Bengals Booth Podcast: Right Here Right Now

is no other place I wanna be. Addition, as the Bengals look to capitalize on a six game stretch of their schedule in which four of the games are against teams with a combined record of nine and twenty eight Washington, the Giants, the Cowboys, and the Texans coming up, Dave Lapham joins me to discuss how the Bengals are handling positive COVID tests among players and coaches, and the teeter totter that aj Green and te Higgins have been on.

My one on one player interview is with Mike Daniels, and we'll find out if he agrees with my prediction that he has headed toward a highly successful career in broadcasting when his playing days are finished. And in our know the faux segment, I'll ask Washington radio voice Bram Weinstein if he ever slips and accidentally says Redskins. 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 pod Bean. It's the greatest thing since none. During the pandemic, we've tried to support local restaurants by getting takeout once or twice a week, including

occasional trips to our favorite Indian restaurant. I'm a big fan of Indian food, and for me, the best part of the meal is the non the oven baked flatbread. There used to be an Indian restaurant in town that served a non which a sandwich on none that might have been the greatest sandwich in history. So if you are a restaurant to or in the Cincinnati area, put a nonwich on your menu and I will beat a path to your door. Now let's get to my conversation

with Dave Lapham. It's been a turbulent week and a half for the Bengals, largely due to COVID nineteen. They did not have Fred Johnson last week, they did not have Marcus Hunt last week. They did not have several of their coaches, including four that they thought they would have until game day. Stuff to overcome it is, I mean, you know they're they're flying out to Pittsburgh. Coach takes off his mask to eat. You know, they have their masks on even when they fly. Duffner's sitting across from

them and a linebacker coach sitting behind them. Both those guys are contact traced, and I mean they're woken up like in the wee hours on the morning to tell them, you know, we've got a situation here. You guys are part of contact tracing. Stay in your rooms, quarantine until further no and then earlier a few hours later, they're told get rental cars, al golden and marked. After they have to get rental cars, one each drive back separately

to Cincinnati. Crazy and Dan. When you have guys that were as experienced as these guys head coaches both have been former head coaches during the course of a game, I mean their eyes, experienced eyes are valuable. They're experienced, you know, just having all the experiences of being a head coach as well as coordinator and position coach and everything else for all those years. When you're making adjustments

and adjustments to adjustments as that game goes on. That that's a factor, you know, and players like to come off the field and have the same coach that they're speaking to when they come off the field, and all that change. Am I saying that's the reason that Pittsburgh thumped them? Hell no, I mean they didn't do anything right. There's no any one of the three phases. Nobody in any of the three phases stepped up and played modicum of a game that would have been worthy of a

victory in Pittsburgh. But all of these things are facts, and it certainly didn't help the cause. I can tell you that for sure. Because of the positive tests coming out of the buy. Nothing has been normal since. Their meetings have all been virtual, their practices have been disjointed. They've been wearing masks at practice. It's unprecedented. Teams have never gone through anything like this before. Let's hear from Von Bell about the Bengals trying to deal with these

COVID issues. Man, we're in a weird time and you never know, how can you get the virus whatnot? And it's like it's weird. But when you get close contact, they track it with those tracers and and so you could be next to somebody for five minutes and then got do in close contact and you could be knocked out and it's always the next play, next man of mentality. It's like man, and it affects the whole group because

of you know, we're not getting that time together. We could spend the meetings and really break down of how can we do this and get detailed and what can we do in the game because all on zoom and you're not getting enough reps sometimes and it's just crazy, man. So you know, you just gotta find a way because nobody cares about that. Like my old coach's telling me, Man, ninety percent of the world I don't care about your problems.

Ten percent care that you got them, and we just gotta figure out to produce on Sunday and then that's that's that's the end of it, and we just gotta find a way. Let's talk specifically about zoom meetings. Everybody and just about every walk of life is doing them these days. But when it comes to a game plan and a team football setting, how much do you think they're missing by not being in a room discussing exactly

what they're going to do against the next opponent. Well, I mean, you know you can you can still follow the grease board in a zoom with the coach up there at the grease board. You can watch tape, you know, on zoom with a coach. It's you know, the meetings. That's the big thing to me is when they go on in the field, like you said, they go out

and shifts. So the offense will come in, and the offense go out for a walkthrough, they'll leave, Defense comes in, defense goes out for a walkthrough, they leave, and then they all reconvene a few hours later for a practice and uh so, and right now they're in the stiffest protocols possible because they've had positive tests. So that's that's the stiffest scenario schedule wives that you can go through. Pittsburgh was going through it. That's why with Ben not

practice or you know, he had treatment. That's all he was going to do anyway, and he went out and played. Well, I'm gonna not take credit away from for doing that, but I think that whole thing was overrated. He couldn't have done any more than he did anyway. COVID or no COVID and he's in his seventeenth year. Yeah, I mean there's there's no that was no. Uh that was Everybody's like, oh, my gosh, it's just unbelievable. Ben didn't practice.

Ben hasn't practiced a bunch of weeks during the course of his seventeen year career and then gone out and played on game day. Right, he said so many times he just stands behind watching the other quarterbacks, and that's helpful. Yeah, but yeah, he's getting mental reps, you know. And you know, the bottom line was, in my opinion after watching it again, the Bengals played zone every time. You know, Pittsburgh went jet sweep motioning guys. Nobody went with them, so they

knew right away of the playing zone defense. And they're just playing soft. I mean, forget cushion. They were giving counties up. It wasn't just cushion. And part of that is if you're getting beaten, you know, I remember coaches many times pushing the defensive backs in practice, get up there, get up there. I don't want you given an eight

yard cushion. I'm talking like four yards. What do you do well your natural instinct when you think that you've got a guy that's a good receiver in Pittsburgh had three of them, and the defensive backs that were playing a corner weren't necessarily all starting corners. Your tendency is to back up. I remember one time in an All Star game, had a cornerback that was getting torched by this wide receiver who's damn good on the other team,

obviously going to a big Division one school. The kid lined up from the they have the ball at the eight yard line. The receiver lines up our defensive backs two yards in the end zone. He's given him ten yards. Be's so scared. It's like, there's no field from to run behind you. What are you doing? But he's Your natural reaction is to back up, and that's what the Bengals were doing in the secondary. When I watched this, like, oh my gosh, they just basically didn't didn't really feel

like I can make place here. I got all the confidence in the world. I mean, they were they were playing defensive defense. I mean they weren't. They weren't playing offensive defense. I can tell you that they weren't aggressive. They were very, very not aggressive in their posture, and Ben took full advantage of it. But yeah, it's it's it's crazy, crazy times. There's no other way to put it. It's whatever can Murphy's Law is twenty twenty with COVID nineteen.

Whatever can happen will happen, and you better be ready for all of it. And you know, Zach mentioned earlier today on Zoom conference calls that press conferences that you know, during training camp they had all these things in place. If this guy goes down, this guy's taken it, and

every team had to do that. You have to go all the way through your coaching staff and have plan B, C, D all the way to z. Yeah, it's one thing to make a plan, it's another thing to actually have to do it or the guy that's never done that job before. I also wonder about the state of anxiety because of the positive tests and all the things that have happened over the last nine or ten days. We get tested once a week as NFL Tier three employees.

So we got to Paul Brown Stadium. There's a trailer outside, You go into the trailer, you get your test, you leave immediately, and then sometime overnight you get an email that your results are in. You go to this website, you check the website and you get your result. And I've had no symptoms. I feel great. Nobody in my immediate family has tested positive and Yeah, there's always a tiny bet of anxiety for me when I click that link,

just to know for sure that I'm not positive. Yeah, I mean, it's it's unfortunately, it's a fact of COVID life. You know, it's it's the uncertain. Here's what you're dealing with, and it is it's an unusual time. And as said from the very beginning of this, the teams and the coaches and players that can pivot the best and avoid over infection of COVID nineteen are the ones that are gonna gonna survive in advance. It's a it's a it's

a much different ballgame. There's no doubt. Last week's lost in Pittsburgh wasn't a good day for anybody, but it was a particularly tough day for AJ Green. He was targeted five times in that game and did not have a single catch. Here's head coach Zach Taylor on the status of AJ Green. We have a really deep receiving corps and so it's a benefit for the quarterback where he doesn't have to be dialed into just trying to get a ball to somebody. He can just throw to

the open man. And you know, so again it's just it's part of the way it goes. I've kind of predicted that this could happen for a couple of guys as the season goes, where a guy has eight catches one game and has zero the next game, you know, And so again we just are careful enough to overreact to that. Aj Green did have eight catches in one game, the Indianapolis game, eight catches for ninety six yards. Came back the next week had seven catches and a very

solid game against the Cleveland Browns. But really that's been it this year. Yeah, it's still still kind of a work in progress. The one thing I will say is he's drawn the number one corner again, you know, I mean he was, he was matched up in that scenario. So, like we said before, he used to draw the number one as well as tilting his safety over there. That is not happening as much. I think they paid a lot of attention to Tyler Boyd and as a result,

he Higgins benefited. So there's a trickle down, you know, trickle up, trickle down. When you have three good ones, you know, you can't double all of them. Somebody's going to have the day. Who are they? Who are they going to try to take out of the game, and who are they going to try to see who can they might be able to handle more one on one.

They do feel like most teams do feel like putting their number one corner on AJ eliminates them and then they can play accordingly coverage wives with the other guys. So until AJ starts UH, you know, ramping it up a little bit in terms of production and UH and makes people change their mind. It is good to get that number one corner removed from the process, but like

to see AJ break out of it. Do you think he has lost a half a step because he's thirty two or because he missed the last year and a half. I think it's both. I think it's at the double whammy. You know, when you lose when you're when you're off the field and out of the game for that long a time frame, and you're also hitting that magic year of thirty and you know, getting into those into those early adult years as such, it's hard. So I think it is a combination, and it's it's a combination you

don't want to have to experience. And I think he's going through the process now of having experienced it and trying to come out the other end on the flip side. Te Higgins had the best game of his NFL career, at least in terms of catches. He had a career high seven grabs, targeted nine times, finished with one hundred and fifteen receiving yards, including a touchdown. Let's hear from Tyler Boyd on his rookie teammate, te Higgins. He really

can be a very special player in this league. You know, he just gotta be more detail in a few things. I mean, that's saw a rookies have to work on. But I think I think he's hit it in the right direction so far. So the the skuy thelema for him. We were told before this draft that it might be the best wide receiver crop in history. Man, it looks like they got that right because most of the guys that were selected in the first two rounds are having

fantastic rookie years. Yeah, they really are. And U te Higgins, I think Tyler Boyd hit it on the head, you know, a little more attention to detail. First play the game penalty a little bit later in the game fumble and that's stunned te Higgins. I mean, he does not fumble. He hadn't fumbled a while, and he was like wooh, but he got over it. You know, the thing is he had the penalty and had the fumble. Two things you don't want to do. You don't want to cost

your team yards. You don't want to cost your team to football. And what did he do? Responded to the diversity? Made plays. You know, it's good to see him have that mental toughness to absorb when it's not going well, compartmentalized, move on and play. And he played well. So a lot of positives there. Eliminate those couple of negatives and you'd have as good a game as you can possibly have. He's on a pace to have more than a thousand

receiving yards his rookie year. Tyler Boyd. His success obviously speaks for itself. He's got sixty catches this season for that third spot. Obviously, AJ is still the guy for now. But do the Bengals have to consider rotating Odd and Tate in more frequently or Mike Thomas in that spot. I don't know. I don't think it's to that point yet, um, but you know, I mean, at some point in time, it's a meritocracy. You know, and I think AJS is acutely aware of that as anybody. The Bengals are one

of six teams in the NFL. They have three different guys with five hundred scrimmage yards and more. AJ is automatic in that in that role. Call not this year, it's it's mixing Still and Boyden Higgins and AJ Green and doesn't even have four hundred yards, you know if scrimmage yards just barely over three hundred. So he's at a different place on the totem pole. But you know, I'd love to love to see him have a breakout game, uh when when it's least expected. I'd like to see

it happen more than once. I'd love to see it happen against one of the division opponents that have left Pittsburgh in Baltimore, because he's had those kind of games against him before. Twenty nine year old Quentin Spain was picked up a few weeks ago after being let go by the Buffalo Bills, and he certainly had an interesting

first two games as a member of the Bengals. After joining the team on a Friday, he wound up playing most of the game in the victory over the Tennessee Titans, and then this past week, due to the absences of Bobby Hart and Fred Johnson, the Bengal's top two options at right tackle, he had to play that position really for the first time in an NFL game. He'd played a handful of snaps, but nothing significant until last week, and he played extremely well. Here's Michael Jordan on his

new teammate Quentin Spain. It doesn't even compare how impressed I am. I mean, oh, my goodness for him. So I was supposed to play against the Titans and I went down sick with colleidis, and you know, he just got there. What there had to be three days, three days, knee comes in. He has a hell of the game. I was like, this guy is the real deal. I need to learn as much as possible from him. So I'm truly impressed by him and his experience as a

veteran offensive linement in NFL. What was more impressive coming in and playing in two days or going out and playing right tackle. Well, they're both impressive, honestly, and I thought he did a tremendous job at right tackle as well. Quinton Spain, he knows, he knows defenses, he knows you know the playbook, and he knows how to react to different defenses on what they're doing. So he's just an impressive guy all around. How well did he do it right? Tackle?

Very well? I mean, what is legit? And a couple of times he buckled him, I mean he covered him up. He did a good job. Now you know, a couple of sacks to what gout. One of them was on a twist, a te twist tackle penetrated Redman staying on the tackle a little bit too long when he hit them off to Spain and what being so quick, Redman couldn't react back inside, So that doesn't go as a downgrade to Spain because he was blocking the tackle that

he ended up having to block. And you know the other sack that Watt was involved with, Joe Barrows climbing the pocket. He kind of clouded with Trey Hopkins a little bit and held on to the ball probably a little bit too longer than than would have liked. And uh, eventually walk got a piece of that action. But I mean, Spain, to me, this is the most unusual and incredible storyline an offensive lineman's ever had here in this franchise. They come off the Street and in three days Friday Saturday,

play on Sunday. I have a walkthrough on Saturday and a coach's office with other coaches and other players in the offensive line. Tells me that what he's got Dan is he's got the feel for the game. He's got instincts. He sees the big picture, I mean the total picture, though the picture window. It's it's not a little porthole. He sees it all. And Willie Anderson was like that. Willie saw the game, you know, and a lot of guys in Spain, Spain has that has that ability, and

Adenogy as well. I mean he's playing next to Adenagy in the Tennessee game and then the bye week and then he's a bookend tackle with a Dentagy And as Dennis Green said, they were who we thought they were and we let him off the hook. Identagy is who I thought he was. And once he actually got a chance to go in a game and play without any preseason games, he's who I thought he was. Identagy has

done a good job at left tackle. And if Jonah Williams could have if he could have played instead of just being an emergency guid, Adenagy would have been the right tackle. Jonah would have been the left tackle, but Identagy stayed at left tackle, and they said, ask Spain, He's like, let's go. And I thought Identagy acquitted himself well with Dupris and uh, I thought that Spain did well with Wat as well. Michael Jordan's the left guard,

Alex Redman is the right guard. Do you see those two guys holding off Quentin Spain for a starting spot the rest of the way this year? That's a that's a great question what I would do. And you know, I'm I'm a believer in if you have shown you can play, play him some rottum in why not play

all three of them? Just rote every every series. You know, two guys play one sits, then just rotate them, rotate them every series in there, because at some point somebody's gonna go down again, whether it's COVID nineteen injury or whatever. And it's like we talked about before Major League Baseball. You're a utility guy. You don't sit them and then you know, for like twenty five thirty games and then expect him to come right off the bench and be the guy that he you know normally is you have

to let him. You have to let him still go out there and perform. So I think there might be in that situation in a couple of categories. I mean, in my mind, when Bobby Heart's back, and you know in Jonah Identagy, rotat them, rotate those three. I have no problem. If there are seven or eight linemen that

can play, let them play. We know Bengals are patient with coaches, to say the least, and this is only year two for Zach Taylor, but at some point every coach needs to win games, and so far Zach's record is four twenty and one. Well, it's gonna have some opportunity to add some wins to that ledger in the weeks to come, because three of the next four games are against three of the lousiest teams in the NFL so far this season. Washington this week two and seven,

then the Giants three and seven. A couple of weeks after that Dallas currently two and seven. Houston is still on the schedule this year. The Texans are two and seven. Here's von Bell on facing some of the weaker teams in the NFL. We don't even look at the record, you know, we always think about the next game because it's the biggest game, and we just trying to build upon and keep on getting better each and every week and just trying to stack wins. And that's the end

of the day. That's all we're come to do at work every day. So we don't look at the record. We just going to work every day and just getting better, all right. So that's what they say, that's what they always say. But you played the game for twelve years as a pro. How much does a team's record going into the game affect your mindset? Well, depending on my record. I mean everybody's doing that to us. I mean everybody's looking as oh, the Bengal I can't wait to get

to the Bengals game. You know, that's that's one we're gonna get. So it's it is, you know, to me, it's it's almost like on any given Sunday kind of thing, because it's happened. You know, we've had games where how do we lose to that football team and it's happened. But yeah, I mean when you are playing a team down the stretch that has struggled to win football games, you feel like you have a better opportunity to get one of your own. I mean, Zack doesn't have a

road win yet. He has a tie against Philadelphia, you know, that very elusive road win. Maybe this weekend in Washington, that would be good to get off the schneide. There no doubt. Does he need to win a few games in the final seven weeks of the season. Oh, I think so, I think so. You know, it's you know, you just you can't continue validation. You can only buy in for so long. Words start to get hollow if there's not validation of those words and everything that goes

along with them. Got to get some ws. Like I said, one season that sticks out in my mind, we start oh and eight and I don't think I've ever worked harder some of those weeks to prepare for a game and have no result, No, like a terrible result oh and eight. I mean it's like, oh my gosh, man, working too hard for no return on the investment of the work. There's nothing worse than that. There's nothing worse

than that. It's like, you know, if we're doing a radio show, prep harder than we've ever prepped to do a good show and come on the air and stink it out for whatever reason, just stink up the joint you know never happened, you know, or a salesperson that's out there just you know, going after all kinds of making cold call after cold call, can't close the sale to save his life. You know, it just gets in

one of those one of those ruts. And the thing is, that's why you get the big bucks when you're struggling your job. Everybody knows about it because it's the National Football League. That's why you get paid so handsomely. But man, the bottom line is everybody's human beings with the same human emotions and the same human feelings. Nobody wants to go work as hard as they're working for no good result.

It's like, you know, you're still getting your paycheck, but you're not really getting the payday because you're not getting any w's no pay day. They've certainly been close to that payday. The Bengals have taken the lead to the fourth quarter in six of their nine games, including every game they played outside of the AFC North. 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 one on one player interview. This week, I caught up with Mike Daniels, who has been chosen three times by his peers is one of the top one hundred players in the NFL. Mike, about a week ago, you tweeted that you love it here with three smiley face emojis and a Jodey hashtag what are you loving? I really enjoy the locker room. I enjoy the fan base. Everybody really supports the team out here and they love they love the Bengals and coach Taylor. I really like

coach Taylor Man. He definitely knows how to take care of his players, and he cares a polo players as a players coach, and he really commands respects in that way. So really, I really do enjoy that. And I like the guys that management has been bringing in. I can't I really remember looking back and seeing that there's a there. There is a theme with the guys that are bringing in, and everybody are bringing in has a tough, hard nose demeanor.

So that's that's the kind of guy I am. And it's always good to be on the same page with your employer. Man, I love it, I really do. Or chattingman Mike Daniels. Early this season, you messed up your elbow in practice and had to miss a few games. What happened and how bad was it? I believe it was a It was just a strain, and it's really the same injury that knocked me out put me on

IR last year. But this time around, I did a really good job taking care of it, recovering from it pretty well, and I was ready go in two weeks. Unfortun I had to miss uh three games, but you know it, I taken care of as we can see on the film, and I'm am I feel feeling really good. You've been getting more and more snaps every week. You had a season high forty two last week against Pittsburgh. Do you feel like you're getting back to being the

dominant player that you've always been? Absolutely, and with the more reps that that definitely happens, and I really do. I'm really enjoying this process right now. It's it's tough, but it takes you back to a good place of humility for more areas of growth. So I definitely feel like I'm getting back to a really good place, and

I think I'm in a really good place right now. Definitely, progress from the Browns game to the Titans game to last week in Pittsburgh, and really the only issue I have is the fact that we went went and two in that span. You just gotta continue to I gotta get some more those wins. I asked Alex Redman about you last week, and he said, hitting Mike Daniels is like hitting a school bus? Is that what you want offensive lineman to think after they spend a day lined

up opposite of you. That's absolutely what I want offensive lineman to think, and to come from a guy like Redman who hitting him is like hitting school bus as well, that's a that's an awesome compliment. I gotta make sure I give him a hug for us speaking speaking so highly of me by saying that. But but that's definitely what you want. You weren't anything. You want the respect

from the guys that line up across from you. You can make a whole bunch of plays, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have the respect, right, So you really want the respect of your peers and your brothers out there, your brothers in arms and your brothers in combat. And that's uh, that's that's what it's all about. Chatting with Mike Daniels, if there was a big positive last week against the Steelers that were stopping the run twenty carries for forty four yards, did you look at that as

a big step forward despite the final score. That's that definitely was a step forward, And outside of a couple runs against Tennessee, we did a pretty good job stopping that run as well. So we've been doing a good job with that in the last few weeks here. We just have to be more consistent with it and everything else will start to follow with that. You're facing Washington this week, led by quarterback Alex Smith, who's made a miraculous recovery after nearly having to have his leg amputated

a couple of years ago. If you have a chance to deliver a clean but brutal hit, well his history enter your mind at all. Well, I'm not a dirty player, so you know I'm not gonna go for the head or anything like that right now. Those times where you could grab a quarterback by the legs, but those days have done so you don't go for their legs anyway. So it's just all about playing football and him being the great professional that he is. He's had a lot

of sense in NFL. He knows that I'm not necessarily thinking about where a guy had an injury. I'm just focused on delivering the best blow, and that's in the waste to but below the neck area, you know, just in that core body, and that's the that's full walls about. That's where you're talking to, tackles where you're taught to hit, and that's where I'll hit. Mike, You're thirty one, You'll be a free agent at the end of the year. Do you know at this point if you want to

keep playing. Absolutely, I definitely want to keep playing. I'm going to keep playing, and your wife and kids are on board. Everybody's on board. Man. We enjoy football. We enjoy playing it. Well, I enjoy playing it. They enjoy watching me out there, and I want to continue to provide that. All right, I'm going to make a bold prediction for what I now know is the distant future. When you decide to hang it up, you are going to thrive as a broadcaster. Does that interest you? Oh?

I love speaking. I love being in front of camera, and I love speaking to people more importantly. So absolutely, I definitely look forward into a look forward to getting into doing some form of broadcasting. Rockin talked to some of the guys about football and many other topics too. Like I said, it's the distant future. Correct, Correct, Mike, appreciate your time, best of luck this week. Thanks thanks

for having me look forward to the next time. Mike, just do to be a free agent after the season. It would be great if he had a strong second half of the year and worked out a deal to stay in Cincinnati. Now time for our know the faux segment. Bram Weinstein, the former ESPN SportsCenter anchor, is in his first year as the radio voice of the Washington football team, and he joined Dave Lapham and me this week on the Bengals Game Plan show. Look up to the XS and o's in just a second. But I have to

start with this question because it's my fear. On Sunday, have you slipped and said Redskins at all? So I put a jar in the booth and we decided that anyone who says the our word has to put twenty bucks in it. Twenty take, yeah, twenty. We've got to make it worthwhile and whatever the total is by the end of the year, it's going to go to a charity that we all agree and decide on. And it

hasn't happened one wow, not once I've said it. I have a radio show in DC, and I've said it a million times in the three hours you know that we do the radio show here. But something it's turned into. Somehow, it's turned into like, you know, how you can turn your brain off and not say a curse word when you don't when you don't want to. Somehow we've been

able to control it. It It has not been said once on one game day broadcast it's because you you made the figure twenty dollars lap and I said we would do one dollar this week when it's only one. You don't really care enough. That's right, it has to be worthwhile. But we've we've gotten through it. And you know, the

funny part is that I don't know. I would love to hear your experience with this when because of my first year doing this, and I wanted to have some kind of touchdown call and I'm limited in my choices are so it's going to end in Washington, you know, no matter what. And so I think I've just kind of trained in my brain over and over and over just to say, Washington, that's pretty good. That's real good. So there are a couple of real inspirational stories with

this football team. Ron Rivera publicly fighting cancer. That's inspirational, no question about it. And then Alex Smith. What do you say about this guy? They should rename the Comeback Player of the Year award, the Alex Smith player, the Comeback Player of the Year award. They really should. I mean, the guy has thirty eight completions throughout a ninety yards against Detroit, both career highs. What do you say about

Alex Smith and what he's done. So it's amazing we're talking today about it because this is the two year anniversary, literally to the day of when the injury happened against Houston, and it also happens to be the exact anniversary of the date that Joe Eisman broke his leg on Monday night football against the Giants and it ended his career.

And One, because both of those things happened to you almost arguably two of the best of the maybe five quarterbacks that have come through this organization over that period

of time. One, it tells you how advanced our medicine and training regiments are now that Alex Smith is playing somehow, playing when he almost lost his life, and Joe s. Eisman's career was definitively over the second that the practically the exact same injury occurred back then, So it tells you about progress in the sport and in medicine and

in recovery, which is amazing in its own right. And secondarily, to answer your question directly, back in the winter and spring, when it was pretty clear that he was going to try to give it a go and test his body and come back, there was not one single person in or out of the organization that thought he would play football again. They were all really proud of him, and they thought this was an incredible example to set, and they wanted to keep him around the team, especially with

a young quarterback here for mentorship. But no one thought he would be playing by the time the summer rolled around and practice, you know, whatever portions of practice we could watch. I'm sure you went to the same thing with the Bengals there. Because of the COVID protocols, it became pretty clear, at least to me, that if they actually gave him an opportunity to compete for the job, he would have had the opportunity to win it. They

chose not to do that. Like they wanted Dwayne Haskins to win the job, they wanted a clear path for him. They brought in no particular competition for him, and they did not think Alex Smith was going to be in his way. Anyone who has seen the documentary of called Project eleven about Alex Smith, you can't unsee what you see there. He nearly lost his life. They almost removed his leg. He had a flesh eating bacteria that you

can't unsee if you see it. And there's part of me, and I think a lot of us that go, Okay, we appreciate your proving a point. Why do you have to run away from Fletcher Cox. Why don't you just go run an iron man or see in France or do something like that. But he's done this and then all of a sudden, in the last two weeks he's had back to back three hundred plus yard passing games, one in relief, having had no snaps with First Steamers at all since this, you know, since this recovery began,

and it truly is an inspirational, an amazing story. And he also just happens to be the type of person you want in your locker room, whether he's your quarterback or your backup or someone who just works in the organization. So this is beyond an inspirational thing that's occurring here. Brand Before the injury, Alex Smith was one of the most mobile quarterbacks in the NFL. How's his mobility now?

It's not the same. He is able to move, He is able, you know, he uses his acumen and skill to get out of trouble and get out of the pocket. But he has not you know, he used to run. I mean, he was one of the original run pass option type quarterbacks because you could do that with him. We have and seen a lot of that yet and I don't get the sense at all that he is interested in trying to figure out if he can do that.

And Washington is going out of its way to try to protect him as much as possible, not because they don't think it's unsafe for him to play. They believe that his leg is safe, but I think they know that his body cannot handle that level of mobility. And really the big unanswered question here is now that he's the starter, at least while they're in it's a playoff race because of their division, at least while they're in that that we don't know how long he can physically

handle this, Like can he really do this? This is a beware of what you wish for, Like he wanted to come back prove something to himself or whoever else. Well, it happened, and now we're asking him to do this for seven, eight, nine weeks, and I don't think anyone knows the answer to whether his body can physically handle that. Well. I guess a good way to help him be everybody else step up and the running game. What's the status of the running game in Washington? Very poor, very erratic.

A couple problems here at one, they have not scored first in any game they've played. They have been down by double digits in almost every game they've played in the first half with the absence of Dallas, who came in here completely inept a situation. Outside of that, they've been behind in every game they play, and so they end up getting away from the running game. They have problems along their offensive line, have got a lot of injuries that may manifest themselves in a real tough way

this weekend. It happened last week against Detroit, but Morgan Moses, who's their right tackle, had to move to left tackle at the end of the game because of injuries for both Chair and Kristen and his backup Cornelius Lucas, and that may stay that way this week, so we're not sure how that's going to play out. And the running back JD. Mckistick is outstanding out of the back yield as a almost traditional receiving back. He will get some handoffs, but he's never going to be a full workload type

running back. Antonio Gibson is the rookie they're really excited about, the third round pick, and he's been outstanding for them, but he's transitioning to running back. He took maybe thirty three snaps as a lead back and was mainly used as a wide receiver. They're using him in both roles, but out of the backfield, so he's really learning how to be a running back. So coupled the two problems together.

They get behind in every game that they're in, which forces them to throw the ball to try to come back a lot more. And they have inexperience and injuries across their offensive line, and what you'll see are results that don't look very good on the whole for the running game. A couple more questions for the radio voice of the Redskins, Bram Weinstein. There's a lot of interest here, obviously in former Ohio State Buckeye Chase Young, the second

pick in the draft. There were some that thought the Bengals should have taken him or traded down and tried to take him in order to get more draft capital. How is Chase Young doing in his rookie year? Good? First, you have to put twenty bucks in the jar because I heard you say the R words, and I really it's only a dollar on our end. Hold that he's been great. He's been everything build is advertised. He's a monster.

He is. You'll get one look at him and you'll go, man, I wish that dude was on my team so he could be a game changing type player for them. Now, last week, he owes them one because the reason why Detroit won in regulation and it didn't get the overtime was a very bad late roughing the pastercall that was completely unnecessary that gave Detroit a shot on a fifty nine yard field goal. Otherwise they would have been playing in overtime after a major comeback against them a week ago,

so that one's a little bit on him. Other than that, he is typically getting double and triple teamed because you cannot block him one on one. He's got a lot of energy, and I think what we like most about him here he's humble, he's team player, he talks work ethic, he wants to get better, he wants to be coached. He's one of those first in, last out type of guys. And there's nothing better than when the best athlete on the field and it's clear that he's the best athlete

on the field wants to be that way. And he's also walking into a really good situation here, Like if five first round picks on their defensive line, most of which we're young, and unfortunately matt I and I just got hurt for them, is missing the season, he might have been their best interior defensive lineman. Had he been there as well, they would have been even more effective. But they've spent first round picks in the last four years on two interior defensive linemen at two rush ends,

all of which are performing pretty well. It is by far the strength of the team, so they're not asking him to do this as a lone wolf. Collectively, it is their strength. Surprisingly, the trouble that Dave had the last couple of weeks last month is their run defense. So even I don't know what Joe Mixon's situation is, but even backup running backs for the Giants, we're having easy time moving the ball in the ground against Washington and that's something that we hope is going to be rectified.

But young in itself. We look at him and we go, this could be our Khalil Mack or our JJ Watt. You mentioned built the defensive line through the draft. Secondary was done in free agency, I mean overhaul the secondary and free agency. And Jack del Rio, who I have a lot of respect for, is put together and pretty good, pretty good scheme. It looks like, I mean, number one in the NFL against the pass, fifth and first downs alloud, top ten and you know, multiple categories. Is del Rio?

Is he made that big an impact? Did the numbers justify the way they've been playing? No, they really actually don't, and they're actually their deceptive. Like last week, you can go, if you go look at the box score the game against the Lions, you will not understand how Washington lost. They ran almost thirty more plays, had twelve thirty more minutes time of possession. Like every metric you would look at and barely turn the ball over one So every metric you would look at, you go, I don't know

how they lost that game the Lions. It's deceptive. The Lions were able to move the ball so quickly and efficiently against their defense. The time of possession looks skewed that way. It's happened against the Giants twice too, over the last month. I don't want to sit here and say that they're you know that they're bad. They're not like, they're clearly an above average group. But it's deceptive when you see these stats and say they're number one at

this or number one at that. Their record shows you that their defense is not as effectives as those stats might suggest, and they do have a lot of work to do. And as I mentioned before, the big surprise run here is teams that aren't great running teams are running the ball on them pretty easily. They haven't caused the turnover in a few weeks. They're not getting anywhere near the sack totals that they got. They're having trouble getting pressure with their front four, which should be the

thing they had in their hat on. So there's a lot of room for improvement. They're not bad, you know, by any stretch of the imagination, But maybe the bar was just set a little too high because we're expecting them to be top ten in every way eye test and statistical test, and they're not meeting that. And they've had a couple of injuries. And the other part for them that I think would be a concern against Cincinnati is they've given up a ton of deep balls, a ton.

When Landon Collins was in there, it was problematic. Even as he's injured, it's been problematic. They have made numerous changes at the safety position. One of the guys who became kind of the main replacement, Duches or Everett, may not be playing this weekend. They've been beaten over the top, over and over and over by teams that are capable of it, and that's a concern this weekend too. The number that blows my mind. They've forced eleven fumbles and

recovered one. That's almost impossible. They're a little unlucky. Oh my gosh, it'tle unlucky that way, You'll see. It's it's interesting, like there will be periods of the game. This happens every week. I describe them as inconsistent, Like there are periods where you'll watch them and you're like, oh my, like they're electric, You're like, oh my, you can't block them.

And then there are periods where you just walk right through them and it's as if it's a completely different team and we just quite can't figure out what's going on here. This is extremely resilient. They come back in every game, the results are close. They could very easily have a very different record right now, and I bet

you probably could say the same things familiar. We're both bobbing our heads, Like I remember we played Cleveland early in the year, and I watched the Thursday night game where Burrow through twenty seven fourth quarter passes or whatever that was to get them back into it. And I think you all know that the record probably and I haven't watched enough really the Bengals jet, but I'm pretty certain I'm going to see the same thing, that their record could be different. You could say the same thing

about Washington. You'll watch him in the first half and you'll go that team didn't show up or they weren't prepared or whatever it is, and then the second half you'll go, I can't believe they're practice. They look unstoppable at times, so they're very inconsistent. There's a lot going on here. If they're a young team, they got a new coach. They do believe in this coach. As you mentioned with Ron Rivera, there was a lot going on

there with his health. He was not as available he would have liked to have been, but he fought through it. His chemotherapy rounds. The regiment's done for now, he said. The bye week kid at the right time for him personally, so he's more engaged and more available to the team. And this is the process for them, and they're selling

it as a process. The tough part's been I think, you know, we all think around here, especially with the defensive talent that they have, that the record could be a little better than it is, and so they're looking for a couple of results to kind of validate the process. They're going through it as you all are probably going through the same thing there. Don't forget to tune into the Bengals pep Rally Show this Friday afternoon on ESPN

fifteen thirty. We're on a half hour earlier than usual this week two thirty to five thirty, and our guests include the great Greg Kosell from NFL Films. That's going to do it for this episode of the Bengals 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 thanks for listening to The Bengals Booth Podcast.