Bengals Booth Podcast: Only The Beginning

from my broadcast partner, Dave Lapple. The Bengals Booth Podcast is presented by Ultimate Bengals, the free to play next Level Fantasy football game downloaded now from the App Store and Google Play, and by on Location, the official hospitality partner of the NFL. Visit on Location exp dot com for exclusive access to the biggest events, including the Super Bowl. 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 wherever you get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since Courtney's Cookies. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, I posted a picture last week of the most spectacular looking cookies I've ever seen. They were custom designed for the Bengal Super Bowl appearance with Joe Burrow jerseys, who Day number one, foam fingers, Bengals logos,

and even coffin nails. Bam Bam bam cookies. They were made by a friend of mine named Courtney Talty, who has to be one of the world's finest cookie decorators. She lives in Cincinnati and doesn't ship her cookies around the country, but if you live in the area and are interested in custom designed cookies for a special occasion, you should check her out on Facebook. Again, the name is Courtney Talty. That's t A L. T. Y Oh. And by the way, they taste as great as they look.

Now time for an extensive radio replay of Super Bowl fifty six. Fifty four seasons ago, the most innovative coach in sports history brought professional football to Cincinnati, and today the Cincinnati Bengals get their third opportunity to make Paul Brown's dream a reality as they face the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl fifty six. The Bengals are going to go for it on fourth in a long yard at the Los Angeles forty nine. Burrow in the gun, p Rhyn stays in. Joe Burrow drops back to throw

short pass it's pattered away. It's incomplete, intended for Jamar Chase. Looked like Jalen Ramsey got a hand on it and the Bengals fail. On fourth down and one Stafford back to throw, He's gonna love it toward the end zone. Odell Beckham Junior reaches up and comes down to the ball. It's a touchdown for the Rams as Odell Beckham Junior went up and over Mike Hilton to haul in the

game's first touchdown. Burrow back to throw, wants to float it high and deep fore Chase is it the twenty reaches out comes down to the ball half the eleven yard line, a spectacular finger tip catch by Numero Uno Amma. Bengals will have it at the eleven After a forty six yard bomb from Burrow to Chase, Oh flip the football field almost half a field. He's working against Ramsey

one on one. Ramsey falls down. He turns to try to find the football and then he loses his balance in Jamar Chase finds the ball, tracks the ball, makes a diving catch one on one against Jalen Ramsey. First opportunity Jamar Chase for forty six big yard and that was a one handed spectacular catch as it started with a right hand only shooter. McPherson swings the right leg a high spinning end over end kick. It is good am.

The Bengals are on the scoreboard. A second down in five from the Cincinnati eleven, the Rams leading the Bengals seven three. Here in the second quarter, Matthew Stafford, under center receiver, goes in motion. They fake a hand on Stafford throwing into the end zone. Cooper Cup Wide open in the back right corner. Hey makes the catch for a Ram's touchdown. Higgins sample and Boyd out to the right in a cluster. The Bengals toss it to the right. Mixons throws into the back of the end zone. It

is called by T. Higgins. Touchdown Bengals Shoe Mixon floating one into the back right corner of the end zone and T. Higgins pulls it in for the Bengals touchdown. Talked about trickeration Joe Mixon. Everybody starts downhill to fill the run sweet they think it's gonna be a squeet.

They don't even look for T. Higgins. By the time the recovery is made, it's way too late for Nick Scott, and Nick Scott says, oh my gosh, Mixon's gonna throw it right over his Headford touchdown great called by Zach Taylor on the trickeration Pock running two twelve left and a half third down in fourteen empty backfield, shotgun snap Stafford from the pocket, looking scrambling left, squares his shoulders,

points deep, fires toward the end zone. Intercepted into the end zone, it is picked off by Jesse Bates and the Bengals will get the ball at the twenty year defends. They intercept Matthew Stafford Joe Mixon in the backfield. He had forty rushing yards in the first half. They fake to him. Burrow now scrambling fires deep down field for Higgins to push it over. His defender, catches the ball, runs it into the end zone. There's no po a

seventy five yard touchdown. Burrow two Higgins as he knocked over Jay Ramsey and ran it into the end zone to give the Bengals the lead. Stafford throws over the middle and it is intercepted. It was deflected off Cooper

Cup and it's picked off. The Bengals will take over at the thirty two chinabay O wooge on the deflection off Cooper Cup and the Bengals have the lead and the ball at the Rams thirty two second takeaway by the Cincinnati Bengals defense turn down in four from the twelve of the Rams shotgun snap, Burrow cots the arm and gets smashed to the ground. Burrow gets sacked back at the twenty yard live Aaron Donald with his second sack of this drive, and the Bengals will have to

settle for the field goal try by Evan McPherson. Park Haruse will snap it back to Kevin Hubert. Huber, looking back at his kicker, now turns his head, extends the right hand, catches the ball, puts it down. McPherson's kick lofted and it is good. He remains perfect in the postseason, and the Bengals have scored seventeen straight to take a twenty to thirteen lead. Matt Gay is into attempt to forty one yard field goal try from the middle of the field, trying to cut the Bengals lead down to four.

His kick on its way and it is perfect right down the middle from forty one yards out, so the Rams get points, but they do not get even. Rams have sacked Joe Burrow six times. They've hit him eight times. It's third down and nine. Usama in the backfield to the left of Burrow to pick up the rush. Burrow under pressure and he is sacked for the seventh time. Joe Burrow is down and grabbing his right knee. Oh boy. Five h seven left and the Rams ready to go for it on fourth and one at their own thirty

Stafford under center. They're going to go with an end a round and it's going to work as Cooper Cup will run it out to the thirty seven yard line second down and goal from the one. As the Rams look for a go ahead touchdown, Stafford is under center, takes the snap, floats a fade into the end zone, and it is caught for a touchdown to give the Rams the lead. Cooper Cup with the catch and the Rams have pulled ahead. With one twenty five to go,

the Bengals had to use another time out. They're down to their final time out with forty three seconds to go. They need to gain about ten more yards to be within field goal range, but first things first, they need to gain one to keep their hopes alive in Super Bowl fifty six. Burrow ready for the shotgun snap on fourth in the yard long count, Joe has the ball, drops back to throw, he gets hit, he gets rid

of the ball. It's incomplete intended for p Ryan and the Los Angeles Rams are going to win the Super Bowl. In the final score, the Rams twenty three the Bengals twenty. Cincinnati's three Super Bowl losses have been by five points, four points, and now three points. The Bengals Booth podcast is presented by Ultimate Bengals, the free to play fantasy football game. This year, Ultimate Bengals awarded a weekly winner during the course of the season with tickets, autograph merchandise,

and money can't Buy experiences all up for grabs. Find Ultimate Bengals in the App Store and Google Play. Now time for postgame comments. The first topic the dominant play of Aaron Donald and the Rams defensive front, as they finished with seven sacks and eleven quarterback hits. Here are Zach Taylor and Joe Burrow. Every tape we've watched, they hit every single quarterback almost on every single snap, and so it's a challenge. I thought our guys would tremendous job.

Earlier in the game, managing that as the game gets on. You know, they did a good job creating that pressure, and so when we had some negative plays in first and ten, you know, running the ball on second thirteen is gonna be pretty tough. So you know, it was just being more efficient in the second half of first and ten would have helped us. They played really well front to day. You know, I was proud of the way that they fought. I've been proud of the way

that they fought all season. So we all have to get better individually and myself included. Between the regular season and postseason, Burrow was sacked seventy times. Here c j Uzamba, you're one your quarterback to get hit one time, let alone. However many times it was you know, not even coming the things that weren't sacks, just him getting hit in general.

So it has been tough. You know, there's I mean, that's a franchise, right you don't want to see your franchise quarterback get hit as many times as he did. And that's probably gonna be a point of emphasis coming up. Improving the line will definitely be a point of emphasis. But despite the rams pressure, Burrow threw for two hundred and sixty three yards with a touchdown, no picks, and a passer rating of one hundred point nine. And he

wasn't afraid to challenge Jalen Ramsey. Te Higgins had that seventy five yard touchdown catch over Ramsey and finished with four catches for one hundred yards. And Jamar Chase had a forty six yard grab against Ramsey and he finished with five catches four eighty nine. Here's Zach Taylor. Our guys weren't afraid of anybody. You know. We've got tremendous players on our team, and they got tired of the narrative of all the things that other teams are going

to do it on him. And here we are in the Super Bowl and are gonna stepped up and make plays. The Bengals were only penalized four times in the game, but three of the flags came back to back to back in the final two minutes, including a highly questionable defensive holding call on Logan Wilson that would have made it fourth and goal from the eight for the Rams. Instead of having to score a touchdown on the next play to decide the game, La was gifted a first

down and scored a few plays later. Here are Mike Hilton and Zach Taylor. Honestly, they was letting his play all three quarters, and when got down today fourth, they started, you know, being a little more flag happy. But he's just named a game man. We just got to find ways to win. I thought it was a really wall fishing game, to be quite honest with you, and sometimes it comes down to moments like those. I don't have a great look at it, but but I thought the

officials did a nice show. And despite the call on Wilson, the Bengals still had a great opportunity to at least force overtime. A seventeen yard passed to Chase and a nine yard passed to Tyler Boyd made it second and one at the forty nine with about a minute to go, but a deep ball to Chase wasn't close, so JP Ryan then got stopped for no game on a running play and Aaron Donald's fun burrow around on fourth and one,

causing the incompletion that essentially ended the game. Here's burrow. Yeah, when we hit that first playoff, thought we were going to go down at least get a field, goalth title game and send it into overtime. You got again. You gotta give credit to them. They had They played their tails off for those four plays and stopped to some third and one in one fourth and one. So credit to the bottom line is that the Bengals were one minute and twenty five seconds from winning one of the

most unlikely Super Bowl titles of all time. Here's Zach Taylor, proud of them. Special group stings right now. But you got to find a way to just really cherish with this group had together. It's a special group. It's it's rare that you can coach a team like this, and team means a lot. Proud of the way that they fought. I thought they did a lot for our team, for a organization, and for our city, and they need to

be really proud of that. When the team returned home and approximately seven pm on Monday, a large crowd of fans was waiting at Paul Brown Stadium to greet them and thank them for a memorable and often magical season. Here's c j Uzama. I love the city. I love them backing us the entire year. I love going out and people are just yelling randomly, you know, just hude and trying to stop you in front of your car, like when you're at a red light. It's dope. It

really is. Since he since he's a fun place, I think you see started it. Shoot baseball started at low key rets, we're on a run. U see started it and we continued it on. So since he's since he's growing really big and you know, I'm excited to see kind of the fan base. Girl. This podcast has brought to you in part by on Location, the official hospitality partner of the NFL. Visit on location exp dot com for exclusive access to the biggest events in the NFL,

including the Super Bowl. Now time for some postgame analysis with my broadcast partner, Dave Lapham. We recorded this on a bus with the players, friends and family members from the stadium back to the team hotel after the game. The audio is briefly distorted in a couple of moments, but quickly returns to normal. Lap Unfortunately a familiar storyline for the Bengals in the Super Bowl. Super Bowl heartbreak.

They had their chances, They had a seven point lead in the second half, they took a four point lead to the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, they could not protect Joe Burrow in the second half and they wound up losing the game. Yeah, I mean it was the protection pressure thing was something that everybody was talking about, you know, going into the game. It was obviously the biggest mismatch in the game. The Rams had the number one win rate as a defensive line as pass rushers, the Bengals

with thirtieth as an offensive line in protection. And that's how it kind of turned out in the football game, particularly in the second half. I mean for a quarter and a half, I mean, the Bengals look good. I mean they didn't give up a sack, and then the dam broke and the water came pouring in and Aaron Donald von Miller and everybody else, Floyd got his everybody,

everybody overpowered the Bengals. I mean thought that they made a concerted effort to just decide to bull rush, just to power rush the Bengals and you know, not try to quick them and make moves and all that sort

of thing. And then twist started getting home. You know, just simple to e tackle penetrate end loop tackle consumed two guys and the other way around, end penetrate consumed two and tackle loop tackle twists inside those kind of things started getting home with regularity and Joe Burrow had no time, no space, and obviously he had to be frustrated. It was not a not a pretty performance down the stretch,

that's for sure. Up front, they need to address that in free agency and the draft, and if they can get to get some bodies there that would be helpful. After nine sacks and they Tennis Ce game, the Bengals changed things up on the offensive line and alternated. I came idenergy and Jackson Carmen had right guard. Jackson got fifty one percent of the snaps in the AFC Championship game. He didn't get a single snap as far as I could tell in the Super Bowl. Do you figure it

just had to be the back acting up? I figured, yeah, I mean he missed quite a few practices and those things you can flare up and cause issues. And I'm sure that maybe during pregame warm up, something, you know, flare it up on him and for him not to take a snap whatsoever, he obviously didn't trust that thing. I don't know if the trainers ruled him out or he told everybody that he just felt like he couldn't go, But whatever the case was, he because you think a

guy at that age, at any age. Really, he doesn't want to miss the Super Bowl, so it has to be something pretty significant for him not to be able to play whatsoever. I can see why maybe Frank decided missing practices, you're not going to get as many reps as a Dentergy, but to get none, particularly the way I Dentergy was kind of struggling against Aaron Donald and some of that bullrush stuff. Carmen's a bigger body, naturally stronger type guy. You know, you think you maybe give

it a look. So I think it was something physically that was preventing Jack's and Karments from going out there and give it effort. The other big problem for the Bengals in the game was their inability to convert on third and short and fourth and short two instant since in the game where they had an eight yard gain on first down and could not get two more yards to move the sticks, Third and short killed them, Third and long killed him defensively. I mean they were in

situations third and nine. I can remember a third and seven. You know, they gave up chunk plays, big plays, and that's uncharacteristic. So you know the thing that Zach was talking about that he was so impressed with with the team all season long was being situational masters, you know, and they didn't master it in the Super Bowl. Third down, third and short offensive it was an issue. Third and long defensively was an issue. Red zone was an issue.

They let they let the Rams you know, score three red zone touchdowns, which is uncharacteristic, and they could only generate one themselves, and uh, you know, it just ended up all that, all that collectively ended up biting them. You know, they're only I think the fifteam in Super Bowl history to lose the Super Bowl having a plus turnover margin. But in my mind it's not plus because I think that they should change the turnover to include

fourth down stops because it's the same thing. You're ending a possession without a kick, no punt, extra point in field goal, and that happened at the Bengals twice twice, another situation, no situational football. Fourth down in short they lose on two of them, and one of the first quarter, on one of the fourth quarter, they're ultimately costing the football game. They convert on either one of them could be a different deal. The other thing, Dan is field position.

They get killed. You know, their last four drives. I think it was the last four and maybe the last five, the average drive start was a twenty yard differential. I mean the Rams were basically at their own forty. The Bengals were at their own twenty. And that you know, you're giving up two first downs, and you're having trouble pass protecting, and you're giving up twenty yards per possession, and you know you're having negative plays because you're getting sacked.

That's that that put you behind the eight ball too. Did t Higgins get away with offensive pass interference and or a face mask on the seventy five yard touchdown? Yeah, I mean you look at it. Ramsey was upset and rightfully so when you look at the replay, I mean you can see Ramsey's head get jerked, you get torked a little bit. So there was something that could have been called. The official was blocked out of it, I guess didn't really get a good view of it. So

I mean that that was a fortunate non call. And really, you know, throughout the course of the game, the officials pretty much kept their flags in their pocket and let the players determine the outcome, and down the stretch you know, at the end of that drive, with all the penalties that were called in the low red zone, you know, that was that was kind of against the flow of

how the game was called otherwise. So but with with what went on in that play, I guess you really can't complain all that much because the Bengals got a huge, huge touchdown coming out of the third quarter, coming out of the locker room for the third quarter, and how about them plus eighty a regular season and playoffs in the third quarter differential best in the league. I mean, they just dominated people and early on, you know, right away,

come out of that locker room and score points. I thought when they won the twenty cosson deferred, you know, he thought something was going to happen, either at the end of the half, are you gonna get the third quarter or both, like it had happened so many times during the season. Fifteen carries seventy two yards for Joe Mixon four point eight yards per crack. But he was not the guy that got the ball on fourth and

one either time. Yeah, he wasn't in the game. You know, p Ryan was in there, and I thought, oh, maybe he's in there for blitz peckup, but he stayed in the game. So you wonder if Joe, you know, he's had ankling problems, he's had other injuries, you know, to his legs, maybe he exacerbated some kind of an injury there for him to not be on the football field

down the stretch. I mean there, you know, you have to figure that he got nicked up in some ways performed two where it was to the point where he felt it was better to have one hundred percent smaj p rud in the football game rather than whatever percent Joe Mixon would have been operating on under in that case. And I should clarify they gave it to p right on third and one, then tried to throw it on fourth and one both times and it didn't work. So

going forward, Bengals obviously have a great nucleus. Most of these guys will be back, but it's so hard to get back to the Super Bowl, particularly the AFC. Right now. It's any great on quarterbacks, it really is. I mean, you know, we talked about it before Dan Marino. Everybody thought, oh he's young stud early early in his career. He goes to the Super Bowl against Joe Montana and he and his team get thrashed by Joe Montana in the

forty nine ers and he never goes back. You know, a Hall of Famer through for five thousand yards in like nineteen eighty four with like forty whatever odd touchdowns. It's like, this is a guarant this guy's going back perennially never again. So you just you just never know. You can't you can't count on anything. Obviously, That's why it was. It was there for the taken. That's the frustrating thing. It was there for the take and if they just you know, you can in these kind of games,

and you know, I've been there. Man, it's hard to get over Super Bowl losses. And the thing is they didn't self destruct. They didn't turn it over fourth down, they didn't get to do a good job on shortyarded situations on third and fourth down, but actually fumbling or interceptions being thrown, you know, that wasn't the case. But they did self destruct on those shortyarded situations by lack of execution and or as sigmon er or a combination

of both. So you can always go back to those you can go back to a million things in that football game that if this didn't happen, or that didn't happen. There's got to be probably twenty in a football game like this that you if any one of them went differently, they're either in overtime plan still or the game ends a different way. The good news going forward is they've got the quarterback and they've got a lot of great players around him, and the fan base is all the

way back. Any sort of anger dating back to the nineteen nineties is gone. Sincinnati has fallen back in love with this football team. It really has. And I think I think a performance. You know, one thing about these guys is their grit showed. You know, even though you know they didn't perform well in some areas, most specifically protecting the quarterback, they just never quit. They never say die.

They're very pretty. I think they probably got a respect from a large part of the population because they're you know, their blue collar, they're you know the American way, you know, fight scratch claw ever you get an opportunity to take full advantage of it, and they almost won a Super Bowl where you know, shoot, they were and even on national television in terms of Sunday night or Monday night football at all, this year, and they're gonna be on a bunch next year because I think the country has

fallen in love with Joe Burrow and this football team, and obviously the city of Cincinnati and the Tri State Air and everybody sure has. But um, you know, I do I do think that. I do think they've made a lot of fans. I'd be stunned if the TV ratings aren't record because you know, over three out of every five TV sets watched the playoffs during you know, the playoff games, and they were all come down to the wire. Well, this is the super Bowl, this is

the the huge deal. This is it. So I bet all kinds of eyeballs were on this football game and hopefully listening to radio broadcasts of it too, because the interest is at an all time high. I mean in the NFL, it's like it's like IBM used to be. You know, you say ib Everyone's like, ooh, well now it's the NFL. Man, It's it's not Fortune's Fortune five. I mean everybody's like all National Football League, anything associated with the NFL get some big time respect these days,

for sure. But more on the super Bowl and what lies ahead. Join Lap and Lance McAlister. For Bengals Line Wednesday night from six to nine on seven hundred WLW. That's going to do it for this episode of the Bengals Booth Podcast, brought to you by Ultimate Bengals, the free to play Next Level Fantasy Football game, and by

on Location, the official hospitality partner of the NFL. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to this podcast and if you have a minute, give it a rating or share a comment that helps more Bengals fans find us. I'm Dan Horne, and thanks for listening to The Bengals Booth Podcast