Cincinnati Bengals Making Roster Spots Avaialable… Paul Fritschner and Craig Sandlin Join Later

Cincinnati Bengals Making Roster Spots Avaialable… Paul Fritschner and Craig Sandlin Join Later

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good morning and welcome Welcome in to the Stone Shield Show. I am your host Stone Shields. A special two-hour edition of the Stone Shield Show. Off the bench will be back tomorrow. Reed Mouse is out today again. He will be um back tomorrow, but we do have a special two-hour show here. Still wanted to bring two hours of content to you right here at Chatterbox Sports. Obviously, I am in a different chair. That means I got my right-hand man, Casey McAllister, with me once again. Casey, pleasure to have you back. How we doing here on this Wednesday morning? I’m doing good, Stone. Glad to be back. Uh yeah, glad to be back. Things are starting to slow down around here and uh gives me more time to be able to come in here and do stuff. Although we are going to a soccer match later today. Yes, we are. Uh to Miami we go. And uh that’ll be fun. That’ll be lots of fun. Um glad to get in into the show, Stone, because I remember last time a lot of the people in the chat were saying, “Oh, Casey, you’re being too negative.” And then we kind of went on a little bit of a a run. Everyone was on this high. Now we’re right back to where uh maybe I was at maybe a few weeks ago. And maybe I’ll be positive, maybe I’ll be negative. We’ll see. We’ll see how this show ends up going. Um but I’m excited. Yeah, we certainly are looking forward to getting your thoughts here on the Bengals and we will do that in a second. Have a loaded show um here at this point. We do have two guests coming in, Craig Sandlin and uh Paul Fritzner going to be stopping by. Um, looks like uh the graphics case I I I don’t know if I updated those but um on the crawl there at the bottom but uh we got Paul Fritzner and um Craig Sandlin will be stopping by. Xavier basketball college basketball with Paul. Certainly looking forward to that. Really excited about that. Craig Sandlin of course will stop by and talk Cincinnati Bengals with us on the show. We’ll have our college football top 10 as we always do on Wednesday mornings. We’ll go back and forth with Casey as it relates to the Cincinnati Bengals and a buy or sell segment to end today’s show. So, two full hours here at Chatterbox Sports. Appreciate everybody for being with us and certainly looking forward to um the next two hours. Let’s start here with some Cincinnati Bengals news. Um obviously the Bengals lose the Jets. Heartbreaking fashion, skies falling, whatever you want to say. Worst loss that I can remember since the 2015 playoff loss in the the wild card round against the Pittsburgh Steelers at home when AJ McCarron was playing quarterback for you. I think this is clearly the worst loss in the Zack Taylor era. And I think, you know, on the heels of the Thursday night game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was, oh, you know, we can generate some momentum here going into the buy. There’s a real possibility that we can fire off three consecutive wins going into the buy. Obviously, that comes crashing down um with the loss to the New York Jets. And then you begin to have questions about, okay, how do you approach the trade deadline? Now that you lost to the Jets, it’s like, do you kind of have to stand pat and not be aggressive? Right? I think if you win that game, it’s like, oh, we can maybe add a piece here. We could add a safety here. We could add a pass rusher here. and now you’re kind of stuck in an awkward spot where it’s like, well, now you look up and you have five losses. You know, you already lost a draft pick with the Joe Flacco trade. Can you afford to go out there and do it? And a name that we threw around a lot here on this show and here at Chatterbox was Kyle Duggar. Kyle Duggar, the former safety for the New England Patriots. He had a really good career under Bill Bich and Gerard Mayo. But then, of course, Mike Vrabel comes in. It’s a different system. It’s a different scheme. And he’s kind of been resorted to a backup. And this is a guy that just last year signed a four-year 58 million deal with the New England Patriots. And they move off him yesterday. And your arch rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers went out there and make a move for Kyle Duggar. Um they only had to give up a sixth round pick in the process. Duggar in a seventh going to New uh going to Pittsburgh and uh New England receiving just a sixth round pick. you have that extra sixth round pick by the way when you’re talking about the Cincinnati Bengals after um the Joe Flacco trade and uh you know it kind of frustrated me when I saw this news and I just kind of thought it was brutal to be completely honest with you but I probably would have been more frustrated had you won the game against New York and then this still happened cuz that’s a that’s a move you can make right a day three draft pick for a guy that you know has been a quality starter in this league for quite some time for your $58 million deal and of course New England is paying much of um his salary here Pittsburgh doesn’t have to take on much of that salary. So, that’s kind of a, you know, situation where Pittsburgh’s like they’re allocating all this money on defense, but their their defense flat out stinks and they’re like, “We got to get better here, right? We got to get better here.” And they make the move um going out there and trading for Kyle Duggar. It’s unfortunate, especially since he goes in your division against, you know, a team that currently is the number one team, of course, in your AFC North Division. Bengals did make some moves yesterday. Mike Pennel, defensive tackle, was released. He’s appeared in all eight games this season for Cincinnati and I believe I don’t know if it’s official yet. I think he’s probably going back to Kansas City. Um again, he’s appeared in all eight games and we haven’t really called his name at all. Right. He hasn’t done much at all. And they had Shaka Hayward and Matt Lee. Those guys go to IR. So those moves kind of make you think like, okay, maybe a move is coming and we’ll see if they sign somebody um later this afternoon. There is space now. Um but obviously um you know not ideal for Cincinnati to miss out on a guy like Duggar. But again, can you really blame him after the loss to the New York Jets? Casey, I do want to get your thoughts on that move from Pittsburgh. Again, I’m probably a little bit more frustrated with the move if the Bengals had beaten the Jets. And I’m like, you should have went out there and got him yourself. It was only a six- round pick. You have an extra six round pick because of the Flacco trade. What was your reaction to that? Um were you frustrated with it whatsoever? or do you think the Bengals are kind of in a spot where they got to stand pad here at the deadline? Yeah, I mean I this was a move that I think is like any team, not just the Bengals, should have been interested in making this move. Um just for the fact that like like you said it’s a sixth round pick. Um I think they swapped the seventh, right? They So you’re not losing like a player in in the draft. So you’re you’re you’re just moving down spots. The Patriots already paid a lot of the money upfront on this deal. So it just makes more logistical sense more you kind of talk through it. He’s 29. I can understand why some teams would shy away from that because he’s been kind of trending downward in his career. But if you were able to um get a jump start on that, just a new change of scenery. Um maybe you salvage some of that career a little bit of his. Um and one of the things too that just for the Bengals sake, I mean the dude can play in the box, he’s a sound tackler. Um that’s something that they really need, you know, like I think that they need a guy that’s 225 and can just plug in holes. um in the run in the run game. And uh that’s just something that feels like a no-brainer to me. To me, it feels like a no-brainer. It should have been a no-brainer for the rest of the league. Kudos to the Pittsburgh Steelers for trying to address their holes on their roster as they fight for the AFC North. And I think that’s really what it kind of boils down to, Stone, is um are the Bengals going to try to compete and try to win the AFC North? And I just don’t know if they have the if they if they would have won against the Jets. Um I don’t think they make a move just because they’re the Bengals. They probably feel like, oh, we’ve got the guys that we need to go out and do it. And I think you were probably expecting me to say the opposite. I think now that they’re three and five, they might feel desperate because I do think that the move for Joe Flacco was a move of desperation. I don’t think they realized how good Joe Flacco was going to be. I think that they knew that he would be a better scheme fit. I don’t think anyone realized he was going to, you know, go out there and be borderline elite with this offense. And I know it’s a lot of just feeding Jamar Chase, but that’s kind of what, you know, this offense is, Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. So, I don’t blame him for that. But regardless, I guess what I’m trying to say is I do think despite them not making the move for Kyle Duggar or Keon White or whoever, I don’t think that means that they’re completely out of this race. I do think that there’s a chance that they can make a move. And I don’t think they would have if they won. I don’t think they feel the sense of urgency to make this roster any better if they didn’t lose to the Jets. Now, I’m not saying I I’m glad that they lost the Jets. No, that’s that’s not what I’m necessarily advocating for. But I don’t think it’s as hopeless of people as people are making it out to be. I don’t know if it’s going to be the move that we want them to make. I don’t know if it’s going to be like some, you know, it’s not going to be the the um the the the kid from the the Jets, the defensive tackle, um Williams, I think. I don’t I don’t know his name, but it’s not going to be a guy worth a second or a third round pick, but um probably some veteran leadership, right? That’s what they’ve been saying this whole time is that they need some sort of leadership to stand up and lead this defense. Um I think there’s a chance for that. I think there’s a chance for them to to trade away a six or a seventh round pick still. Um I just don’t know who that would be yet. I haven’t really like dove into the the who who’s out there in the world. Kyle Duggar was definitely one of those guys I think made a lot of sense, but um it’s a lot of money tied up too still. I mean, through future years that, you know, they probably didn’t feel comfortable with. So, if anything, it’s going to be a guy that’s on the last year of his deal, maybe uh a year, and uh they’re they’re going to look for some guy that’s been in the league for a while. I don’t think they’re going for some sort of young talent. Um and yeah, I mean, I I that’s how I feel about the trade deadline. Um, going back to the Jets game and I knew how bad the defense was and I know I was ranting and it was a bit of me just being silly um, and not giving real analysis on how bad the defense was, but you saw it on display. I don’t think I need to kind of explain to you how poor they are at tackling, how poor they are in coverage, how poor the the defensive line is at getting pressure. They had I think it was one pressure at halftime and zero like or they had like one like pass rush win, whatever that means. One quarterback hit and it was CTB. Yeah. And it was Cam Taylor Brit. And I’m pretty sure, you know, even when they did get pressure like the Jordan Battle Blitz, it it burnt them. they they they scored a touchdown off of that. It’s like they can’t ever find ways to um get home to the quarterback. Uh even when they blitz, it seems like it backfires in their face. They can’t do anything right. Um and I I feel like, you know, there’s a lot of fingerpointing going around like I think we should have expected this. It’s the same defense as last year. It is. And on top of that, you’re adding a bunch of rookies to this mix. Younger players that are going to make mental errors. Shamar Stewart made a lot of mental errors, not sealing the edge, going too far up field, not knowing where the ball was. That that play was absurd. He had no clue where the ball was on a screen play. Barrett Carter, Demetrius Knight, same thing. like they were overpursuing or they were not getting good enough angles to be able to get to the the the ball carrier and it burnt them time and time and time and time again. And this is kind of like what did you expect that that’s how I feel about the Jets game. What did you expect this defense to be with all these young players on the roster with how it played last year? It’s the exact same defense and you’re adding younger talent to make more mental mistakes. So, I don’t feel like at the end of the day, like it’s the Jets, like you shouldn’t lose to the Jets. All they needed was one stop and that’s the part that’s inexcusable to me is that you gave up that many points. But them scoring like 24 28 points I think is part of the the deal when you have such a young roster and you have the exact same defense that gave up what 25 points a game like I don’t know like you’re bound to have these games. Um and that’s the part where I I feel bad for fans because it came at the worst time. It came at the worst time. Um, and it came to one of the worst teams in the NFL. That’s that’s the part that’s so frustrating. Um, but here we go into what, week nine against the Bears. Um, we had a players only meeting, which usually, uh, is the sign of disaster coming in. Um, and I don’t feel like I’m in a worse or a better spot than I was a week ago, two or three weeks ago. Feel like I’m in the exact same spot. I feel like this team is so inconsistent that you can’t mark any of these teams as a an easy offensive day, a defensive day. You can. You just don’t know what you’re going to get on a day-to-day basis. I don’t know if that’s how you feel now. Um, but that’s where I was weeks ago. I knew that this team was very inconsistent. Um, maybe I was wrong about the Joe Flacco thing and I I give kudos to him. I wish I could have been on uh, you know, to give my flowers to him a little more, but this team is so inconsistent. Um, they’re one player away from being a total disaster on on offense again. Joe Flacco is on the injury report, right? Yep. I mean, it’s just like I think I’m ready to pack up, right? I I’ve been ready to pack up for a while. Um, but I’ll be back in if they make a move on defense. I’ll be back in if they make a move on defense. So, where do you on the heels of this loss to the Jets, I guess, where do you stand here at this point as you look forward to the Bears game, the state of the organization right now? You’re they’re a three and five team. It seems like you’re a little bit back and forth. You kind of you want them to make a move despite losing to the Jets, adding to the defense. Um, how can this thing get better the rest of the way? Yeah, I mean, it’s tough because I think I don’t think that they’ll make a move. Like I said, for the the second round, third round type of caliber players that are stars going to be instant impact guys. I mean, I I think that there’s moves to be made that are lower tier that will be instant impacts just because of how poor the the talent is on the team, but I feel like that sort of move and then getting Trey Hendrickson healthy, especially if it’s on the Dline, can get me kind of back in because I think I know a lot of people will say like, you know, they’re more than one player away from making a difference. I think they’re more than one player away from being like average, but with how Joe Flacco’s been playing and this offense has been playing, I think it only takes one player to get like back from being like historically bad to just being like a below average defense, right? It only takes Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight to take a step forward during the season and that extra player to like really really get going. I had no faith in this offense being able to do what it what it’s done the last couple weeks. And I think that’s what really like has really influenced my opinion on this team was how bad the offense looked with how the run game’s been going, with how Joe Flacco’s been dealing. And the injury kind of does make me worried, but he did go back out there and play. We’ll just see how that ends up playing out. But I really have a lot of confidence that all it would take is from this team going from giving up 39 points a game from giving from giving that up to only giving up 28. You know what I mean? Like I think that they could still keep themselves in it, get Joe Burrow back and and really make some noise. Now unfortunately I just don’t think the Bengals are in the business of trading for that type of caliber of player. I don’t know how desperate they feel right now. If it was Duke Tobin and he was told, “Hey, if you don’t figure this out, we’re firing you after this season.” Maybe that’ll light up a fire in him to do something at this trade deadline. Because that’s the only thing, the only other move he can make before, you know, you’re adding free agents, which there’s still free agents out there I would be interested in, by the way. Um, we haven’t even touched on that yet. Um, but yeah, I mean, I I don’t think that this team is far away from being able to stay in it for Joe Burrow’s sake. I don’t think they’re that far away. Um, as it stands right now, they can’t give up 39 points a game. Like, they just can’t they can’t do that. adding one player could change it from that to like 28 points a game, 25, whatever, make it back to where it was at least last year. Um, so yeah, that’s that’s kind of where I’m at mentally with this team. Um, Joe Flacco really gave me a lot of hope that offensively they’re not as inept as I believed. Um, being able to run the ball, very big deal. you’re you’re able to control the clock if you’re able to run the ball. Um and so that keeps the defense off the field. There’s a lot there’s a lot to it, but um that’s where I’m at. If they were to add one player, it could bring me back in, especially if it’s on the defensive line because that that’s the biggest issue right now is you had like zero pressure. It was one pressure or two pressures the whole game and they weren’t even from the defensive line. their win rate is below like 2%. That game it was below like 2%. Um, and with Trey Hendrickson’s injury, it’s just like I don’t know how long that’s going to be, especially because he reagravated it. That’s the other part of this equation that we just don’t know. Um, if he comes back, then it’s like, yeah, let’s let’s give this one last hurrah, right? because you already know defensively like if you want this to be better than what it is now, it’s gonna probably take a long time and a lot of different players to come in to to fix it. But if you want to put on the band-aid and still try to salvage the season, like let’s let’s go and trade for a guy um because you know your drafting’s been absolutely piss poor for years now on the defensive side. So who cares? Who cares if you burn a second round pick or a third round pick in my opin that’s my opinion. They’re probably not going to do that, but that’s where I’m at. Yeah. Is there one guy on this defense where you look at it and say, “Okay, he could be potentially a foundational guy for this team going forward because I mean, yeah, even if you do blow it all up, like you literally can’t cut every single person. There’s got to be a few guys that stick around and are still still looked at as starters.” I think a lot of people would say if you had to pick like, “Okay, you feel decent about two of your corners and Dax.” And um of course DJ Turner as well. Um I mean the defensive line looks like a total mess. Probably too early to write off Shamar Stewart, but you know this was a guy that the Bengals needed to be an instant impact type of guy and we said that leading up to the draft. Like hey you’re picking at number 17 overall. You got holes all over this team. This guy can’t be a miss. And if you need to go with a safer option to make sure that you know he’s got a higher floor than another guy, go do that. And that’s not the move that Duke Tobin and Zack Taylor opted to make. They took a guy that had a really low floor but also a really high ceiling and um who knows maybe he can turn into some player that is productive down the stretch but they needed him early and often here at the beginning of the year and he looks like a non-factor out there. Is there anybody on this defense where you look at and say okay like he can be you know on our team as a starter in 2026 and beyond? Um I think the short answer is no. I think it’s no. Um, but I I when you say build around, there’s not a star to build around. I think there’s still pieces there that make sense for the long-term future. Like you said, I think the Dax Hill and the DJ Turners of the world, they make sense, right? I think that they can fill the needs of this team moving forward at their specific spots. um being like the slot corner, the um emergency boundary corner that Dax Hill can be. DJ Turner being a solid two, maybe a one. We’ll see. I I’d like to see more before I can crown him as the true number one corner. Um there’s just nothing there on the defensive line. Like you just kind of have to hope that Shamar Stewart takes a step forward, I think, if you’re looking at anyone. Um, but even so, like we we kind of knew like worst case scenario it was going to be a project and that he would maybe give us some disruption in the run game. He hasn’t even really been that. Um, he showed some flashes when he did come in the preseason being able to disrupt the run, but since the season’s been going, I know he got hurt, banged up, nicked up a little bit, but um, we haven’t really seen that much out of him. In fact, his aggressiveness has actually burnt us more than it has um helped us. Um but that’s just pretty much how the whole defense has gone so far. Um same thing with like Barrett Carter and Demetrius Knight. I know they really love those two. Um the fact that they were so confident in them to bench Logan Wilson was very shocking to me. Um, those two are also just like mental errors being corrected from being pretty good. Um, a lot of the the errors on the team like the missed tackles and such are them overpursuing and being too aggressive or they’re not making the right angles. Um, I think that get that gets corrected over time and like I said, I think that’s a just a rookie thing that you have to kind of get through. Um, but as of right now, there’s not, like you like the team said already, or like Zach said already, there’s not a leader on the defensive side stepping up right now. There’s not a guy right now that I feel like you can build around at this moment. There’s just not. Um, but a lot of pieces there I feel confident in moving forward to just, you know, be able to fill in roles, you know. I I feel confident in that, but not not any star talent as of right now. As of the second. Yeah. At that linebacker spot, you know, it it was aggressive to sit there and say, “Yeah, we’re going to roll out two rookies um here in this situation with Demetrius Knight Jr., of course, and Barrett Carter.” And they look like two rookies out there on the football field. And uh you know, we’ll see if they’re able to overcome that. But it’s just it kind of makes you scratch your head because you just needed guys to be somewhat consistent out there. Average, right? This defense just needed to be average coming into the year. And um obvious obviously it’s that frustrating when you’re that below average as far as your defense goes, your tackling um and just your overall talent, right? And you pointed to some mental errors and mental miscues and that can happen for younger players. But you see that from time to time. But also, I look out there and I go, I they just don’t have good enough players. And that’s a serious serious concern. And that’s why this Jets game was so big in my eyes cuz it’s like, well, if you let the Jets go up and down the field on you, you’re going to be in deep trouble because this is the worst team in the NFL. It’s, you know, obviously a professional football team. They got professional athletes out there making millions of dollars, trying to, you know, fight for their jobs, feed their families, all that good stuff. But if they’re going up and down on the field on you, you got some real real issues there. um as it relates to your defense. Real quickly before we get to Paul Fritzner here on the offensive side of the ball, you mentioned obviously uh being happy with what you’ve seen from Joe Flacker. I don’t know how you couldn’t be, right? I mean, there’s a couple drives there late where it’s like, well, you know, you could obviously went down and get got points. Reality of the situation, the final two drives of the Jets game, you didn’t get points. Is that different if Joe Burrow was out there? We don’t need to sit here and play um the what if game. But one issue that I had was the fact that T. Higgins only got targeted twice and he only had the one catch. Obviously, you want to force feed Jamar. That’s the right thing to do. He’s the best wide receiver in the National Football League. From an offensive perspective, were you frustrated uh with the lack of targets for T. Higgins in that game? Yes and no. But I mean, like part of it is it’s hard to really blame Flaco because I still feel like he’s learning the playbook. um he did plenty versus the Steelers showing that he can he’s a capable quarterback of targeting Tiggins when he’s open. You know what I mean? Like I don’t think that that’s a a trend moving forward where oh the only thing he’s been able to do is target Jamar. No. Like I think I think he’s able to spread the ball out. Um it’s just going to take some more time, right? It’s going to take some more uh getting used to the receivers. I know this is week what three? We’re going into week three with him. Um I think it’s just going to take more time. I I get it. Um offense just wasn’t an issue. It just to me it’s just it wasn’t an issue. They were able to run the ball um very well, very effectively. They were able to to move the ball. Um the only times that they weren’t able to was when it really needed to happen, which kind of felt like the same sort of song and dance last year. um put like 38 points. Like I I don’t I can’t blame if I’m nitpicking that about Joe Flacco’s game. Like yeah, he’s a backup quarterback. He’s not Joe Burrow. Like yeah, I can’t stress enough how um stupid I feel about the Joe Flacco thing. I mean, they I don’t even think the Bengals knew how good he would end up being for them. I mean, the dude has done literally the exact opposite of what everyone said he was going to do when he came here. Hold the ball too long, take a bunch of sacks, force the ball where play in places where it shouldn’t be. Um, you know, he’s done none of those things. He’s been able to get the ball quickly. He’s been able to maneuver around the pocket. Um, the one sack he did take was like the only time where I felt like, man, like just get rid of the ball, man. But yeah, I mean, he’s been he’s been great. I I can’t stress that enough. Yoshi, you ready to move off him as the wide receiver three? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Uh Mitch Tinsley needs to get the ball from what we’ve seen in just that preseason run. Um I don’t know what they’re thinking. I mean, he’s had I think I saw this today on a tweet. He had over 250 plus route running attempts this year. and the rest of the group, you know, the rest of the the other receivers have had less than like 30. Like that just shouldn’t be. Um, especially with how poor he’s been. And I it’s just kind of the same conversation you just had with the Tigans, like he’s not getting targeted enough to really know. I I think we know because we’ve seen it for so long now that he’s just not a guy that gets separation. And if that’s the case, he needs to be a guy that can catch the contested passes. And he’s not doing that either. So, let’s get you out of here. Let’s see a guy that we saw make fantastic, marvelous catches, Mitch Tinsley. I mean, he was just back shoulder, you know, high pointing balls and things like that all throughout preseason. I want to see what he can do because I think that you get that dynamic too of like you can find a receiver three that’s just out of this world too for that position. Receiver three. Um, I mean it might unlock another cog to this offense where they’re just completely unstoppable. Who knows? Um, but leave no stones unturned is uh the phrase that I would use. We did that on the defensive side. We’ve seen all the young guys. There’s not a lot of stones left unturned there. Um, got to do the same thing on offense. Yep. Absolutely. And I think that’s something that um needs to be addressed there as well. I think, you know, we’ve all seen some good things from Yoshi and his ability out there on the football field. But again, this is a six round pick and he’s out there with a backup quarterback. It was Jake Browning. Now, of course, it’s Joe Flacco. And um you know, there’s some things that you see from him and his performance that say, you know what, let’s look somewhere else. Again, he was a consistent guy for you last year. Third down, red zone, checked off a lot of boxes for you and um that really helped kind of elevate your offense and um unfortunately this year it hasn’t been that way. And you know, some defenses are going to be in spots where it’s like on this particular down, we saw it on the last play of the game for the Cincinnati Bengals, obviously, you know, before the kneel downs for the New York Jets, where it’s like, yep, they’re going to take away Jamar, they’re going to take away T. What is somebody else going to do? And I think in that situation, you you really felt the lack of Mike Gaseki for the first time, I would say. Um, you know, obviously he’s out with that pec injury. And I think, um, you know, he’s a guy that was a reliable guy, a third down guy, you know, kind of a security blanket type of guy. And if you’re going to sit there and double T and Jamar, somebody’s got to step up. Whether that’s a Noah Fant, whether it’s a Drew Sample if he’s out running for a pass, you know, a Tanner Hudson if he’s out there, a Yoshi, and um, you know, I think you have some guys at the back end of that wide receiver room that have some talent. We can have the Germaine Burton conversation a little bit later, but I mean, you’re sticking with a guy that was a sixth round pick. Now, obviously, you know, Mitchell Tinsley, it’s not like he’s some high draft pick, but I think he’s shown you some good things. Everybody was raving about him in the preseason and um obviously people were really really excited about that and um you know he hasn’t really gotten enough snaps out there and they continue to put Yoshi out there for 85 90% of the offensive snaps and he hasn’t really you know elevated your offense. Now you can make the argument he won the game against Pittsburgh right that you know that same shot there that was a beautiful throw from Joe Flacco that he was able to catch while he took a shot. It was a big- time play, but I think, you know, you’re ready to kind of see a little bit of a switch up there because you’ve seen so many mistakes um when it comes to Andre Yosvage and um his performance there out out on the football field. And from a run game perspective, that has improved. Um obviously for Cincinnati, Chase Brown has been opened up a little bit more. Be interested to see how that looks um against the Chicago Bear defense there as well. By the way, Bengals should be able to continue to score points against the Chicago Bears this coming week if Joe Flacco, of course, is able to go with that shoulder injury and looks like himself. But I think the the shift, and Zack Taylor, this is something he does deserve some credit uh for is the shift of okay, you know what, we’re going to have to make this more of a 50-50 backfield, more of a 50/50 split for Sam Perin and um Chase Brown there as well. And Sam, that appears to be, you know, one good thing. I’m not going to sit here and and let you know really give Duke Tobin any credit because he deserves a lot of criticism for where this season is at here at this point. But the smaj per signing that was the one thing that was like okay you know that that appears to be a good move um for Cincinnati what he’s been able to do on third down a pass protection standpoint and um you know obviously has done some stuff as a a return specialist there as well for the Cincinnati Bengals and he appears like he hasn’t really lost much of a step there um as a running back here in the National Football League. Saj Perine I think appears to be a good signing but I mean when you look at the defensive side of the ball and we’ll get into this more with Craig Sandlin later because something that you know I’ve noticed is here this past week I mean there’s been buzz and chatter about Duke Tobin you know being a guy that should be on the hot seat being a guy that you know should borderline lose his job rights but I think last year it was kind of kind of split in half where it was like is it Lanna Rumo and his incompetence as a defensive coordinator or perceived incompetence I should say or is it you just don’t have enough talent because you didn’t draft the right guys and you didn’t sign the right guys in free agency. Now you’re sitting here and all these Bengal fans are looking around at Indianapolis saying you could argue they’re the best team in the National Football League. Okay, this clearly is not a Louis Anarumo issue. And of course you had the success with Anarumo defensively in 21 and 22 and now it’s like it seems like everybody is on the side of oh you know we have a serious issue here um as it relates uh to personnel and that obviously is what Duke Tobin does. We’ll talk about this I said as I mentioned later with Craig Sandlin about would they actually make a move. This is a guy that’s been here since 99 as the director of player personnel. He kind of you know it’s kind of very much a mom and pop run business right the Cincinnati Bengals and he kind of has been a part of it for such a long time. Would the Brown family move off him? I don’t know but we certainly will have that conversation as we progress. Do we have Paul Fritzer case? I’m currently talking to him. Currently talking to him. Okay. We’ll uh we’ll talk a little bit here about the Cincinnati Bengals. will work through um exactly what is going on there with Paul. Looking forward to talking to Paul, by the way, having him back on the show. Obviously, if you’ve been a supporter of Chatterbox for quite some time, you’re very familiar with Paul Fritzner. He does a tremendous job covering college basketball, and he’s really getting ready to kind of get into the swing of things here at this point. He is the host of the Rebound Rundown. It’s a great podcast. Also has a YouTube page up. He’s going to be doing some play-by-play stuff um in the college basketball landscape as well. And I believe he is here and he is ready to go. So, let’s welcome in our first guest of the show, Paul Fritzner. As I mentioned, host of the Rebound Rundown, college basketball analyst, expert, guru. Paul, appreciate you stopping by, brother. Stone, can you hear me, man? I can. I got you. Loud and fantastic. Well, I just want to say like you can see I got I got this whole like fancy setup here and everything and I’m on my phone because I don’t know what’s going on with V-Mix, but I’m not going to keep you you uh waiting anymore. I don’t know what’s going on there, why I can’t connect this camera, but I’m uh I’m good to go. It’s great to talk to you, Stone. It’s great to, you know, have college basketball back in our lives a few days away. And uh let’s talk hoops, man. Let’s do it. And let’s start with Xavier. We’ll talk about UC and some other um Ohio teams later on in this segment, but I do want to start with Xavier. Obviously, a team that you have covered very closely for several years now. And I want to take you back in time a little bit and then we’ll kind of look at kind of the outlook of the roster here for the Muskies in this 2025 season. But Sean Miller obviously left. He left very quickly after the, you know, the game against Texas, funnily enough, um, in March Madness. Um, his second stint obviously at Xavier. He was here for a while, left for Arizona, came back, now he’s leaving again. I guess what is your immediate reaction if I take you back in time to his departure? And how would you, I guess, summarize summarize the second Shawn Miller era at Xavier? Well, I would say it w it was I would say it was a success, right? He went to the he went to the Sweet 16. He went to the NCAA tournament twice. So to say that he didn’t have success while he was at Xavier would just would just not be a correct statement. At the same time, Xavier was very disappointing in year number two. But all of that is because the team didn’t have any players available that they were hoping to count on for the season where you’re you’re missing two potential starter. you’re missing one of the best players in the conference and then you end up having your first losing season in whatever it was 30 seasons for Xavier. So yes, the second season was disappointing, but there are a lot of reasons why it was. And then last year again, you suffer an injury with your starting center 3 weeks before the season starts. And because of that, you’re left with a lack of depth underneath. you’re depending more on some players to do things that they weren’t necessarily going to be counted on to do heading into the season. Going into the off season, I would say that the way everything went down, I think caught a lot of Xavier fans offguard. Sean Miller was here once, he was here again, and then he left to go to Texas. But if you look at the landscape of the SEC, I think he felt like he would have a better quicker opportunity to make the final four going to the SEC and going to Texas than he was going to have at Xavier in the Big East. That’s his opinion. That’s what he believe. That’s what I’m sure he believed. Um, and why he went down to Texas that it was going to give. I mean, he’s he’s also not young, right? I mean, I he’s definitely in the later stages of his career. I’d be shocked if this is not his last job in college basketball. I I can’t imagine he goes anywhere else. So, if you want to make a final four, a lot of his peers, a lot of guys around his age, you know, Shawn is regarded as one of the better coaches in the sport, but the one thing he hasn’t done is make a final four. And to me, I thought that was why Shawn Miller round two at Xavier was so perfectly aligned. Because, you know, this is going to sound very dramatic stone, but to me it always felt like LeBron coming back to Cleveland, right? That that he was going to come back. LeBron wanted to win the city a title. The city needed a title. Now, LeBron had won one in Miami, so it’s a little different, but he’s coming back. He gets Xavier to a final four, and then if he decides to go somewhere else to finish his career, so be it, right? Nobody, I think, would have held that against him. But he leaves after 3 years and the one sweet 16 in year 1. Not as much success in years two and three and all of a sudden the program has to do a reset. I think that’s what caught a lot of people offguard and now you have Richard Patino as the head coach. Runs a very similar offensive style but a very different defensive style and they’re very opposite coaches as well personalitywise and everything else. So uh that’s the dynamic of the offseason stone. Maybe a little more than you asked for, but that’s what’s gone on over on Victory Parkway the last five or six months. And as you mentioned, obviously Xavier now turning the page to Richard Patino’s son of a legend, right? His dad is in the Big East now at St. John’s. So that’ll be certainly a very interesting storyline as we progress through this season. Patino only 43 years of age, but has a bunch of head coaching experience. He was at FIU and then a long run at Minnesota. that didn’t necessarily end I think a lot of you know the way a lot of Minnesota fans certainly were hoping with some lack of success on the basketball floor but then he goes to New Mexico and pretty solid years there at New Mexico makes the tournament the past two years what can we expect um during the Richard Patino era and you kind of alluded to similar stuff offensively very different defensively what exactly uh will he bring to Xavier yeah I think this year there will be growing pains this year there’s no doubt about it I I expect Xavier to have a difficult season this season, but going forward, I think for as long as Richard Patino is at Xavier and as long as he’s given the resources he needs to succeed at Xavier, he’s going to have a successful tenure as the head coach. And the question is, can Xavier get their NIL to a place where it needs to be to succeed? Because right now, it’s not. Quite frankly, their NIL situation this year was nowhere near where it needed to be to set him up for the best possible success that he could have had. But what from what I’ve been told, they’re correcting some of those issues going into next season and that this upcoming portal session should be better than what they went through this year. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t pieces on this team and that there won’t be exciting moments this year, but I think anybody that has heard or followed or seen anything through the off season of this particular year’s Xavier team can expect some growing pains. But Richard Patino is a very engaging personality. He’s very witty. He’s very sarcastic. He’s a patino. And because of that, I think Xavier fans, as they get to know him and and get to learn his style both off the court and on the court, I think they’ll appreciate the kind of person he is, the kind of coach that he is, and hopefully he has the success to match it. From a roster perspective, Xavier literally lost everybody. Obviously, they lost their head coach, but they lost basically their entire roster, right? Marcus Foster, he’s gone. Freemantle, Jerome Hunter, Maddox, Dave Mcnite, Conwell transfers, he’s at Louisville, and then Dalen Swain, he goes to Texas and follows Shawn Miller. So, it’s a completely different team from a personnel perspective. How difficult is that going to be to replace all those players? And what can we expect this team to look like? I don’t want to say it’s impossible, Stone, but it might be impossible to replace an entire team. Like, it’s just so hard. Yes, you can say there shouldn’t be a rebuilding year in a in the portal area. But you got to have at least somebody to build on. The teams that are so good have players. Look at Purdue. Toughman, Ren, Braden Smith, guys coming back to that team that have been there for so long. Houston returners. Yukon, Alex Cariban is still there. Solo Ball is still there. St. John’s, Zubie Edgeor still there, right? So, you have players all over the place that are coming back to college basketball because they’re incentivized to come back, maybe making more money than they would in the pros. Xavier doesn’t have anything coming back. They have Rody Anderson, who red shirted last year, actually played against Patino in the in the Mountain West a few times, but they don’t have a single returning point. They don’t have a single returning minute on this team. So, it’s tough. It will be a tough season. There is no doubt about it. But that’s again I go back to that’s not to say there won’t be fun moments. I do think this team is good enough to get a win or two throughout the season where you go, “Whoa, where’d that come from?” Right? Like I I’m interested to see how these pieces fit together because I think the play style of Patino kind of contradicts the roster that this team has been how this team has been assembled. Like he wants to play really fast. he wants to get out in transition, but it’s a bigger team. They don’t have a ton of ball handling, so I wonder if turnovers are going to be an issue for this team. That’s one thing I’m keeping an eye on. Let’s talk about these uh transfers, some of these guys specifically. Trey Carroll, I know you’re really high on him. He obviously coming in from FAU. Um can he be the one like the guy that you look to in critical moments for this team? What’s the expectation there with him? That’s the biggest question mark of this whole thing this season, Stone, is who’s the one who, and I don’t mean the point guard, I mean who is the top guy? Because it’s easy to say, and I did a a season preview show yesterday. I was saying almost this exact same thing where it’s easy for me to sit here and say, “Oh, if only he could have brought Donovan Dent and True Washington from New Mexico.” Yeah, in a perfect world, you bring your two best players and you you bring them to your new school, you complement them with other pieces from the portal and you have a team that’s a top 25 team in America. If you have Donovan Den, who’s going to be an all-American, and you have True Washington, who’s an absolute stud that went down to Miami, Florida, you bring those two guys and then you add the pieces that you added here, you’re talking about a really, really good Xavier team. Instead, you have a bunch of guys on Xavier right now who to me are really good role players, but where’s the top end talent? Where are where are those guys that when the shot clock is at four or when the game clock is at six and you’re down by one, who’s stepping up to take that shot? And on a good team, you should be able to answer that question without a doubt. I don’t know if we have the answer to that question. Trey Carol really impressed in the exhibition against Murray State. The reports from the close scrimmage against Toledo were very high on Trey Carroll. But again, those are Murray State and Toledo. What’s going to happen when they play Yukon Kraton St. John’s? Right. Absolutely. And um kind of to piggyback off the Trey Carol, I think, you know, when I saw all the guys that they brought in, I think the two guys that stood out to me were Carol and then Gabriel Pazado there as well. And similar to UC, they’ve got dealing with a big time injury and obviously Xavier is as well with Pizzado. Do we have an update here at this point about when he could potentially return or how serious this injury is? Um well, it’s a torn meniscus, so it’s as it’s as long as the take a torn meniscus takes to recover from. those are better than an ACL. Uh it’s it’s not as long of a recovery. I I I hesitate to sit here and say that I would expect him to play this season because if we get to March and you tell me, Paul, he hasn’t played a minute. I’d go, yeah, okay, that that makes sense. But I’m also starting to kind of get to the point where I would be surprised if we didn’t see him at any point. Here’s the thing, and this is just purely me. Pisano has three years of eligibility left. If you, and this goes for anybody, this is this is a a point that would go for anybody in the sport. If you have three years of eligibility left, and let’s say Pazado is healthy in mid January, yeah, maybe the season is a moot point by then, right? You’ve lost some non-conference games, things aren’t going well, you’re not going to make the tournament. I would still play him if you could because then it allows you the opportunity to see is this guy as good as we thought he was coming out of the portal. Can we rely on him for the next two years if he chooses to stay or maybe did we swing and miss? Is he not so good and maybe he’s not going to be a part of next year’s team? You can’t answer that question if he doesn’t play at all and he just sits out the season. I would love to see him play at some point this year, but whether he’s healthy enough to do that or not, that remains to be seen. Something you and Rick were talking about on the preview there as well that I found really interesting is when you look at this roster for Xavier, and you’re kind of going down the list, you go, “Oh, wow. There there’s some size here. There’s some length here.” But the question is, does that correlate necessarily to some rim protection or a big-time presence on the glass? What’s kind of your take on that? Yeah, Anthony Robinson from Virginia didn’t see a ton of minutes last year, right? The big highlight was that he blocked Cooper Flag. Uh, and he’s a super athletic player. He can get out in transition. I think he’s the type of big that fits well in this system. I actually talked to him not too long ago about that at media day last week and I asked him, “What’s it been like playing in this system now that you’re playing as fast as you need to play?” and he said it’s you commit to it as a coach, but then once you actually get in the walls of the program and you realize how fast you’re playing, it’s an adjustment. I think Anthony Robinson is the big that fits this system. And he’s also the type of big that Xavier hasn’t had in a little while, that athletic shot blocking, play above the rim type of big. Popeni is a sevenfooter that can block shots, but I would like to see more out of both of them. And again, development. Both of them are very young with multiple years of eligibility left. This is the type of year that you can use for both of those players to develop them, get them to a point where you can count on them in the Big East. And then next year, the year after, if they are still around, you’re talking about two very highlevel post players. This year, again, they’re going to be some growing pains. Obviously, there have been a few exhibition games, right? Toledo, Murray State. Um, you know, sometimes you can watch the game, sometimes you can’t, and others you just got to, you know, hear about what transpires in the game there. Of course. What are your biggest takeaways um from what we saw from an exhibition standpoint? Obviously Murray State, it’s a mid- major, you know, program. Can you you know how much can you really take from a game like that in an exhibition style? That’s a fair question, but your biggest takeaway is from the exhibition slate. Yeah, I I think uh you you have to check the box, right, and say, “Well, the exhibitions don’t matter.” All right, boxes check. Now, you can actually talk about the game and yeah, maybe you don’t take a ton away from the team, but you can take away individual aspects of the game. You can take away how an individual player played. And you know, I thought Trey Carroll, he was leading scorer. I thought he played very well against Murray State. The reports again were that he played very well against Toledo. Heard Anthony Robinson played very well uh on Sunday against Toledo as well. Xavier ended up losing that game by four to Toledo. So Xavier did lose both of their scrimmages, exhibitions, whatever you want to call them. Um, but what I will say is, you know, I go to probably one practice a week and what I’ve noticed is significant growth one week to the next with just the way these guys are fitting in and their style. And you can see things starting to click more and more. But it’s going to have to click fast because it’s 5 days away now. We’re 5 days from opening night. There’s no turning back. You you’ve you have your two exhibitions under your belt. you’re able to watch that footage. You’re able to watch what you did on film and and how you can improve. I think they need to cut down on turnovers. I think that’s been a huge issue. They need to learn how to play faster than they’ve been playing and under control. And then some decision making, too. And I talked about this yesterday on the show that, you know, at the end of the Murray State exhibition, they were down three, I believe, and twice they couldn’t get the ball in bounds. Like, that just can’t happen. I know it’s an exhibition and I think Xavier was out of timeouts at that point, but you got to get it’s one thing if you don’t get a good shot off, you got to get the ball in bounce and it happened twice. So, those are the little microcosms of growth that I’m looking at as we get moving into this season. From an expectation standpoint, obviously you look at the, you know, scope of the Big East, Yukon, St. John’s. I mean, those are the two of the best teams in the country. You could maybe even throw Kraton in that mix. I know they’re ranked preseason here as well as it relates to Xavier. Probably not going to be able to compete with those top of the line teams. Hopefully we’re wrong, but um where do you see them kind of fitting here in the Big East? I would say, you know, they were picked eighth in the preeason. I think that’s probably a good spot for where Xavier will finish. I would say they finish with somewhere between six to eight Big East wins this season. and they’ll play on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden somewhere in that 7 8 9 range. I think Depal and Satan Hall are still the back end of the Big East. The one thing I will say about the Big East this year is that it has a ton of question marks. There are a lot Villanova is a new team with a new coach. Now Kevin Ward’s been in the Big East. He’s a high level coach, but still a new coach in a new program. Providence has had talent. They’ve also deal dealt with Bryce Hopkins and injury issues. I get that. But Kim Kim English, similar to Wes Miller, has the talent this year and it’s a prove it year for Kim English. And you know, Marquette didn’t take a single transfer. What are they going to look like? There’s a ton of question marks 5 through 11 in the Big East. If you told me that Xavier finishes sixth or seventh with a not so great record just because the other teams also couldn’t figure it out. Yeah. All right. If you told me that Xavier finished 10th because things really fell off the rails and that’s just how the season went and you have a couple of pieces that you’re building for for next year, I’d say all right. Yeah. I I think there’s a lot up in the air between six and 10 of the Big East. I think Satan Hall is pretty solidly 11th, but between six and 10 in the Big East, anywhere in there. This is great stuff. Paul Fritzner joining us live here on the show. Paul, before we let you go, just want to ask you a couple of questions here about UC as we transition this conversation a little bit. Obviously, year five for Wes. Hasn’t made the tournament yet. Big- time year for him. His roster looks very different there as well. You got the George Mason transfer and Jaylen Haynes, but now he’s hurt and he was going to be, you know, a big- time presence for this team early on. Um, let’s talk about Tyler McKinley. Had the season ending injury last year. Um, this is a guy that was at one point Ohio’s number one prospect in 2024. for Winton Woods, local guy. What can we expect from him this year? You’re going to need to expect a lot out of him this year. I think I think you are. And the Jaylen Haynes injury certainly doesn’t help. The Jizzel James injury certainly doesn’t help because now all of a sudden you built a ro you spent one you spent a ton of money on this roster. And two, there’s a lot of talent on this roster, but last year’s Cincinnati team had a lot of talent. at one point were top 10 on Ken Palm in early December and didn’t make the tournament. I I really like the non-conference uh the non-conference schedule that West put together for this season. And when you look at Tyler McKinley and what they’re going to need underneath and they’re they’re going to need somebody to step up. They’re going to need somebody to fill that void because you lose your starting point guard and you lose Jaylen Haynes. That’s significant. Two fifths of what you were counting on is now gone, you know, from your starting lineup. That’s that’s huge. So, can Tyler McKinley backfill that role? Uh, that’s that’s something that’s a massive storyline going into this UC season. I think Dayday Thomas, I’d expect him to have a decent year this year. I think I’m a little higher on Dayday Thomas than some other people are. Um, but yeah, I think that this is going to be a it has to be for Wes. I mean, there’s there’s no doubt about it. Like, this has to be the year for him. They’ve spent the money. They have the talent. They have the schedule if they can win some games and also give themselves some breathing room if they can win some of those games going into into Big 12 play. Got to do it though. Got to do it. It’s a new look team obviously for West. Lots of changes. as he talked about them probably playing faster than they’ve ever played here throughout his time at UC here this year. And another guy that impacts that pretty greatly is Kirk Kissa. And I kind of laughed when I saw UC got him just cuz for me it feels like he’s been playing college basketball forever. He was at Arizona, Kentucky, West Virginia. Um from a playmaking standpoint, how do you think he’s going to fit into what West is trying to do offensively? I think he’s the type of spark plug type of guy that if he can get back now, his best season was a few seasons ago when he had pieces around him. He’s had okay seasons. He’s also been hurt. I’m wondering how consistent he can be this year because I really like the pickup and I think he he fits just from a personality and and character perspective, but I I’m really interested to see how he actually fits once the games get going. We’ve already seen him, you know, in a couple of exhibitions, but I personally I love Kirk Kiss and the kind of player that he is, but it’s also been a couple of seasons since he’s been at the top end level that I think people like associate with him, if that makes sense. He needs to get back there to be what Wes and this team needs him to be this year. and the other teams in this area, obviously NKU, Dayton, Wright State. Of those three, is there anything um you’re expecting a big storyline for maybe one of those three teams or perhaps who do you think is going to be the best out of that group as well? I I mean, I think it, you know, looking relative to their conference, you Northern Kentucky picked in the top half of the conference, probably fourthish in that conference this year, but always a team that’s going to be competitive in the horizon. and they have some new pieces on that team, but also some returners. They had to go out and get some some fresh bases, but they have a couple of guys back that they feel like they can build around. So, it should be a good season, I would say, for Darren Horn and the Norse and for Casey’s Norse. Uh then there’s there’s Wright State as well competing right there with them in the horizon. And then on the flip side, uh, Dayton, you know, again, Anthony Grant, a lot of Dayton fans very frustrated with Anthony Grant and the and, uh, the results that happened like last year. I mean, think about last year. They were at a point where it wasn’t even it was they were playing for seating in the first week of January. Then they dropped three straight, I think, in the in the A10 to open the year, and they were out. They didn’t even make the tournament. Mhm. So, you get to a point where if you’re Dayton, that can’t happen. You can’t go from being all right, we’re going to play for seating to the wheels fell off, right? So, uh again, similar West Miller and Anthony Grant, both of them, you know, needing to win this year, I think. Final question for you. Going to put you on the spot here. Who’s going to set down the Nets? national title. Who’s your pick? Who’s your pick? I I’m going to I’m going to stick in the uh in the rebound rundowns jurisdiction here, Stone. I’m going to say Kentucky. They spent the money to do it. Uh they spent the money to do it. They have the pieces to do it. They’ve looked good in the preseason and they’ve done that without Jaylen Low and Jay Jaden Quaintance. Um I think Purdue, Houston, Yukon, St. John’s Kentucky are all of that top tier. All any of them could win the title and I would not be surprised, but I’ll stick in the rundown. Kentucky, uh, they’re in the final four this year and they make they they win the national championship. I like it. And finally, tell all the fine folks tuning in about what you got going down at the rebound rundown and where we can find you on social media and just your plans here for the college football or college basketball season. I know you’re going to be really busy. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so the rebound rundown, you know, a lot of a lot of you know, it started while I was uh there at Chatterbox. So, a lot of you you loyal listeners that I see in the chat right now have been listening for a while. I I appreciate all of you and uh I’ll be talking a lot more. So, obviously, you know, I’m I’m I’ve been covering Xavier very closely for the last what 10 years now. Um, and I’m not the in arena host again this year. I’m I’m I’m stepping away from that. I have more on the play-by-play side. I’ll be doing play-by-play broadcasting for uh I’ll be down with the field of 68 on opening day. I’ll have a couple of Xavier games, couple of Butler games in the non-conference. Um and then hopefully some other games as the season goes on as well. So on the playby-play side, I’ll be busy, but also yeah, the rebound rundown, I’m going to be doing a live call-in show every Thursday night at 9:00 through the season. Uh it’ll be through Twitter spaces. If you want to see it on YouTube, it’ll simal stream there. You could hop in the chat. I’d love I would love some crossover. Get some people in the chat. send in your questions, call in if you’re on Twitter and want to do that. Um, it’ll be very active, but it won’t be just Xavier. That’s my biggest thing this year is expanding out, covering Kentucky, covering Cincinnati, all of those teams that I’ve always talked about on the rundown, but now really getting out, going to the games, covering them uh more in depth than I ever have before because I have the ability to do that this year and the timing um with how I’ve I’ve restructured things. So, really excited for it, Stone. I appreciate you coming on or having me on. Of course. Uh, dude, great show, man. I I love this. Thank you. I appreciate it. That was awesome getting you on. That was great stuff there. I know we probably kept you a little bit longer than we intended to, but that was awesome. And, uh, I would love to do that again soon, Paul. I appreciate you, brother. Anytime. Anytime, man. And Casey knows, anytime you guys want me on, anytime you want me to talk hoops, pull the string, I’ll dance. We’ll just keep doing it. Awesome. I love it. Thanks, Paul. All right. See you, Stone. See you, Casey. See you. Paul Fritzner, that was awesome stuff getting you in the spirit there for college hoops. That all starts next week. And there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic here in Cincinnati with UC and Xavier. Obviously, big year for West Miller. Um Xavier kind of a rebuilding phase, but I’m interested uh to see what Richard Patino can do as um as the head coach. Obviously, son of a legend. Um St. John’s of course in the Big East and you know, father and son competing in the same conference. That’s going to be awesome. But great stuff there from Paul Fritzner and uh hopefully we can get him on uh semi-frequently here on the show as um that was great stuff. Love talking college hoops with Paul Fritzner. Um we got another guest coming up around the corner and we’re going to transition back uh to some Cincinnati Bengals talk case you just give me the thumbs up when we got Craig. Um that went a little bit longer than I thought, but that was just so good there with Paul. I just kept going and he seemed like he was, you know, still in a good spot, so we just kept rolling with it. Um that by the way uh will be up on YouTube later today. Um the podcast will be up and of course you can uh find the podcast wherever you get your podcast and we’ll have clips of that interview there with Paul um up on social media there as well. So be on the lookout for that. Now I want to welcome in our second guest. That of course is Craig Sandlin. Does a terrific job here at Chatterbox Sports, Chatterbox Bengals, Chatterbox Reds helping us out on social media there. Of course, you can find him. Craig_andlin on Twitter, uh, is where you can find him. And we want to talk about the Cincinnati Bengals there, of course. And do we got Craig Casease? We got him right here. Craig, how we doing here on this Wednesday morning? What’s up, Stone? How we doing? Pretty good, man. Pretty good. I’m still I’m still hurting a little bit inside after the loss to the Jets, but now I’m kind of, you know, shifting the page, I guess, a little bit uh to the Chicago Bears. But one thing I asked Casey uh when we first came on here uh to begin the show and I sent it in the group chat there last night. The Steelers of course trading for Patriots safety Kyle Duggar. Safety of course a very uh you know noteworthy position of need for the Cincinnati Bengals. And I’ve kind of gone back and forth. I if you beat the Jets I’m like yo go out there make a move. Give up another draft pick. Let’s try to keep this thing alive. And then you lose to the Jets and you’re like well you know should you be aggressive? Should you just stand pad here and just kind of roll with what you have? As we approach the trade deadline here, obviously one more game and then the buy. What do you think Cincinnati should do and what was your reaction seeing a division rival trade for a safety? I think what you should do and what you will do are probably not the same answer, unfortunately. I mean, this this AFC North is still wide open. The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t really shown that they’re going to run away with it. and you’ve got a team in the Baltimore Ravens coming up behind you that can easily overtake you if you don’t go out and put your best foot forward week in and week out. So, if you’re the Cincinnati Bengals front office and you’re serious about trying to contend this year, then certainly you’re out there making calls and trying to figure out who’s available that can help your football team. But the the challenge is is that’s not really the Bengals mo. They don’t really do a whole lot of inseason trades. I think just one or two in the last several years if I uh am remembering correctly. And so, as much as we would have loved to hear that the Cincinnati Bengals went out and got Kyle Duggar, the truth of the matter is is that the only time the Bengals really make those mid-season moves is by necessity. And right now, I think the Bengals probably view those moves as luxury moves more so than necessity moves deemed by injury or otherwise, despite how these guys have played on tape. I think last year there was a conversation um you know when you’re playing the blame game last year after the 2024 season you you got some people that are saying ah the personnel stinks you got don’t have enough talent here um Duke Tobin you know we should move on from Duke Tobin and then there’s you know other people that are like ah you know Lanarumo his system maybe it’s a little bit too complex maybe he’s lost it a little bit here and we should move on from Lannarumo well ultimately you keep Duke Tobin you move on from Luano and what’s he doing he’s in Indianapolis doing a tremendous job and you could argue the Colts are the best team in the National Football League. Where do you stand here with Duke Tobin? Obviously, people have commented on, you know, his job for quite some time, but here this week after the Jets lost, it appears to be particularly loud as it relates to Duke Tobin. Duke Tobin seems to get a lot of the blame. And and to be blatantly honest, Stone, I said it after the game on Sunday after the loss against the Jets, I don’t know how much of it falls on Duke Tobin. I don’t know how much of it falls on the fact that the Bengals have four scouts in their department when most teams are in the double digit. uh number. And then the other piece of it is I think a lot of it falls on Zack Taylor. You watch a lot of these videos of them making their picks and you watch some of the streams and the the conversations that happen after picks are made and quite frankly a lot of the times Zack Taylor looks ecstatic to make the picks and Duke Tobin looks like he’s just along for the ride. And so my outsiders perspective without any sort of internal information is that Zack Taylor is the one that is making more of these moves than I think a lot of people will admit to. Uh despite the fact that Duke Tobin has this director of player personnel title, I don’t know that he’s really doing a whole lot when it comes to that part of the decision-making. And you look at over the years past, Marvin Lewis had a ton of input as it pertained to this roster. And I think Zack Taylor is probably in that same boat. And so you talk about Zack Taylor’s uh time here and how poorly they have drafted since he’s gotten here. Reed and I spent time going through draft picks since the Super Bowl in 2021. And it’s it’s bleak, my friend. Like they have not done well when you look at especially the top half of the draft where you should be hitting 75 80 90% of the time. the Bengals are hitting like 20% of the time and that’s not nearly good enough for a team who expected to be back competing for a Super Bowl year in and year out ever since that happened. So yeah, does Duke Tobin deserve blame? Absolutely. But it is an organizational failure how they’ve operated for years. And whether you want to put the blame on Duke Tobin, whether you want to put the blame on Zack Taylor, whether you want to put the blame on the Brown family and the fact that they have four scouts in this entire organization, there’s plenty of blame to go around. And that’s the most difficult part is that nothing is going to change from that perspective in my opinion. And so you’re just going to have to figure it out. hope that the next coach, whenever that may be, is able to evaluate better and more importantly develop better because we went out and we hired Al Golden with the hopes that they could develop these young talented players on the defensive side of the ball. And we’ve seen, especially of late, that development has not happened. Guys taking terrible angles towards the ball carrier, being way out of position, missing tackles. It just continues to have the same problems that we’ve had for years now. When you look at this defense from a town perspective, you just kind of you’re looking there and it’s like there’s not much. There’s really not. I mean, you got guys that, you know, aren’t very physical, aren’t very fast, taking bad angles, as you alluded to, not playing smart football. Um, you can’t cut everybody. So, even if you turn the page here to 2026, a couple of these guys, even if you make mass changes, are still going to be out there. You could argue, you know, Dax Hill, I think, and DJ Turner have shown flashes of being competent players, I think. Is there anybody on this defense that can be a starter for you going forward? Not long term. I mean, certainly there’s guys like BJ Hill or TJ Sllayton that could be contributors or starters in the short term that don’t have to move on from them immediately, but you look at long term and where you’re at. I want to give grace to guys like Demetrius Knight Jr. and Barrett Carter. I understand that they were thrust into position that quite frankly is probably unreasonable to expect them to be able to come in and immediately become the player color on defense and and the leader on this defense as Logan Wilson has taken a step back. But the truth of the matter is is that they were high draft picks and they have to be able to execute those things. And when the biggest challenge that this Bengals defense has faced is the technical just basics, then that’s a whole another issue. Like guys should be able to come out of college and understand how to tackle a a runner. Like that isn’t something that at the professional level you should have to spend a whole lot of time on. But yet here we are. The Bengals lead the league in missed tackles. 13.3% of their tackle attempts end up missed. And that leads the NFL. And it’s not even particularly close at this point, Stone. And so I I struggle to look across the the the defensive depth and really say right now that I’m comfortable with a whole lot of people that are currently starting for this Bengals team being starters for multiple years moving forward. Again, DJ Turner, as you mentioned, has looked has looked solid. Dax Hill has looked okay, but beyond that, I mean, you’re seeing some flashes here and there from SC some guys. Um the athleticism from Shamar Stewart is still there, but just his basic football IQ is so low right now and he’s not able to finish the the tackle that quite frankly it’s hard to imagine him taking that next step. But as as a as a Bengals fan and as the Bengals front office, you’re not going to be able to replace nine guys on defense in one draft year. And so this is going to have to be a I don’t want to call it a tear it down and completely reset, but it’s going to be a multi-year process here. And um I said it before that I hope that the next Bengals head coach is in fact a defensive mind. Um because otherwise you might be stuck in this kind of same groove for years to come. You mentioned Shamar Stewart. A lot obviously has been made of Shamar Stewart, first round pick for the Bengals, 17 overall. And going into that draft pick, you know, it was emphasized a lot by people around this town about how important that pick was. And the Bengals obviously opted to roll the dice. They could have had safer options that they selected there at that spot. They picked a guy that had a low floor but a really, really high ceiling. And obviously, he’s been hurt. He’s missed some time, but um the games in which he’s been out there, it has not looked like a first round player to be completely honest with you. take us back in time a little bit on draft night when you got the notification when it went across the screen the Bengals are taking Shamar Stewart. What was your thoughts then? And as we sit here on October 29th, what are your thoughts now? Well, the the thoughts then I think are probably similar to the results now. But it’s the same reaction that I have to a lot of the draft picks that the Bengals make. And that’s quite frankly that there were so many better options out there when you take a look at who was on the board at that time in in uh in the draft. You know, the Bengals get Shamar Stewart at 17. Next pick off the board, Gray Zable, a name that a lot of people were extremely uh positive on. A couple picks later, Derek Harmon goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s been a big contributor to them so far. Uh Donovan Jackson from Ohio State went at 24. James Pierce has looked really good with the Falcons, he goes at 26. Uh Malachi Starks at 27. Tyreek Williams has been starting for the Lions and has looked good up the middle for them. So, there’s just so many names that were on this board that were available that had a higher floor. And I think the problem with the way the Bengals draft sometimes is that high ceilings are great, but at the end of the day, if your floor is so low and that’s what you ultimately perform at, then it doesn’t matter about your ceiling, right? I mean, we can talk ceiling all day about NFL players. I think a majority of NFL players have an extremely high ceiling. But the truth of the matter is is that majority of players don’t perform to that ceiling. And so to draft based on ceiling instead of based on floor for me is a missed opportunity and a just a draft philosophy that this Bengals front office has continually leaned on for years now. And I don’t know that that’s necessarily the way to fix a defense. I’d much rather have really high floor guys who maybe don’t jump off the sheet at you, but are fundamentally sound and making tackles and able to be in the right spot at the right time versus these guys who are athletic freaks but don’t understand the game of football. Earlier you mentioned Zack and his job security. What in your mind needs to happen throughout the rest of this season for him to keep his job? And are you at the point where regardless of what transpires here between now and the end of the season, you’re ready to move off? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, it’s a I mean, it’s a it’s a big question, right? I mean, I I the the challenge is that the Bengals front office already has a built-in excuse not to move off of Zack for this year, right? Joe Burrow goes down in in week three and you know right away, hey, this season is going to be very difficult to overcome and right off the bat, they’re immediately given excuses on why Zack Taylor shouldn’t be let go. Um, so in terms of what he has to do from the Bengals perspective, I think he’s probably safe. Um, unfortunately, I’m in a different boat where I I’m at a position now where I just feel like he hasn’t been able to get the best out of his entire team. His mentality is not one that matches that of a head coach in my perspective. We talked about that on Sunday as well, where he’s talking about someone on the defense needs to step up or we never had a real chance to put this one away. Well, Zach, you’re the head coach. You’re not the the offensive coordinator. or so to say that you didn’t have a chance to put it away when you were up by 14 plus four different times and had a double- digit lead five different times, you had plenty of opportunities. And from a mentality perspective, he’s strictly looking at it from the offensive side of the ball where every time he’d go up 14, he’d give up points to the Jets and they’d come back and and bring it within one possession. Well, that’s on you too, Zach. I mean, I know you went out and hired Al Golden, you fired Luan Rumo, but the truth of the matter is is that this team as a whole has to perform better both offensively and defensively. Zack has to do better in clutch moments when he needs to better play calling. Those last couple drives were not very good from his perspective. He acknowledged that already. Um, and so it’s it’s really tough because from a Bengals perspective and as a just someone who’s giving an opinion on what I think will happen, I don’t think anything will happen this year. I think Zack Taylor will be your head coach in 2026 and I think a lot of people will be disappointed to hear this, but I think he probably gets an extension after this year and he’s only got one year left on the deal. I don’t know that the Bengals are going to go in with a with a uh sitting duck as their head coach. Um, I know it’s not college anymore and you can definitely do that in a in a manner in the NFL versus at the college level where having a sitting duck is not a good way to recruit, but I I unfortunately am not going to be shocked if I hear come this off seasonason that Zach Taylor has agreed to a one-year extension. That’s a great point, and I think that’s something not a lot of people are really processing or even talking about or pondering. Um, here at this point, turning the page to Chicago, right? We talk about must wins all the time. I’ll go out there and say it. I think this is a must-win. I don’t see a way where Joe Burrow can come back and play meaningful football if you do not win on Sunday. It’s a Bears team that they had strung together some wins, but it’s like it kind of looks clunky. It doesn’t look very clean. Uh Ben Johnson, in my opinion, looks like a clear hit as a head coach. Caleb Williams, on the other hand, he struggled significantly. Now, as I mentioned earlier in the week, when you play the Bengals defense, it’s kind of a get-right game for your offense, whoever you are are um coming into the game, but I guess just your expectations or confidence level um going into this game against Chicago. It’s another home game for you. But then again, you did just get booed off your home field at the conclusion of last week’s game. Yeah, well, the more I watch the Bears, the less confident I’m feeling, Stone, I’ll be honest with you. The Bears now sit at a three-point favorite going into the game. The overunder is set at 51 a half. And as you mentioned, first year head coach Ben Johnson is one of the more creative minds offensively in the entire NFL. And so you look at what he’s done in in year one and certainly improved the Bears offense. They’re sitting now 12th in the entire NFL at 350 plus yards per game. And they’re doing it with a balanced offense. They’re 10th in rushing at 124.6 yards per game. They’re 10th in passing at 225 yards per game. And so they’re going to be a challenge for this Bengals team because honestly I’m coming into this I I’m a little worried that DeAndre Swift and Kyle Monuy are not going to run for 200 yards against this Bengals defense and um and really control the clock and control this game. Um which is going to be really challenging because that’s going to be the goal for both teams. Both teams are going to want to run the ball in this one. And um luckily for the Bengals, they’ve run the ball a whole lot better over the last three weeks. Um during that time, Caleb, uh Chase Brown is averaging nearly seven yards per pop over the last three games. So they’re getting right in the right vicinity, uh the right part of the game in order to uh make this an interesting one. But you mentioned Caleb Williams. He’s got no touchdowns in his last two games. Two interceptions, one in each of those two games. Um he’s got nine total touchdowns on the year, four of which came against the other terrible defense in the NFL, and that’s the Dallas Cowboys. Um I wouldn’t be shocked if we don’t see a very similar line from Caleb Williams in this one where he goes 19 to 28 for 300 yards and four touchdowns. Um but I also wouldn’t be shocked if he only has to throw the ball 20 times because they run the ball 30 or 40 times in this one. So, um it’s one of those games where it’s going to be difficult for this Bengals defense to be prepared because the Bears can beat you at multiple levels. Um defensively, they’re not great, but they’re decent against the pass. Uh middle of the pack against the pass, but they give up 143 yards on the ground. So, Chase Brown finding his stride and this offensive line finding their stride at this point in the season uh is at least going to set them up for potential success. But whether or not Zack Taylor can lead them to a win on Sunday, I guess is yet to be seen. From an injury perspective, the Bengals got two big ones that were monitoring. One, of course, is the quarterback. Joe Flacco has the shoulder. Zach said he was dayto-day was sore. Um, I feel like that could be a, you know, a really huge story because I if you roll Jake Browning out there in this game, you’re in serious trouble. And Trey Henderson there, of course, as well. Um, he tried to give it a go. He played in the first half. the defense looked better with him out there, but then you know obviously you remove him from the equation and they it’s just without Trey Hendendrickson they’re nothing and even with him they’re not much at all. Let me be very clear um there about that. I guess your concern level for those two guys as it relates to their injuries. I feel like the Flaco thing probably should be a bigger deal than what people um are making it and just how big of a loss is it for Cincinnati if Trey Henderson is unable to go? Well, I’ll start with Joe Flacco. Ian Rapapore reported this morning that he’s dealing with an AC joint sprain. Um his status is quote up in the air for Sunday against the Bears. So um I despite that report, I still feel confident that Joe Flacco is going to give it a go. Um it’s obviously not a similar situation that you just saw with Carson Wentz in in Minnesota. I don’t think it’s nearly that bad, but um you have to remember Joe Flacco’s 40 years old and those injuries don’t heal nearly as fast as they used to. But, uh, he he was able to come back into the game on Sunday against the Jets. My my gut is telling me that he’ll be able to go on Sunday despite the AC joint. Now, on the other side of the ball, Trey Hendrickson with his hip injury that he reagravated in the game on Sunday. Hard to see him going if I’m being honest. And that’s obviously difficult to say when you’re talking about the only person on your team who’s got a pass rush win rate above 10%. But, um, I I think they’re going to be pretty tentative with him, um, coming back this year, uh, after this kind of reinjury. They’re going to want to make sure that he’s at or near 100% before they risk putting him back out there. So, I wouldn’t be shocked if if Trey Hendrickson misses this week, takes the extra week with the buy, and then comes back for Pittsburgh. But, I think Joe Flacco will give it a go. Final question for you, Craig. kind of a two-parter here, shifting back to the offensive side. Um, look, I think the world of T. Higgins, I think T. Higgins is a tremendous player, and he had lots of one-on-one opportunities in that game, and he only got targeted twice and only had the one catch. Obviously, it was a big one for a touchdown. I had a massive issue with that. I want to know your thoughts on that. And also, at that wide receiver three spot, it’s been a very hot topic here in this town. Yoshi was a great player for you last year with Joe Burrow, third down, red zone kind of guy. this year. I mean, he he’s struggling to catch the ball. He’s struggling to create any type of separation, get open. He’s out there for like 85% of the snaps and he’s not really a factor whatsoever. I guess your take on the lack of usage for T. Higgins this previous game and what to do at that third wide receiver spot going forward. Well, you’re certainly missing Mike Cassiki now, aren’t you? No doubt. A lot of people uh I think were underappreciating Mike Cassiki and what he brought to this offense as that kind of flexed wide receiver three tight end. And um I I hear you on T. Higgins. There’s no world where T. Higgins and his athleticism should only be targeted twice in a game. And I and I understand that especially when the opposing team’s number one quarterback is out. Um, but you look at the stats and in Stone, I I I don’t know if you saw this or or not, but NFL’s NextGen stats, obviously, they have a stat around average separation uh for wide receivers, and the league average is right around three yards of separation. Jamar Chase on Sunday had an average separation of 3.44. Noah Fant 4.44. T. Higgins, his average separation 1.28 28 yards on the game. So, all those one-on-one looks, he wasn’t necessarily getting open. Andre Yoshas was even worse. 1.05 yards of separation uh on average for Andre Yoshas on route’s run. That’s not going to get it done. And I don’t know if T. Higgins is has lost a step or if he’s a little banged up or if they just had a really good game plan against him. I know especially late in the game they were doubling T and Jamar to make sure that Joe Flacco was forced to go to guys like Andre Yoshas but Andre wasn’t winning those matchups and so you have to wonder whether or not Mitchell Tinsley will get more looks. You have to wonder about Germaine Burton and whether or not he’s going to have a chance at all this year at this point. Uh he’s obviously been active for inactive for every game so far this year, but you got to find something and uh whether that’s going out on the the trade market or the free agent market, Andre’s got to figure it out between the drops and the lack of separation, he’s not he’s not giving Jamar Chase. Higgins uh defenders anybody else to worry about at this point. Um he had one good game against Pittsburgh where he had three catches, but that’s really as much as we’ve seen out of him this year. Um, T. Higgins has got to win his matchups. Jamar Chase has done what Jamar Chase do does. But I think the other piece of it is that Zack Taylor schemes to get Jamar Chase open easy touches, right? You see a lot of those screens. You see a lot of the the um the the the motion quick shovel passes. Um some of those ways where they’re just getting the ball into Jamar Chase’s hands anyway they can. I think sometimes Joe Flacco just needs to trust T. Higgins athleticism and throw him a go ball and let him see if he can come down with it. And I understand that right now we’re asking Joe Flacco to be ultraconervative and and careful with the ball and he hasn’t turned it over. But at some point you’re going to have to let it loose. And obviously T. Higgins got beyond the defender for that touchdown on Sunday. But he’s athletic enough, he’s big enough where against most corners in this league, he’s going to be able to win one-on-one even if he only has 1.28 yards of separation. Yeah, that’s a great stat there on T. Higgins. Not great obviously for the Cincinnati Bengals, but a great find there by you. Certainly concerning for Cincinnati there as well. He is Craig Sandlin. Craig_andlin on Twitter, Chatterbox Reds, Chatterbox Bengals, doing a bunch of stuff here for us at Chatterbox and we always appreciate his time. Craig, thank you, brother. Let’s do it again soon. Yes, sir. We’ll talk to you later. All right. See you, Craig. Two great guests here on the showcase. Paul Fritzer, Craig Sandlin. I mean, what more can you ask for? Those are two elite. They are got to turn on the mic. Those are two elite guests. Uh couldn’t uh done the show without them. So, appreciate them coming on and and giving their insight, man. Um, sounds like Craig it might be a little bit out on the on the Bengals. Um, it’s unfortunate because I feel like he he’s actually a pretty positive voice in our uh little community that we have here. I hate hearing that from him. Um, and then Paul, I mean, he he’s elite. I actually had a uh our old intro in the back. If he were to uh wanted to to to speak at all to me, I was going to play it. Uh, we used to be called the Hammond Edgars. I don’t know if you ever watch I’ve heard about this. Yeah. Uh Donald Trump, he he gave his own personal little intro to us. Oh, he did. The Hammond Edgars, these guys are great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But um yeah, I mean, great. Yeah, it was a great time. So, anyh who, we talked a lot about the Bengals. Um we on to college football now. Are we on to your top 10? I’m going to do um my top 10 really quickly. Um, I appreciate Paul and Craig for going a little bit longer there. Um, yeah, the questions just kept flowing and they look like they were good, but I’ll make sure to communicate going forward exactly how long these segments will be. I know usually segments only about 15 minutes, but we went a little bit longer than that with Paul and Craig. So, appreciate um certainly their time and hope to have both those guys back on soon, whether it be off the bench or my show as well. We’re going to cruise through my college football top 10 real quick. We do it every Wednesday. I got about 30 minutes left here in the show. goal is to do this in about 10 to 12 minutes and then we’re going to finish off with Casey Mallister. He’s got some buyer sales for us and Case and I are going to go back and forth on that. But let’s do our CFB top 10. We do it every Wednesday here at the show. Um Andrew Collinsworth does a tremendous job with the graphic that we put up on our social media pages by the way. Um that will go up on Twitter later today. Make sure you check that out. Big shout out to Andrew for making that happen. Not a ton of changes here in my top 10 this week. Do have a few subtle T changes. will go 10 to1. Again, kind of like the NFL, not very many changes in the NFL this week as it relates to my power rankings there as well. But the two teams right now on the outside looking in for me are BYU and Tennessee. Now, I understand BYU is undefeated, and I understand that there’s a good chance BYU is still going to be undefeated by the time they roll in here to Nippert Stadium in a couple of weeks, and that’s going to be a tremendous game. I’m just not fully sold on them yet. But a really impressive win from them last week against Iowa State going on the road. I believe by the way they were underdogs in that game. So Vegas didn’t even have belief in them that they could go in there and get the job done. Um but BYU is a good team. You know they’ve been kind of reliant on coming back late in the fourth quarter. That’s not, you know, a consistent recipe that you can rely on, right, as a football team. But Bear Bachmire, got to give him a ton of credit. True freshman quarterback. He’s spinning it. Their offense coming alive here, scoring some points. They’ve been in some close games earlier in the season with some teams that they should have handled a little bit more easily, but I think they’re progressing week in and week out. And um you know, I think at this point, you can make certainly make the argument they’re the best team um in the Big 12 as it relates to their perfect record here at this point. I still think Texas Tech’s a good team and I still think the Cincinnati Bearcats. I’m kind of all in. I I want to say all in. I’m kind of in on Cincinnati after that win against Baylor. That’s an impressive win. And I understand Baylor was four and three, but that’s a Baylor team that uh that’s a really good offense. And from a defensive standpoint for Cincinnati, I thought it was going to be a shootout, but that Cincinnati defense held its own there. Corleó up the middle kind of stabilizing things. He did a tremendous job. This UC team game day going to be at Utah, by the way. We’re going to be talking a lot of UC football here on Thursday and Friday. Maybe we’ll get um Hudson Claukey back on the show. He did a tremendous job, but going to start talking about UC a little bit more. I have BYU just barely on the outside looking in here at this point. And then Tennessee. People are kind of not talking about Tennessee because it’s like, oh, they have two losses. Well, who’ they lose to? Alabama and Georgia. My opinion, two top five teams in the country. We’ll get to them in a second. Tennessee beat the doors off of Kentucky on the road. I get Kucky’s not a very good team, but you know, Texas, Texas probably isn’t a very good team either, but that was an overtime game, right? And that was no issue for Hypo Aular and those boys in Tennessee. Tennessee still a threat in this thing and tough for them. They have two losses here at this point. probably need to run the table to get in, but Tennessee still a really good football team. At number 10, I have Georgia Tech. You know, I was kind of going back and forth between BYU and Georgia Tech here at this spot. You know, I thought Georgia Tech was a little bit, you know, borderline fraudulent. They of course have a perfect record there as well in the ACC. They beat Clemson. That’s kind of their signature win here this year, but Clemson, of course, has kind of had a disastrous season um here to this point. Last week, I had Georgia Tech at nine. The AP poll has them at eight. Um, but I’m dropping him down one slot to number 10. I’ll tell you why in a second. They beat the crud out of Syracuse 4116. Syracuse is not that good of a team, obviously. I understand that. But Hayden King, what he’s been able to do offensively, um, he just wills his team to victory. Reminds me in a lot of ways of Diego Pavia. We’ll talk about him in Vanderbilt here in a second. Uh, but he does a tremendous job. He’s tough and that toughness kind of reverberates throughout the entirety of his football team in my opinion. And Brent Key, I think the world of him with all these jobs coming open, not going to surprise me. In fact, I would be shocked if Brent Key is still the coach at Georgia Tech next year. I don’t know if they’re in a spot um as far as their university, their athletic department, the resources they have to give him the contract that he deserves in order to keep him um at Georgia Tech. I think he’s going to be on to a bigger job here at this point, but really impressed. I’m I didn’t think they’d be undefeated at this far in the year. Can they beat a top five team in the country? I don’t think so, but they deserve a lot of credit and they’re in my top 10. Notre Dame, I got them at number nine. Again, kind of similar to Tennessee in some ways where it’s like, well, they got two losses. People were kind of writing them off. I’m not going to do that. Uh, last week I had him at eight, I bumped them down one slot to number nine. The AP poll has them at 12. They didn’t play a game. They were idle last week. This is the Notre Dame team. That’s that’s a good football team. CJ Carr, what he’s doing at the quarterback position is tremendous. Talk about all these jobs coming open. We’ve done our replacements videos here on the show detailing, you know, Penn State, LSU, Florida, right? You know, could the Wisconsin job open up? Could the Florida State job open up? Certainly real possibilities here as it relates to that and Marcus Freeman going to be a guy that is sought after and we’ll see if Notre Dame can do what it takes to keep him where he is right now. I think Notre Dame’s going to run the table. I think they’re going to be one of the 12 teams that make the college football playoff. Didn’t play last week. Have them at number nine here in my top 10. At number eight, I have Vanderbilt. And I’ve said on this show previously, I think Vanderbilt is for real. I They’re a top 10 team in the country. Now, offensively, they sputtered a little bit against Missouri, but that’s a solid Missouri defense, right? SEC defense only won that game 17-10 at home, but it is another win. Uh the AP poll has him at nine. I’m a little bit higher. I got him at eight, but I did dock him down one spot because it was a little bit of a lackluster performance there for Vandy. Diego Pave is a tremendous college football quarterback. Is he going to be an NFL guy? Absolutely not. And uh you know, he’s hitting the Heisman post doing things like that. That ain’t going to happen either. All right. But he is a tremendous quarterback. And similar to what I said about Hudson uh Hannes card rather Hannes card Hannes King rather is that kind of his toughness and his personality kind of just bleeds throughout the entirety of the team. He wills his team to victory. Same thing um in Nashville with Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt. Seven I got Old Miss. We’ll see how long they have their head coach. Kind of feels like it’s his last year with all these big-time jobs opening up and not a ton of top candidates there. Right. It seems like every you know open job has Lane Keifin as their top guy. would be a surprise if ultimately he stayed in Oxford beyond this year. Last week I had him at 10. Um, you know, I didn’t fully trust him, but honestly, my takeaway from the Oklahoma game on the road is Oklahoma the same team they were early in the year. No, Mati’s banged up coming off the hand surgery. I understand that, but that’s a prolific offense um there for Oklahoma. They’ve kind of settled in as Trinidad Shamblas is kind of their guy, their trigger man. He’s done a nice job and they’ve been able to hang in there defensively and that’s really been the knock on Keif in his time here in Old Miss is like, “Yeah, you got a prolific offense, but what are you going to do on defense?” Defense is better than it has been in years past. Eight-point victory in Norman last week. It’s a big time win as far as I’m concerned. I’m a little bit higher on miss than I was going into last week. Got the Rebels at number seven. Six. I got Oregon dropping them down a little bit. I had them at four last week. The AP pole has them actually right here at number six. They beat Wisconsin only 21-7 as I alluded to. I know Fickle just signed an extension. Uh but I’d be moving off Luke Fickle to be completely honest with you. I mean, just a disaster. I think they’ve lost six games in a row. They can’t win in the Big 10. They can’t do anything. They can’t run the football. I get they’ve had issues keeping their quarterback healthy. And that’s a problem. And you hear stories about Fickle just not being a likable guy. And I think that plays into this a little bit there as well. Perfect example, Zack Taylor. He’s still here in Cincinnati. A lot of other organizations would have moved off. I understand the Bengals operate a lot different than every other organization in the NFL, but he’s a nice guy. He’s a great guy. He says all the right things all the time. You look at the opposite side of that spectrum. What happened to Brian Kelly? Right when things got dark, right when things got ugly, he’s gone. Why? Cuz he’s just not a nice guy. And that’s a very nice way of me saying that. By the way, Brian Kelly is kind of just a horrible uh human being and he’s gone. Don’t have that. Um or that kind of aligns as well um with Luke Fickle as it relates to the Wisconsin job. But regardless, 21-7 win for Oregon at home. The weather was a mess in that game. Dante Moore left. Probably could have came back if, you know, it was a bigger game against a bigger opponent. But I’m a little bit, you know, down on Oregon a little bit. It’s just because Wisconsin’s so bad. But again, the weather was awful. Couldn’t really throw the ball. They ran the ball for over 200 yards in the game. If there’s one thing that Wisconsin can do, it’s slow down the run. So, uh, Oregon’s still very much a threat in this thing, but had to dock them down. Couple of spots. Five. I got Georgia. Last week, I had them at five as well. The AP poll has them at five. They did not play a game last week. Kirby Smarts, um, best coach in the country and they’re going to have some opportunities to prove this here, but I very much view them as a national title threat. At number four, I have Texas A&M and uh, you know, I was high on Texas A&M early and then I kind of backed off on them a little bit the past couple of weeks. The Arkansas game concerned me a little bit as it relates to their performance. Um, last week I had them at six. The AP bowl has them up at three. I’ve got them at four. They beat LSU 49 to 25. And I understand LSU was a mess, but going into Death Valley at night and winning, that’s one of the toughest environments in college football. And they did it. And they did it with flying colors, no problem whatsoever. That offense is clicking um completely. And um I think, you know, Marcel Reed, I think he has entered into the Heisman conversation here at this point. You know, when I look at the Heisman guys, you know, people throw Mendoza up there. I’m a little bit cooler on Mendoza than others. I think it’s Tai Simpson, Julian Sean, and I’m putting Marcel Reed right into that category right now. They had a great receiving duo with Mario Craraver and Conpsion there as well. They can run the football. Some questions there on defense, but Elco’s got that ship steering in the right direction. Got them at number four. They’re very much a threat in the SEC. They’re very much a threat to win the whole shebang. Three, I got Indiana. Last week I had them at three as well. The AP poll has them at two. Um, you know, UCLA, it was kind of a fun game. There were some storylines around it. UCLA was on a heater, right, with New Eisel and Tim Skipper, new uh, you know, coaching staff in place after the just awful start to the year. They were outmatched in this game. That’s the thing about Indiana, right? They were kind of a cute story last year, but then it’s like, you know, against the league competition, how did they fare against Ohio State didn’t look good. Notre Dame, they kind of bullied them a little bit there as well. Indiana, that’s a real defense. It’s a top five defense, and they’re real in the trenches. They play with physicality. They play with toughness. They are a really, really good football team. It’s not the same old Indiana. Um, I think top to bottom they’re probably a better football team collectively than I have um than the number two team, which I’ll get into here in a second. Um, I’ll just say, you know, it’s Alabama. I got BAM at too. I just think the Bama skill guys um are a bit of a step above that. And by skill guy, I don’t necessarily mean receiver. I mean the quarterback um there as well. But Indiana’s a real team. Mendoza, you know, people have him as a potential guy that could potentially win the Heisman, potentially be the number one overall pick. Um I some people think he’s the real deal. I’m a little bit cooler on him, but uh I’m more focused on their defense and what they’ve got going in the trenches and Signetti coaching, moving with confidence, doing a tremendous job. Have them at number three. Bama, I got them at two. Last week I had them at two. The AP poll has them at four. I understand they escaped in South Carolina in Colombia. Um that game looked like it could have been lost very easily. They only win it by seven points. Carolina obviously has been kind of a disaster throughout the course of the season to this point. Um, but it’s funny, you know, they’ve struggled kind of packing the stadium and getting people to stay throughout the entirety of the game, but then just need Alabama to roll in at the 3:30 slot and they’ll fill out the stadium, sell out, rockus environment, felt like um an SEC environment in that game. And the reason why I still have BAM at 2 despite that game is because I think it says a lot about a team when you face adversity and you stare it right in the face and you say, “Okay, we’re going to overcome this. We’re going to trust in our best players and our leaders to overcome this.” Ty Simpson, who I think is the best quarterback in the country, and you know, going into this week, I think he was the Heisman front runner. Maybe he’s not anymore. He was bad for three quarters. And I don’t think this Alabama team is deep enough where they can get away with him not being good, right? Ohio State can, and I think even Indiana can to some degree, but if Alabama’s got Ty Simpson playing average football, they’re they’re just a mid football team, really is the kind of synopsis there. But then he played an incredible fourth quarter. The first three quarters, he’s missing on stuff. That dig route over the middle, that’s his favorite. I’ve never seen a missile in that in my life. Missed it badly. Would have been a touchdown to Jeremy Bernard. Um and and then the fourth quarter he just came alive and Ryan Grub was dialing it up there offensively. Dbor coaching hard and they’re able to overcome it. Get the critical turnover, the strip from Deontay Lawson and ultimately win that game. So I think some people look at Alabama and say I view Alabama in a lesser light because it, you know, they kind of they needed a miraculous comeback to beat South Carolina. I actually view them um you know I actually view them higher than I once did because I I think it says a lot about a team to be on the road in that kind of environment. Stare adversity right in the face. Overcome it and I think that’s something you can build off of throughout the rest of the year. Finally, Ohio State at number one. Last week I’ve had him at I had them at one. I’ve had them at one all year. AP’s got him at one. They didn’t play a game last week. They will continue to not play um games, but Ohio State is uh a class of their own at this point as they have elevated their performance above everybody else in the sport. All right, case. Buy or sell? Final 20 minutes of the show. I know you got some good ones there. We’ll go back and forth on these. What you got for me? First one. Buy or sell? All right, let’s start off let’s start off with the Bengals conversations first since we uh since we just finished. Actually, let’s start with college football. Okay, let’s start with college football. Okay, buy or sell. Brian Kelly will get another big job. Okay. So, um you know, I spent some time there for a second talking about Brian Kelly. Um look, he’s won. That that’s something that you can’t dispute. Wherever he has been when he was at UC, before UC, after UC, Notre Dame, he has won. And look, he’s won a little bit at LSU, too. But the expectation obviously at LSU was so high. And um you know, I don’t think that he was fired necessarily because of the wins and losses directly. I think it’s what I alluded to. It’s like if you’re a bad guy and you’re a guy that’s generally unpleasant to be around, your lease is shorter. Your lease is just simply shorter. And um I think that’s what resulted in him losing a job. Now the the the thing says big job like is he going to get the Florida or Penn State job? No. Um but like even if you’re Arkansas, like you just saw what he did with all the resources at LSU and it’s like well we got way less resources than that. Like how the heck is he going to win enough games here if he couldn’t win enough games there? Um, I think it’ll take a year or two. I don’t know if he’s going to get right into coaching right away. I mean, the buyout, he’s getting paid over $700,000 a month for the next few years. That’s just I mean, it stinks. I’m sure it’s embarrassing and just, you know, disheartening to get fired as a coach, but it’s kind of the best thing that could happen to you is you just get paid millions of dollars for sitting there doing nothing. Um, I think at some point he will get another job. Look, it it doesn’t get much bigger than the LSU job. like maybe the Ohio State job, but obviously he’s not going to have a job on that level, but at some point another team will take a chance on him just because, you know, he’s won everywhere he’s been. What’s your take on that? He is he is going to be or he just turned 64, so I mean like he is getting up there in age. Um that might play a factor into the big job conversation. Like I think there’s going to be a college that will will take a swing at him, but like you said, it might take a year or two. Um, he’s got to go prove it at a lower level, I think, again. But that lower level could be like, I don’t know, UC 2.0 when Satderfield takes the Penn State job. Huh? Who knows? Or you’re starting something over there, aren’t you? N I mean, like it kind of in some ways reminds me of of Bellich, right? But to a lesser degree where it’s like if you’re winning and you’re winning all these games, like that kind of stuff, you can kind of get past the whole, you know, being a jerk, right? you know, let’s just be real here. That’s kind of what it is. But once it gets ugly and once you’re not winning, it’s just people are people are like, “We’re going to go with somebody else that’s a little bit more jolly, a little bit more pleasant to be around, a better leader.” And uh and also like, you know, he did the thing. I I saw this come across Twitter the other day as well with the I forgot about he was at the basketball game with the fake southern accent. Like that is just that is the most one of the most embarrassing things that I’ve ever seen that he actually went out there and did that. Like that was a real thing. So, there was always like him trying to fit into the SEC, fit into the South, and clearly it was like this guy’s from Boston and he’s down here. I think there was a um you know, uh that didn’t necessarily align with certainly the the culture there and the fan base. But um yeah, I don’t think you know he’ll never have a job that big, but I think at some point a team will will hire him. Um if he wants to be hired, we’ll I mean, as you mentioned, he’s getting up there in age and um he just seems kind of like a grouch here at this point, but um not not as big. Not a huge job, but um I I think a powerful job at some point again at some point. Yeah. Okay. Uh Blue Jays can win the World Series, buy or sell. What do you think? Well, shoot. I sat here on this show and I said they were going to before the playoffs started, so I’m not backing off it. I’ll be honest. You know, I was talking with Reer on the show yesterday. um kind of seeing how things transpired in the 18 inning game. It was like uh kind of felt like Toronto needed that one, right? And then you know, Springer, you lose him, it’s like, well, that’s that’s kind of one of your guys. Uh Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is unbelievable. And I know people sit here and talk about Otani and how great he is. That’s fine. Reed loves doing it. I I hear you. He’s unbelievable. But uh let’s look at what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has done in the postseason, what he’s been able to do, um you know, in the World Series. And the homer he hit last night was huge. you know, it felt like the momentum was there on the Dodgers and he said, you know, not so fast. So, I absolutely believe this and now you’re in a spot where this series is going back to Toronto at some point regardless of what happens in game five. You’re going to close this thing out in Toronto. And I I absolutely believe they have an opportunity here. The Dodgers bullpen, it’s been well documented that’s their weakness. Dodgers probably always going to have the advantage when it comes to starting pitching regardless of what the matchups are over the course of the next few games. But this offense for Toronto is real. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is unbelievable. And uh I’m absolutely buying this. I mean, I it’s just so hard to to to bet against the Dodgers in this scenario. Um I I’m just going to say this, the analytics of this, I’m just looking at the ESPN front page, looking at the stats and the the odds and whatnot. The odds that the Dodgers win today, according to Vegas, is minus 190. the percentage is 70% basically in favor of the Dodgers to win today. Um I just don’t know, man. I I just feel like it’s so much to overcome and they they’ve got some injuries for for the Blue Jays. I I uh it’s just not look it’s this the stack is not uh going well for them. It’s getting stacked up against them. So, I’m going to say sell. I I I think uh Dodgers win again. Uh does it go seven or you think the Dodgers win two in a row here? I think it would be fun for it to be game seven. Yeah, I think game sevens are elite. Oh, yeah. It doesn’t matter what sport it is because it comes down to the final game. Um I hope it goes I don’t know if it will, but I hope it does. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I I’ll still roll with the Jays here. I’m still going with Toronto. All right, moving on. Buy or sell. Steelers should move on from Mike Tomlin. This is interesting and there’s a lot of layers to this. Um, look, Pittsburgh year in and year out. They win more games than they lose, right? But if you look at the past several years, and it’s it feels like a decade now, honestly, where it’s like, okay, like, yeah, you got a winning year, but you get to the playoffs and and you get blown out, and it’s like you’re just kind of doing the same thing over and over again. Um Tomlin obviously is kind of the CEO type, right? He’s heavily reliant on his coordinators. And in recent years, I don’t know if they’ve been able to elevate the team as much as he has hoped. Uh there’s no question Mike Tomlin can coach. There’s no question about that whatsoever. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he won another world title at some point, regardless if it’s in Pittsburgh or elsewhere. But I think some at some point as an organization, you just have to look at it and say, well, is it time to, you know, just go in a different direction? It doesn’t need to be, oh, you’re fired, but it’s just you sit down with Tom and it’s like, yeah, you’re winning games, but we’re doing the same thing each and every year, and we’re not getting anywhere. We’re not progressing towards a world championship. We haven’t been able to figure out the quarterback since Ben left. Haven’t been able to figure out the offensive line since then, either. And we’re allocating all this money on defense. and now the defense is arguably the weak point of your football team, which if you’re paying that kind of money to the defense is absolutely crazy. That that cannot be the case here. So, it doesn’t need to be something where Pittsburgh’s like, “Oh, like this is unacceptable. You’re fired.” But I think if you sat down with Mike and was like, “You know what? It’s been a heck of a run. You won a world championship. You’ve won a lot of games. We love you here. Shoot. We’ll probably build a statue for you outside this stadium. Do we just want to go our separate ways and move on?” And I think, you know, Mike Dolman could do some great things that um other teams in this league, you know, with a young quarterback perhaps, right? Like this Aaron Rogers thing. I I love Aaron Rogers. I I the off the- field stuff, I get it. Is he a, you know, a bit of a weirdo? Yes, I get that. But just as a quarterback, I love watching Aaron Rogers and I have my whole life. But I mean, at most you got this year and next year and right there’s a good chance it’s just this year. And then what are you going to do at the quarterback spot? Bill Howard out of Ohio State. That’s your that’s your plan at the quarterback spot. So, um it’s interesting. I think the Steelers as a, you know, an organization are so proud of the fact like we’ve only had, you know, three coaches over the course of the past however many years and it’s like, you know, that’s great and you’re winning games, but like if you’re going to get back to, you know, winning world championships, which is the expectation in Pittsburgh and despite the fact you’ve won all these games, you’re not even close to that. So, um, you know, I I don’t think if Tomlin wants to stay, I I think he probably deserves to be able to stay. But I think if you sat down with him and said, “Look, we love you. We appreciate you.” it might be time to, you know, you go elsewhere and we kind of move on here. That could be a real possibility. Yeah. I mean, I I think it it is a bit of a case of we just need a different direction. It’s not that he’s um a terrible head coach by all means. I mean, I think he’s been one of the better head coaches in the last 10, 20 years. Um maybe of all time. I mean, like, I think about how many winning seasons he’s had in a row, and I’m sure the win loss record is pretty damn good when you stack it up against the rest of the NFL in term in terms of just his historically speaking. Um, I feel like a lot of their issues is just out of his control. I mean, like part of it is their GM is not able to find them a good enough quarterback. Tomlin is a defensive guy. He needs someone to be able to find the offensive pieces, which, you know, a lot of people are saying in this chat, you know, he won a Super Bowl with the roster that was handed to him. Sure. But he also went again in like 2013, played a red-hot Aaron Rogers Packers team where right down to the wire. Is that the same Super Bowl roster? No, it’s not. So, I mean, I think it’s cap he’s capable of doing great things if he’s got the quarterback, and he’s never had the quarterback since Rothllessberger left. Um, that team has never been the same since Rothllessberger declined. Um, they get a quarterback, and man, I I I would hate to see what happens because I think that they’ve got um a really really talented roster around um every single position except for quarterback. Um so, we’ll see. I mean, I I would hate to see it happen because I think uh or I would love to see it happen. Sorry, excuse me. Love to see it happen as a Bengals fan, right? Um because I think he’s that good, but would hate to see it from a football perspective. I think he’s still pretty good in this league. So, yeah, fair enough. Yeah. Um moving on to another firing question. We’re really asking the hard hard-hitting questions here. Should the Bengals buy or sell fire Duke Tobin. Uh, you know, I’ve said this several times on the show. I don’t like coming here on this, you know, when we’re talking and it’s privilege to be able to do what we do, right? And to sit here and call for another guy’s job that’s obviously way more qualified than we are. And um, we meaning me and you and everybody watching and listening to this, by the way. But um, look, he’s been here since 1999 um, as the director of player personnel. Clearly, he’s he’s in with the Brown family, right? The Blackburn family. And um they probably in some ways view him as a part of kind of their ownership group. I understand that’s not what he does. He’s a personnel guy, basically the GM. I I understand that, but they kind of probably view him similar to that. And you can’t fire an owner, right? A fellow owner. You can’t fire them. It doesn’t work like that. Um so I at some point, you know, people have to you be held accountable for things that don’t go well. And I I just think you’ve done this for a while with Tobin. He’s had success, but again, he’s been here so long. If you’re put a guy in that spot for that long, like, yeah, he’s going to have some hits. You know, we talked about you got Joe and Jamar, right? Who wouldn’t have had the T. Higgins pick is a great pick. The Chase Brown pick is a great pick. You pick Jesse Bates, that’s a great pick. But unfortunately, and especially here recently, it’s just been too many whiffs. And I think it would be better off if the organization moved off him here at this point. and you brought in um a new executive, you know, somebody from a really good, you know, organization, like you want to go get one of um Howie’s guys in Philadelphia, or you want to get one of Lynch’s guys in San Francisco or one of Les’s guys um in LA with the Rams, or maybe even a division, one of Dcasta’s guys with the Ravens, like go there’s definitely some executives, young and upand cominging executives in those organizations that are just waiting for an opportunity to be calling the shots and have an opportunity to draft and devel develop some good guys. I just think you need to go about a change and I think I think Craig made a great point. Um I’d be surprised if the Bengals let go of Zack Taylor and then it’s like well you’re going to bring in a a guy that’s a is he a director of player personnel or do you give a guy a GM title? I don’t know. But then he doesn’t get to pick the head coach. So that gets a little bit awkward there. But um look, I mean these guys defensively, man, are just they’re not even close. And um you switch up the coordinator and it’s just as bad. And actually it’s it’s worse, too. So, he can’t just keep firing the coordinator. Um, at some point the guy making these decisions um it needs to be held accountable. And um you know, Craig made the point about he thinks that Zach maybe has more say in the draft picks than Duke does. I got to push back on that. I I don’t know for a fact, but um I I think it’s Duke Tobin calling the shots and pulling the strings there, and it hasn’t been close. I mean, I So, I’m more in the camp of of Craig here, thinking that the coaching staff as a whole, Zach included in that, of course, as the head coach, has a lot of say as to who the Bengals select during the draft. I mean, what coach doesn’t, but especially for the Bengals where they ask a lot of their coaches to basically be scouting and doing their own research in terms of uh selecting the talent, selecting the players. Um, I think that they are more to blame uh how they have it structurally set up than than it is Duke. um whether that’s Duke’s fault, not uh if it’s in his control to get more of a scouting department or if it’s um you know the ownership saying like, “Hey, um this is the the rules for you to be our de facto GM of player personnel.” You know, um it’s not like Duke is out there wheeling and dealing um with the with contracts. That’s all ownership. Um GMs usually around the NFL. The good ones at least are the ones negotiating those deals. they’re the ones that have the end- all beall and say of the draft capital and I don’t think that um at the end of this that he has the end all beall say in really any of these any of these decisions. I think he’s just the guy that kind of facilitates um kind of passes the responsibilities where they need to be. Kind of makes sure that you know he’s he’s the spokesperson. I I’m one of those cynical guys that thinks that he’s just a spokesman. I don’t think that there’s any sort of uh true GMing going on there. Um he’s the the intermediary between the head coach and what he wants to do on his team and what the ownership wants. And so who’s calling the shots? The ownership or Zack? Well, Zach does a lot of the, like I said, the coaching staff does a lot of the scouting where the scouting department lacks, right? They ask a lot of their coaches to do the scouting. Um, the research, the film study, the breakdown, all that during the off season. Um, I don’t think Duke is really out there like saying like, “That’s my guy.” He’s asking, “Hey, Zack, is this your guy?” Oh, it is. Okay, let’s go get him. Okay. Hey, ownership is this is do you want T. Higgins? All right. Let’s set up those meetings to to get those contracts figured out. Like I don’t think he’s really doing any of the hard heavy lifting here. Which is why it’s hard to say like should the Bengals fire Duke Tobin? Sure. I mean it’s not really going to change much. I don’t think the way that it’s structurally built is uh conducive to solving the main issue which is like they don’t have enough resources in the in the scouting department. they don’t let the GM do a lot of the contract negotiations and things like that. So, that’s where I I find it hard to really like, sure, go ahead, fire him. I buy it. Fire him. It’s not going to change anything. Okay. Yeah. I I respectfully disagree with him not having a ton of say, but I get it, right? Because you look at the two picks of Knight and Barrett Carter, it’s like those look like Al Golden picks, which is basically, you know, a Zack Taylor pick. So, I I I understand that point. I pushed back on it a little bit, but the great point I think you made is the way it’s set up. Like, dude, just get a GM. Hire a GM. Like, what is this de facto GM? Like, nobody else has that. That’s just laughable. And um even if you move off them and if you still just have a director of player personnel, um that’s just set up for failure. So, I I totally agree with that point. Yeah. Uh last but not least, should the Bengals make a move at the trade deadline, buy or sell? We I mean we kind of timed this thing out perfectly, didn’t we? Just a little bit. Um yeah, we talked about this a little bit earlier and I think it’s a great way to wrap up the show. Um I talk to me Monday. I I know that’s a cop now, but like talk to me Monday, right? I think, you know, if the Bengals defense finds a way to look a little bit better, we’ll probably sit here on Monday and said, “Yeah, let’s make a move. Let’s trade one of those day three picks for somebody else.” today. Unfortunately, I have to sell it because you just lost to the New York Jets because your defense is incompetent. So, I’m going to buy. And it’s mainly because I don’t trust them to make good draft picks as it stands right now. Um, if they were to end up with a top 10 draft pick, maybe I’d change my mind. But, as of this second, they’re not in that range. If they’re going to try to compete, um, you’re expecting them to be in that, you know, upper 16 range. So, if they were to make a move for like a a solid edge rusher, um pass rusher, something like that, I’d be all back in on the Bengals. Um but really just depends on the health of Trey Hendrickerson. If he’s going to be out for extended period of time with this hip thing, then it’s not worth it. Just move on with this season. I know that’s a bit of a copout. I know you’re supposed to buy or you’re supposed to sell, but my stipulation is the health of Trey Anderson. I don’t know that because I’m not in the building. But, uh, if he’s good to go in a week or two, yeah, go all in on a move. Um, try to salvage what you have left because you don’t have many Joe Burrow prime years left. And, uh, I’d hate to see them just waste another year. Yep. Totally well said. Totally well said there by Case. Mark brings up a great point in the chat. He said Duke Tobin did draft Brad Robinson. So, you got to give him some credit for that. That was a heck of a pick. um here at this point. Uh but Case, I appreciate you, brother. Two hours here uh today with Off the Bench or I guess you know, two hours of my show and and Reed, I mean, do you want to pop on here for a second, Reed? Tell the fine folks. Hello, Reed Mouse is back. I just wanted to say thank you to Casey for coming in here and Stone for for filling in for two hours. Really appreciate it. Well, Reer will be back tomorrow. We certainly appreciate him. Any final thoughts, Case, before we get out of here? I uh my only final thoughts are I I I hope that uh everyone’s not giving up just yet. I know I gave up a couple weeks ago. Let’s just wait and see what the trade deadline h what if they’re really all in and they make a move. That’s kind of exciting. Breeds a little life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I I I’ll be as optimistic as we can be until they’re eliminated. So, I got no issues doing that. Absolutely no issues with that. Casey, I appreciate you as always. Appreciate our guests, Paul Fritzner and Craig Salin. That was awesome. Great stuff from those two. Those videos will be up later on YouTube. You can catch it out on the podcast there as well, wherever you get your podcast. Reed Mouse will be back here on Off the Bench tomorrow. Look forward to that. My show follows that 11 to 12. Appreciate everyone as always and until next time, take care everybody.

In a pivotal shake-up ahead of their Week 9 clash with the Chicago Bears, the Cincinnati Bengals executed three significant roster transactions on Tuesday, October 28. Sitting at 3-5 and desperate to ignite a playoff push before the November 4 trade deadline, the team prioritized health management and depth optimization.

The headline move was the release of veteran defensive tackle Mike Pennel. The 11th-year pro, who joined Cincinnati earlier this season, appeared in eight games, logging rotational snaps at nose tackle. However, his playing time dwindled after the initial weeks amid a crowded interior line featuring B.J. Hill, Sheldon Rankins, and rookies like McKinnley Jackson. Pennel, a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Chiefs, reportedly requested his release and is already visiting Kansas City for a potential reunion.

Compounding defensive woes, the Bengals placed linebacker Shaka Heyward on injured reserve with a fibula injury. The special teams ace, who provided depth behind Germaine Pratt and Logan Wilson, will miss at least four weeks. Similarly, center Matt Lee landed on IR due to a knee issue, sidelining the depth piece behind Ted Karras and rookie Dylan Fairchild.

These moves cleared three spots on the 53-man roster (down to 50 players), signaling aggressive intent from GM Duke Tobin. Speculation abounds: Could DE Cedric Johnson return from IR? Might they promote practice squad LB Joe Giles-Harris for special teams? Or, with the deadline looming, pursue a trade for defensive reinforcements like a disruptive DT or edge rusher to bolster a unit allowing 26.5 points per game?

For a Bengals squad leaning on Joe Burrow’s return and Joe Flacco’s steady hand, these adjustments underscore urgency. A win over Chicago could vault them into wildcard contention, but roster tweaks are mission-critical. Who Dey Nation watches closely—expect more fireworks soon

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