Bengals Booth Podcast: Gonna Be Alright

from Dave Lapham. And in this week's fun fact segment, you'll get to know the person under the pads as I go one on one with rookie linebacker Marcus Bailey. The Bengals Booth Podcast is presented by Bud Light Seltzer. Refresh the game, and here's a quick reminder that you can have the latest edition of this podcast delivered right to your phone, tablet, or computer by subscribing on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or podb It's the greatest thing since

The Master's theme music. Hello, friends, and greetings from Augusta National. It's Sunday at the Masters, a tradition unlike any other. I love everything about the Masters, and I enjoyed watching Dustin Johnson win his first Green jacket over the weekend The only downside of watching the tournament in November is that it gave me an overwhelming desire to golf. Just as the weather in the North is getting too cold to tee it up, I'll just have to crank up

this theme music and dream of spring. Now, let's get to Sunday's game. For the Bengals to upset the NFL's last undefeated team, they were going to have to play with minimal mistakes. Unfortunately, they dropped the ball literally and figuratively less than two minutes into the game. The Australians punt is a line drive. Alex Ericson catches with a chance to run it back from the nineteen up the middle of the field of the thirty and he'll be knocked four. The all pops out near the thirty three

yard line. The Steelers are celebrating, no signal from the officials yet as the tug of war goes on at the bottom of the pile. The Steelers came away with the ball at the Cincinnati thirty two, and even though they didn't pick up a first down, a Chris Boswell field goal gave Pittsburgh a three nothing lead. It was that kind of day and here's Zach Taylor. We were not good enough in any area today, offense, defense, special teams, and we really weren't good enough coaching, and that is

with me. One. I feel like I let these guys down today, So it all starts with me. The Bengals could not pick up a first down on their first three possessions, and the Steelers took advantage of getting the ball five times in the first quarter. First, another field goal made it six nothing, and then Ben Roethlisberger struck first and ten at the Cincinnati twelve yard line, empty backfield, five receivers for Big Bend. Who catches the shotgun snap,

quick pass cat touchdown. Beante Johnson was on the receiving end, and it was twelve nothing. After the Steelers failed on a two point conversion try. The Bengals finally picked up a first down with about a minute to go in the first quarter, but on the very next play, first and ten, Bengals at their own forty five, Steelers moving around on defense. Here comes the shotgun snap and a quick throw caught over the middle by t Higgins. Oh

Balls ripped out and the Steelers recover ten yards down field. Unbelievable, secure the ball. After one quarter, the Bengals had two turnovers and one first down, but they came to life on their first drive of the second quarter. From the twenty four, Burrow looking to throw, He's going to finding a deep T Higgins wide open at the fifty catches near the sideline thirty twenty five and tackled out of bounds after a huge gain by Minca Fitzpatrick, a Fay

blown coverage. Very uncharacteristic for the Pittsburgh Steelers. That fifty four yard pass was the big play on a ninety yard touchdown drive that ended with a gutsy call. The Bengals are an absurd twelve or thirteen on fourth down conversions this year, and they are going to go for it on fourth and goal from the two yard line.

They spread out empty backfield, five wides, three left, two right, Burrow standing at the seven catches, the shotgun snap throw left car touchdown T Higgins, who dunks the football over the goal post as the Bengals score on fourth and goal from the two. Higgins had a big day, overcoming the fumble to finish with a career high seven catches for one hundred and fifteen yards. His second one hundred

yard receiving performance of the season. I haven't fumbled in who knows when, and it really got to me and the guys just like, keep your head up, stay stay positive, and it's gonna come. And sure enough, Nick Series you know, made the big played in a squat to touchdown. The Bengals were back in it, trailing twelve seven, but not for long, as Pittsburgh answered with a seventy eight yards scoring drive. Roethlisberger ready for the shotgun snap, tightly bunched formation,

He's back to throw, blitz coming. Roethlisberger throws touchdown. Pittsburgh shoot Juice Smith Schuster in the back of the end zone as Roethlisberger saw the rush closing in, inched up just a bit and delivered a strike that made it nineteen seven, and after a Bengals punt, the Steelers added another field goal to make it twenty two seven with

one forty eight left in the half. That gave Joe Burrow enough time to run the hurry up and he completed four straight passes to drive to the Pittsburgh thirty five From here, it would be a fifty three yard field goal, so the Bengals would love to get about ten more yards for Randy Bullock. They trailed twenty two seven, twenty nine seconds left and a half empty backfield for Burrow. Extends the hands, catches the shotgun snap, he's back to throw, He's in trouble and he's sacked by what back at

the forty eight yard line. That took the Bengals out of field goal range, and a couple of plays later, Burrow got pushed out of bounds by Bud Dupree and went flying into the bench, twisting his ankle in the process. I mean, it wasn't a hit or anything. He might have pushed me a little late, but it wasn't a hit. I just, you know, he gave me a little extra boost and I ended up rolling my ankle on the sideline. Were you still feeling it in the second half? There

doesn't matter? Perhaps not, But after throwing for one hundred eighty nine yards with a passer rating of one hundred point two in the first half, Burrow went five for fifteen in the second half for twenty four yards. Furthermore, the Bengals finished the game oh for thirteen on third down conversions. I just played terrible in this second half. You know, we missed a lot of throws and that I usually make. Um, No, that's that was the game. You know I missed. I miss a lot of those

in the second half. For thirteen on third down. I think it might have been thirteen something like that. Obviously, that's that's not gonna win your football games. What was the biggest reason in your mind that it worked out that way? I missed throws? Um, that's all came down too. You know, I'm You're not gonna be able to win football games against a team like the Steelers, as good as they are when your quarterback plays like I did in the second half. Pittsburgh's quarterback, on the other hand,

did not struggle in the second half. He's thrown for two hundred ninety four yards and two touchdowns. He catches the shotgun snap pump fakes, throws it into the end zone in traffic, caught for a touchdown by Chase Claypool. Big Ben as ready play clock at two, catches the shotgun snap quick throw, caught touchdown Claypool with his second touchdown catch of the game, touchdown pass number four four, Big bad Boy. It almost looks like, you know, we've

seen this movie before. It's a horror movie that Bengals fans have been forced to watch for seventeen years. Ben Roethlisberger through for three hundred thirty three yards with four touchdowns and no picks as the Steelers improved to twenty six and seven. In the games that Big Ben has started against Cincinnati, here's Sam Hubbard's great Claire, and he's Big Ben for a reason. And he knew what he wanted to do and where he was going with the ball, and they had a good plan and he made a

lot of great throws and good decisions. Although the Bengals were behind thirty six to seven in the fourth quarter, Burrow kept playing despite the twisted ankle. Zach Taylor was asked about it after the game, like, what was the thought process leaving Joe in that last drive he took a couple of hits, you're down, you know, thirty six to seven or whatever? Did you think about taking him out? You know, we tried to manage it some with the runs.

We wanted to get some points, get some momentum going, you know, to be honest with you, and and just we left him in their and Burrow was happy they did. Yeah, I'm not not a quitter. I'm not going out of the game. No, it doesn't matter if we're down one hundred, down ten, down twenty, I'm not going out. A thirty nine yard run on a fake punt by Sean Williams helped the Bengals tack on a late field goal to make the final score thirty six to ten. They're eleventh

consecutive loss to Pittsburgh. Here are Zach Taylor, Joe Burrow, and Sam Hubbard. We don't overreact to this. It was not our best performance. We went on the road. We didn't really win in any phase, any statistical category in terms of the turnovers, the penalties, the exposive players, we didn't win any of them. And so you go on the road, there's no way you're gonna win a football game doing that way against a good football team. And

so we know what the reasons were. We know that we could have played better, and we got to put this game behind us quite frankly, move on, you know. And that's the biggest key, because we still got seven games left, a big one next week at Washington. We can't let Pittsburgh beat us twice. That's the biggest key.

And again It's disappointing because this is how we thought we're gonna come out and play, but it's what happened, and so we just got to take it like a man and move on and and go focus on the next game. It's never good to lose like this, but it's always a good learning experience. Um, you know, I told I was talking to the sideline. Uh, you know, I think we're we're in that game if if I don't suck in the second half, and I'm not gonna

suck a lot. So We're gonna come back to work every day, and I'm excited to go go back to practice on on Tuesday or on Wednesday and stuck getting these kinks worked out and move on to Washington. Yeah, I think we got a great locker room. We gotta got a lot of guys that you know, are gonna feel the pain of this loss, and we're gonna come right back and go to work and try and go

on a run here these last seven games. Um, you know, I definitely want to be a leader, but like I said, we got a good locker room with a lot of good guys, and you know, we want to We're doing things the right way. We're we're getting better and we're just gonna keep climbing up. Next a road game against the Washington football team, who fell to two and seven with a three point loss in Detroit as the Lions kicked a fifty nine yard field goal as time expired.

But it was quite a day for Alex Smith, who has come back from his gruesome leg injury that required seventeen surgeries to regain the starting quarterback job in Washington. He threw for a career high three hundred ninety yards in Sunday's loss. Remarkable. Now time for postgame analysis from Dave Lapham Lap. The Bengals did not play well, that was obvious, but right now the two teams are not competitive. The Bengals have been outscored sixty three to ten in

their two games against Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Absolutely. I mean, if it's a litmus test, it's shown they're not ready measuring stick. They're way down the bottom of the measuring stick. So they have miles to go before they rest. And the disappointing thing, and this one was they were understaffed by coaches. You know, not having when you don't have all those eyes that are eliminated. I mean, the more

feedback you get, the better off you are. When guys kind of the sideline, they're used to talking to a particular coach and getting feedback and then I'm not. These aren't excuses, these are facts. That was different. But it's COVID nineteen era, so that's the different part of it. There are players that are affected by COVID nineteen. They're you know, guys brought off the practice squad. It's they were. They were undermanned theoretically at the tackle position, at the

cornerback position. I thought the tackle stepped up and played well. Two guys that I thought I Dentergy showed himself well. I think he belongs. Spain has been in the league six years. We already know he belongs. So I thought those two guys I quitted themselves well. On the back end, I think they had their issues. And there's no question about it. But you know, special teams didn't play well.

Offense didn't play well. Defense didn't play well. You go over thirteen on third down, third downs, the money down, they were bankrupt at every position there was Offensively, they made no money. I mean they were broke. They were turning their pockets inside out. Nothing fell out, So they gotta get that rectified. Fourth down obviously, use their money down, that's the down. They're thirteen out of fourteen now and they scored on more than one fourth down. Maybe they

should forget about third down, go right to fourth. It's crazy, but this was There's not very much positive you can take out of a performance that took place today. You know, you fall behind too early in the turnover department, you have penalties, you have turnovers, you don't convert one conversion on third down. I mean, you're not gonna win a football game and you're gonna be blown out by a

good team like they did. Zach Taylor used the term I blame myself, it's my fault, something along those lines several times in his postgame news cop. Do you think he's specifically blaming himself for his play calling on third down? Do you think that was the biggest thing about his own performance that he was self critical of. I think he was self critical of everything, and uh, like a good quarterback like he was, he's accepting all the blame

and deflecting all the credit, you know. And uh, because he said, you know, we took a sack in a two minute Drow that was I shouldn't have called that play. That's on me, you know, so I think I think situational stuff. I think he was probably disappointed in the calls that were made in hindsight when he's able to go back over them. But they just, uh, there was just a lack of lack of execution. Um. You know, Joe Burrow makes uh makes the throw um, you know

many times down the sideline. That would have been a big, big play, could have been another you know, thirty five forty yard player to add to the add to the yards of te Higgins and doesn't happen. So and Joe, Joe Burrow himself said he played pretty well in the first half, but in the second half he just said, I just didn't throw it well. I didn't play well. I missed too many throws. I missed throws that I've made,

you know, over and over again. Tee Higgins said that he and Joe on that play that he overthrew, had you know, worked and repped in practice more than one time and done it successfully. And you know, sometimes you have a stinker, and they had a full fledged stinker. I did like the fact that. Joe Burrow said afterward, I won't suck like that very often, which I found amusing. He was twenty one for forty two hundred and thirteen yards,

one touchdown, no interception. Do you have any issue with him staying in the game at the end of the game, you know, I guess to me, it looks like when a guy's limping, you know. But Joe, Joe obviously convinced everybody that he was okay to go, particularly the medical staff. Do you think it was brought up. I think I think it was probably brought up. Yeah, And to me, Paul Sparrowing, he made he errs on the side of caution all the time, so they must have done a

quick examination. Joe said it was a minor you know, roll the ankle or twisted the ankle. Obviously he wanted to be in there and finish it. He just his whole thing. And the you know in the zoom call after the game is I'm not a quitter. I don't quit. He didn't want to go out under those circumstances take him out of a game like they took Ben out and Mason Rudolph finished. And he do that all day every day. He didn't want to go out in a situation feel like he's deserting his guys, and uh, and

give give the ar or the impression of quitting. So I guess, uh, you know, I guess that that ruled the day. And then you know, Zach said, they're still trying to score points and trying to create momentum, and um, I don't know, it's just the one. The biggest thing that I took out of Zach's talk after the game was a good point. Don't let the Pittsburgh steal his beat you twice. Make sure you pay attention to things you did wrong. And that's going to be a litney.

That's gonna be a long, long, legal sized pad list. But make corrections and then get ready for the Washington Redskins, because that defensive football team is pretty damn good. And Alex Smith let it up, he's a great store. Um, it's you know, you can't you can't assume we're gonna you know, we're gonna go to Washington beat the Redskins. Man, you gotta go play Washington football team. I keep saying, Redskins, you have the football team, gotta go, gotta go to

Washington and uh, and win and beat that football team. Uh. You just you can't make assumptions, you know. I mean, who who the Bengals to make an assumption like that anyway, So you gotta make sure you get that out of

your head. Uh. It's like, okay, now now we start to get don't you think that other teams in the league, like the Washington and others, are saying, here, come to Bengals, that's a win, that's a w I mean really honestly, I mean everybody's saying, let's schedule them for homecoming where here it is, let's let's get after the Bengals. So you don't make any assumptions like that. You just gotta go back to square one, work prepare. Hopefully you have

all your coaches back. Um. You know, um, anybody that tested positives out ten days. Anybody that is contact tracings out five, So you gotta figure Golden and Duffner would only be five days. But I mean, those guys, how about that situation. You know, they traveled. Bob mcdell didn't travel, but those guys traveled, and they're in rental cars driving back in the afternoon before the football game, getting back to Cincinnati, so they can watch as much as they

can on TV and before they study taping everything. I mean, that's a that's a crazy dynamic. Only in the year twenty twenty, Pittsburgh finished with nine quarterback hits and four sacks. That's almost exactly what they averaged per game. And obviously they had a huge lead in the second half, which helps you get after the quarterback. But I thought this was interesting. It wasn't Blitzburg. They were not doing what

Baltimore did. They rushed four, sometimes three, occasionally five. But I thought that their secondary one against the Bengals wide receivers with the exception of te Higgins. Yeah, and I think unfortunately Hayden had another big game. Joe Hayden was very good. He get his hands on a lot of footballs and disrupted timing of routes and he was very good.

I do think that Baltimore. The difference between Baltimore and Pittsburgh is Baltimore has multiple Pro Bowls on the back end, so they feel like they can bring tons of people and really get after the quarterback and mess him up because they're so good in the back end. Pittsburgh is sound solid, but their coaching staff feels like our strength is in the front, so we're gonna rush for and we're going to get there with those four we're gonna keep seven back there. And that's what they did for

the most part. And like guys were saying after the game, they don't run a ton of different coverages back there. They have a couple of three things they do and they know to do it very well. Every single route combination. They get studied and they're they're tough, but they have seven bodies back there, so they can double multiple people if need be and still get pressure on the quarterback with their four man rush. That's so extraordinary with wat

and Dupree. So that's the biggest difference is where the strength those Baltimore and Pittsburgh defenses are and their coaches, you know, proceed accordingly with game plans that that kind of accentuate the positives and kind of help along with things that they're not as strong in. In a sixteen game regular season, the Bengal special teams will outperform the other squads special teams twelve times out of sixteen. I mean,

they usually win the special teams battle. Not on Sunday in Pittsburgh a fumble on the first punt returned by Alex Ericson. Then he seemed to get a little gunshy catching punts. Two got downed inside the ten. As a result, they gave up a forty two yard punt return. They had the fake punt late in the game, which I guess helps even things out a little bit, but by

and large, they got outperformed significantly in special teams. Yeah, I think, you know, as we know Darren Simmons looks at the average drive start and you factor in turnovers. Those are going to be short fields sometimes, and they were a couple of turnovers were a factor in that, but multiple times to half a dozen times. I mean they're starting inside their twenty yard line sometimes aside their ten.

I mean, that's that's long field. They scored a touchdown on one of those drives, you know, eight plays ninety yards for a touchdown on fourth down, the two yard touchdown reception that Tee Higgins had. But yeah, I think overall, on a snap by snap basis, after having the worst special teams game that Danny Smith and his team has had for a long time down in Dallas, Pittsburgh was horrible in Dallas on special teams. Dallas stayed in that game because of special team's excellence, and that was a

big point of contention. I'm sure prepared for this game. We got to bounce back. If we play like this against the Bengals, it'll be even worse. So I think, you know, players responded. Coach Danny Smith responded, and they put together a pretty good game. I agree with you. I think the you know, the fake fake punt kind of you know, it's kind of like, uh, you know,

meaningless yards or immediately stick miss picking. Yeah, exactly, but they got to look they you know, that they were working against and they took full advantage of it, and Sean Williams got the big benefit from it. But yeah, snap on a snap by snap basis, Darren Simmons is going to be in the grill of his special teams players.

They punted the ball way too much and had some way too many mistakes and problems and special teams pen Roethlisberger three hundred and thirty three passing yards, four touchdowns, no picks, pass a rating of one ten. He improved to twenty six and seven head to head against Cincinnati. I said it late in the broadcast. He's thirty eight

years old, he's in his seventeenth season. If and when he decides to retire and they have some sort of retirement ceremony in Pittsburgh for Steelers fans, I am going I will be so happy when he has done tormenting my teams. First of as you see three and oh against Gino GOODOULI when Gino was great. And now, as I mentioned, twenty six and seven against the Bengals and

Mike tom was twenty five and five. Come on, I mean, Ben though the state of Ohio, his record on the road against the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals, and while he was at Miami of Ohio had an undefeated season. I mean, it's ridiculous. He owns the state of Ohio. Living in Finley, Ohio, he loves to come back home. The whole State's is home, not just Finley, Ohio. The state of Ohio is true comfort food for Ben Roethlisberger, and he feasts. He has a buffet every time he's

in Cincinnati or in Cleveland. And it is unbelievable how Ben Roethlisberger has owned the Bengals during the course of his career, it really is. Are you going to watch that YouTube serious bigger than Ben, featuring him and his wife about his comeback from the torn tendons in his right elbow. I think I may have to miss that one. I don't think that's gonna be musty TV in the Lapham household. I don't know how many videos there are on YouTube, ten million, fifty million. That is the very

last thing I would watch on YouTube. It would just make me that much angrier. I'll tell you though, to look at how he has recovered from that type of that's severe an injury, It's remarkable. He is a tough son of a gun, but he definitely wants you to know he's a tough son of a gun. He has a drama queen as well as well as being a tough, tough ombre. And his teammates know it. Ryan Clark with ESPN rips him all the time. Even Mike Tomlin has tongue and cheeked at a few times. How Ben is?

You know, Ben's Ben? The drama of Ben. Ben feeds off of it. Ben wants to be the drama queen. He wants the story to be you know, the John Wayne rides off into the sunset after a rescue in the day. That's Big Ben in a nutshell, and I think the man is under rated. He's rarely mentioned as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He's got two Super Bowl rings, He's been to a third Super Bowl.

Now he's ninth all time and eighth all time and touchdown passes seventh and yards he's approaching sixty thousand yards. I kid because I respect the guy. He has had an unbelievable career. Incredible, incredible. I mean, like we talked about Joe Burrow being a rookie quarterback. Check in boxes, man, find me a box that Ben Roethlisberger does not check.

That gold jacket is going to go on his shoulders as soon as it possibly can upon his retirement, and he will be a proud member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and deservedly so. The guy is spectacular. Hopefully very soon like tomorrow. Here's a quick reminder to join Lap and Lance McAlister for Bengals Line Monday Night from six to nine on seven hundred WLW. The Bengals Booth podcast is presented by Bud Light Seltzer. It's Light

and refreshing with a hint of fruit flavor. Now time for this week's fun Facts segment, where you get to know the person under the pads. Time for some fun facts. A linebacker Marcus Bailey from the Columbus suburb of Hilliard, Ohio, about ten miles away from the Ohio State campus. Marcus, I think most of us assume that any young football player growing up near Columbus is obsessed with the Buckeyes. Were you? I think you're You're right on the money there.

It's kind of inevitable, Like everyone just has Ohio State plastered everywhere. It's kind of like all you're exposed to growing up. So, I mean, it's just you have no choice but to be an Ohio State fan. And you know, the fan base there is great, Like they you know, they're really passionate about it, about their buck eyes and about Ohio State football. So yeah, I was an Ohio State fan growing up, but obviously that that changed, that changed quickly once I got a guy exposed to the Boilermaker.

So was your childhood bedroom a shrine to Ohio State? Did you dress up as Buckeyes for Halloween? How bad was it? No, it wasn't like that. There were definitely like at least kids and in elementary schools in central Ohio or definitely like that. But now that wasn't that wasn't that wasn't me we I mean we watched the games and stuff, but I wasn't like a diehard fan, you know, you just a kind of a kind of

a fan by default. You know, we're doing fun facts with Marcus Bailey Aside from sports, Did you have any other interest as a kid. My first like athletic experience at all was like with martial arts. Actually, so the elementary squad I went to was actually in Dayton, Ohio, and Tralwood was called Trotwood Prepp and Finnish Academy, and every day we had like an hour of like either gym or martial arts. It was taekwondo, and I kind

of got attached to it. Like I was only five or six when I started, but I ended up being really good at it, I mean it good. Ended up getting my black belt and uh competed in the in the Arnolds, you know, you know the Arnold tournament in Columbus they have every year. Ended up you know, doing weapons. I was good with the bow staff. I did compete with the you know that size, I was nunchucks and then sparred. I have some trophies now I'm talking about show.

I have some trophies back in my room in Columbus, a little bit of those, like third grade, second grade taekwondo tournament, uh, trophies for winning winning stuff there. So yeah, so that was that's I guess that's a little bit of like a fun fact. That's kind of how I started my my athletic experience. So maybe it's helped me not being a linebacker, being flexible and all that. Who knows. Is there some sort of great picture or video from your childhood of you, like breaking six boards or any

naz that's like, that's all show. I don't think we didn't. We didn't really do the board breaking or anything like that. That's all like the that's like the smoking whistle stuff. That's all for show. It's all for show. Yeah, some of those boards are not even Y're easy to break comparently, But I don't know if I have any video of me sparring or not. I'll have to see if I can get access to some of that. For chatting with Marcus Bailey, your hometown is about an hour and forty

five minutes from Paul Brown Stadium. Did you come down to Cincinnati as a kid for any reason? I definitely didn't go to any Bengals games. I didn't really, I didn't go to any NFL games growing up. Actually, I don't think I really visited Cincinnati a lot. My first time really there was back in twenty eighteen. I was I was still at Purdue. I came to Riverbend for a concert and visited some friends here that went to UC. But I didn't, you know, I didn't really spend a

lot of time to Cincinnati. Actually, what was the shell? It was a Whiskalifa concert. Whiskalifa concert. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was pretty fun. It was good. You chose Purdue and you were recruited by a young coach who is now one of the rising stars in college coaching. You sees defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman. Aside from sharing her first name,

why did you two guys connect? He was a younger coach and he related to us, and you know he was I recognized the name from him playing at Ohio State, and I remember him having a lot of like being really high energy and being passionate and building like a genuine relationship with me as a recruit. You know, I thought he was gonna, you know, bring the best out of me as a player, and uh, you know, I liked him a lot, so I definitely contributed to me,

you know, committing to perdue back then. I imagine you are not surprised by his success, not at all. Yeah, I'm super happy for him. I was able to reconnect with him over over the summer, and after I got drafted, he congratulated me, and I was able to go actually do a couple couple of little linebacker workouts with him, you know, when everything was like, you know, I wasn't able to get workouts in with with the Bengal stuff.

So we're chatting with Bengals linebacker Marcus Bailey October twenty, first twenty eighteen, Perdue forty nine undefeated, second ranked Ohio State twenty and it was like a Hollywood script. You had fifteen tackles in a forty one yard pick six off Dwayne Haskins. Is that the single best day of your life so far? Besides yeah, besides getting drafted, Yeah,

it probably is. That was definitely a highlight of my college career, you know, getting the chance to play against my hometown team, and all the hype that was going into it. You know, like at this point it's for the past two years. That's that's always that's always brought up in everything because it was obviously such a you know, a spectacle, But yeah, it was. It was one of the highlights of my college career for sure. Did people back home give you crap about it? It was mixed.

It was mixed. Yeah, it was mixed. Like it was like kind of like, you know, they wanted Ohio State to win, but they wanted me to do good and say it was like, you know, it was a little bit of nix there, Marcus. That night, much of the nation got to know a young cancer patient and Produce super fan named Tyler Trent, who has since passed away at the age of twenty. What impact did Tyler have on you? Tyler was a pivotal part to our team

that year. We were motivated by his resiliency, by his will, by his strength, and he made the most out of a terrible situation. And it made you have gratitude and made you have perspective over the things that you do have. And I realized that that, you know, things could be a lot worse, and someone that's in a lot worse situation made the most out of it is doing an amazing things. So I was definitely inspiring for our football team. Yeah, I was. I was glad to get to meet him.

You had to overcome hardship at Purdue. You tore your ACL early in your college career, and then early in your senior year you tour the ACL in the other knee. At that point, you knew there was a good chance you'd have an NFL opportunity. How devastating was it? Yeah, I mean it was super devastating because after the twenty eighteen season, I had my stock was super high, and I just wanted to solidify my spot as one of the top linebackers in the country in the twenty nineteen season.

So I was super devastated after that injury happened. But this just talking about perspective, you know what I mean. Like I you know, it was early in the season. I still had a chance to get rehab before for the draft and everything, so I had to stop being sorry for myself and just look forward at that point, and um, you know, I was fortunately able to have my rehabbly successful and work my way back into a

position where I could get drafted. We'll wrap up fun facts with a few wild card questions for Marcus Baileys. At Big Ten media days prior to your senior year, you were decked out. Yeah, I was clean Haisley jacket with your initials and uniform number embroidered down the pocket, a bow tie and Purdue colors. Are you a fashion hound?

I'm a I'm a like opportunistic fashion hound. Like I'm not always there's too much effort to do it all the time, so I'm not gonna say that, but like on the top of the days that like like the big time, like the opportunities you've got to show out. I could show out on those days, you know what I mean. So yeah, Big ten Media Day or like a or like I remember we had this, or like a Halloween or something like that. I'll try. I'll try to go a little extra on those type of days.

You know. It's very impressive. You have a lot of fun posting humorous videos on TikTok. Do you have a little class clown in you? I was never a class clown because I used to always get irritated by class clowns. But I mean I try to have a you know, a good sense of humor when and find humor and situations to it helps you kind of deal with the stress.

And uh, it's always it's always good when you have people around you that have kind of a similar sense of humor to you, like a sarcastic or satirical sense of humor. You can kind of bounce that off each other. But the TikTok has been has been put on postpone for a little bit until until after until after the season. Maybe we'll see. But yeah, that was that was fun to get into that just you know, that was something new and that was kind of by everyone was getting

hyped u about TikTok. So I was like, let me, let me see what's going on here. And then I realize you can kind of get like you can you know, build a good little fan base outside of the sport with it. He posts some some videos that get a lot of views and everything. So that was just something I just try to do to my free time back then. All right, A tough one. If you could meet any athlete in history, who would it be? Lebron James One of my favorite athletes, so, like, I would definitely want

to try to meet him. If we're talking about football. One of the best linebackers I played, Luke Keekley. I mean he's not he's in your history. You think about someone has maybe passed away, but he's still alive and well. But I would want to meet him to get his perspective on football, IQ and everything. So or Lebron James. When it comes to food or snacks, what's your weakness oatmal cream pies? I like, Oh, I love some some oat milk cream pies actually, or some double stuff oreos.

Do you indulge or do you have good will power? See? I would like to say I have good willpower, but sometimes sometimes you break. Sometimes you break, sometimes you eat. The whole role, you know, join the club happens to us all you're off the hot seat. I appreciate the time, best of luck the rest of the year. Appreciate it. That's fun Facts with Marcus Bailey. Thanks to rookie Marcus Bailey.

And that's going to do it for this episode or the Bengal Booth podcast brought to you by Bud Light Seltzer. Refresh the game if you haven't done so already, Please subscribe and if you have a minute, give it a rating or share a comment that helps more Bengals fans find this podcast. I'm Dan Horde and thank you for listening to the Bengals Booth podcast