Piecing together the secondary puzzle

0:00It's the Graler with PD and Jay. Here's to have a last for you today. From Graler Bell to Jay's Got Style. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Graler Bell Style. All right. Welcome into the latest edition of PD and Jay here on the Graler. It is Wednesday evening. We are coming off a long day down at Paycore Stadium, Pollymer, Jr. Jay Morrison. How are we doing Jay? Doing good. It was a long day, but I came home so I could be at the homestead to record this and not be at the press box all night long. Because you care about the quality of audio that we deliver. That's right. Polly Gralin Bell and I appreciate that and we'll, uh, we've got a bunch of stuff that we want to Get into for you here.

1:00A lot of the busyness is trying to make heads or tails of what the hell is going on in this secondary as there's a lot of moving pieces will try to put the puzzle together for you. We'll talk a little bit. I'm going to take the bait. Jay. I'll do Barrow Clutch Talk if you promise and we don't do it for too long. I understand people have been hearing about it. They've been talking about it. Joe Burrow spoke about it today. So we'll touch on it a little bit. We'll have the ShareFacts Credit Union poll question. My never ending quest for 25 times four will continue. We'll see if I can get it. Jay, you will have some stats, some positive stats. Some positive stats for people today. We have GrowlerBet Times two. We have the results of this past week's plus the results of the tiebreaker from two weeks ago. The Jay's, how many states has Jay been to tiebreaker? So we'll get to see what happened there.

2:00Some interesting results. And of course, we have Arby's to close it out. But before we get into a Jay, of course, we have to remind everybody every week this season down at Bed MGM Sportsbook at the banks. They are doing their pig skin, pick them, contest. All you got to do, go down there to Bed MGM at the banks, put in your 10 picks for the week, you're betting against the spread. And do you have the top 10 players for the week, each win $100 in online bonus bets. They usually have about 20 games on there. You pick between marquee college games and your pro games. You're doing this every week all season long. You just got to get those bets in before 1 o'clock on Sunday when they kick off. And you got to be 21 and up. You got to be a rewards member. You just go down there though and they'll hook you up real quick and you just put your

3:02entries into the kiosk and off you go. And then they load you up, visit that MGM Sportsbook at the banks for terms and conditions. 21 and up, prison in Ohio. Subject to eligibility or comments bonus bets are normal trouble. Game link problem called 1,100 My Reset in partnership with Claire Vest Group. Jay, how are you doing in your, you've done some picks down there. Have you, you've, you've succeeded, right? You reach the top 10, I believe. Yeah, I was number three, two weeks ago. I went seven and three this past week. I went six and four. I don't know if that got me in the top 10. I'll, I'm going to stop by there either tomorrow or Friday to find out. But I mean, I have a winning record. I went five and five and week one. So what's that make me six games over 500 through three weeks? Good for you. I have, you know, I, Brown's Steelers on Thursday night. So if you're in there and you go down there and you're trying to place your bets, I, I, I, this is, you know, I love to bring out the stat.

4:03And so I feel like this is a great opportunity to remind people. Before you walk in the door of the stat, okay, AFC North Thursday night games prior to last Thanksgiving where the Bengals went in to Baltimore and one, the home team in those games had one 10 in a row and covered eight of those 10. And the Browns had four of them, okay. They have been pretty damn good in those spots. They're here to give and Browns and Steelers is going to be one that is going to have a lot of interest for Bengals fans. They'll be interested in watching on Thursday night, but just remember if you're, if you're rooting for the Browns and I'm going to guess a lot of you probably are, there's reason to believe they might pull through on that. I'm not sure about that. No, you're not in. I'm not in. I'm not against the trend, Jay. The force is strong with this one. I take it personal when you go against my Thursday night AFC North stat.

5:07I take it personal. I love the stat, but I just think in this case, the Steelers have played much better competition. The Browns are a little bit of smoking mirrors right now. I don't think this is going to be close. I think Pittsburgh wins in a walkover. You're a little bit of smoking mirrors right now. All right. Let's go. Let's get into the news. The news is in the secondary right now and we have a series of transactions. Jay, do you have the transactions log off the top of your head if you want to rattle them all off that we. Oh my gosh. I can go through them off the top of my head here. We have some of these I mentioned yesterday in the open of the show before. But we have Mitch Tinsley is here. Kishon Williams was gone. He's back. But he's on the practice squad. Okay. So they did bring him back. They did look into Charlie Jones in New York who got promoted from the practice squad to the 53. So I'm sure he tips the cap of one last. Thank you to his former team.

6:07Jim get the real game checks and an opportunity. Charlie Jones replacing Odell Beckham. All right. That one on our 2026 bingo card. So that's the receiver part of things. And then we get into what's happening in the secondary. Jayland Davis goes on injured reserve. He will be out at least the next four weeks. What else do we got here? We have two new safeties on the practice squad. Isaiah Nacobia and Bo braid. Brady I think it is. Brady we're going to yes. Are we landed on that? Okay. Are both here. And I'm saying her Hudson and Tanner Hudson gets promoted from the practice squad to the 53 something I think they thought would happen at some point. It was just a matter of the other injuries to fill in to figure it out. We also have Jay the injury report today, which features three safeties right at the top

7:09of it. Kyle Dugger does not practice and Jordan battle and Brian cook both listed as limited. I would put like extremely in front of limited probably on those, but yeah, limited for those two guys specifically also Dalton Ryzen doesn't practice. We're kind of focused on this secondary because there's just a lot of fallout from that. Right. Yeah. Well, I think it's a little even if it was extremely limited a bit of a positive sign that Brian cook practice because Zach said he wouldn't in his press conference before practice. And so he didn't think that neither he nor Doug or would practice today. So the fact that that Brian cook at least did something he was on the rehab field to start practice when we were out there watching. But it's I mean, it's dicey. And cornerback is one thing that safety when you have three safeties on the injury report. I think there's going to be a lot of just kind of managing this week and practice kind of takes a back seat. Just get those guys healthy so they can play on Sunday.

8:12Yeah, we're into Russ East territory here. So we're PJ Jules who's the fourth safety, but he's more of a special team or I don't know that you're looking for him to come and play safety. Russ East has played safety in the league. I mean, he had some good moments in the preseason. He could be called up off the practice goal. We talked to Al Golden today and we're sort of trying to just ask him to help piece together what they're doing. And he said, you know, they're repping PJ and Russ in practice right now to get them up to speed when you have the top three guys all nursing stuff in that Brian cook and Jordan battle had gone through the walk through that morning. He said and then obviously the practices are going to be limited. I think the bottom line on that part is that, you know, you have Miami, which is like this half by game next and then a real buy right after that. How can you get these guys and get this secondary through this game against Jacksonville and

9:16come out with a win? If you can find some way to do that, you have time to get them healthy when you reach October 25 against Baltimore. Yeah. And I mean, how do you do that? Because this is a big game. You need to have those guys against Jacksonville and they don't, I mean, two and two is not the end of the world, but you don't want that and going into the Miami game. And you know, you wonder what that did with Brian Cook because he left that game. He Brian Cook wasn't going to come back in that Pittsburgh game until Kyle Dugger got hurt and then they kind of had to put him back in there so you don't know how much he exacerbated the injury at that point. But I'm with you. You just just get them to Sunday and then cross your fingers and hope they get through the game. I don't know how you can manage it any other way. You have to play those guys if they're able to go and then like you said, maybe you

10:17think about resting them or reducing their snap counts against Miami. Yeah. I mean, they're going to have to gut someone's going to have to gut something out that just feels like where this thing's going to have to land. And then we throw in the cornerback situation into this. So without Jalen Davis, and of course, you remember just your Taylor, some people may remember just your Taylor still on IR. We Zach Taylor asked about just your Taylor's camp today. He just said good. Period. End of sentence next question. That's right. Yeah. That's pretty much it. So I don't know. It didn't sound like a man. We can't wait to get you to see your back. Yeah. That'll be great. But anyway, that's a separate conversation. But so still without Jalen Davis or Taylor, you end up looking at moving DAX back inside, which is what happened in the game on Sunday. And that's the direction they're going to go against the Jaguars. Also Josh Newton who's still here.

11:17I always forget that he's still here is going to kind of be the backup for DAX on the inside. As well as I think there's a chance that we could see a braille and looks call up. I don't know. The only have two columns they can do. If you're using one and you could be using it on two safeties potentially. If you're that worried about those guys getting through the game, would you call up Lux? There could be more moves to come as the point. And so then the other discussion becomes about who plays outside to Cario Davis or DJ Ivy because to Cario has just struggled through a couple of games. And there's been a lot of talk about them just trying to get him to play better. Be less handsy, less of the clutching was what Al Gold reference today. And I'm trying to coach that out of me looks like a rookie out there playing. Let's play this game, Jay. Give me your five. So your best bet on who the five will be, including the safeties that play the majority of the

12:25snaps or the most snaps on Sunday. I'm going to go with DJ Turner and DAX obviously a corner. And then I'm going to stick with Cario. You look at the snap counts last week once the injury to Jaylen happened and in Tocario played 27 snaps and DJ Ivy played four. So unless he just gets waxed over and over again, which is a possibility. If he comes in, if he's starting the game, you better bet Trevor Lawrence because he has a lot of weapons and whoever's whichever receivers lined up on Tocario, I think you get to see Trevor go at Tocario. But I think he holds up enough to stay in there. So I'll go those three. Hamstrings are tricky. I still will go battle and cook just because I think that that's their whole goal. It's just to get these guys through the week, let them kind of recuperate. Like I said before practice kind of takes a back seat and then get them in there for the

13:28game. But that's the biggest one to me. If I'm going to rank the five that I'm least confident about, it would be Jordan battle because one hamstrings can be tricky where he could even be ready for the game and two. It could be made worse at some point in the game and they have to pull them out. Yeah. My question would be I think they'll get Brian Cook and Jordan battle to the first play. Yeah. I don't know if they're going to be able to get them to the last play or to the 10th play or to the 25th play. Like I don't that's going to be part of the question because I think it's going to be about an ability to get these guys through it. And so probably you have a guy like Russ Yeast called up and he's there to come off the bench if they need somebody to to fill in. I don't think they're going to get dugger to the game. I don't I don't think that's going to happen. So it's in me. That's where you have a call up situation there. I'm going to go Ivy. I just think when you when you get the sense from the weather talking about Ticario that

14:33he needs to step back, I sort of I was talking about I was on first word with James today. And I was talking about how you know, it reminds me in ways of Dylan Fairchild last year where he had some struggles early on and it wasn't great and he even got kind of replaced and they were trying different guys out and in an injury and he backed away from it. And when he came back after some time to back away from it, he really settled in like had a better feel how to approach it, how to attack it and then had a really good run the second half of the season and and you felt like okay, they've got something here. I think there's a sense that that can be the case with Ticario that he might need to back away from it after getting his feet wet and having some issues out there with some of the penalties and they just need to keep coaching them up. You just got to you got a coach and stop grabbing like I think you got to go I would go

15:34high school style like when they give the the guy who fumbles too much he has to walk around school with the ball on his arm, right? I'm going to cario has to practice all week with his hands tied behind his back. That's what I want or you go oven mitts oven mitts. Yeah, you can't grab can't grab like I don't but I don't even want him extending like he's going to grab I want him tied up. Okay, I want him playing tied up in practice just to learn to move his feet and run with the guys that way and stop immediately going for the grab and clutching on and I was talking about that and he said that you just see that from a lot of college corners when they come into the league. You see a lot of them what they want to do they got away with it there and they come into the league and think they're going to do the same thing. He said DJ and DAX actually spoke up to Ticario talking about how they went through that same thing when they were rookies the tendency the need the inclination to grab and yank on

16:38the guy as you're going against him and just got to kind of work that out of your system but it is it just takes some getting used to and I think that's practice time. It's reps and trying to coach that out of them before you're putting them back out there and you see another hold take away a sack or a stop or give a free first down and I think you've seen enough from DJ Ivy and camp. I think the guy he's got experience. Yeah. You know, like he's done it. He's been out there. He's played in 39 games. This will be his first start but he's played in big spots. He's been out there on third downs. He's been asked to cover. It shouldn't be too big for him. You know he can cover. I'm comfortable with giving DJ Ivy a shot and I feel like that's what Sunday could end up being if that was making putting my number down. That's where I would land. And I can see that. They've just creating a package for Ticario and then working a minute a little bit to kind of get his feet wet and if he is doing the grabbing again pulling back out.

17:41What I wonder is DJ what kind of what they've been using him as is a specialist on third downs against tight end. So he's used to working inside. Now it's different athletes. A slot receiver versus a tight end. But do you see any scenario where they keep decks outside and use DJ in the slot? No. I think the interesting part about the decks side of this is they move him in the slot. We talked decks today. He's not thrilled. No. We showed you on the walk out. You saw the video. I should go back and just replay the eye roll. But like it's he doesn't love it. And I felt like we were in the scrum with today and I feel like we were all trying to convince him that he's such a being such a good team guy and you should just be so happy to be able to show your versatility and your value. And he's just kind of like, yeah, yeah, you know, I guess, you know, he doesn't he doesn't love it. He wants to play outside.

18:41He wants to feel like I am an outside corner and I can play outside. And they do have other options. They could play Newton in the slot and we're acts outside as head of DJ Ivy. You know, I think it's come down to who's better to cardio slash DJ Ivy or Josh Newton slash braille and luxe as who do you want to be your other guy out there? And obviously we see where they've landed. But I think Deax's point is like, you know, you're making two moves when you only need to make one. Well, the thing is I thought Josh Newton was, I thought his time here was done and he really did kind of come on at the end of training camp. And so I wonder, you know, maybe if DJ Ivy or Ticari, whoever's out there is struggling if that's the route they go, they put Dax back outside and put Newton in the slot. Just as an in-game adjustment. But I, yeah, I do expect to see Dax inside at the slot. And it's just, I mean, Kudos to him.

19:43He doesn't love it, but he's not. He's doing what's best for the team. He's doing what's best for his teammates, putting them first. He's, I mean, this has been every year of his career and he's never wants. He's never pretended like, hey, it's great. I love being versatile. But he's never had any kind of sour attitude or sour comments towards it. So you do give him credit for that. But I get it. I mean, he's not just the fact that, you know, you want to just get comfortable at one position, but he's going into a contract here and outside corners get paid way more than slot guys. And if this ends up working great and Ticari comes on or DJ Ivy is playing it and they keep him inside permanently. He's not going to love that idea. But right now he's willing to do it and I do think he should be committed for it. I mean, he's not pushing back. He could, he could, and maybe he did behind closed doors. I don't, you know, who knows.

20:45But he could have pushed back and be like, no, I'm an outside corner, play me on the outside or don't play me. Right. He could have, and he could have done that a long time ago when, and all of, during all of these moves, he could have done that. I don't, you know, the one thing I was going to say about this Sunday and we don't know if it's long term or short term, I tried to ask how about that today and he wasn't interested. But they're playing against Jacksonville who's best receiver is Parker Washington right now who's their slot receiver. So it's actually giving the most important matchup of the day to DAX. So in this case, it makes sense for him to be the one that's in there and focus on that because this is about like we said at the top, finding a way to put the puzzle together to beat the jacks and build jaguars and try to get healthy after that. What you were saying about the discussions behind closed doors, someone asked him today

21:47what the conversation was like and he said there was no conversation. Yeah. They said, this is what we're doing and I said, okay. Yeah. And that's been his reaction, right? Exactly. I mean, for all of these moves, they've told him what they're doing, what is happening and he's gone along with it. He's not had a conversation. He's not turned it into conversation. He's not, now he has at times clearly stated his opinion to us and I think we can read his body language. It's not dismissive. It's not I'm not going to do it. It's just here we go again. I said it before the season started. I talked about the scenario. I said, it's sick the bees on Winkler from Little Nikki. And Henry Winkler's like, oh, he knows that's the answer. And he's just, I keep thinking of it. I was talking to DAX today. I was like, he's Winkler right now. He's getting Winklered. Sick the bees on Winkler, Nikki.

22:48So, man. So I just, I don't know. I feel, I think you feel for the guy, but it's also the best thing for the team. Right. And I specifically the best thing for the team this week. So that's all a big part of this. I think we see Zach, Zach's and Zach's out as one of the captains, one of the game day captains on Sunday. Not just like a thank you for doing this, but as like you said, that's the most important matchup on defense. And so, and he kind of does lean into the guys that he knows are going to be the most important that day. So it would not surprise me. I don't remember if we've seen him out there before as a game day captain, but wouldn't surprise me to see it this Sunday. That would be a hell of a nod. I would say just remember this week when we get into free agency, and DAX has no interest in assigning back what exactly he did. He cannot wait to get out of here. All right. Let's take this and let's go share facts credit union.

23:51Poll question of the week. Of course, we love that share facts is here bringing us our poll question every single week. They have nine branches throughout Cincinnati. All your traditional banking options, checking savings credit card. You got access to 37,000 plus fee free ATMs nationwide. They're owned by their members, not stakeholders. So their profits are returned to the members through low rates, higher yield savings rates, and less fees in there. So great to us and so great to everybody in the here in the community of being supportive and not just being a place to do banking, but a place where you know you're given back and being a part of the Cincinnati community. So thanks to share facts, response, and the poll question of the week, which this week is what is the most impactful injury for Sunday? All of these have different levels of severity, have different levels of fallout and movement

24:54that they cause on the team. Which one is the most impactful injury for Sunday? A, Jalen Davis, B, Brian Cook, C, Kobe Young, or D, Kyle Dugger. You might get your wish. You might get your 25, 25, 25, 25 on this hard. This is what's really close. I'm going to go Bryant Cook, just because I think Don take and fill in for Colby and you're not, they're not the same kind of receivers, but it's not as big of a deal. Kyle Dugger was a backup anyhow. So if, if Brian and Jordan battle get through the game, you don't really miss him as much. Jalen, I mean, maybe this could be a better cornerback lineup with Jalen out than with Jalen in. He wasn't great against Pittsburgh. So I'm going to go Bryant Cook, just because Miss Tackles are a thing again, and you need a shirt tackler on the back end of this defense. And even, even if Bryant Cook is playing, he's going to be compromised.

25:56He's going to be a step slower than normal. And that, that could be an issue. There could be some, some real chances for the Jags to hit some explosives on the, on the Bengals defense. If, if you've got Bryant Cook, a little hobbled on the back end. And so I think he is the one I would lean towards here is the most impactful. Yeah. I think because he's the best player here. True. You know, and that's, that's, that's part of it. I mean, Jalen, the, the, what that has set off with him being out, but you're right. Like we've talked about that. I mean, he's been targeted. How long were they going to stick with him in certain spots anyway? Did you start to see some subs in certain packages and times? Cook, I think, is the answer here for me the same way. Really though, it's the combination. It's cook, dougar, and Jordan battle. It's the fact that it's all three of them that really makes it so substantial. So you could throw dougar in there for the same reasons you're throwing, cook in there.

26:57But as the best player, I'll go cook. The Kobe Young thing has certainly has fall out there. And you're affecting the offense and what have you. But there's Tanner, there's Mike, there's Dante, Mitch Tinsley's back and he can do a lot of the same things. I mean, Mitch Tinsley might be a better player than Kobe Young right now. But Kobe's a draft pick, so you were never going to give up on him. But you can, you know, for right now in week four of 2026, I might take Mitch Tinsley over Kobe Young. But so I think you can make all those, put all those caveats in there, but I'll go, I'll go Brian cook with you and maybe both of us agreeing on it and coming to a conclusion is not going to help my 25 dream. I don't feel good now. I forgot to talk to that. Damn it. Next time, maybe next time. Before we move forward, Jay, I'd like to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I do want to remind everybody, it's coming up a week from Thursday.

28:01So not this Thursday, next Thursday, October 8th, our next state of the Bengals, our first in season one, we had the season kickoff show down at the Deerfield location for the YouTube watchers. We got a picture of that huge crowd that we had down there. What an awesome night that was. We had a blast kicking off the season. I wonder how many people are thinking about re-nigging on some of their prognostications from that night. But it was a great time. We gave away tickets to this game that's this Sunday, the Jaguar games, the club seats. We're going to have giveaways the next one. We are at the Worcester location on Thursday on the 8th and we will be down there. We have a Bengals guest that is going to be joining us that we're really stoked about. We will be down there. We'll have giveaways. We'll have a Bengals guest. We'll be down there. We'll have extra guests. Our growl or crew taking your questions, hanging out, leading right up to the Thursday night football game.

29:03You can hang out with us in the beer garden, watch the game, looking out there, watch the game with y'all. Just kind of throw a football party in a Bengals conversation party in the beer garden down there at 50. Get your burgers, get your beers. Talk some ball. We'll have some fun with it. We've got some surprises for you. It's going to be fun. I'm really excited about it. I'm happy to be down in the Worcester location. Talk about, we've talked about being back to 50 West's like being home. Going back to the Worcester location is really being home. We're taking it all the way back to the very beginning now. Yeah, I love that place. And who's the Thursday night game that week? Do we know? We have Brown Steelers this week, which would have been, would have been a good one to have following us. We have Buckeneers at Cowboys. Everybody loves to root against the Cowboys. Yeah, sure. Sure. What? I don't know. Do any of the Buckeneers to win for the Bengals? Drink the schedule in case there's a tiebreaker. As I'm sure our friends at BEDMGM will tell you, you can make any game interesting. So it's always possible.

30:06We hope to see you down there. Like I said, it's going to be a full of surprises and a bunch of fun. We hope to see you down at 50 West for our next state of the Bengals. All right, Jay, let's talk Joe borough and take him the bait. We're going to do it. The Joe borough clutch conversation has reached new levels. I have said, there is validity to this, to a degree. And I think that's the thing is, I think this has been taken from a small thing and one with a lot of nuance and a sliver of the Joe borough bigger picture conversation, which is generally an elite one. There's a reason he's into your one every single year. There's a reason he's who he is. And the nuanced small piece of it has just been ripped into this broad brush. I don't even know what to call it.

31:10Pooh throwing situation where we're throwing around this one in 34 stat and all of this stuff. You were Joe talk about this today. What did you make of what he had to say and how this conversation has sort of spiraled a little bit beyond, I think, the smart place that we were starting at with it. Yeah, I think anybody that's on any Bengals fan that's on social media is well aware of the one in 34. I don't know if Joe is. He seemed a little surprised by the question to begin with, but he talked about how he does feel like he plays well in those situations and that he likes it. He thrives in that situation with the game on the line. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see if you sat down and showed in the stat and then if he would come to his own defense the way that so many Bengal fans have.

32:11Because that is a flawed stat. There's no other way around it. You could be losing 25 to nothing at the eight minute mark of the fourth quarter and that's going to count as a loss on your record when you were trailing in the final eight minutes. If you take it down to one score, which I know you were working on post game in Pittsburgh, it's going to look a lot different. What I wanted to do, but it's so hard because you can't just put a filter in on a stat site. You have to go game by game. There's just certain things that don't show up. But just generally looking at Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, some of the greats, they have terrible records in that situation too. It's not as bad as 134, but it's like 12 and 38. Basically if you're trailing at any point in the final eight minutes, every game you lose ever is going to count as a loss on that one. Which is what that stat is.

33:12It's every loss. And so there's better ways to do it. I would like to see how many times and maybe I'll sit down and do this. How many times he's taken possession of the ball in the final eight minutes down by one score and led the team to either a game tying or go ahead score? Because I do think that happens more than we realize. It doesn't happen as much as people would like and probably as much as Borough would like. But it does happen more than one in 34 would indicate. And the defense is just given up. I mean, think about there's been so many games where he's gone down and he seems like it's a clutch move. And just as Flacco did last year, then the defense just turns around and blows it. That goes on one in 34 when it probably shouldn't. Yeah. I mean, we've seen that we were kind of ticking through that in the walk out a little bit. Some of the times where they had gone down there and Borough had actually got the game winning score. And then the defense gives it up. I mean, that's happened multiple times. It's happened. I one in 34 to me is a Bengals stat.

34:13Yeah. Not a Joe Borough stat. I have talked about this and I stand by the the clutch. If we're talking clutch, okay, there's no more clutch moments for a quarterback than when you are in the red zone on third and fourth down. These are the clutch high leverage situations that decide games every single week. Those moments, those downs, they decide the difference. They're four point swings almost every single time. And Joe Borough, the last five seasons is second best in the NFL in success rate in those situations. He is a high leverage beast. He in those clutch moments kills it. And I think he also, by the way, if you go play for play, is great in the fourth quarter when he's trailing. If you just look at his base numbers and his EPA pick whatever stat you want to fricking

35:15throw out there like he's good down to down. He's himself. And the situations have not always panned out for him because a lot of times something happens. Now the recency bias of the last one is obvious and substantial. And I think that there's reason to have conversations that you can dive into the need to have more games that they do find ways to finish. There's a reason that was their point of emphasis all off season long. That wasn't just a defensive conversation. That was an offensive defense conversation. And by the way, did finish off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I'm sure people are going to point to the the pick six, but like did finish off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and take a knee like this. Oh, does that not count? Right? Because they were ahead. You weren't coming back like what the cherry picking of what's considered clutch of the coming from behind thing. All of that, I think it just gets a little rough around the statistical edges for me.

36:18You know, the true test is just sit there and say, okay, you're you're down by eight with two 10 to go. Who do you want your quarterback to be? And I don't think there's a lot of people that are going to say no way we don't want Joe Burrow. I might say Patrick Maholam's Tom Brady, you know, the those kind of guys, but he's going to be up there. He's going to be a high round draft pick if you're just picking who you want in that situation. Look at the game Sunday. I mean, ripped four for four before the, I mean, he was just taking them right down the field and then, yeah, the fumble happened. That's part of it. But it was also he got hit immediately. And if he had been like two for six on that drive and they were just struggling to move the ball and then the fumble happens and then you could look at it a little more different and say that he wasn't clutching that situation. But he had him going and it was what it was a third and eight that he completed on that drive to to get him into 38 into the field goal position, half the 38.

37:19So I just, I just do the eye test. Forget the stats. Do the eye test. Is that a guy you want trying to take your team down the field and win the game at the end? I'm laughing in the media room because I think Ben, maybe his pen, Ben was pointing out that like Jake Browning has the last one because it was like the Jacksonville game last year or the last like, I guess true. Come from behind late one and think, Oh, yeah, imagine that that you get the ball down three with two minutes left and you're like, we're bringing in the closer. Play Jake Browning's music and outcome. He comes the LED light start flashing on and off. He runs off the bench. You're pulling bro because he's not clutch enough. He can't close. We're bringing in a closer quarterback, right? Or here comes Flacco trotting out here because you think that he's going to be a better closer. He's got the clutch gene. Like just think about this. Yeah. Think about the ridiculousness of this part of the conversation and, you know, these things

38:20tend the NFL does this storyline wise. I am fully aware that Sunday in the final eight minutes, Joe Burrow is going to get the ball back down the score. Like that just, it feels like it's going to rear its ugly head again. It always does. The NFL loves this. It just seems like it happens every time. So I'm fully ready for that. On that note, Jay, you got some stats for me. I do. Earlier, the the the mist tackles are back. And currently the Bengals have, they're tied for the second most mist tackles in the league with 28 and they're talking, I'm sorry, though, 26. They're fifth. The Broncos have 38. They are far and away. They had 25 in one game in the season opener. So they're what? Yeah, they had 25 mist tackles in that season opener against Kansas City. But you look at mistackle percentage and that's, you know, you mist do the math with

39:25mist and made tackles. Broncos lead the league 17.4. Bengals are 13.3. They led the league last year at 14.0 and they didn't just lead the league. The next closest team was at 10.4. 14 was way worse than anybody else. And here they are again, sitting at 13 and three, right? Kind of in that same neighborhood. And based on sport radar, Barrett Carter is tied for the NFL lead with six mist tackles. If you look at pro football focus, he's tied for second with those six mist tackles. Not great. Right. I mean, that's a lot of times early in the season. You do see teams that struggle with mist tackles, but if you're leading the league, you're leading the league. That was the, that's been the book on Barrett. And Al Golden talked about it today. Like he, he said he felt like the linebacker showed a lot of good things and he was really happy with a lot, a lot of the way the linebacker specifically played.

40:27But, you know, there's this the but there. But the mist tackles got to get cleaned up and that's a big part of the deal there. And that has been the deal and will continue to be until they prove for it not to be specifically Barrett in that case of being a more consistent tackler and not having the ugly reps like he's had in a couple of different spots. What else you got? You have some happier stats? Yeah, I was going to say you teased it earlier, some good positive stats. So that has to do with Amarius Mims. And we've talked a lot about this. He's three straight games without giving up a single pressure. I was wondering, well, I wonder. Like how many guys have done that and how many elite guys? So I went and looked at all four tackles that made first or second team all pro for each of the last five years. So you're talking about 20 different guys, not different guys, but different seasons here. Some guys have been multiple pro multiple years.

41:28Only once in those 20 has an offensive tackle gone three straight games to start a season without giving up a pressure. And that was Lane Johnson of the Eagles, none in the first three games. He made second team right tackle that year. And then I started thinking, what about just any three game stretch without giving up a pressure? There are some, but it's very, very few. And I went beyond the all pros. And I looked at the last offensive tackle because there's been kind of a bit of a drought for the Hall of Fame. Joe Thomas is the last one to go in. And his entire NFL Hall of Fame career, he had one three game stretch without giving up a single pressure. Wow. I mean, it's just, it's really remarkable what Amaris is doing, just the numbers. And then you consider the fact that it's TJ what? It's Dennell Hunter. It's Will Anderson Jr. And even Ruben Bayne, who's a rookie, but he was the number 15 overall pick.

42:30That's what he was drafted for is a really good pass rusher. Amaris has just stoned those guys over and over and over again. And he's got another big test coming Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. Jacksonville has two great Edd rushers as well. We'll talk a bunch more about the Jaguars game specifically. And really the game preview pod is going to be extra important this week with all the injury uncertainty coming into the week. And we'll have final injury counts from Zach Taylor and the injury report for you on Friday. So make sure you're checking out the game preview pod, which you should be doing every week anyway. I mean, seriously, like nobody perfectly encapsulates every, if you don't listen to anything all week, if you're busy, you're doing stuff, right? You're living your life as you should grow pal, live your life, right? You don't need to be worrying about everything that's going on, but you do want to sit there and watch the game on Sunday and know what you're looking at and what's been going on. You want to just feel informed?

43:3115 minutes, we shove it all into there. Everything you need to know shows up on Friday afternoon. All you got to do is listen to that on your way to church or to lows or wherever you're going to run your errands up before the game on Sunday. And you're fully prepared to sit there and sound super smart at your watch party. Like we're just giving this gift to you. Make sure you're checking it out specifically this week when all the recap on all the injury stuff. I'm going to give you some very important ref report stats this week, which I, you haven't read it yet. It's up. I've seen it and I perked up when I saw how you teased the ref report. I don't want to steal the thunder from Friday, but it made me sit up in my seat. Yeah. Well, I was going to say you watch the preview show and you can be informed and not say you suck ref. You can say you suck Alex. You can get the guy's first name. You can know what he's what he throws the most flags at. So yes, you will be, you will look very informed at your watch party or in your row at a court.

44:31You suck Alex. I hate how consistent this is with your traditional norms for holding calls. You got to specialize your trash talk. All right. All right. Let's get into the growler bet. Next we got to settle some old business on the growler bet and that was we had a three way tie breaker from two weeks ago that we needed to settle. And in that tie breaker, we were going to figure it out by figuring out who could guess how many stage J has been to this year. So the guesses came in between Mark Gaskins, Matt Cordoneer and Andrew White. Now I want to point out before I go further into this, Jay, Mark Gaskins used the hashtag J's got states. Oh, man. I was like, I honestly just wanted to clear him the winner.

45:34And when I saw J's got states, I was in, but I'm not going to do that. He guessed seven. Andrew White guess six and Matt guessed eight. And the answer was eight nine or four down Ohio, but eight states outside of Ohio. So he got it on the right nailed it right on the head. So shout out to Matt drinks at the live show, growler shirt coming your way. Thank you very much for your participation. All right. So let's get into the growler bet from last week, which was Aaron Rogers passing yards. Now J you and I both you went low. I went low. I went lower than you. So congratulations on that one. You win technically you won. But so two ninety two, a big number. We did not have a winner. And I can't even really offer up a so close because you guys were very optimistic that

46:34this bangles defense would continue doing what it does. Nick Phillips had two seventy nine. He was technically the closest by proximity. Shout out Mark Vaughn for being a hater at three thirty four. You saw this come in Mark. You were like I'm feeling a regression and I'm not afraid to say it. So I do I do appreciate I'm not going to give you a win or anything. We're not going to we're not going to award anything. But I do I do appreciate you being on the right track more than others. So thank you Mark. Shout out to a few of the subject headers. Of course with Aaron Rogers, it went to some predictable places. A lot of you making I wasca jokes. Scott Castleman, sexy dexies, darkness retreat. I don't I just like that one. I just thought it was funny. Let's see Pat Johnson said please no Darnell Washington pinballing, which I like just because there was absolutely a lot of Darnell Washington pinballing.

47:37The legend Ray White says imagine spending four days in the dark just to decide you want to play for the New York Jets at age thirty nine more critical thinking goes into my growler bets. I had a very long subject header, but I always appreciated anything that Ray wants to do. And Joel Walters said you're blessed to be making this growler bet with me. It's good. That's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. Mike. So always appreciate that great stuff has always send all of your submissions into the growler podcast at gmail.com. We will put the next growler bet for the Jacksonville game out in our game preview pod on Friday yet another great reason to check that podcast out. I just they're piling up. Yes. I mean, at this point, I don't know what you're doing if you're not listening to it. Let's go into Arby's. You got some Arby's for me. Yeah. I was going to say it kind of struck me as odd when we walked into the the visitors locker

48:37room after the game. Nobody seemed like they were getting showered and getting ready every, everybody was turned around on their phones looking, looking inward at their locker. And it was particular. I kept seeing Tanner Hudson bouncing around and talking to guys. And I then the quotes come out from them. And I think they were all watching that final play. Tanner and Eric all were adamant about the fact that they recovered the fumble that Eric all recovered it. And if you watch it, it does kind of start off with the ball on the the stealer players hip. He didn't really corral it, but don't rise and are said earlier this week that, you know, I love Eric all but no way. They whisper recovered it and that's that. But it just it really struck me as odd that I you just don't see that a lot of a lot of times after lost. I just want to get showered and get out of there. And there was just every single guy seem to be just looking at their phone, looking facing inside their locker instead of out at the rest of the room. And then my second Arby's is Sunday morning, you it was you and James's idea to go to this

49:42bakery 350. And it was the best and the biggest breakfast sandwich I've ever had in my entire life. I didn't need a single thing at the at the stadium pregame. I was just stuffed still from that one sandwich. So shout out. If you ever go to Pittsburgh for a Bengals game, Reds game, whatever it is, check out bakery 350. It's it's an incredible. They have all kinds of stuff. James got this massive cinnamon roll. A lot, a lot of good stuff there. And that was probably the highlight of the trip for me was that breakfast sandwich, the bacon, egg and cheese, which was basically bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, little bit of egg and cheese. Yeah, I mean, it was so big. I took a picture of mine. I was like, I don't know just for just for the depth perception of it. Like if you can really tell from the photo, but man, it was it was great. And of course shout out to the Tava, Italian, which is still like just what a what a spot, man, love that love that place up in the Mount Washington incline district there in Pittsburgh.

50:43So if you're ever in Pittsburgh, two spots were not one, but two good spots for you there. Speaking of great places to eat, Jay, this is our bees. Yeah. And so I have an Arby's Arby's and that is I've been doing the show on Tuesdays with Charlie Clifford over a channel five. I love that show. We're having a ton of fun with it. I highly recommend it to anybody of either just flip on channel five between seven, thirty and eight. And you can watch them with there or the full extended version is on the YouTube page. And I've tweeted that out a bunch. But the segment is sponsored by Arby's. And so week one, the beef and cheddar showed up and it was nice. It takes a beef and cheddar's home and I put them in the fridge. I was like, man, I'm really living like Jay. Well, they showed up, they showed up this past week and they had a giant bag of Arby's swag. You name it like all kinds of stuff in there. But then I was like, all right, this is great.

51:44I love that there's just a bunch of Arby's stuff here. I mean, I'm just going to take what I can and just give it to Jay. And I just, I found my thing that I most wanted to see you in and I got it and I got it for you. The Arby's visor, throw on the Arby's visor. Oh, yeah. Yes. I'm ready to work the slicer. You are a backer on the slicer. You are about to take my order, Jay. But I just feel like I'm very partial to kind of wanting you to put this hat on every time you offer up your Arby's in this segment. You know, to feel like you're going to work. Yeah. You know? And it's just going to make me want to eat curly fries and have a jimoka shake. I should have, I should have adjusted it before I put it on because it's like getting cut in the circulation off on my head. It's a little tight right now. There's more where that came from. I'm going to go back next week and maybe I'll come back with, with some more. Maybe we can get you a shirt to get with it. Do you still have the meat sweats? I do. I do still have those. They're up in my bedroom right now.

52:44Maybe I should put those on with the Arby visor and go all in. I love it. I mean, you're ready. You look. What was the name with a little toy that was in the Arby's bags? Mr. Tickle, Mr. Bomb. There's, there's like six or seven. Mr. Tickle was the famous one. Yes. Oh, man. You're about to serve up a Mr. Tickle right now. That's what you're about to do. All right. I appreciate it. Great, great episode. Another good one here for us. Well, Jay, you're happening. Who they like? Yeah. Tomorrow morning, I'll be recording with Mark. So looking forward to that. Hope you guys want to send some questions in when you see this before tomorrow morning at 10 when we record. I'd love to hear them. Yeah, drop them into the growl podcast gmail.com. If you can get to them before they record. But I'm exfully expecting you to answer Austin's question, Jay. It's been waiting for you. The super long stat question that we have been pushing off.

53:45I feel like tomorrow is going to be the day potentially for you to dive in and go in the stat that we were saving it for you that and much more. I always I always enjoy it. I can't wait to listen to that. Uh, was you guys wrapped that up? And then as as we've told you, the most important thing in your week, which is going to be listening to our game preview podcast for bangles, jags, then we'll have the walk out for you from pay course stadium on Sunday evening after the game. Make sure you are following everywhere and getting the alerts and leave those nice comments. We always appreciate when you do that very helpful, helping us grow and build this thing. All right. Thanks everybody for watching and for listening. We'll talk to you next time.