week three or fours early in the season.
I believe, And.
I just remember you guys, we just have any answers. It was like you were throwing to the little slot receiver. Was there a Chapman or I don't remember yet there was a Chapman, Okay, but yeah, it was not a good bus right home.
That was a I think that might have been our only loss that season.
You lost the next week against Michigan and then didn't lose again. Okay, And that was your second Rose Bowl.
Year Cincinnati and Michigan.
It all turned out well and Ron Dane won the Heisman that year.
Yeah. Yeah, that was a good year for us at the end, but it didn't start so good.
Joey, this has been fun. Congratulations on your success today. You've been a big reason why the Bengals have been so good in recent years, and I look forward to chatting again down the road.
Appreciate it. Thank you, Dan.
That's going to do it for this episode of the Bengals Booth podcast. Brought to you by Kettering Health, the official healthcare provider of the Bengals, by Bengals Picks and Ultimate Bengals. They're free to play with tickets inside, merchandise up for grabs by pay Corps, the official HR software of the Bengals, and by Alta Fiber future Proof Fiber
Internet elevate your connection with Alta Fiber. 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 Hord, and thanks for listening to The Bengals Boot Podcast.