Rich Eisen Marvels at Joe Flacco’s Huge Night in the Bengals’ Pivotal WK7 Win vs the Steelers

Rich Eisen Marvels at Joe Flacco’s Huge Night in the Bengals’ Pivotal WK7 Win vs the Steelers

Before we start in Cincinnati, Ohio, uh we’ve got to start in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What were the Steelers going to uh Cincinnati to play the Bengals last night? Um and uh and Mike Tomlin was first up this week with one of the sound bites of the year. uh showing up and showing out and then firing a a a verbal grenade in the direction of Berea, Ohio, where the Cleveland Browns have their front offices where once upon a time uh I I I do believe he Andrew Barry, the general manager, got a phone call from the Cincinnati Bengals saying, “Hey, uh you just benched Joe Flacco. You just had him standing there with earbuds. Mhm. Uh if we had clipboards anymore in the NFL, he’d be holding one. Um he’s standing there in London and watching Dylan Gabriel play football. And so uh long story short is you want to trade Joe Flacco over here cuz you know our backup quarterback and Jake Browning is uh doing something to the bed here despite the best efforts of Rich Eisen. Despite the best efforts of Rich Eisen trying to talk Jake Browning’s game up and uh we could use Joe Flacco here. Uh, I know he’s your week one starter, but he’s no longer your starter. Um, I know we’re in division, but maybe just maybe you could check this box and we could, you know, hang out some. And Andrew Barry goes, “Sure, sure.” And, uh, Mike Tomlin was, uh, what’s the way to describe how he felt about this? Yes. Yeah. Not happy. This is what he had to say earlier this week. You know, to be honest, it was shocking to me. Um, Andrew Barry must be a lot smarter than me or us. um because it doesn’t make sense to me um to trade a quarterback that you think enough of to make your opening day starter uh to a division opponent that’s hurting in that area. Um but that’s just my personal feelings. From Cincinnati’s perspective, did it make sense for them? It certainly made sense from Cincinnati’s perspective. So, it’s almost as if Mike Tomlin saw Joe Flacco becoming the fourth quarterback in NFL history to have 300 or more passing yards, three or more passing touchdowns, and no interceptions in a game after turning 40 years old. joining Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Drew Brees in that regard. It’s almost as if he saw Joe Flaco becoming the first Bengals quarterback to have three or more passing touchdowns or zero intercepts and zero interceptions the same game against the Pittsburgh Steelers since Carson Palmer in 2005. It’s almost as if he saw Joe Flacco tying a franchise record for Cincinnati with five passing touchdowns in his first two games as a Bengal. It’s almost as if he saw Joe Flacco improve upon his first start for the Bengals in Green Bay just five days later to come up with a 100 passer rating in the two games combined after having a passer rating of 60.3 in weeks one through four for Cleveland worst in the NFL. It’s almost as if Mike Tomlin saw Flaco have two passing touchdowns and six interception in his first four games as a Brown and having three just last night against his Steelers. It’s almost as if Tom saw it all. Nostra Tomlin. No Tomlin. It’s almost as if Mike saw it coming. And sure enough, it wasn’t Jake Browning against the Steelers last night. It was Joe Flacco doing Joe Flacco comeback player of the year with the Cleveland Browns things and Joe Flacco MVP of the Super Bowl for the Ravens things for the Bengals. Every team but the Steelers in the AFC North, he’s touching them all. And last night he also had the um the idea of just winging it whenever he needed to. This is the crazy thing for Flaco to do what he did on Thursday Night Football against the Steelers. And again, um it is u quite a night for him. And Joe Flacco the uh numbers 342 passing yards on 31 of 47 attempts. Jeez, he almost had as many attempts as he’s had years on Earth. Come on. He had more so. It’s too old. Pass a rating of 108.6. He was hot. He had a fever. And that fever it was was the well was the it was the Pittsburgh Steelers secondary. Yeah. As he was baptizing him all night long. It’s amazing cuz this sound bite says it all. He was kind of winging it cuz he doesn’t know the playbook fully yet. Some of these words are so new to me and when you don’t get a like I honestly felt like this week was probably a little bit harder than last week just because it’s such a short week. You’re still putting in a full game plan. You don’t get to hear the play as much. Um, so there were certain things with like and I can picture everything, but there’s certain things with formations and things like that that you’re hearing for the first couple times and even though you’ve read the play a million times, like when you hear it, it would just wasn’t hitting my brain, right? So there was there was a few of those and we were joking on the sideline like anytime that happened and we broke the play and it and we broke the huddle and it was like I don’t know if we’re right here. I mean that play hit. So like we so we we got lucky tonight in that sense. Wow. Works. Wow. Tomlin’s not laughing. It’s like he saw it coming. You know who’s laughing? No. Thomas, Zack Taylor’s laughing. Oh yeah. Yeah. He loses one Joe and another one shows up cuz the Browns are like, “Take our Joe. You lost your Joe.” He’s laughing cuz he’s off the hot seat. Take ours. What a night. Roll it. Outstanding. Outstanding. Outstanding. Yeah, Joe. I mean, it was outstanding. Really? I mean we’re we’re I mean we how many drive we scored on what like six of the last seven drives maybe seven of the last eight what seven of eight. Okay. So um and really early on we had some some drops and some quirky stuff happen uh that prevented a score there. So uh just thought his performance was outstanding. Very very calm, collected. He’s got 18 years of experience playing these games. I mean, we’re in a short week playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game that we needed to have and he’s just like the just it’s easy for him, you know, and and it’s not cuz he’s putting in the work. It’s just he’s he’s so experienced in this situation. Um you gain a lot of confidence from that because he goes out there, it’s not too big. Um I have to annunciate my formations better because some of them it’s we’re hearing them for the first time and so I got to do a better job annunciating. I think it’s my Oklahoma accent. got him a couple times. Um, but uh, I thought he did a great job managing the game. Diction. He needs to work on his diction now. Which, by the way, right, of all the things that Zack Taylor said that he needed to work on with his team over the last month, uh, where where do you think diction ranked now? This is what happens. This is what happens when you when you acquire Joe Flacco and you stick him in and Flaco’s playing like it’s 2023. Well, I’ll just tell you this and and again, I’m not an all 22 guy. Um I’m not grinding tape like say Kurt Warner, right? I don’t have a YouTube channel. I mean a YouTube channel with a million subscribers. Hey now, I don’t have one dedicated to all 22. So, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m if I’m a little out of my lane here. Sure. Sure. Um, but the offense is easy to pick up when you can throw it to Jamar Chase. Simp. There’s two number one receivers. There’s 30 and which is why it was just like, “Hey, Jake Browning, like bro, what’s up?” Like, you know, they were there. How does how does Chase and and and and Higgins sound to you, you know? And then Chase Brown having over a hundred yards rushing on top of it. That helps and but Flaco was getting the ball out quickly. Yep. He was not like the Iron Deer on the front lawn. But Jamar Chase, I wrote it down here. Uh he had a record 1 million targets last night. That’s really He had as many targets as we have YouTube subscribers. That’s really what I see what you uh 13th career game with 125 or more yards and at least a receiving touchdown. Um tied for fourth most in his first five seasons. The only ones who have more are his uh college teammate Justin Jefferson. How stupid was that roster at LSU? I mean they I mean we got Ryan Clark an hour too. I’m sure he’ll Kan Booty too doing it for New England with with the u the first Joe that started for the Bengals this year. Uh Randy Moss had 14 and Lance Alworth Bambi Randy Moss uh 16. So the Bengals 100% kept their season afloat. Yep. At the end of the year we’ll wonder if this is when they saved their season. Um and that’s a fact. Trey Hendrickson wasn’t in this game. Aaron Rodgers looked so he did superb. Yeah, he looked like old school Rogers where he’s moving around. He’s sliding around. He’s sacheting around. He’s got eyes in the back of his head dropping dimes. The first dime he dropped to DK Metaf on the night, you know, in the bucket right on the sideline. He’s finding every tight end that he’s got for a touchdown. I’ve got a did you know on that to end the first hour, by the way. And um and he’s showing up and showing out to the point where it set a record for most combined passing touchdowns by 40-year-old quarterbacks in a head-to-head meeting of all time. Seven of them. They had seven touchdowns. Dang. Last night as Rogers had four, Flaco had three. And uh the three previous matchups were all Brady versus Breeze. Um, and so on a night where Rogers is showing up, on a night where Rogers is showing up, scoring a touchdown against that Bengals defense to Pat Fri on a wideopen shot at the end of the game to shock the world and give the ball back to Flaco to say, “Try and win it, Joe.” And yada yada yada, he did. But for him to do that, and by the way, Rogers was set up, and you want to talk about how terrific he looks. Um, he threw a another perfect Hail Mary shot, 70 yards in the air for a chance to win it. And that’s how the Bengals survived the night because Joe Flacco was doing what he had to do to find his wide receivers over and over and over again to the tune of 300 plus yards and three touchdowns. And Jamar Chase having an incredible season to continue right now on a night where he had 23 targets. 23 targets. uh Higgins had 10. So that’s what you need to have happen when you’ve got two stud receivers that you pay to stay put for Joe Burrow who goes down. In other words, the person who he’s got to u thank all of them there in Cincinnati is Andrew Barry, the general manager of the Cleveland Browns. Rich, the way you described that earlier about the call was almost like you were in school and you got this note. Do you want Joe? Yes. you know, maybe check the box. Check the box. You know, it’s like a a sixth grade note. Check the box. You know, uh, well done on all fronts. Uh, everybody, uh, from Cincinnati to Joe Flacco’s household. I’m sure he’s living out he’s li he’s living out of a suitcase. Sure. He’s living he’s living uh an itinerant lifestyle. Again, you go he go. He does indeed. Right there. to go from being benched in Britain Oasis to hailed in Cincinnati because you beaten the the Steelers on a short week is unbelievable. The latest you can’t make this stuff up and Mike Tomlin saw it coming. He knew it was going to be tougher. He just didn’t know that, you know, Jaylen Ramsay would be toasted as much as he appeared to be last night every now and then. Mike Tomlin now two and 10 on Thursday Night Football on the road. 0 and seven on Thursday night at at a division opponent. Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that. Check us out every single day streaming live on Disney Plus and the ESPN app 12 to 3 Eastern.

Rich Eisen reacts to Bengals’ QB Joe Flacco carving up the Pittsburgh Steelers to the tune of 342 yards and three touchdowns in Cincinnati’s pivotal Week 7 win on Thursday Night Football.

Tune in to the Emmy-nominated Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from Noon to 3PM ET on Disney+, ESPN+, ESPN Radio, and streaming on SiriusXM channel 80.

== WATCH LIVE HERE ==
https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-96c14d82-11cd-470a-96d4-aa070f6e42b2

== SUBSCRIBE HERE ==
https://bit.ly/2VjWSBC

== FOLLOW US HERE ==
https://www.instagram.com/richeisenshow/
Tweets by RichEisenShow
https://www.facebook.com/RichEisenShow

@thericheisenshow

#richeisenshow #nfl #cincinnatibengals