Bengals Booth Podcast: Goin' Down

for postgame analysis. Plus, in this week's fun Facts Conversation, we'll meet the person under the pads as I'll talk to a wide receiver who seems to make a spectacular catch every single week, Odd and Tate. All of that is straight ahead. But first, here's a quick reminder that you can have the latest edition of this podcast delivered right to your phone, tablet, or computer by subscribing iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or pod Bean. It's the greatest thing

since flight attendants. I spend a lot of time on planes, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for flight attendants, especially after an eight hour flight in the middle of the night back from London. While most of the passengers slept, the flight attendants stayed awake, served a couple of meals, brought the drink cart through the cabin several times, cleaned up after everybody, and did it all with a smile.

So here's to all of the flight attendants who do what they can to put the friendly in the friendly skies. Now let's get to this week's game. In recent weeks, Zach Taylor has faced abundant criticism over his heavy use of eleven personnel. In case you're not familiar with the universal numbering lingo and football, the first digit is for the number of running backs on the field and the

second digit is for the number of tight ends. So eleven personnel is one running back, one tight end, and three wide receivers, and the Bengals have used that grouping more than any other team in football this year. It obviously hasn't been working very well, and on Sunday at Wembley Stadium, the Bengals decided to mix things up. They made frequent use of multiple tight ends and it had two positive effects. Number One, Tyler Eifert was a big

weapon in the passing game. Dalton looks to throw his passage medal cot near midfield by Tyler Eiffert and Tyler Eifert makes it to the Rams forty two yard line for a huge gain on third down and five and an ihop first down. Eiffert finished with six catches for seventy four yards, but that wasn't the biggest positive. Having Eiffert and cj Uzamba on the field at the same time brought the bengals anemic rushing attack to life. Bengals come out with double tight ends, but Eiffort detaches and

goes out wide to the right. Here's a run up the medal mix and breaking tackles as he sprints forward between the hash marks for a first down gain. He runs for eleven now to the thirty six and it's an ihop first down. Man Old Man, David Long, Junior. You are a junior because the senior mixing just ran you over. Mixing ran for fifty three yards on ten carries in the first half and for a quarter and a half, the Bengals went toe to toe with the high powered Rams. First and ten. At the Bengals thirty

one golf back to throw throws over the middle. It is caught at the five yard line and Reynolds takes it into the end zone for a Rams touchdown. That Jared Golf touchdown pass gave the Rams a ten three lead in the second quarter. The Bengals answered with a seventy five yard drive to tie the game. Second and goal, just short of the one yard line. Dalton is under center. Everybody bunched in tight. Stanley Morgan goes in motion from left to right. Now motions back to the left. They

fake up him. They throw the Mixing names, he catches it. Touchdown Bengals as Dalton floats one to Mixing at the goal line for a Bengals touchdown. Was career touchdown pass number one ninety seven for the Red Rifle, pulling him even with Ken Anderson for the Bengals all time franchise record. But the tie score only lasted for one minute and twenty one seconds. Cooper Cup goes in motion. They give it to him. Now they pitch it back to Golf for a flea. Flicker throws for Cup wide open. The

Bengals defender falls down. Cooper Cup sprinting down the far sideline and he will take it to the house. Unreal Rams touchdown. That's sixty five yard touchdown gave the Rams a seventeen ten halftime lead. And get these first half numbers for wide receiver Cooper Cup. He had five catches and they went for gains of twenty one, twenty five, thirty one, twenty three and sixty five. That's one hundred

sixty five yards in the half. On the opening drive of the third quarter, Cup added catches of fifteen and forty to finish with seven grabs for two hundred twenty yards. Several of those catches came with Tony McCrae in coverage. I talked to him about it after the game. I could have competed well better against him than I did today. He shouldn't have he shouldn't have had the yard as he had, but he worked for it, so kudos anything about him in particular that makes him so tough. Smart player,

understands what you're doing to him. He vet guy. You can tell he's not only a good athlete, he understands the game. You are visibly down about the outcome today, and it's understandable. Why are you taking this one especially hard personally? Yeah? I feel like I prepare well, just didn't execute the way I should have executed it today. Whenever you take a loss, shoe, look at yourself and I'm looking at myself right now. Mccraig's honesty is commandable.

But Cooper Cup's huge game wasn't all his fault. I asked Dave Lapham why Cincinnati could not cover Cup. I think the bank were their own worst enemy in a lot of cases, with bad discipline in their own coverages. He had huge cavities. I mean a guy like that coming into the game with over fifty catches. He was second in the NFL and he was fifth in yards, So you know, it's not like you know that he can't make play. So for him to be as open as he was at times, and you know his Bengals

hurt themselves. But the guy is a great player. Shoot, he's fast, he's good hands, I mean, he's smart, catches the heck out of the football. And like I said, coming in he was in the top five in both categories and second and catches. So you don't you don't want to you don't want to have a guy like that, you know, get off on you like he did, because you know he was capable of it coming into the

game based on his Prouder stats. So the Rams were up by seven at the half and heading into the game, Los Angeles was twenty one in oh with a halftime lead under Sean McVeagh. The key to that stat is adding to halftime leads, which the Rams did on their opening drive of the third quarter. Sean McVay covering his mouth with his play sheet as he describes what he wants into the helmet radio of golf. It's a toss sweep to the left and Gurley down to the five

toward the pylon. Touchdown Rams. That made a twenty four to ten and that was it for the Rams offense. They punted on their final four drives of the game. Unfortunately, the Bengals couldn't capitalize. Third down and seven, the Bengals at their own twenty four. Dalton catches the shotgun snap and he sacked. He'll drop back to throw Andy will be sacked by Aaron Donald, who pile drives him into

the Wembley turf for a loss of three. Dalton under pressure and he will be sacked for the fifth time today. Back at the twenty eight yard line. Down by fourteen, with a little more than five minutes to go, the Bengals had one last good chance to make it a game, but they needed a touchdown on fourth and goal from the Rams six. Empty backfield for Andy Dalton, who waits the eleven yard line for the shotgun snap quick throw slamp.

It is caught and the tackle is made. The Bengals will not convert tackle made it to three yard line and the Bengals on the past the Stanley Morgan Junior do not get in. That was the sixth time this year that the Bengals have driven into the red zone without scoring a single point. Before the game was finished, they made it seven times from the nine yard line.

Final play of the game, Dalton, looking to throw, scrambling to the right eyes in the end zone, cocks the arm, throws into the back of the end zone, battered away intended for Auden Tate, and the game is over. The Bengals remained winless. They are oh and eight for the sixth time in franchise history. They fall to the Rams today by the final score of twenty four to ten.

Dalton finished with three hundred twenty nine passing yards and the Bengals ran for one oh four that's roughly twice what they've been getting on the ground per game, but the combination of goff to cup killed them time to hear from head coach Zach Taylor, who spent three minutes

with Lap after the game. Got the running game going a little bit in the first half, and um, you know, you're using your multiple tight end packages and they were trying to figure out how to how to match up with it, and you guys, you guys gashed them a few times. We did. You know that was encouraging. Um, I thought our guys up fun did a great job backs back Sneward hit it. We're doing an excellent job there. And then tight ends factored in as well. But that

was certainly good start to the first half. So um. Obviously they didn't run the ball real well, but Goff started taking advantage of the middle of the field. It looked like quite a few times in Cooper Cup. You know all about these guys. I mean that guy's he's something special, isn't he. Yeah, they got a bunch of talented players and that's why they went to the Super bowlash year. They got a lot of faith in them.

And you know, it works together. You know, we gotta make sure we put pressure on there and claps the pocket so that it didn't have the time to throw down the field and um never sometimes we have some poor zone discipline there on the back end, and we got better job there. Had a couple of interception opportunities in a game like this, when they're there, you got to you gotta catch him right. You can't let them. You can't let him. So three hands it was gonna

be the difference in winning it losing. You know, we got to create some turnovers and we certainly had some opportunities there and guys, I gotta step up and make those plays. Those can be touchdowns the other way, big explosives, you know, game changing plays and we gotta find a way to make them. Alex Erickson ended up with six catches for ninety seven yards, including that fifty two yard

or up the sideline. Tyler right for six catches for seventy four yards, So there was some distribution of football and tight made some big plays for you. They took the touchdown away there at the end of the football game, but it looked like you know, Andy had he set a record for three hundred yard passing days. He was thirty thirty five for fifty two three twenty nine yards and a touchdown, So you guys were moving the football we were just too many reds and opportunities that got

away from us. You know, we have the two we ended up inside the tent at the end of the game with no points and situations we had to go for and fourth down three points wasn't gonna help us stare. And then we had plenty of times there on the red on fringe where we went backwards and either got knocked out of field goal range or took ourselves out of fourth and go for it situation. So that was hard. That's the difference in winning and losing. And that one drive,

I think he had four straight fourth down conversions. I mean, you just kept kept going forward and making the conversience, except like you said, when it was in the deep in the deep red zone, and you know that that obviously becomes a different dynamic a little bit. Yeah, you guys had a lot of confidence what we're asking to do, and so when you feel that energy, there's situations where we felt like we needed to go for it to give ourselves the best chance one of the game, and

our guys stepped up and executed. I played on a team that started all eight coach in the in the late seventies and our mindset at the bye, there wasn't really a buye. But at the halfway point we said, okay, didn't go right in the first half, So that's one season that's over with. Let's start the second half and make this the second season and see if we can win some football games. We ended up winning half of them, went four and four. Is that kind of the mindset now?

It is, you know, And we still got to take it one game at a time, starting with a divisional game at home, which is which is one we'd certainly want to get after they got us on the road, and the pie comes at the right time, you know, we get a chance to get some guys healthy, get our depth back and make a charge here on the second half of the season. And I know guys are believing that we're close. We're there. We can we can break through this barrier man and start winning a lot

of football games. And we're close. We just gotta get it done. Bengals are oh and eight for the first time since OH eight in the second half of that season they went four to three and one and then one the AFC North in two thousand and nine. Now time for some postgame analysis as Dave Lapham and I discussed the bengals fifteenth loss in their last sixteen games. A few things stood out to me after this game. Lap number one, too many third and long conversions for

the Rams against the Bengals defense. Number two squandered opportunities to intercept passes unofficially three of those today. And number three too much Cooper Cup twenty saiving yards the Bengals could not stop. Number eighteen for the Rams. He's the one that made a lot of those third and long plays too. I mean, he was, he was phenomenally. He had what seven catches for two hundred and twenty yards, over thirty one yards of catch, sixty five yard touchdown.

He was. He was magic out there, particularly in the first half. You know, I thought that originally in the first half the Rams had some problems matching up with the two tight end formation and running game. The running game got started pretty well. Joe Mixon had over fifty yards rushing in that in that first half. And then you know, again, kind of the circumstances the game dictate you had to get away from that a little bit.

And and he throws it fifty two times. I mean, he throws for over three hundred yards to set a record for three hundred yard passing games in the franchise history. But uh, you know, he much rather would run it fifty two times and win the football game. I can tell you that right now. So you know, obviously, you know, not enough, not enough points. You can't can't win in the NFL scoring ten points, you can't win in the NFL.

Given up, you know, third and ten or more as many times has occurred, and uh, you know that honestly, there was some some discipline problems with zone coverages, you know, in the back end of things that that caused some problems. For sure, it's hard to be encouraged by a fourteen point loss, but one building block for the Bengals was the fact that they outrushed the Rams. We know about that running game disparity this year that's been so bad for the Bengals. Well they did outrush one of the

NFL's better rushing teams. Yeah, they're not running out like they have in the last couple of years, but you know, I'm sure they wanted to run involve better than they did tonight. Um and the Bengals did show some life that ground game, Like I said with the first half, particularly with the two tight ends set that I think, you know, Rams had to make some adjustments with a little bit and how they were going to come out and handle it. So unfortunately, again you know, too little,

too little, too late kind of scenario. And the problem was in the red zone again, a couple of opportunities down the stretch of the game where come away with no points and a couple of red zone opportunities, want to overturn touchdown catched and you know rightfully so, I mean, the ball didn't move, the ball didn't bounce, but it was that close to be in a touchdown for aud and Tat and that would have said another record for

Andy Dalton if that had happened. But again, these records ring hollow to him if they don't win football games. He would be the first one to say that. I know. In fact, he said it in the postgame show. Zach Taylor's message to the team after the game. We got to treat it like were zero and zero going to the buy come back as if it were the first game. Obviously it's not, but that's what they have to try to put into their minds and start the second half

of the season in much better form. Yeah, I mean, you just got a reboot basically, you know, And that's what everybody was, you know, echoing Zack's comments, and you know, after the game in the postgame locker room, and and you know, I mentioned to Zach Wan to talk to him. I said, I've been there and I lived on don't know on eight team, and we basically said, all right. There was no buy back then, but we said, we're at the halfway point. Hasn't worked out. We got to

put that aside as seasons over with. It was the worst season we ever experienced. I start a second season and see what we can do. And we ended up four and four. And his response was, that's exactly what we're talking about doing. But you know, we're not looking at eight games, an overall eight game record. We got we gotta go beat the Baltimore Ravens, who is a

division opponent. They spanked us in Baltimore. We want to we want to get off, you know, off on the right track to start the second half of the season with a division win. And you know, that's the mindset you have to take. And right now, during the bye week, I think as much as try to get healthy physically, you got to get healthy mentally and come back with

that frame of mind. And and you know, maybe they'll start to get some players back that they desperately need to add to their depth, you know, and some guys who played more snaps than they thought they would probably in the first half of the season. If they get some guys returning, that could be beneficial down the stretch. How did they handle Aaron die in your opinion, I thought I thought pretty well. I mean he had the one, the one big, you know, tackle for loss. But I

think it takes a village to handle him. And I think they recruited everybody in the village, you know, I think everybody had had a hand in it. And you know, even even when you with that said, when you're doing that, it creates one on ones for foul or another guys that just you know, rockers, they all take advantage of their opportunities and they love having a teammate like Aaron Donald. That's gonna every time you come to the line of experiments.

You have to identify him the quarterback. Everybody has to identify him and make sure you give four hands and four eyes on the guy prior to that game. Lap we were standing on the pitch, as they would say, at Wembley Stadium and watched A J. Green go through a pretty aggressive workout. I suspect he'll be back for the next game against Baltimore. What do you think I do too? I mean, I think so, And you know, I think there's a there's a laundry list of guys

that might be able to come back. You know, when you look at it, dark Quest and arms at the hamstring, maybe that's aggressive depending on the severity of the hamstring and where it's pulled. The higher up at the hamstring, the worst the issue is. So I'm not sure about that. Draker Patrick with his knee, Carl Lawson with his hamstring, John Miller with the groin. I mean, there's a there's a few guys that you know might be able to

make their way back. So obviously the depth will be significantly better down the stretch of start getting some of these guys back, and uh, you know they're can Obviously real good football players are the guys have probably played snaps that they weren't expecting necessarily to play in the positions that they're playing them in. But that's just going to add to the overall depth of the football team for the second half of the season and during the

bye week. Man, it's a two step process. You get yourself physically right, you know, with treatment and rest, and mentally right, you know, you got to get your mind right to come back and turn it around in the second half of the season and you can get some ws, get some victories under their belts. The Bengals have had five previous oh and eight starts in their history. On four of the five previous times that happened, they won game number nine, So we'll see if they can do

it this time around. Back home at Paul Brown Stadium against the Ravens and a couple of weeks. Ravens are five and two and currently have a two and a half game lead in the AFC north over Pittsburgh. The two and four Steelers have a home game on Monday night against the Windless Dolphins. Now time for this week's fun Facts interview, where we get to know the person under the pads. This week, it's a member of last year's rookie class who has to be among the NFL

leaders in spectacular catches so far this season. Time for some fun Facts with wide receiver Auden Tate born in South Carolina, but went to high school and college in Florida. When people ask you where you're from, what do you say? From Armo, South Carolina, live in Tampa Bay, Parsley, but from Irma, South Carolina. Why did you move to Florida when you were a kid. My dad's a pastor. You wanted to start to church down in Tampa Bay. You're

six five. Were you always the tallest kid in the neighborhood? Ni him on Grossberts about nine grade. Before that, I played like running back and point guard and stuff like that. I figured you must have played basketball at some level. Were you good or just tall? No? I I was good at high school and middle school. Going out, I ain't get to play my senior year, I told my LCL. But my junior stuff, I was like, oh, county and we went to State my sophomore year. So I was.

I was pretty pretty high, pretty straight. We're talking to autumn Tate. You were one of the most heavily recruited wide receivers in the country when you were senior in high school. What's your best story about a famous coach showing up at your school or showing up at your house, I'd probably say, um, when a hardball. When he left forty nine US and went down to Michigan, like I think it was like a couple of weeks later he was at my house. Now he was at my school,

like at the school house. It was just weird because I just remember him from the forty nine ers and you know, now he was at Michigan. That was just kind of crazy to me at that moment where the other kids say there was a lot of people just trying to get like pitches and autographs with him because they remembered them too from when they went to Super Bowl. Aye and all this stuff. Are doing fun facts with

autumn Tate. Do you remember what college reached out to you first and how that felt us University of South Florida got our first scholarship before. I think it was Alonzo Game my junior year. I remember that. Yeah, pretty exciting. Yeah, definitely knowing that my parents ain't had to worry about no college. Yeah, he went to Florida State and played for Jimbo Fisher. I got to know him when he was the offensive coordinator at the University of Cincinnati and

he could be pretty rough on guys back then. Describe your relationship with him when you were playing for Florida State, Like I said, Yeah, he's very like intense. You can kind of use I wouldn't say ferocious, but he's very intense when he on the field. He about his business, about his business. Feel. Yeah, I mean we had a good relationship. I definitely had growing paintings at first, you know, just trying to be accountable and more mature and stuff

like that. But growing up more and more like throughout the years, I started to see like more stuff like that, So I think we had a great relationship. You spent three years with the Seminoles. Your final year you led the acc and touchdown catches and did it despite playing much of the year with a separated shoulder. How did you manage the pain? To be honest, I'd say just seeing my other brothers out there, my other teammates from

Florida State. You know, we had a good bound when I was there, so, you know, seeing them boys out there, I just wanted to do everything in my power to get out there, you know, whether I was in pain or whatever, just find a way to make impact. Was that a situation where you would dread a hit to that shoulder. Oh yeah, definitely. I got hit a couple of times, especially Miami cams get hit a lot in it. But you know, it's just it is the generally kind of running, so you just kind of rolled with it.

We're doing fun facts with autumn. Take the Bengals drafted you in the seventh round. Was your phone ringing off the hook from teams thinking that maybe you wouldn't get picked and they could try to sign you as an undrafted free agent? M Yeah, I was like, actually enterprise. I was about to go to the Eagles undrafted contract thing. I was like like really like about to be on the way, and then I got a call from the Bingles. When you did get that call from the Bengals, who

is the most excited person in the room. Probably my mom probably, yeah, probably my mom, my dad, They're probably most too excited. Were the tears flowing? Yeah? Yeah? For them? Yeah, and for you. Didn't represent the culmination of all the hard work and everything you had done up until that point. Yeah, this kind of feel like I got slided to with my forty yard dash and then my shoulder injury. But you know, still hear my name calls, you know, just

a blessing. A lot of people don't. You're only in your second year, so you haven't made the really big bucks yet. But what do you like to spend your money on? Movies? Movies? Movies. I'm always out of movies, and I prefer to go to the movies rather than get it on DVD. I like this experience is going there, give him a popcorn. I see sitting down and just watching a movie. So yeah, movies, definitely, I'm with you.

There's nothing like being in that darkened room with a big screen and you can zone everything out right, see exactly. I love. I'm probably gonna be the rights practice. Do you have a couple of all time favorites? Atl? Dark Night Dark Knight Rises? And Damn Joker was really good too. I was surprised his performance. That was real good too. If you could meet anybody in history, actor, athlete, politician, religious figure, whatever, who would that person be? I pros

Denzel Washington. He's the same, real, insightful, smart, very self aware about things. I just want to like just rite with him to see what hit at How you think the best walk in the world. The Denzel Washington strut there's something about his walk. I think that's very unique. The training day, great role right there. All right, Do you have a talent, a hidden talent that is not related to sports? I used to like to read a lot high school college. I don't do it as much

no more, But I mean that was it. I don't really got too many of the hitting ones. I'm pretty much open book on the flip side. Is there something that you are just terrible at that you couldn't met? You know, I'm awful at that thing. Hitting the baseball, I'm good. I was good at like catching and all that stuff. But hitting it, I don't know. I don't think I ever hit it makes you feel any better? I saw Lebron James take batting practice once when he

was still in Cleveland. He was terrible. Couldn't get it out of the cage. Yeah, I was missing. At least he hid it, all right. Final fun fact for Auden Tate. Your Twitter handle is little Tate. You're not little. What's the story behind the little Tate? I don't know. It's a big contradiction consider I'm kind of a more bigger figure.

I don't know, to be honest. A few people just started like calling me that, and then like I just kind of just stuck with it to be that's crazy because it is like a big contradiction, but I just rule with it. It's got to appreciate the irony. Yeah, I appreciate your time. Thanks so much. Best of what going forward. He doesn't appreciate it. That's Autumn Tate. We want to remind you to come out and join us

at an on location radio show this week. On Friday afternoon, Buffalo Wings and Rings and Liberty Township will host the Bengals pep Rally Show, and it's a half hour earlier than usual. The show will run from two thirty to five thirty. That's going to do it for this episode of the podcast. If you haven't done so already, don't forget to subscribe, and if you have a moment, give it a rating or share a comment. Five star ratings

help more Bengals fans find this podcast. I'm Dan Horde and thank you for listening to The Bengals Booth Podcast.