Bengals Booth Podcast: Keep On Pushing

Hi, get everybody. I'm Dan Hord and thanks for downloading The Bengals Booth Podcast. The Deep Bone Push addition, as the Bengals take a huge step forward in Week two at Kansas City, but wind up losing a heartbreaker on the final play of the game twenty six to twenty five. Coming up radio replays, locker room comments, and postgame analysis from Dave Lapham. Then, in this week's fun Facts Conversation, you'll get to know robo leg rookie punter Ryan Rico.

Drop Chris Jones off sides, get him to jump.

Two receivers on each side of the formation. Shotgun snap Burrow from the pocket, good protection.

Hey Thine. It's caught looking to.

The twenty five, twenty fifteen ten and down to the six, goes tight end Mike Gesicki. It's going to be first in goal, trying to give Cincinnati the early lead. The snap, the placement, the swing of the right leg. The kick is on its way and it is good. And the Bengals go down the field and score on their opening drive to take a three to nothing lead. Mahomes back to throw, good protection, fires down the middle. It the

That's a pretty good role call right there.

Third down and goal from the four, shotgun snap, Burrow cocks the arm, throws a dive toward the pylon.

Yeah it is call it they're talking about.

It's a conference no signal yet, touchdown andre Yoci Bosh Noah Gray motions as Mahomes drops back to throw from the pocket, slings it deep as a man open deep. It's going to be a touchdown to Rashi Rice. He went streaking down the left sideline. Mahomes dropped it right in the bread basket for a forty four yard td Second and ten Kansas City. The Chiefs at their own forty two yard line. Here's a handoff to steal. The rookie runs up the gun. The ball comes out. He

Yeah.

Mahomes in the gun, second and goal inside the one. Mahomes fakes a handoff, throws a pass caught jan Ye Morris. They go with a trick play. They throw it to an offensive lineman and jan Ye Morris catches the TD. The ball's in the middle of the field at the thirty. Burrow back to throw after faking de Boss, he guns it deep Tremaine Burton over his shoulder catch at the Kansas City twenty five. He gets tackled at the twenty two by Jalen Watson.

I'll tell you Dan what to throw.

Fourth down and goal from the three, the Bengals elect to go for it, even though a field goal would give them the lead. Burrow looking to throw, bouncing backward, he throws into the end zone and is caught for the touchdown. Andre Yo Sivosh with his second touchdown catch of the game, and the Bengals, with a gutsy call, go for it on fourth and goal from the three and score. Mahomes from the pocket, throws toward the left sideline, tipped and picked up. The Bengals are on their feet

And he catches it with one hand, the right hand.

He's back to throw. He's under pressure Joe takes off and gets dragged down. The ball comes out, Kansas City scoops it up one The Chiefs are running it back at the ten five Chamari Cotter goes into the end zone.

What he wasn't down and Joe's not disputing it.

A fifty three yard attempt from the right. Hash rookie punter Ryan Rico is the holder. McPherson is set, Adam Mighte is ready to snap it back to snap the placement. Money Max swings the moneymaker and his kick is good and the Bengals are back in front with nine twenty eight to go.

Here we go forty.

Eight seconds to go, Cincinnati up by two points. Fourth down and sixteen for the Kansas City Chiefs. Mahomes catches a shotgun snap, drops back, bouncing at the twenty three scrambling left, stays behind the line, throws down field, broken up by days on ay, there's a penalty flag on the Bengals rookie Wow.

He's gonna call pass interference on that.

Rashi Rice was the intended Reconcei Wow at the thirty five yard line of Cincinnati, fifty one yards away for the win. Three seconds left in the game. Winchester ready to snap it back. The snap, the placement, the right footed kick by Bucker is good. Kansas City wins twenty six twenty five. You know what, I hope in the very near future that Dejon Anthony makes a great play

Is that how it feels.

Yeah, I mean the only point of the game is to win, so like it feels like that. But also you lost, so it's a tough one of Smoller for sure. But we'll be back, and you know, we did some good things tonight, so that's promising for sure.

Do you feel like the Bengals showed that you're the team that everybody.

Thought you were? Yeah, I mean we knew it. I think the public more was doubting it, but we knew our identity and we came out here and we fought and we're just gonna keep building.

Let's just discuss your two touchdown catches. The first one I think think I saw that play in training camp. Yeah, where you just made a great move to get open up the pilon and then kept your feet in bolence.

Yeah, I mean I just waited for Joe's eyes and then I sprinted back to the pilon and he made a really good throw, like only where I could get it, and you know, I kind of just let my legs go dead and just dragged him.

In second one, fourth and goal gots he call to go for it. You got wide open on that one. Yeah.

Oh, I was supposed to run across the field, and then I saw Joe look at me, but I felt the defender undercut me, so I knew that wouldn't be a good throw. So I kind of just did my own thing and just went back to the right.

Final drive of the game, Joe throws a pass that looked like it got on you a little bit fast, a little bit high. Described that play.

Yeah, it's a bang bang throw. You kind of want to clear that linebacker level and get your eyes around. They were watched it on the film, but I wish I could have came down with that one, for sure.

Bengals Chiefs. I mean, every time you guys play, the lead changes hands in the fourth quarter. I guess we've come to expect these classic games, and unfortunately classic game but with a bad ending for Cincinnati.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think we both respect each other, man. You know, we both know what's on the line whenever you play each other. So we'll be seeing them later, for sure.

And there's six meetings over the last three seasons. Each team has won three, and the overall score is Kansas City one fifty three and Cincinnati one fifty. It is a tremendous rivalry. Defensively, Jermaine Pratt had a career high sixteen tackles, and Trey Hendrickson was a pass rushing menace. He had two sacks, three quarterback hits, and drew three ten yard penalties. Here's Trey in front of his locker after the game.

You know, you don't get sacks if there's no good coverage, and you don't get good sacks is not good rush. So you know, credit to the rest of the defense and you know, we we we'll get back in the wing calm.

How much did you take even as much pride over the penalties too? I mean it wasn't just when you got there, but drawing those those penalties are being massive.

Was that as much, you know, as effective as the sacks in your mind?

Well, you know that's one of the things.

You know, the integrity of the game needs to be there, you know, no matter what on rushing, you know it's it's keeping your hands out of the.

Other guy's face.

It's that way for the defense too, So you know, when those things happen, you know, credit to the ref But I mean, you know, it's it's whatever way you want to look at it. Sometimes you get the call, sometimes you don't. You just gotta keep rushing.

How tough is it when you outplay them in many ways and don't get the win.

Well, this is a win loss league, you know. Unfortunately that's the way it is. And we have a lot to build on, a lot to get better about, and we look forward to doing that next week. Big step forward for the defense today, in your opinion, A lot of guys stepped up. You know, we had we had a lot of guys played at a high level. I mean Sam was rushing great. On the other side, Joseph stepped up, and you know the guys interiorly, when guys

A lot to look forward to.

But right now, tough loss.

How much does.

Change for you when the guys on the inside go down?

Well, you know it's it's those are your brothers in battle, you know, those are those are my guys. We've been through a camp, We've been through a lot of adversity in the short period of time. But we're building that culture and identity as a defensive line that's unique every year. So when you see one of your friends and brothers go down, especially guys playing at an extremely high level like Sheldon and BJ, it gives opportunity for the younger guys.

When you guys are able to force turnovers this week, what does that do for the confidence and momentum of this defense?

You know, like I said, there's a lot to be excited about, a lot to fix right now.

We're w and too.

You know, nobody's panicking, but there's a sense of urgency to dial in and do the fundamentals and technique that lead to winning, you know, and things like that.

So and it's not one particular play.

You know, there's there's a lot that goes into losing and there's a lot that goes into winning. And it's usually a one possession game and that's how it goes.

The Bengals won the turnover battle three to one, which almost always means victory. But Evan McPherson missed an extra point, Jamar Chase lost control of his emotions and got a fifteen yard on sportsman like conduct penalty, and Dejon Anthony was called for pass interference on fourth and sixteen in the final minute. Those are the type of mistakes you

Heartbreaking, coach, I mean, gave everything that the team had to give. They gave it.

Yeah, disappointedly lost, Proud of how our team fought, you know, and gave herself opportunities to win that game. We came up one place short, but again, loved the energy, loved the enthusiasm, loved the relentlessness, Loved how we played together as a team, Loved the emotion er guys showed.

There's a lot to build all here. There's no question about that, you know. It's just it's it's a play here and there, I mean a turnover for a defensive touchdown. Those are always tough things to overcome when you get an unscripted, unconventional score like that and then appendently on fourth and sixteen is a tough pill to swallow as well.

It is, but you know it's it's part of the game. And those bang bang plays, they're going to call it like they see it. I thought a defense did a great job rising up, giving up what two yards on the next three plays, making it a difficult field goal. Unfortunately their guy just punch it through.

So where do you I mean, obviously major improvement in the performance today than the performance in the in the opening weekend. Do you what's your thought on that? We keep growing?

You know, that's what we do. You know, it's we don't We're not a team right now that that takes pride in our losses. You know, we expect to win. That's that's where we're at as a team. But there's a lot of things to continue to build off of that are going to lead towards a really good season. We got to come back on Monday Night football in front of what I assume is going to be a tremendous crowd, give us great energy and come back and start pointing this thing in the right direction.

What did you like best about what your offense did today? Kept fighting?

You know, I think, you know, we finished in the in zone on every possession of the first half with points at least, came out in the second half right away, scored and and you know, just just man just missed by an indshine a couple of players there in the fourth quarter. But that's when you play good team. That's how it's going to play out. And came down to last second kick like it always does against these guys, and you know, we just got to suck it up and be ready to move on.

I thought your your tight end group had a great game. I thought your game plan with your tight ends was pretty darn good. I thought it kind of hurt them early on. They had to make some adjustments to what you guys were doing. What did you think about your tight ends today? All wrong, did a.

Great job, James Casey gets guys ready, had a lot of them we can use in a lot of different ways. I thought the way that the run game of the past game has built this week to help those guys and take the pressure off some of the receivers at times too. You know, with the defense they're going to play to that. So again it's I thought the execution is pretty good you know, we just needed one more score there.

Joe obviously I thought played a much different football game than what the opener. You saw in the opener, What did you think about Joe Burrow's performance today?

I had a chance to get a rhythm. We've got a lot more points, you know, and so just again, the first drive getting points on the board changes everything for your team. And and they're you know, when you're not able to score until the second half last game, we don't get a chance to get into a rhythm. So this is back to the team that we know we're gonna.

Have this uh, this rivalry and it is that I mean between the Bengals and the Chiefs is just I mean the games are like instant classics, every single one of them. It's it's incredible to watch these two teams.

Yeah, we got to continue to fight. There's there's uh, we'd love to see them again, you know, and get our chance to win the game. You know, that's that's got to be as we move forward, the expectation that we'll see them again.

Appreciate your time as always, thank you.

So the Bengals are zero and two, just like the Ravens who lost at home, to Las Vegas. The Browns are one and one after a road win at Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh is two and oh after winning at Denver. The Steelers have only scored one touchdown in two games, but their defense has been outstanding. Up next for the Bengals a Monday night home game against Washington that will feature Rig of Honor induction ceremonies for Tim Crumrae and

Lap.

You've been there, I haven't been. What's it like as a professional athlete when in many ways you outplay the opponent and a good opponent and don't come away with a win.

It rips your heart out. I mean it's the most devastating, you know, feeling other than you know, personal tragedies like you know, death, of a love corners and people say, ah, come on, no, seriously. I mean it's put you put so much into it and you feel like you got it and then it's just ripped away from you at the end of a football game like that. It's it's tough, you know, it's it's a hard thing to bounce back from.

I think let's discuss a few positive Let's start with Joe Burrow. Nobody's going to be asking a bunch of questions about how he lifts a water bottle anymore risk looked fine through the ball. Well, Joe Burrows back.

He is, and you know, I think you should have had you know, yeah, two hundred and fifty eight yards on twenty three completions. I can think of four drops, you know, would have given them probably three hundred yards and twenty seven completions. You know, I thought he played well. I thought he you know, he bought time in the pockets, manipulate in the pocket. It looked like it looked like Joe Burrow really did, you know? In the unfortunate Dana

You said before the game and laps keys to the game, I want to see multiple tight ends. I want to see a sixth offensive lineman. You got your wish. And that is one of the most productive receiving games by a tight end groups the Bengals have had in a long long time.

I'm just totally it up. Fourteen catches, one hundred and fifty one yards out of the tight ends. I mean, I thought that the game plan was extraordinary. I thought that Steve Spagnolo initially was just playing soft shell coverage. You know, it was like when you go three tight ends like that, that's what they do, That's what they'd shown, I guess, and that's what he did anyway, initially. And

I'm guided for Dejhon Anthony. He's sitting there in the locker room like he saw a ghost. Nobody wants to say anything to him. How do you boost a teammate after one of those moments, because it happens, It happens to a lot of great players, it does.

You got to give them some time in space. I mean I always handled it like I waited till they wanted to come talk about it. You know. I never went over there and like, you know, hey, you know you'll be fine.

You know.

It's like, man, you just gotta It's almost like when you do lose the love, when you have to agree for a while, you know. And I think there's a grieving process when something like that happens to you. And you know, he had a penalty that negated an interception or fumble whatever, it was a turnover that was big. But Bengals got another one. But this one, you know, obviously it's right at the end of the football game. It gives them their final yards necessary basically to kick

I'm sure this is going to sound absurd, but I feel worse about the Patriots game right now than I did last week because if they were one and one with a performance like that against Kansas City, we would all be thinking this team is on its way, and I still feel good about how they're going to play

You've convinced me you're recommend to sound I mean, honestly, I could. I felt kind of as I was walking down to the locker room, felt kind of the same way. It's like when I look back, you know, at some point in the season and say, Okay, in Kins City game, I mean, that was a dogfight. That Patriots game. Man, that things, that's that's got a lingering odor to it.

Chris Jenkins is out, McKinley Jackson is out, b J Hill, Sheldon Rankins exited today. I don't know how serious their injuries are, but the Bengals are painfully thin right now at defensive tackle.

They sure are.

Well.

You got to hope that Jenkins might be able to participate next week. He's had you know, the surgery, and he's had different clubs put on it, and I think he's probably going to be auditioning other clubs to see what type of club he's gonna have to use to

The row and two. The Ravens are rowing two up next to Monday night home game against Washington. We know how well the Bengals have played at primetime games at home in recent years. After that, a road game at Carolina, the Panthers, at least so far, looked like they're the worst team in the NFL. They must get to two and two before Baltimore in Game five.

Absolutely, you know, I mean, it's you know, you look at there's all these stats out there, teams that start going to only five percent of them, you know, get to the Super Bowl in the last X number of years or whatever. It's a good football team. It's still it was better than they played light years better and they played in the opener. But they still have upside, a good deal of upside. And that's that's the encouraging thing. Like you said, though, missing, some body's gotta get all

One guy should be back soon, as t Higgins, who has been dealing with a hamstring injury. There have been a few times this year where I found myself thinking te probably would have made that play. Now time for this week's fun fact segment, where you get to know the person under the pads. Time for some fun facts with punter Ryan Rico, a native of Veradale, Washington. I am not familiar with Veradale. Where exactly is it? And describe your hometown.

Yeah, I've never actually said I'm from Veradale. It's just Spokane, Washington, but yeah, just right there in the valley. Went to Central High School. Just growing up in the Northwest, everything you can think of, having fun out in the outdoors, playing sports. It was a great time.

Kicking runs in the family. Your older brother, Austin was a great kicker and punter in college at the University of Idaho. He had several opportunities to compete with NFL teams in training camp. How did the Rico brothers become such great kickers.

Man, It's kind of just a weird niche that we kind of fell into. We grew up playing basketball mainly, and then soccer as well. When my older brother got to high school, they needed a kicker, saw that he could kick it pretty far on the soccer field and kind of recruited him over. So then from there, it just kind of took off. He was able to go and play in college. Being the little brother that I was, I wanted to do what he was doing and try

We're visiting the Ryan Rico. The longest field goal in the history of high school football is sixty eight yards. Your brother made a sixty seven yard or he just missed the all time record. Were you there?

I was not there. I was babysitting my other younger brothers. I remember one of my friends is like, dude, did your brother just hit a long field goal? And I was like, yeah, I mean he's hit some long ones before. He's like, they're saying like sixty seven yards, and I was like, no, I think he might have heard it wrong, like that's a little too long. Parents come home, They're like, I can't believe you guys weren't there, And so obviously

Is Evan McPherson aware of the fact that your brother made a sixty seven yard field goal.

I don't think he isn't think. I think he knows that he punted, but I don't think he quite knows about what happened in high school. So I'll have to I'll maybe have to drop that one time when Evant hits along, and I'll be like, my brother hit that like ten years ago, something like that.

You are a punter in a linebacker's body. You are six four, two hundred and thirty five pounds. Did you play linebacker, defensive end or anything like that when you were a kid.

No, So I didn't start playing football until high school. My freshman year on the freshman team, I played tight end. But really I thought basketball was going to be more my path, and so it was more like, just stay healthy during football season. You can be athletic during basketball season. So kicking and punting definitely lended itself to staying healthy throughout the fall, and then it was just kind of trying to show off during basketball.

When it was time to pick a college, you chose BYU. I've read it was your dream school. Was that the case and if.

So, why? Yes? Absolutely?

Looking back on my time at BYU, I mean I don't think I would be the same person that I am today. A really big part of that was just lined up with my values. I'm a member of the church. It allowed me and go to serve a mission for those two years and just was an absolutely life changing experience. Helped me just develop learn what life is all about, kind of get my priorities in line and establish that

Those LDS missions are really interesting to me. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about them. You went to England. What was the experience like for you and what did you gain from it?

Yeah, that those two years I feel like meant everything to me, just because it allowed me to really kind of establish who I was, because when you're out there, nobody knows that you're gonna go play football or what you've done in the past, and you're really just there to try and help, to try and serve others. And so just getting to see that everybody has something to offer, you can learn something from everybody. I think without that, I just would not be the same person. I feel

After your mission, you went to BYU in twenty twenty and punted right away. You were the punter for four straight years. In twenty twenty one, you had an eighty three yard punt, which is the school record. I went back and watched the video. So the line of scrimmage is the seventeen the ball winds up in the end zone, but the actual punt, when you kick the ball, you were at your own six and it landed at the other team's ten. That's eighty four yards in the air.

Yeah, I would like to think that having a linebacker body helps, but really I feel like just sometimes you hit a ball and it just goes like it just takes off. So obviously you want to do that more often than not. And gratefully we had a lot of feel to work with on that one, but really it's like you don't get out there thinking like, yeah, I'm gonna set a school record and hit a really long punt.

Is that the furthest you have ever kicked the ball, practice, game, et cetera.

Oh man, I've hit some other from the WINUS scrimmage seventy seventy five yards before, so however far that is from where you actually kick it, But that one, that one was just really clean that I I remember exactly how it felt and just literally just like dang, I caught that one really well.

Any golfer can identify when you hit one just right we're visiting with Ryan Rico. You average more forty seven yards of punt in your college career. You were considered one of three legitimate NFL prospects in this year's draft. As it turned out, only one was selected. That's not that unusual. The Bears took Tory Taylor in the fourth round. But were you disappointed not to be drafted.

I think you're always hoping. You always want to be able to say, like, oh, I was a draft pick like I. Of course, everybody wants that, But at the end of the day, it's not where you get selected or drafted, it's what does your career look like after that. So I think for me, that's just fuel to the fire, like I want to be able to go out there and show every team this is exactly what you miss, Like I know that I can help a team. I know that I can be a part of something bigger.

Of my career looks like.

And you get to be an NFL team starting punter from the beginning of the season. Brad Robbins is obviously still here as he recovers from his hip injury, but do you look at this as a regular season tryout essentially to be a full time NFL punter.

I think whenever you have an opportunity like this, it's just you have to look at it as that it's an opportunity. Nothing is guaranteed or given. And so the way that I'm approaching it is just like, Okay, I have four games to essentially show you this is what I can can do for our team further down the line and in years to come, and I'm just excited, I think to be able to fulfill a childhood dream

For some wild card questions, Now, for punter Ryan Rico, who is your all time favorite athlete in any sport?

I probably have to say Lebron James. I think I have to go with him, him or Christiano renaldoun soccer. That was just growing up, love seeing the highlights of them.

Question number two in the wild card category. If you attend a football game at BYU or a basketball game, they serve something at the concession stands called the cougar tail. Oh yeah, it's basically a fifteen inch long doughnut covered with maple frosting. Are you a big fan of the cougartail?

Huge fan, huge fan of the cougartail. You can't eat it by yourself.

I've tried.

Doesn't feel great afterwards. They do a chocolate one occasionally on like Halloween or something, But yeah, that's that's a must have if you're going to a game.

They're very gracious. They gave me one when I was there for basketball last year, and I saved it for the flight home. Savvy veteran move to have that for a long flight.

So one hundred percent of veteran move. That's Sometimes they'll have extras in the locker room of the game. It's like, yeah, this is gonna be breakfast tomorrow, that's for sure.

All right. What was more impressive? Your eighty three yard punt or your brother's sixty seven yard field goal.

Sixty seven yard field goal, it's for them. It was to send them into overtime. They end up winning the game. Literally, last second field goal mine was in like the first half or something like that. Like it was just kind of like, oh, it was a cool punt whatever. But yeah, that field goal, that's tough to top.

Ryan, you probably have the greatest yards per carry average in BYU history. On your one run on a fake punt, you ran forty nine yards. Describe the play.

Yeah, that was a mistake by me.

We were playing.

It was in the COVID year, so there's no fans even really late in the game. We're up by like thirty points. Maybe we'd worked on it in practice all week long. It's like, if you get this look, you run it. And so we called it. Wanted to show it on tape because it was like a roll out rugby punt, but you can run it. And so it was the exact look. The personal protector looks back at me and I'm like, yeah, we're running this like we're

So outstanding. All right, final fun fact for Ryan Rico. This one's kind of deep. If you could meet anybody in history, living or deceased, who would that person be?

Goodness, I think it'd have to be Jesus Christ, like the knowledge, the understanding, just you'd get a lot of answers, I feel like, to a lot of things that have happened or will happen, And so I feel like you can't miss on that opportunity. Yeah, that's like a kind of a token answer, but I think i'd have to go with that.

You're off hot seat. I appreciate your time. Best of luck this year.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

I am calling him roboleg. After two games, Ryan is averaging fifty nine point three yards per punt with a net average of forty eight point eight. Both numbers would have led the NFL last year by a significant margin. That's going to do it. For this episode of the Bengals Booth Podcast brought to you by pay Core, Proud to be the Bengals Official HR software provider, by Alta Fiber future proof fiber Internet design to elevate your home, business and community to a new level, and by Kettering