The Mo Egger Show -- 6/9/25

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'll do that. What's up come afternoon, Mowger. This is
ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank you for thank you for listening.
I just conked myself in the head with the microphone.
By the way. You know, a lot of things have
changed in our business, A lot of things have changed
with this company, with this radio station. Time passes, things change.

(00:21):
One thing will remain a constant that you will always
here during certain commercial breaks on this radio station. The
PSA for ladder safety, which I'm I'm still not completely convinced,
is a huge problem in this country. But farbi in
from me to tell the people in charge of that
PSA that they're searching for a problem in need of

(00:46):
a solution. I'm ugar, this is ESPN fifteen thirty. I
think I already said that. Hope you had an awesome weekend,
thanks to a Chad for filling in for me on Friday.
That was great and it's awesome that you are here.
We have a lot of ground to cover. Justin Williams,
some of the out is going to be on the
show in just about thirty five minutes. He of what
used to be well, I guess it still is. He's

(01:06):
just not on it. He used to be the Bearcats
beat reporter for the Athletic and now he covers college
sports as a whole. And you know, we're all wondering,
there's this health settlement with college football and basketball and
really all college sports, I guess. And you got some
who are claiming this is it. This is doomsday. College
sports are dead as we know it. And there are
some going well, actually, this is gonna work out for

(01:27):
some schools, but not for others. And then some like myself,
were wondering, what is this going to mean for fans
or we're gonna have to pay more for tickets. The
answer to that is yes, Justin's gonna join us in
just about thirty five minutes. We are looking forward to
that show. Previews available on Twitter at Moeger. Thanks to
our friends at Emory Federal Credit Union, your credit union

(01:49):
with heart since at nineteen thirty nine. Go to Emery
FCU dot org. If you win a settlement because you
fell off a ladder and you sue the ladder manufacturer,
you can put that money into an account at Emery
Federal Credit Union. Ask how EMERYFCU dot org. The Reds
swept the Diamondbacks over the weekend. If I would have

(02:10):
said on Thursday afternoon, which was the day after the
Reds got beaten by the Brewers and what I think
was their most lifeless performance of the season, that over
the coming weekend, the Reds are going to sweep the
d Backs, you would have said, you are out of
your mind. If early on Friday night, with rain threatening
and the Reds facing an early three nothing deficit, I

(02:30):
would have told you that not only will the Reds
come back and win that game, but one of the heroes,
the hero in that game at least, is going to
be Christian and Carnassi on Strand, and that's going to
propel the Reds to three consecutive wins, and we will
start this week with this team at five hundred. You
would have said, well, let's make that wager. I would
have won, You would have lost. The thing is I

(02:51):
wouldn't have made the wager. Nonetheless, the Reds do sweep
the Diamondbacks. They got good relief work and a jumpstart
badly need a jump start by the arrival of Christian
and Carnacion Strand ces if you will, and a big
two run homer from Matt McLain yesterday which was also
badly needed. What does it mean?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
You don't know either, Like, we've done this a lot, right,
We've done this a lot, not just this year but
in recent years. Where the Reds play well, the Reds
win a series, the Reds have a good road trip,
the Reds have a good homestand in this case, the
Reds sweep a series and you think, here we go,
and then they pull the rug out from underneath this.
That said, if the season was going to be turned around,

(03:34):
if the season is going to be turned around, it's
got to start somewhere. It's got to begin somewhere, and
it has to begin closer to early June than early August.
So what the hope is is that this weekend proves
to be a beginning. Whether or not it will turn

(03:56):
out to be a beginning, I have no idea. I
am hopeful, yet skeptical. I was on Paul Dayner Junior's
podcast with Jay Morrison last week, The Growler, and the
subject was Jermaine Burton. At Jermaine Burton this offseason has
apparently done all the right things. He's been at the facility,

(04:17):
he has been on time, he has been engaged in meetings.
He has done everything that he has been asked to
do in a voluntary setting. He has a long, long
way to go. He has a long way to go
just to earn a roster spot. He has a long
way to go to earn the trust of the quarterback
and the coach and his teammates. He has a long
way to go to prove that that pick the Bengals

(04:39):
used on him was worth using on him. Time will tell,
And my answer was, we were talking about Jermaine Burton
and well, you know what do I make of him
showing up and doing all the right things this offseason?
I said, well, I'm hopeful but skeptical. But if he's
gonna if he's gonna rescue his NFL career, it's gotta

(05:00):
start somewhere. It's gotta start with showing up on time.
It's gotta start with staying awake in meetings. It's gotta
start with doing some of the basics. Gotta start with
just acting like a professional. It's gotta start somewhere. It
sounds silly, right, but it does. If you're this immature
kid for whom the light bulb has yet to come on,
and you've had some off field issues. I mean, forget

(05:23):
making the team, forget being a star, forget figuring out
what your role on the team is gonna be, for
forget any of that. Like, just start by showing up.
Start by coming to work, Start by coming to work
on time, Start by coming to work every day, Start
by staying awake at work. So for Jamaine, it's a start.

(05:43):
It might not be the best apples to apples comparison,
but I kind of feel that way about the Reds.
I'm hopeful. Who isn't. If you're a Reds fan, how
are you not hopeful? At the same time, if you're
a Reds fan, how are you not skeptical? They won
three games in a row, big deal. That said, had
they lost three straight this weekend, we would be burying them,

(06:04):
and deservedly so. Had they lost this series, we would
be burying them in perhaps deservedly so. Hell, had they
won the Friday Saturday game game one, which obviously was
interrupted because of rain, had they won that one then
won the second one and lost yesterday, some would be
burying them and maybe, I guess deservedly. So the opposite

(06:27):
of that is a start and hopefully hopefully, And I'm
skeptical that this is gonna be the case, in large
part because of the math involved here. They've played sixty
six games, they have ninety six to go. They're gonna
have to win a whole lot to get to roughly
ninety wins. They're still seven and a half games at
our first place, the current holder of the last wild

(06:48):
card spot, Philadelphia's on pace for ninety two victories. So
chances are it ain't gonna be eighty three, eighty four,
eighty five wins that kids them sneaked into the postseason.
It's gonna be something closer to ninety. This team is
just five hundred right now. I'll let you do the math.
That said, what Ces gave this team this weekend is

(07:09):
worth paying attention to, number one, and I think you
would agree with this. It would just be awesome to
see what his numbers would look like at the end
of the season, if he can get through the rest
of the season completely healthy. Was watching the TV broadcast
to the second game on Saturday, and John Saidak and

(07:31):
Barry Larkin and Jim Day were talking about Ces's return,
and obviously he had the home run which saved the game.
On Friday night, the double in the tenth inning on
Saturday afternoon that won that game, and then hit a
three run homer in the first inning of the second
game of that quasi doubleheader. And so ces was talked
about a lot this week, and understandably so, and the
point was made he's not just back, but he is saying.

(07:53):
Ces is saying I'm as healthy as I've ever been.
I'm as healthy as I've ever been, or at least
as healthy as I've been since the end of the
twenty twenty three season when he got called up. And
so I'm hearing that, and I'm going, okay, if that's
the case, knock on wood. I would just love to
see what the numbers, his individual numbers would look like
by the end of the season, if he could play

(08:15):
the last whatever ninety ninety five ninety six games completely healthy,
because he's one of those guys I feel like there's
a lot of upside. I feel like the ceiling for
Cees is still pretty high. But man, it's been a
while since we've seen him consistently produce, and when we did,
it was only for a handful of games at the
end of the twenty twenty three seasons. So you start there,

(08:36):
and then there's the impact on the team as a whole.
Like we've talked about lineup construction and roster construction, and
the reality is there's a very good piece today Redreporter
dot Com that kind of points at this not a
whole lot of guys you look at of this team
and go, that's a power threat. Ellie Dela Cruz is.
Austin Hayes when he comes back, is sort of one

(08:59):
Christian and kron on Strand might be the only guy
on the team who like genuinely just looks the part
of slugger. Like if you knew nothing about him, nothing
about the team, and you're like, all right, who's the
slugger here? If you're just looking at a lineup of
Reds play, it's it's that dude, That's the guy who
looks the part. What do the Rads not have? What

(09:19):
have they not had all season long? A guy who
provides a presence in the order because he can hit
the ball out of the ballpark. Well, And and that's
that's the not completely healthy version. How about the totally
healthy version. We saw what he did this weekend. Is

(09:40):
he going to hit a home run every game? No?
But they badly could use a guy who could just
be a threat to hit the ball out of the ballpark,
just a threat, much less a guy who actually does
on a fairly consistent basis hit the ball out of
the ballpark. You take that and you add it to
Austin Hayes return. It is not unreasonable to think, as

(10:03):
skeptical as you and I might be about the red
soor thirty three and thirty three, as frustrating as I
think this season has been to this point, the first
whatever they've been ten, eleven, twelve weeks, it is not
unreasonable to think that Christian and Karnassi on strand can
have a really good last four months of the season.

(10:26):
And it's not unreasonable to think that Austin Hayes, you
talk about needing to stay healthy, it's that guy that
once he comes back, he can't continue to be productive.
Because when he's been healthy, he's been pretty good. And
I don't want to make too much out of the
two games that he had on Saturday and yesterday afternoon,
but Matt McLain has looked a little bit better at

(10:47):
the plate, and obviously we saw what he did yesterday.
It is not unreasonable to think that Matt McClain can't
have a really good last four months of the season,
and it is not unreasonable to think that Eli Tela
Cruz can spend the next four months enjoying a breakout
season and making the leap. Now, each one of those

(11:11):
things can happen for this team to be dramatically better
than it's been so far this season. All of those
things are probably gonna have to happen, or at least
most of them. I think it's also reasonable to be
skeptical that all of those things will happen, but it

(11:32):
had to start somewhere. Hopefully it's started this past weekend.
Our phone numbers, as always are five point three seven
four nine, fifteen thirty and uh eight six six seven
oh two three seven seven six. You can send a
tweet at Moeggar thanks to Delta Dental. Delta Dental is
building healthy, smart, vibrant communities for all gooda Delta Dental,

(11:53):
oh Dot Com, Reds and Guardians. Tonight, first of three
Ohio Cup on the line. Wade Miley makes his first
start since rejoining the Rets after a disastrous outing and
relief against Milwaukee last Wednesday. Throws against Cleveland on the
road obviously a long time ago. In that scenario, he

(12:14):
threw a no hitter. I'm not expecting a no hitter.
We can't see or get what we saw or got
last Wednesday. Five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty
is our phone number if you're a college football or
basketball fan, if you're a fan of any college sport.
The house settlement, there's a lot of nuance to it.
There's a lot of intricacies to it. There's a lot

(12:35):
of questions being asked. We'll ask some to our buddy
Justin Williams coming up in just about twenty five minutes,
and I'll make it about UC and Xavier specifically, but
I think this conversation will apply to pretty much anybody
who cares about college sports. Meanwhile, the Bengals themselves, unless
something has changed over the last twenty minutes or so,
they have not made it official that Jermaine Pratt is

(12:56):
going to be cut. But there are reports out there.
I've seen on every major sports website that this is
going to happen. We've talked about this happening now for
five months. We got to spend a few minutes on
Jermain Pratt because I think he deserves it. I also
think he deserved better from the Bengals. That is next
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic.

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Speaker 1 (13:53):
This report is sponsored by Taco Bell Chapter three. This
is ESPN fifteen thirty. More Leger thanks, thank you for
listening today. Boston Elmore producing today's show, Karen Bland put
the day off. Five thirty is our our phone number.
Anything you miss on this show, don't forget or others

(14:15):
like Sincy three to sixty co hosted by Austin Elmore,
go get on the iHeartRadio app podcast of this show.
A service of long Nex Sports Grill, an awesome place
to post up and watch watch the Battle of Ohio
in Kentucky. Wilder Hebron and rich Wood outdoor patio available too.
If we ever get a day here, uh summertime in Cincinnati,

(14:37):
if we ever get a day where it just doesn't
rain at all, you know, maybe I'll meet you on
long Next patio. That sounds pretty good right now. Jermaine
Pratt's gonna be released, which, let's be honest, We've known
this since pretty much the end of the season. I mean,
I remember the last Tony and Mo Football show after
the last game, uh, discussing how the offseason was gonna

(14:58):
unfold in players that you would move on from, players
he would cut, and players who would maybe try to restructure,
and players who would be okay with keeping. And I
think the first guy we talked about was Jermaine Pratt,
and we agreed it was probably time to move on.
His twenty twenty four season was not great. And I'm
putting it mildly. You think of Jermaine Pratt last season,
you think of a lot of mistackles. You think of,

(15:21):
you know, one or two times were in postgame media
sessions or I guess on social media he didn't necessarily
acquit himself too well. As it relates to the criticism
he got for his play, he was not good this year.
He's stunk. He did not stink the previous five. Lots

(15:42):
of players from that twenty one to twenty two run
have been given as the kids say, they're flowers, Sam
Hubbard recently, most notably, I guess a bunch of others
as well. Jermaine deserves his Dude made a lot of plays.
You know, we're all going to talk about. Austin put
on social media video that I don't think was staged

(16:02):
of him reacting when Jermaine Pratt picked off Derek Carr
in that Raiders game, and there are many, many, many others.
I think of the play he made on Dalvin Cook
in the season opener that year, which you know, God
knows how that game unfolds, God knows how that game
reverberates throughout the course of that season if they lose.
But when Jermaine Pratt picked off Derek Carr, it triggered
a celebration unlike any I've seen in this city, and

(16:24):
is quite literally one of the three or four favorite
moments I've had as a sports fan. It's an iconic moment,
and he did much more than that. There is. This
is a flawed metric, but I'll use it anyway. Football
reference dot Com has a metric that they use called
approximate value. And in the shortest way possible that I

(16:49):
could explain this, what it does is it sort of
levels the playing field for all players and it assigns
a number to essentially how they can how much they
contributed to the team in an individual season. Football Reference
also allows players to accumulate approximate value throughout the course
of their career. So if you're looking at that twenty

(17:11):
nineteen draft class that Jermaine Pratt was in, he had
the highest approximate value of any player in that class,
which included Jonah Williams who did some good things here
Drew Sample who was still here. But if you look
at the twenty twenty one season, you think of that
defense that year which rose to the occasion of the postseason.
So you got DJ Reader, Jesse Bates, Von Bell, BJ Hill,

(17:34):
Mike Hilton among others that season, all had a lower
approximate value score than Jermaine Pratt did that season. That
said something right. Look at the twenty twenty two season,
Jesse Bates, Von Bell, Tyler Boyd, DJ Reader again, Hayden Hurst,

(17:57):
Evan McPherson, Jermaine Pratt a higher approximate value score than
those players. Again, I'm not here to tell you he
was a Pro bowler. But there are players who are
not Pro Bowl caliber players who are beloved in the city,
who are revered in the city. Sam Ibard's one of them,
and going to help Sam's case that he was here
and grew up here playing at Ohio State. Can't say

(18:18):
those things about Jermaine. But wasn't an All Pro player,
wasn't a Pro Bowl caliber player. Was merely a good
player who did some awesome things and authored, in one
particular instance, an iconic moment that Jermaine Pratt had a
helping hand in. So I'm not here to tell you
that Jermaine Pratt's going to go in the Ring of
honor or that the Bengals did him wrong by cutting him.

(18:40):
I do think Jay Morrison has a piece about this
at Bengals Talk dot com, and I think it's a
fair criticism. They knew they were cutting Jermaine Pratt probably
before last season ended. Did they really have to wait
until June ninth? And by the way, they haven't officially
done it yet. I do understand waiting until after the draft,

(19:00):
because I understand trying to maybe swing a trade to
get something for him. And I also understand, you know,
you might want to make sure you're covered in the
draft at linebacker, which obviously the Bengals took two. Once
they took two, couldn't they have cut them the Monday
or Tuesday after the draft? Did they have to wait
till June ninth? I think it's a fair question. I
also think it's fair to say that the Jermaine Pratt

(19:21):
we watched last season, you and I want nothing to
do with, and that is al golden and that money
that they save, which is close to six million dollars,
is better allocated elsewhere help Maybe it helps him sign
Trey Hendrickson. But let's not let any of that cloud
what was a really good stint in Cincinnati. And look, man,

(19:41):
you talk about a position that over the last thirty
five years the Bengals have been woefully deficient at, it's linebacker.
You know, I mean, just think of over the last
thirty five they haven't had that many good ones. Jermaine
Pratt was a good one, and you know, at times

(20:02):
you could wonder, like is is when they gave him
the extension a couple of years ago, was a fair
question to wonder if that was the right thing to do,
because was he truly an every down guy? But when
he was on the field in a lot of big moments,
he delivered, and that's worth remembering. On the day we
found out he's at least a little bit closer to
being cut.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
It's a three point thirty on ESPN fifteen thirty numbers
of five point three seven four nine fifteen thirty and
eighty sixty six seven oh two three seven seven six.
Mini Camp starts tomorrow for the Bengals Day one of
mandatory Mini camp. Uh. Danner's going to be with us
in the three o'clock hour tomorrow to kind of recap
the first day. The question we're all wondering is is

(20:43):
Trey Hendrickson going to show up? And if he does,
what happens, what does that look like, what does that
sound like? And if he doesn't, well, you know, the
Bengals have a right to find him. Now there's a
part of me that hopes Trey Hendrickson just shows up
and says, you know what, I'll sign the new deal.

(21:05):
I'm gonna play here. Let's move on. If he doesn't
show up, I don't believe the Bengals should exercise their
right to find him. We'll get to that coming up
in the four o'clock hour. Sports headlines are next on
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

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Speaker 1 (22:00):
This report a sponsored buying. Sports headlines are a service
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credit approval from their family to yours for life Kelsey
chef dot com. The Ohio Cup could be clinched tonight
as the Reds head to Cleveland to take on the Guardians.
First of three six forty. Tonight's first pitch on seven

(22:20):
hundred WLW Wade Miley makes his first start as a
Red since returning to Cincinnati. Righty Luise Hortiz will throw
for Cleveland. You want to starting lineup, give it to
you freedom and center locks his dhing Ellie is playing
short ces at first base, batting for Stevenson behind the
dish Benson's and left. Going up against his former team,

(22:43):
Santiago espan I was playing third base. Jake freeleies and
right Matt MacLean is at second base and batting ninth.
One thing worth paying attention to Chase Burns was, as
they say, lights out for double A Chattanooga A one
point two nine e r A fifty five strikeouts, just
four walks in forty two innings. He is being promoted

(23:03):
to Louisville. Now. I know some cold water has been
thrown on the idea that he can help the team
in Cincinnati this year. I don't believe that that should
be taken off the table. We'll see what happens. Wade
Miley is not going to be judged on one start,
but we'll see Lucky is a guy coming off Tommy
John surgery. We'll see, hopefully, hopefully Wade Miley pitches well

(23:27):
enough in the role that he's in now while Hunter
Green is gone that A when Hunter comes back, he's
not needed any more in the rotation, and B there's
a spot for him in the bullpen somewhere. We will see.
The Bengals planned a release linebacker Jermaine Pratt, according to
an NFL network's Tom Pellisero and according to anybody who
follows the team, Bengals conduct their three day mandatory mini

(23:47):
camp this week, starting tomorrow, hockey tonight. This series, the
first two games have been awesome, one in ot one
in doubt. The series shifts to South Florida Panthers and
Oilers tied at a game apiece. There you go, five, three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty. I have and I'm sure you do too,

(24:10):
like a million questions. Justin Williams used to cover UC
sports for the Athletic and now he covers college sports
as a whole, and along with others in his industry,
he has been all over this house settlement thing, which
is either going to kill college sports for good according
to some, and college sports as we know it, according
to others, be a great thing for college sports. Dramatically

(24:33):
change college sports. It's going to have an impact. Justin,
in his professional opinion, will tell us what that impact
is going to be, and we'll try to make it
as best we can about some of the local schools
when we come back, he joins us. Next on ESPN
fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station Block. The big topic in
college sports is the house settlement. We're now universities can

(24:53):
pay athletes directly, and so if you love college basketball,
college football, if you love college sports, there's a very good,
very good change for wondering what does all this mean?
What does it mean? Is it going to be the
end of college football as we know It's here to
provide answers to questions like that covering college football and

(25:13):
more on the intercollegiate level. For the athletics in the
Athletic dot Com is our old friend, Justin Williams. It
has been forever since you have been on this show.
So it's nice to hear your voice. Let's hear it.
Good to hear from you, mom, Nice to be heard
from I see people in the in the aftermath of
this who have kind of declared this doomsday. This is

(25:34):
it fold up to ten college sports are over? Or
do you look at this from as diar a point
of view.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I actually think this is you know, either a half
measure or a stop gap towards like the inevitable reset
that college sports is going to have to go through
at some point. And now that's going to look a
lot different than maybe college sports did for you know,
the past fifty years or so. So if people want
to say, like this is the death of college sports, maybe,

(26:03):
but we've been talking for a long time about the
money coming into college sports, and you know, for a
long time, athletes didn't see any of that. That changed
a little bit with NIL. Now it's changing even more
with the House Settlement. I think we're going towards some
kind of future where we're going to have to figure out,
you know, our athletes, employees, how much do they get paid,
How is all this sorted out? And I think that

(26:23):
the House Settlement is like kind of a way station
on the way to that. So really, mileage varies on
whether it's the death of college sports or just kind
of a movement towards what should be the next phase
of college sports.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
The divide in college sports between the haves and have
nots has widened my entire life. This is apparently going
to widen it further. Is that the case?

Speaker 2 (26:44):
I think though, because you know, the big thing about
this settlement is schools are going to be able to
start paying you know, twenty million a year directly to athletes.
For some schools, that's going to be a lot easier
than others. Right Like, if you're Texas or Oregon or
Ohio State. You know that these schools that I've historically
had the highest budgets, the most resources, It's that's not

(27:05):
going to be necessarily easy to just cobble together twenty million,
but it's going to be a lot easier for places
like you know, Cincinnati or Purdue or Iowa State, or
definitely for you know, Ohio University or the Dayton Flyers
and things like that. So to me, I actually think
you can make the argument that the past couple of
years nil and the transfer portal has maybe kind of

(27:25):
like not completely leveled the playing field, but spread out
some of that talent and created some parody in different ways.
I actually think the House settlement and the immediate aftermath.
It's going to go back to what you said, which
is the has and have not that the richest programs
are going to have a lot easier time in this
new world than you know, those that aren't the top

(27:46):
programs on ESPN, or that aren't spending tw hundred million
dollars a year on their athletics budget you.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Mentioned you see, you know that athletic department, you know
that school, well, the school itself, the athletic department is
going to say we're good, We're ready for this. I
read a statement from John Cunningham over the weekend. They
say they're good. Based on your perspective, if you're a
Bearcat fan, should you be worried about what this is
going to mean for UC sports?

Speaker 2 (28:12):
I think the bear Cats are as well positioned, or
is not well positioned as most of the Power Conference programs.
Honestly so so better than everyone else. Not as good,
like we said, as as your top programs Ohio State, Oregon, Texas,
those types of schools. But for a lot of these programs,
even in the Power Conference, it's you know, they're trying

(28:33):
to find out, all right, how can we get this
twenty million dollars. How can we, you know, put money
to football in basketball, but also kind of find a
way to fund the non revenue sports. I think everyone
is in that bucket, and so I don't know that,
you know, especially like in a conference like the Big Twelve,
I don't know that there are many schools that are
way better off or way worse off than than Cincinnati.

(28:54):
But it's it's what we just talked about. You know,
this is the program that a couple of years ago
kind of punched above its weight and went to the
College Football Playoff. The way it is now, you know,
Cincinnati could still make the College Football play They can
definitely make the NCAA tournament, but it's gonna be really,
really tough to compete with those top programs in terms
of national championships and things like that.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Many have sort of hailed this as a great development
for the Big East, which obviously doesn't have football. So
if if I'm a Xavier University fan or alum do
I view this as something that could be a major
asset for my program and others in the Big East
since we don't have to divide the money and include football.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, the problem with that is most of these schools
you know in the SEC and Big Ten that are
bringing in piles of cash every year, they're bringing it
in because of football, and so sure, you know, the
Big East schools don't have to pay out football or
worry about that, but they also don't have the money
coming in that football provides. So I think it will
be interesting from a basketball perspective because if you're you know,

(29:53):
Yukon or Xavier or whoever in the Big East, and
you want to try and put all of your effort
into paying money to to basketball players, then maybe you
can pay more than most of the other power conferences
because they're having to distribute among football. But I don't
think it's going to be this huge gap. I think
the ones that do it might might have a little
bit of an advantage, But to me, it's not going

(30:13):
to be a completely disjointed playing field because of this.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Justin Williams, some of the athletic with us, is there
a legitimate movement to kind of cap the spending per sport.
We're basically, you know, every school can spend a certain
amount of money on football, a certain amount of money
on men's basketball, and a certain amount of money on
all the other non revenue sports in an effort to
level the football playing field.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
So the commissioners, the Power commencemmissioners talked about this today
that there isn't right now any kind of a mandate
from a conference level of all of our football teams
are going to spend this amount of revshare. Same for basketball.
It's really going to be up to the schools to
decide that. Now, part of that, if you know, you
really want to go into the weeds, is this might
have Title nine implications of you know, giving out equitable

(31:00):
amounts to men's and women's athletes, and so by kind
of washing their hands of it at the conference level,
if if someone wants to sue a school on grounds
of Title nine, then the conferences can say like, well,
that's the school's problem. You know, we're not telling them
what to do. But I think you're going to have
some differentiation in there. Like you know, a school like Kentucky,
most of the schools in the SEC are going to
put as much as they can towards football. I bet

(31:21):
Kentucky puts a little bit more towards basketball. I think
you're going to see that within a conference of all, right,
you know Kansas. Does Kansas give more to basketball than
most other schools because it's historically been a bigger basketball school.
How does their football team feel about that? I kind
of write about this over the weekend that you're actually
going to have some maybe like infighting among coaches at

(31:42):
a school because they're all going to be jockeying for
how much they get. So not only is it going
to cause a mess, you know, between schools and a
competition level, now you actually have coaches within a school
kind of like sniping at each other over who gets
more rev show just the exact kind of stuff that
you and I fell in love with about college forards.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, no question about it. There are a lot of
like tennis and golf programs though that might be in
peril because of this.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Right absolutely, I think you're you know, you can't with
twenty million dollars and you know, having to pay football
and basketball and the kind of the top level sports.
You can't fund every single single sport. So I think
what's going to happen is there might be some sports
that at schools that completely get eliminated. I think more
likely you're going to have them just kind of lose

(32:23):
their resources and schools start to specialize, and so if
the school feels like they have a chance to be
competitive and win conference championships in tennis and softball, then
maybe they get a little bit less money to rowing
and a little bit less resources to track and field
and things like that. So I do think you could
see some of these non revenue programs get hurt in

(32:44):
terms of the resources they get. But I also think
you could see schools start to specialize and say like, hey,
we actually think, you know, we can you know, maybe
make some noise or be competitive in this sport. So
we're going to put a little bit more attention than
we were before into these non revenue sports that we
think we could be good at.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Explain to me the roster limitations and why this is
apparently the end of walk ons.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
So it's basically, now there's a total number that every
roster can have, and in football, you could have eighty
five scholarships. You could basically have as many walk ons
as you wanted to be on that, which is why
some rosters have like one hundred and thirty players. Now
you can just have one hundred and five. You could
put all of them on scholarship. If you want, but
you can't go above that. Most schools are probably still

(33:28):
going to be in that eighty five range, and so
they're still going to have twenty walk ons. But you're
talking about you know, these schools are going to have
to basically have twenty to thirty less walk ons than
they did the year before. And so that's where I
think you see some people freaking out about the death
of the walk ons or walk ons going away. I'd
certainly sympathize with that. I think anyone though that watches
college football, like those teams probably don't need one hundred

(33:50):
and thirty players. Most of them aren't getting into the game.
So I do think there's a little bit of kind
of over inflating the importance of that. But look, I
understand if you know, if you're a walk on and
you go to school or you're a player on a
non revenue sport and you had a roster spot, now
you don't, that's pretty disappointing. But from a general fan
day to day perspective, I actually don't know that that's
going to have much of it them.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Just a Wayiam, some of the athletic you're answering all
my questions which I appreciate how NIL is still going
to be a thing, but now it's going to go
through a clearinghouse. How will NIL work?

Speaker 2 (34:21):
So this, I think is the big question about will
the settlement work, what will the impact be? You know,
part of this is schools saying players directly, But the
other big reason why they did this settlement is they're
trying to rein in the NIL and kind of what
they feel like is been the wild wild West, where
these NIL collectives are getting involved and basically going into
the transfer portal and saying, hey, we'll give you X

(34:42):
amount of dollars to come play for our school. The
settlement's trying to get rid of that. So if it's
a deal, it's over six hundred dollars. The way it's
supposed to work is that a player would put it
into the system and then this new system would take
a look and say, actually, no, this you know, this
isn't a fair market or a valid business purpose. This
is just some rich guy trying to get a player

(35:02):
to come to his favorite school, and we're not going
to let that happen. Now, a lot of people think
either that's not going to hold up in court. You know,
if the first time this clearing house tries to nix
a deal that a player signs, you're going to have
more lawsuits and it's going to be a whole big
or deal or a lot of people are saying, what's
going to make these athletes put their deals into a
system and declare it? And maybe we're going back to,

(35:25):
you know, the days of the bag man, where players
are getting paid with envelopes of cash in their locker
or under the table or things like that. So I
think the biggest unknown about the settlement is what we're
talking about right now, is what does the future of
NIL look like? Does it really fix kind of the
unregulated pay for play era or does it actually just
send it into the shadows and things are working the

(35:45):
way they used to.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Are you insinuating that there was a time in which
student athletes would find envelopes of cash at their locker?
Was that a thing?

Speaker 2 (35:54):
I think? I think there was a time where players
were maybe getting paid even they.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Weren't allowed to be interesting.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Is this going to be the end of a documentary
called Blue Chips?

Speaker 1 (36:05):
About that documentary?

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Is?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
So?

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Is this the end of collectives?

Speaker 2 (36:14):
That's that's part of that same question. You know, I
think a lot of these schools that are trying to
find how do we get the twenty million dollars. You know,
maybe the collectives aren't what they were doing before, but
the programs at the top of the sport they want
to keep these collectives to try and find a way
to get extra money on top of the revenue sharing cap.
So I don't think it's the end of collectives, but

(36:34):
I think it's going to look a lot different. And
part of that is do some of these collectives try
to go to court and ensue over this new clearinghouse?
Or do some of these collectives, like we just talked about,
maybe they're still operating the same way they were before.
Maybe they're just doing it a little less publicly.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
I expect, I expect there to be some really creative
ways that schools use to generate revenue, the least of
which is going to be just raising their ticket prices,
expectation the same.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah. My fear here is that the people that get
hurt by this are the students and the fans. So
we've already had some schools talk about they're gonna raise
student fees. I think Virginia Tech was a good example
of you know that they just put it out there, Hey,
we need to raise some money for revenue sharing, so
your student fees are going to go up or we've
seen I think Tennessee up to ticket prices, Arkansas up

(37:23):
concession prices. I think you're going to see that at
a lot of places. Yes, there's going to be some
budget cuts or some fundraising, but unfortunately, I think a
lot of the this is going to get passed on
to the fan who's mind tickets and the students who's
going to school there.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I did some checking this morning. You had last appeared
on this show from a big twelve media days. I
believe that was in July. That can't be the case
moving forward, Okay.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I mean, I just I know how much the listeners
want to hear about the legal eves that we're talking,
so anytime we can do that, but also maybe some
some more boring topics.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Whenever you could use the word clearing house in a
discussion about sports, it's really really good. It's read that
just the cue buster. As we say in the business.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
I've avoided using codify, but that's the other word. You're
hearing a lot deep dails. You know what I'm gonna
try and get out of this interview of them.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
You check the right box. You use the term wild
wild west. You are not allowed to talk about nil
in the current state of college sports without using the
term wild wild west, and you did that. So congratulations,
I appreciate it. You're the best. Thanks man, Thank him out.
You should read Justin Williams his work the Athletic dot
Com and follow him on Twitter at Williams Underscore. Justin.

(38:39):
We are late, three minutes away from four o'clock. My
producer today is just losing his mind in the studio
because we broke late. My apologies. Hopefully he can figure
out a way to get us back on time. Five
point three seven four nine fifteen thirty is our phone, right.
It's spent a few minutes on that because I think
the uh, I think that last part is important, and
I think you're going to see more. If you're a

(38:59):
uc in particularly, you're gonna see more of what you
didn't like what they just did. I'll make that make sense.
Next ESPN fifteen to thirty, United Heartland Insurance in partner me,
all right, thank you? What's up? Five at before? This
is ESPN fifteen thirty m Oiger, thank you for listening today.
Hook been an awesome Monday. Brahman and Jones on baseball
coming up later on this hour. We are you're a

(39:20):
guest free the rest of the way, Yes, free, I said,
the rest of the way. We've got the Reds coming
off a series sweep, and I unwittingly, unwittingly stumbled into
what could be the return of my favorite Reds trope,
which I hope doesn't become an actual thing. I'll explain

(39:41):
in just a bit. Bengals start their mini camp tomorrow,
and we all want to know is Trey Hendrickson gonna
show up? And if he does, what's gonna happen? Is
there gonna be another side show, more grand standing? Is
he gonna do a media scrum? How much is he
gonna participate that sort of thing? And if he doesn't,
does he get fined? And as you get all butt
hurt about that, we'll spend a few minutes on that

(40:03):
coming up here in just a bit. I was a
good conversation I thought with Justin Williams from The Athletic
about the house settlement, which I will be the first
to admit. Man, I love college basketball and football, and
I'm certainly always interested in the direction that both of
those sports are going, in the direction of college athletics
as a whole. And I want everybody in life to

(40:25):
get paid. I want every athlete to get paid. Like
I am the for folks who do what I do
for a living, I am the ultimate, Like, let's let
everybody get paid. Guy. I love the fact that athletes
can get paid. I love the fact that college athletes
can do in commercials and do endorsements and make money
on their name, image and likeness. And I'm really curious

(40:47):
as to how this is gonna unfold. I am always
I'm always skeptical when I hear that, oh, this is doomsday,
this is the beginning of the end. College sports are
going to be over. I always follow the eyeballs. I always.
It's like with the NBA Finals. The ratings have been
horrific because people often don't mean what they say right.

(41:10):
They'll say, I don't want to watch the large markets,
I don't want to watch Lebron anymore. I'm tired of
Steph Curry. I just I want to watch two well
constructed teams I'm tired of. I'm tired of the same
old and then you know, you get exactly what you want,
which are two teams they're not super teams, third teams
with very good players but not transcendent superstars, and nobody

(41:32):
watches same thing college football and basketball. All I heard
for months on end going into this college basketball season
was how the sport's not the same, the sport's not
as good, nil is ruining it. And then we had
the highest rated NCAA tournament and the highest rated final
four in thirty years. Now I'm not naive enough to
think that, well, gambling doesn't have a part of that,

(41:53):
but come on, I hear all the time we want upsets,
and then you know, we get upsets, and nobody watches
the game involving the teams that pulled off the upset.
This year in the NCAA tournament, not a lot of
early round upsets. A lot of people really mad about that.
This is the end of the NCAA tournament. And then
what do we get lead in the tournament? Good games
and awesome ratings. So I hear, well, this is the

(42:15):
end of college sports as we know it, And then
I see more and more media partners investing, more and
more people watching more and more people paying attention more
college football ratings. For this past season, despite all anybody
said about the diluted regular season and conference realignment, college
football regular season ratings were incredible, incredible, and the playoff

(42:37):
ratings were really good too. So I'm always skeptical when
I hear that anything is gonna lead to the downfall
of college sports. Eight years ago, we had the FBI, okay,
federal agents investigating college basketball programs. This was gonna kill
the sport. And we've had you know, initiatives like Prop
forty eight, it's gonna kill the sport. We've had point

(42:58):
shaving scandals, gonna kill the sport. Nothing has. The sports
aren't gonna be killed until people stop watching. That isn't
close to happening. So I'm always skeptical when I hear that,
and I always kind of WinCE when I hear and
see people complain, Well, this is just gonna widen the
gulf between the haves and have nots. Since when has
anybody cared? Like, Let's be honest, most college sports fans

(43:22):
are fans of halves. Right, Most college sports fans are
fans of halves. I've never heard any fan of a
have lament the plight of the have not in college sports.
So I'm to believe that we should just start doing that.
Now ain't gonna happen. Here's what I do think. I

(43:45):
just talked about this with Justin. We are gonna see
We're gonna see more situations like remember back during the
college football season. If you're a UC fan, you know this.
You see was gonna play Nebraska at Knippert Stadium. It's
part of a home and home. Now, the first game
in that series got shelved because of COVID, and they're
going to play in Nebraska in like twenty thirty one.
So then the game was moved to Indianapolis. And I'll

(44:07):
be honest with you, I heard from no one who
said they were going to go. Then, after the game
was earmarked for Indianapolis for months, suddenly the game got
moved to Kansas City. And the explanation was pretty obvious,
and it's one that made sense. Dude, we're about to
go into revenue sharing. We need to create revenue. If

(44:28):
we can cash a seven figure check by moving a
football game, we're going to do it. You know, I
might seem laughable. The concept of Cincinnati playing a home
game in Kansas City. You might have chosen to go
to the game in Indianapolis because you thought that was
going to be a cool environment and you don't have
much of an appetite to go to Kansas City, or
it's a little bit too far or whatever, I get it.

(44:52):
You know, that's not the sort of thing that Alabama does,
or Georgia does, or Ohio State does. We're not moving
a home game to, you know, eight hundred miles away.
But you see he did. Why because they have to
come up with creative ways to generate revenue. And you're
gonna hear that. I promise you you're gonna hear that
term a lot. Creative ways to generate revenue. Whenever you

(45:14):
hear creative ways to generate revenue in sports, you know
that means one thing, most of all, higher ticket prices.
And that's the part of this I hate, because that's
coming like it's not. Well, we now have twenty and
a half million dollars a week in earmark for athletes,
and so we'll just shave that from the revenue we're

(45:35):
already bringing in. Now it's wait a minute, we have
to generate twenty and a half million dollars more revenue.
So don't say I warned you. Don't say I didn't
warrant you Like. It's that's coming, man, and might not
come at every school instantly, it's coming. You know there's
already and and Justin did did allude to this. Tennessee

(45:57):
last football season added a ten percent quote talent fee
to their season ticket renewals, which was on top of
a four and a half percent hike on ticket prices.
So they raised the ticket prices four and a half
percent and then tacked on and added ten percent quote
talent fee. Arkansas raised their concession prices by three percent. Clemson,

(46:23):
which you know, one of those schools that didn't charge
fees or ticket prices to students, well they've now added
an athletic fee per semester to the price of tuition.
Only one hundred and fifty dollars. That's not going to
keep anybody from going to Clemson. But still, like you've

(46:44):
seen it, man, like one of the major differences. NFL
tickets are insanely expensive. College football tickets, by comparison, have
been a fraction of NFL tickets. Why because in the
NFL they got to pay the players in college sports,
with many exceptions, ticket prices have always been comparatively low because, well,

(47:04):
we don't have to pay the we don't have to play,
pay the labor, we don't have to pay the players. Now, Like,
that's that's a part of this. I don't want to
say that nobody is talking about, but it's one of
the consequences of this. So there's there's a lot out
there about how this is going to impact playing field,
how this is going to impact non revenue sports, how
this is going to impact collectives and shady boosters and

(47:27):
well healed people who just want to buy players. A
lot out there about how this is going to impact
the relationship between certain programs within a certain athletic department.
Right Like, if if one program, let's say it's let's
say it's women's softball at a certain school, is suddenly
not getting the money it thinks it should get because
that money is going to men's basketball, that could create

(47:47):
some friction within athletic departments. But the part of this
that I think matters the most to most college sports
fans are the creative revenue parts of it, which maybe
not universally and maybe not across the board, but in many, many,
many cases. Is gonna mean simply higher ticket prices. The

(48:09):
cost of going to a game is gonna go up,
higher concession prices, charging more for parking, finding out new
ways to builk fans of coin. It's coming like and
so I very mixed feelings about this because I want
everybody to get paid. I think it's ludicrous. I think
thirty years from now we're gonna have younger people asking this,
Wait a minute. It used to have a system for

(48:30):
one hundred years where college football and basketball players didn't
get paid, and we're gonna go, yeah, that was a
thing that actually happened and we kind of went along
with it. But the downside of this is the creative revenue.
And again, like what you see did with that Nebraska
game didn't bother me then, doesn't bother me now, Like
it's something they had to do. There are gonna be

(48:51):
more transactions like that, I think. But more than anything else,
the cost of labor will be passed on to you
and I quartera after four ESPN fifteen thirty, we have
to throw some poll questions out there on Twitter at
moegar thanks to United Heartland Insurance, make sure you check
out uhi ns dot com. And what they'll do is

(49:15):
they'll ensure you car, boat, home, motorcycle, life, you name it,
they'll insure it. You need insurance, why not get it
from a locally owned company, United Heartland Insurance uhi ins
dot com. The Bengals start Minichamp tomorrow. We've got that
to get to. The Reds got Christian and Karnasi on
strand back this weekend, which is awesome because he was awesome.

(49:38):
Let's not let's let's in fact, we should maybe have
a contest. I just thought of this. I might launch
a media contest. I'll tell you what the contest is
next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 5 (49:53):

Speaker 4 (49:58):
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And an update on northbound seventy one that's now shut

(50:18):
down due to an accident between Wilmington Road and State
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a crash between south Side and State Avenue. I'm at
Ezelk with traffic.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
This reported sponsor just filling out my Bengals Ring of
Honor feedback form. I asked for feedback, I gave it
to them. Twenty minutes after four o'clock, Brendan and Jones
on Baseball is just about thirty minutes away. So Christian
and Carnassi on Strand comes back. And this weekend, he

(50:52):
among many others, provided a ton of highlights. And you
know who knows how this series unfolds. If that game
on Friday night gets called after they completed the game
post five innings, it's three to two, Cees doesn't hit
the home run after some really goofy decision making by
Terry Francona in that game. If they lose that game,

(51:13):
they may still win thirteen to one on Saturday. They
may still win and come from behind fashion yesterday for
too with a Matt McClain homer. Maybe they still do.
But that Christian and Karnasi on home run on Friday,
the importance of that cannot be understated. And look, he
provides a presence. He provides just a physical presence. He's

(51:33):
a guy who can hit the ball out of the ballpark.
This team does not have that many sluggers. This team,
as it's been constructed all season long, doesn't have that
many guys that you look at and go that is
a genuine long ball threat. Christian and Karasi Strand provides one.
And so the hope is we talked about this in

(51:54):
the last hour, he can provide that presence for the
rest of the season and you could get a roughly
one hundred game sample size of what he can do
during what is a really big season for him. I
think he is among many players Ces is twenty five
years old. I think he turns twenty six in December,
if I'm not mistaken. Twenty five years old. It very

(52:16):
much felt like coming into this year like there's sort
of a put up or shut up component to his season.
So we will see. But what you want for any player,
in particular a guy like him who the Reds traded
for a couple of years ago, is for him to
get the opportunity to show what he can do or
can't do with a long stretch of health. So you

(52:38):
root for that for him, you also root for that
for the team. Look at the very least the Reds
have been awful against lefties. Ces is a right handed
batter who can hit against lefties. And Austin Hayes is
going to come back, and why the reason why we
were most excited about his acquisition this past offseason was
he could help against lefties. The Reds badly need help
against lefties. So we'll say, hopefully Cees can stay healthy

(53:02):
and hopefully Austin Kerns or Austin Kerns, Austin Hayes can
get healthy and stay healthy, and that's obviously been a
bit of a challenge for him. And then down the
road they got to get Hunter Green back. Now it's weird,
and Jim Day talked about this on the TV broadcast
over the weekend about how Hunter Green's progress is going
to be measured in weeks not days. And you know,

(53:25):
we know Hunter's story by now. Where he had the
groin issue, he was on the fifteen day injured list,
missed a couple of starts, came back, and when he
came back, it was weird, Like that first game he
pitched on that Friday night against the Cubs was weird
because he breathed through the first three innings, ran into
trouble in the fourth, gave up a big home run

(53:46):
and then was pulled, and you could understand why they
weren't going to give him a very long rope in
his first start back, and then his second start was
also kind of uneven. And then there's what happened with
the start against the Brewers last Tuesday. So he's felt
a little bit of a groin pop. The mri I
they've done has not revealed a new groin injury, so

(54:07):
it's kind of an extension of what he was already
dealing with, which begs the question did he come back
too early? And then you read that on top of
the groin issue, he has been dealing with, you know,
some slight back soreness and some slight hip soreness, and
nobody knows if the two are connected, and so we'll see.

(54:28):
So it feels like it might be a while before
we see Hunter Green. Who knows a second opinion for
Hunter Green? Thank you? So who knows? Who knows? Obviously
they need him back. He is one of the faces
of this franchise. On top of all this, we have
my favorite Reds trope, which is hurt guy coming back

(54:51):
is going to be the best trade deadline acquisition. We
did this just two years ago with Hunter Green. You remember, right,
Reds were in first place at the deadline. They sat
around and did nothing, And one of the explanations that
a lot of people bought was, hurt guy coming back
is gonna be the best trade deadline acquisition. You know

(55:12):
what I'm referring to here, Its cousin is hurt guy
coming back could be the best offseason acquisition. You got
that this offseason with Matt McClain. It's one of my
favorite tropes, and two years ago it didn't work because
all the guys who got hurt either came back and
weren't very good, or came back and got hurt again,
or in some cases, never came back. But it is

(55:34):
easily it's my favorite trade deadline trope without question, in
large part because every year around the trade deadline, there's
a player on the injured list who is attempting to
come back, and so the excuse for inactivity often becomes, hey,
don't need to make a trade because this guy's coming back.
We did it with Hunter Green himself two years ago.

(55:54):
So this weekend Cees comes back and he's awesome. Homers
in each of the three games, has the walker off
hit in the extension of the Friday game on Saturday,
and great, like they need him, and hopefully he is
as healthy as he says he is, and he could
stay healthy and stay in the lineup and hit twenty
homers in ninety six games, and the Reds go to
the postseason because Ces came back, and hopefully Austin Hayes

(56:17):
comes back and just picks up where he left off
and hits and doesn't go back on the injured list,
and hopefully this Hunter Green thing is okay. Although I'm
a little afraid of four Hunter and four of the
Reds because there's something kind of janky about this. But please,
for the love of God, if the Reds are in

(56:38):
any position to make their team better around July thirty, first,
spare me the hurt guy coming back. Actually the best
trade deadline acquisition now. Ces came back in early June,
first weekend of June, this weekend, right, and Austin Hayes
is hopefully going to come back here very soon. He's eligible.
He can come off anytime now, and so we're not

(57:01):
really close to the deadline yet. But what I fear
is both players will be just productive enough and hopefully
stay healthy enough that their presence on the team will shift,
maybe slightly. The conversation about the Reds and what they
need to add to their roster. This is an incomplete

(57:22):
team of ces is healthy, It's an incomplete team if
Austin Hayes is healthy. Now, along with this, we obviously
hope that Wade Miley pitches. Okay, we'll see. He's obviously
not Hunter Green, but he is a guy who if
he's healthy, you can kind of rely on. You know
what he's going to give you. He is the just
prototypical veteran back of the rotation guy that you go

(57:44):
this dude can give us five or six, keep us
in the game, and give us a shot every time
he takes the ball. If he doesn't work out, I
have no idea what they do next. If Hunter Green
comes back and Wade Miley has doubt, then that's a bonus, right,
because then you have a pleasant problem. Hunter Green comes back,

(58:05):
you keep Wade Miley. Now, the Red's biggest need is
obviously not starting pitching. But what I'm fearful of, and
I said this before the break, maybe we should have
a contest because it's not only one of my favorite tropes.
As a fan. You often hear folks in the media
race to be the first to either issue that take

(58:28):
or write that column. Hurt Guy coming Back is going
to be the best kind of trade deadline acquisition. For
the love of God, please know, this was an incomplete
team back in February. It's an incomplete team now. It's
made more whole by Cees being healthy. Ces being healthy

(58:49):
and productive is obviously a huge bonus. This team needs
help that goes beyond a first baseman who has yet
to play, first basement and third baseman who has yet
to play a full season, and its offensive issues go
beyond Austin Hayes being able to fix them. And by
the way, both players have extensive enough injury histories that

(59:10):
it's completely reasonable to not completely rely on their health
moving forward. But I can hear it now, I might
do a first person to write the piece hurt Guy
coming Back best trade deadline acquisition? Will it be applied
to Hunter? Could it be applied to Ces? Could it
be applied to Austin Hayes. I hope the answers are no.

(59:32):
I fear the answers are going to be yes. Twenty
nine minutes after four o'clock. Bengals Mini caamp begins tomorrow.
There are a handful of interesting storylines. Really only two matter.
We'll dive into both next.

Speaker 5 (59:48):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

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Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Sports Headlines are a service at Kelsey Chevale, home of
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to yours for live kelsey Chef dot com. Reds and
Guardians Tonight, first of three in Cleveland. The Ohio Cup
can be clinched tonight by Cincinnati Reds, coming off that
three game series sweep with the Dbacks. Six point forty

(01:00:49):
is Tonight's first pitch. You'll hear it live on seven
hundred WLW. Wade Miley gets the ball for Cincinnati, making
his first start in a Cincinnati Reds uniforms twenty twenty
one on September nineteenth of that year. He went three
innings in a loss to the LA Dodgers. Hopefully he
is better tonight. That was his most recent start up

(01:01:11):
until tonight. Righty Luis Rtiz throws for Cleveland. Your starting lineup,
you know you know you want it. I'm gonna give
it to you. Get out your scorecards, have your scorecard out.
You can tell I'm fumbling for it, but I have
it here. Stand by, get ready. Freedle's leading off in
center field, locks his dhing and hitting second. La Della

(01:01:35):
Cruise is playing shortstop atting third, ces at first base.
Stevenson catches Will Benson's in left field, hitting sixth. Espinall's
a third Frehlian right, and Matt McLean is betting ninth
second base. Here you go, there you go. We'll get
the organ sound effect when Austin produces. Chase Burns has
been promoted to Triple A. He had been dominant for
Chattanooga at the Double A level, striking out fifty five

(01:01:57):
and walking just four in forty two innings of work.
It's time for today's Postman Law injury report. It is
delivered by Postman Law Injured Postman delivers. Jam Or Candelario
started his rehab assignment on Thursday at Louisville after playing
in a couple of games for the Arizona Complex League team.

(01:02:17):
He had one hit in each of his first three
games and then when for three yesterday in the second
game of a doubleheader. He is four for fifteen with
a double. He has struck out six times. Hunter Green,
we talked about this, gonna get a second opinion. So
he had the right groin strain, also felt some hip
soreness and backswordness. According to our friend Jim Day, the

(01:02:39):
MRI they did on the groins showed no new injury,
but again he is going to get a second opinion.
Noelle Marte started hitting drills in Arizona this weekend. He
is obviously trying to come back, excuse me, from that
left oblique strain and for the first time as he
attempts to come back from the right shoulder impingement that
has him on the injured list. Carson Spyers throw on

(01:02:59):
the mount for the first time on Friday in Arizona.
That is today's Postman Law Injury report. It is delivered
by Postman Law. If you're injured, call eight four to
four Postman. A couple of Bengals items. Mandatory minicamp starts tomorrow.
Joe Burrow is gonna talk at one o'clock. Tony and
Austin will have that for you. The Bengals plan to
release linebacker Jermaine Pratt, according to NFL Networks, Tom Pella,

(01:03:21):
Sero and anybody who has followed the team and hockey. Tonight,
Stanley Cup Final continues Game three of what has been
a terrific series so far. Oilers and Panthers, Florida hosting
Game three tonight on mandatory Mini caamp. I mean, let's
face it, there are three storylines that matter. Number One,
does anybody get hurt? Just it's the main storyline with

(01:03:42):
any practice, training camp, mini caamp, offseason, workout, voluntary practice, OTA, whatever.
Number Two, is there any change in Schamar Stewart's situation,
which okay, he missed. He was there for all the
voluntary practices, but he wasn't really practic and some will

(01:04:02):
dismiss that and go, it's not that big of a deal.
Your first ever mini camp, to me, is kind of
a big deal. I mean it's it might not be
the heat of late July or early August, but if
there were no value to mini camp, they wouldn't have it.

(01:04:24):
So there's value there. Does he and I'm guessing the
answer is going to be no. Does he sign the
waiver that other picks who haven't signed their contracts yet
sign to participate during rookie mini caamp? I have, and
I think I'm in the majority here, but I don't know.
I've kind of taken Shamar Stewart's side with this, which is, hey, man,

(01:04:45):
if you want to redo how you do rookie contracts
and you're trying to set a precedent, that's cool. Don't
do it with the guy who was taken seventeenth when
your first round picks in recent year were taken a
pick or two later. But you know, they need him
to make an immediate impact. They need him on the
field helping out being productive week one. Does that potential

(01:05:09):
get compromised by him not showing up or really participating
in mandatory mini caamp? And the obvious one is Trey Hendrickson.
ESPN dot com Today has a list of potential mandatory
mini camp no shows, and Trey is on that list. Now,
there's a few things he could do. He could show

(01:05:30):
up practice and pretend that there's no issue and go
about his business and not really make a scene, not
make a story. He could show up but not practice.
Or he could show up and do the very bare minimum.
Others have taken that tactic before he can get there

(01:05:50):
and then hold another media session I guess if he wants,
or he could simply just not show up. Now, if
he doesn't show up because it's mandatory, the Bengals could
find him, and if there's any issue with that, then
he should take it up with his union, which they
do the collective bargaining, and they, along with the NFL,

(01:06:13):
set the rules for what's mandatory or not. And if
something is mandatory, well then there's a fine schedule involved,
and the Bengals are within their rights to stick to
that schedule of fines and find Trey Hendrickson. A lot
of times, you know, a player will miss training camp
and could be fined for it, and then they get

(01:06:34):
the deal done and the team goes okay. You know,
we're gonna wave the fines. You can find a player
for missing something that's mandatory, but you obviously don't have to.
In an ideal world, Trey Hendrickson comes to mini caamp practices,
maybe signs a new contract and ends this and eliminates

(01:06:55):
the possibility of this being a thing or a distraction
once training camp starts, once the preseason begins, and we
are not spending the rest of the summer talking about
whether or not Trey is going to miss the first
game or two, or maybe miss the first ten, or
maybe even miss the entire season. That would be ideal.
It feels like that's not a strong possibility. A far

(01:07:18):
be it from me to tell the Bengals what to
do if I'm in charge. As much as it might
piss me off that he hasn't signed his contract, as
much as it might make me mad that he used
our facility to grandstand a couple of weeks ago, I
wouldn't find him like there's already built in here enough

(01:07:39):
bad blood. Like this relationship isn't great. It could be
fixed with the stroke of a pen. Or it can
be fixed with a simple email, Hey, here's the new
contract offer, or Trey to signing the deciding to sign
the contract offer that's already out there. But there's enough
bad blood. The relationship isn't great. Does finding him make

(01:08:03):
it better? You're within your rights, You're within your rights.
You're allowed it's mandatory. By the way, Zach Taylor was
doing nothing wrong when he told Trey Hendrickson in essence, hey,
just fyi, man, if you don't shove up, they can
find you. Like that's to me, that wasn't a warning shot.
It was a human being telling another human being. Here
are the potential consequences for your actions. Like, dude, I

(01:08:25):
get it. You might not show, but if you don't show,
they can find you. Just fyi. That's the meaning of
the word mandatory. But a mandatory mini camp find isn't
mandatory in itself. And so you know again, like everybody
has kind of taken sides. To me, this isn't about
taking sides. It's if you're a fan hoping that the

(01:08:46):
two get a deal done that enables the Bengals to
play with Chary Hendrickson this year, because I think we
all want that. But because this has kind of taken
on a life of its own, and some have dug
in and taking sides the two sides themselves. Trey and
the Bengals have clearly dug in. Finding the guy does

(01:09:07):
what pisses him off even further and maybe makes it
less likely that he does what you have said he
needs to do, which is just shrug his shoulders and
be happy with what you've offered him. Again, he may
show up tomorrow, he may practice, may show up and
do the bare minimum. I don't know. I don't think
anybody really right now seems to know what Trey is

(01:09:29):
gonna do. And frankly, it feels like predicting what Tray
is gonna do is wrought with its own challenges. But
if the relationship isn't great, why do something that's only
gonna make it worse. If you, guys, if these two
sides are this far apart, why do something to create

(01:09:51):
even more distance. We'll see again. Maybe it's a moot point.
If he shows up, Bengals are within their rights, you
know it's I guess it's going to be a story
if they do find him. And maybe if they find him,
he's going to go on the Pat McAfee show or
call another impromptu press conference. I have no idea I
just if it's me as a as a sign of goodwill,

(01:10:14):
so to speak, I wouldn't find him. I'm probably the minority.
Sixteen away from five o'clock. Red's got to Spark this
weekend from cees A. Spark is short lived. Home run
potential is not that. Coming up at five oh five
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

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Call five one three five A five UCCC northbound seventy
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Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
This report is sponsored BIS. Paul's Just minutes Away on
ESPN fifteen thirty. I'm lu Egger, thank you for listening tomorrow.
In the show our buddy, Paul Danner Junior from the
Athletic and the Growlid podcast is going to be with
us in studio to answer all of our questions about
Bengals mandatory mini camp and recap the day and talk
about the day Trey. Trey show up, non show up.

(01:11:35):
He's gonna get fined and he grants. It's it's just
it's this NonStop, just unending, bottomless well of content that
Trey has given us a lot, and even when he
hasn't hasn't given us much content himself, well, somebody else has.
So we'll see if there's more tomorrow. My guess is
there will be in some way, shape or form. Paul

(01:11:55):
will be here in the first hour, also recapping Red's
Guardians Game one, the o High Cup on the line.
Tito Francona, Tito the Infallible, I've changed the nickname, by
the way, Tito the Infallible. Tito the Infallible has a
chance to become the only man to win the Ohio
Cup with two different franchises, and there are only two
franchises involved in the Ohio Cup. So Tito, if they

(01:12:18):
win the night, or win any one of these next
three games against the Guardians's former team, he will have
won the Ohio Cup with Cleveland, and he will have
won the Ohio Cup with the Reds, and he will
have won the Ohio Cup with the Cleveland Indians and
the Cleveland Guardians and the Reds. Really three you really
think about it, So best of luck to Tito the
infallible tonight. It is. It is interesting. I felt like,

(01:12:43):
and I think most of us did that coming into
the weekend, it felt like the season was on the
verge of maybe getting away from the Reds playing against
the Diamondbacks, team that just suffered the brutal loss of
Corbin Burns, has had a couple of injuries in the rotation,
but still from a top to bottom perspective, is probably
not as as their record. It felt like in the
aftermath of that Milwaukee series, like the season was on

(01:13:05):
the verge of getting away from them. And look, they're
still just a five hundred team and there's lots of
reasons for skepticism, and they're not out of the woods
yet by any stretch of the imagination. Bad teams sweep
series all the time. But it felt like after not
just the Milwaukee series, but the way they lost that

(01:13:26):
last game, this just lifeless dreary nine to one performance.
It felt like a lot of folks were starting to
shovel dirt on the coffin. Maybe nobody has cleaned the
dirt off. Maybe you're not yet considering the Reds to
be bonafide contenders. I'm not either, but it did feel

(01:13:48):
like this weekend gave them a slight reprieve. We'll see,
we'll see. The Cees impact this weekend was badly needed.
The question is is it sustainable? Is it sustainable to
the degree that by the end of the season Christian
and karnasi on Strand has looked at as one of
the foundational members of this team moving forward, Like that's

(01:14:11):
something we've been wondering now for a while, go back
to the beginning of last season. Got called up at
the start or the end of the twenty twenty three season,
and then you know, we all thought like that's a
really good, positive, encouraging sign at the end of that season.
Then last year beginning of the year, like what is
he was that a mirage? By the end of the season,
is he one of those dudes? And then you know
he had all the hand issues last year and that

(01:14:33):
was a whole goofy different set of circumstances in and
of itself, this offseason kind of the same thing, wondering
how good is he going to be, how healthy can
he stay? If he does stay healthy, what's his role?
We still don't know those things. I do know that
he gives the Reds one of a handful of guys
who are legitimate long ball threats, and he was more
than just a threat this weekend. The question becomes, now,

(01:14:57):
can he stay healthy? And what might this mean? Might
that mean for this team moving forward? We'll spend more
time on that coming up in the five o'clock hour.
And I am I'm not skeptical about the direction the
college sports are going, but there is a part of
the house settlement that is bothersome to me. We'll get

(01:15:18):
to that coming up in the five o'clock hour as well.
Phone lines are open five point three seven, four nine,
fifteen thirty. Brennanman and Jones on Baseball is next on
ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station. This is Joe Cordell,
frankly amazing right now. What's up tod afternoon? Boegor ESPN
fifteen thirty. Thank you for listening. Hopefully you're having the
greatest Monday of your life. This is the mikeelob Ultra

(01:15:41):
five o'clock Happy Hour thanks to michelob Ultra, Premium light beer,
Premium taste, michelob Ultra. I may have had one or
two this weekend. Maybe maybe Reds this weekend, sweet the
Arizona Diamondbacks at Phase Value. I don't know. It kind

(01:16:02):
of felt like it kept the season from careening off
the rails. By the way, first time I've ever used
the word careening on this show. I put a lot
of folks in a better mood than they were after
the series against the Cubs last weekend, after the series
against the Brewers last week. They're back to five hundred
and thirty three and thirty three. You are completely being

(01:16:23):
reasonable if you're not making a big deal about this
and not assuming that this is the beginning of something
big and special and that the Pennant Race is about
to start, and look out Brewers, and look out Cardinals,
and specifically look out Chicago Cubs. Here come the Reds
in the and El Central. It's maybe not worth making

(01:16:43):
that much of a deal over.

Speaker 4 (01:16:45):
But.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
This was a different type of weekend because of who
everything revolved around that's obviously Christian and Karnacion Strand and
I mean, look, man, you can only speak for myself. Obviously,
I've I've thought the Reds are gonna be an eighty
three win team since before opening Day. It's kind of

(01:17:09):
a silly exercise to predict how many games a team
is gonna win during a one hundred and sixty two
game baseball season, but we all do it. I usually
sort of try to, I don't know, find like a
five game range. I think they're gonna fall within, But
if forced to pick a number of games the Reds
are going to win. My take on opening day was

(01:17:31):
eighty three. I have not moved from that now. Part
of that is good, right, because when they've been at
their worst, I don't think it made sense to feel
like this team was gonna be dramatically worse than eighty
three and seventy nine. And when this team has played better,
I've not thought to myself, God, you know what, this
team can take off and win ninety to ninety five games.
Neither seem plausible to me. My basic take on this

(01:17:55):
season is they're just good enough to hang around. They're
not good enough to win anything meaningful. I still feel
that way. But if that narrative is gonna change, then
it had to start somewhere, and if the Reds were
ever gonna vault into contention, it was gonna have to

(01:18:16):
start somewhere kind of soon. Do we look back in
a few weeks, do we look back at the end
of the season as this past weekend as the moment
where it started. By the way, it's worth pointing out,
we're at a similar place in the calendar as we
were two years ago, and the Reds started to play
well in June to put themselves into the thick of
things and obviously fall two games short of the playoffs.

(01:18:39):
But it's got to start somewhere, and maybe it had
to start with somebody, and maybe that's somebody as Christian
and Carnassi on strand. I made this comparison at the
top of the show, and I admitted somewhat sloppy, But
I was asked on Danner's podcast with Jay Morrison about
Jermaine Burton. Jermaine Burton at the Bengals has done all
the right things during the off season. He has come

(01:19:03):
to work, he has come to work on time. He
is by all accounts paid attention he has been a professional,
he has been mature. He has earned maybe not the
complete respect of his teammates, but a number of them,
including Joe Burrow, have spoken about how Jermaine has shown
that he has done some growing up. Now what is
that going to mean for this week? I have no idea.
You kind of got to take a day by day
with him. What is it going to mean for this season?

(01:19:24):
I have no idea. I said to Paul and Jay
that I was hopeful, but skeptical, hopeful that what I
saw from Jermaine, what we had heard about Jermaine was
the start of him getting it. And if he gets it,
he's going to be given a chance. And if he's
given a chance, then you know it's up to him
to make the most of it. But athletically, you can't
rule out him taking advantage of a chance. But I'm

(01:19:46):
skeptical because he just doesn't have much of a track record,
and the track record that he has is one of
immaturity and not showing up and not taking the job seriously.
And so we'll see. I'm hopeful, yet skeptical. I feel
the exact same way the Reds. I am hopeful, and
I think if you're a Reds fan, you should be
hopeful that this was the start of something that by

(01:20:12):
mid September, mid October, we could circle those three games,
those three days where the Reds play the Diamondbacks with
a weird game on Friday that bled into Saturday, extended
to a degree because of Cees's first home run of
the weekend, that we could circle that as that was
the turning point, that was the start of the turnaround.

(01:20:33):
That's when the Reds kind of vaulted into contention. That's
when the red season effectively began. I am skeptical that
that is going to be the case because they're thirty
three and thirty three for a reason. We've seen how
they've performed against good teams. We know what is left
on their schedule this coming months, we know what their

(01:20:55):
offensive limitations are, we know what the limitations of the
team are. And by the way, guy who's supposed to
be the staff ace, your guess is as good as
mine as to when he's going to take the mound again.
But if you have held out hope, and I said
this last hour, I felt like at the end of
that series against Milwaukee on Wednesday afternoon that there are

(01:21:16):
a lot of people, understandably so by the way, who
are getting ready to throw dirt on the coffin of
this team. If it was ever going to get turned around,
it had to happen soon, and it had to happen
at some point. Maybe this was that point. The Cees thing, Look,

(01:21:36):
this is a guy. I watched him earlier this year
and I wondered, Okay, is this guy really a piece?
Is this guy one of those dudes that you look
at and go by the time the Reds are good
again whenever that is, whether it's later this season or
whether it's next year or somewhere down the road, is
this really a guy who's going to be a part
of that playing a featured role starting is whether it's

(01:22:01):
the first base, third base, or the regular DH. I
don't know. What I do know is this he gives
them something that they badly need. A guy whose presence
you cannot ignore, because whether or not you think he
is going to end up being a statistically valuable player

(01:22:22):
to this team, what is hard to refute is the
fact that he has long ball potential, and what the
Reds do not have are a lot of guys who
have bonafide long ball potential. They have players who can
hit home runs. They don't have a lot of sluggers,

(01:22:43):
they don't have a lot of guys who just physically,
he looks the part. If we were to do a
I don't know, draw up a list of players who,
over the course of an entire season, assuming they stayed
healthy and played in I don't know, one hundred and
fifty to fifty five games where good bets to hit
thirty home runs, you might take Ellie first, and you

(01:23:04):
might take Christian and Carnassi on second. Regardless, there are
not too many players you would take before him. And
so it's getting a player back, and it's getting a
player back that they like and believe in. But it's
getting a player back who brings to the table a
certain skill set that this team has badly needed, badly

(01:23:24):
been in need of for quite a while. And that's
a guy with bona fide long ball potential. And so
if you want to look at this from a more
class half full perspective, it's it's not that beyond the
realm of possibility to suggest that Cees, if he could
stay healthy, and that is a huge if with that

(01:23:46):
guy could spend the final one hundred games of this
season being really productive, and Austin Hayes is eligible to
come off the injured list, and you know, God knows,
you certainly hope that that guy could stay healthy. But
it is it's not that unreasonable to suggest that Austin
Hayes can spend the next four months producing in a

(01:24:06):
pretty high level and you know, maybe, just maybe, and
we're all hoping for this. If for no other reason,
then it'd be cool to stop talking about sending him
to Louisville. But maybe, just maybe that home run in

(01:24:27):
the seventh inning yesterday proves to be a jumping off
point for Matt McLain and he ends up spending the
final four months of the season hitting productively, maybe even
earning his spot in the batting order bat because he's
betting eighth or ninth. He's betting ninth tonight, but he
was hitting second just a few weeks ago because the

(01:24:48):
Reds thought highly enough of him that they had him
earmarked for the two hole. It's not that unreasonable to
suggest that Matt McClain's going to spend the final four
months of the season being an asset and being productive
and adding to what he already gives this team with
his gloves something offensively, and it's certainly not unreasonable to

(01:25:11):
suggest that Elie dela Cruz can still make the leap
and maybe make it over the final four months of
this season. It's not unreasonable to suggest that any of
those four things can happen now this team, with where
it is right now, not just win loss perspective, they're
seven and a half games out of first place. They're

(01:25:32):
four and a half out of the last wildcard. They're
probably gonna have to get to ninety wins or close
to ninety wins to get that last wildcard. We're talking
about a major undertaking here. You do the math if
you want. The odds are not in their favor. They
gotta win. Let's see here fifty seven of their last
ninety six games to get to ninety victories, and that

(01:25:54):
doesn't even guarantee him a postseason spot. We're talking about
a massive under taking here. So all those things I
just mentioned, Cees healthy and productive, Hayes, healthy and productive. McClain,
you always got to talk about health with him, healthy
and productive, Ellie productive. But now let's take a leap
and approach the sort of stardom that a lot of

(01:26:16):
people think for him is inevitable. Each of those things
can happen, some of them probably will. This team needs
all of them to happen. Oh, by the way, in
the short term, they need Wade Miley to be good
to wayde Miley is taking Hunter Green spot in the rotation,
which is a tough ask for pretty much anybody. But
I'm really intrigued by what he gives the Reds starting tonight.

(01:26:38):
I will graciously throw away last Wednesday's game. Wade, by
his own admission, was like, look, I got back on
a big league mound. From that point, it didn't matter
what I did. I was back and okay, fine, well
and good. They would have lost that game anyway. Him
simply returning to a big league mound tonight is not
going to be good enough. So the hope is the
hope I think, I think you would agree, is that

(01:27:00):
this weekend proves to be the start. The start had
to come at some point. They had to start somewhere.
The skeptic and the skeptic whose cynicism and skepticism has
been earned by you know, sixty six games where the
watching this team or decades worthy watching this franchise. The
skeptic looks at those three games and says, they're a

(01:27:22):
nice footnote in the middle of what is still unlikely
to be a season that's going to meet our expectations
and have them get to the postseason. We'll see, but
it had to start somewhere. Like I said with Jermaine Burton,
I'm hopeful but skeptical. Sixteen minutes after five o'clock five

(01:27:45):
point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number.
It's the Michelobultra five o'clock Happy Hour on ESPN fifteen thirty. Uh.
Not a huge news day as it relates to the Bengals.
Maybe that changes tomorrow. Joe Burrow is going to talk tomorrow.
The Bengals will have their coordinators talk later on this
week's Taylor as well. Mini Caamp begins tomorrow three days now.
Remember they have altered the schedule mid Mini Caamp before,

(01:28:06):
but right now scheduled to go tomorrow. All eyes on
Trey Hendrickson. Maybe by tomorrow the Bengals themselves will make
official the news that came out today, which is something
we all have been waiting for, which is Jermaine Pratt
being cut We'll spend a few minutes on Jermaine in
ways that he deserves. Next on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
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Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
This report is sponsored by Rapid Radios. Rapid radios are
instant pushed. Not many athletes in at least recent Cincinnati history,
but probably going back aways who are mostly identified with
one play. Jermaine Pratt is one of them. I mean

(01:29:24):
there's a handful of them. Like if you're a Reds fan,
if you were around in nineteen ninety, if I say
the name Billy Bates, you know what that means, right,
guy who scored the game run in Game two of
the nineteen ninety World Series, Billy Bates, Lenny Brown. Lenny
Brown had a terrific college basketball career at Xavier University.
But I think fans of the Musketeers and fans of
anybody else who knows anything about Xavier basketball, and certainly

(01:29:46):
anything about the Skyline Julie, excuse me, Crosstown Shootout. When
the name Lenny Brown comes up, we think of the
game winning shot against UC November of nineteen ninety six.
To a degree, A colleague, Tony Pike. You know, if
I say Tony Pike, Piked Bins comes up. If I
say Armand Binns, you know the chances are Piked Bins

(01:30:08):
comes up. Tony you might think of the entirety of
his career. Jerome Simpson. I think somersault against the Cardinals.
Jermaine Pratt, I think about that pick now. He made
other good plays he made, you know, the force fumble
with Travis Kelcey and the Chiefs twenty twenty two game,
a game that felt like it was gonna have an
unpleasant ending, twenty twenty two. The forced fumble in the

(01:30:31):
Bills game with Dalton Kincaid. I think you've got his
involvement in the well. Sam Hubbard obviously is on the list.
If I say Sam Hubbard, you think of a very
good career, right, But the first thing that comes up,
I'm sure is the Hubbard yard dash, the rumble in
the jungle, ninety eight yard fumble returned for a touchdown
against the Ravens in a playoff game that won the

(01:30:52):
playoff game that felt like it was not going to
be won. There's only a handful of athletes say what
you want about Jermaine Pratt this past season. When I
think his name comes up fifteen to twenty years from now,
the very first thing that's gonna come to mind is
this fourth down end goal from the nine, seventeen seconds

(01:31:13):
to go, the playcocket three shotgun snap car throws in
the traffic sevens Jermaine prep.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
The football, Yeah, coffin.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):
Now, bam bam bam.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
How about that?

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
It ends on a turnover? Man? How about it? Yeah?
Dan Horde, Dave Lapp, and Bengals Radio Network Jermaine Pratt's
pick against Derek Carr to end the Bengals Raiders playoff
game in Uh, not just that, but obviously end a
very long stretch thirty one years without winning a playoff game.

(01:31:50):
Jermaine Pratt made a number of really good plays, had
some good seasons, was a big part of those teams
in twenty twenty one, in twenty twenty two. There are
a handful of athletes and I'm probably missing a bunch,
but that when you say their name, regardless of anything
else they accomplished, or maybe in spite of the fact
that they didn't accomplish all that much. And I wouldn't
say that about Jermaine Pratt. He's always going to be

(01:32:12):
tied to that play. Not only is he always going
to be tied to that play, he's going to be
tied to the celebration that that night triggered. And look,
maybe if Derek Carr doesn't throw the ball where he did,
the Bengals still win the game. Maybe if Jermaine Pratt
doesn't make that play, the Bengals still win the game.
But just in listening to that call right there and
hearing Dan set up and listening to the crowd in

(01:32:34):
the background, there is not one of us go back
to that night. It's been three and a half years.
There isn't one of us who as the Raiders were
driving didn't think this is about to end poorly, and
Jermaine Pratt ensured that he did not, so, regardless of

(01:32:55):
how you feel about how things unfolded for him this
past year, and regardless of how you feel about how
he handled some of the criticism he took for mistackles
this past season, and regardless of how you view it
through which lens you view his career in Cincinnati, regardless
of how you feel about how the Bengals themselves handled
releasing him twenty years from now, if you say the

(01:33:19):
name Jermaine Pratt to anybody who was alive and maybe
the Evils, even some who weren't on that night in
January of twenty twenty two, our minds are all going
to drift back to what it felt like watching the
Raiders drive, What it felt like when Jermaine Pratt made
that pick and the celebration it triggered, which is unlike

(01:33:41):
and I watched the game from Wichita, Kansas because I
was on a UC basketball trip, but triggered a celebration
unlike I think anything we've seen in this city from
a sports perspective since the nineteen ninety World Series, and
that should be remembered fondly. And you know I did
this before in the first hour of the show. If
you look at I don't want to say advanced metrics,

(01:34:03):
I just use football references, approximate value. If you just
look at that in relation to some of his more
heralded teammates, Jermaine Pratt's impact on that twenty twenty one
season and that twenty twenty two season is pretty significant.
He missed two games over the course of his entire
Bengals career. One of them was the game in twenty

(01:34:24):
one where they sat all their players who counted against
the Browns, came up with a whole bunch of real
timely plays, and the Jermaine Pratt interception is one of
the four or five most consequential plays in the history
of that franchise. And so it's gonna end for him here.
It's gonna end in a very unceremonious fashion. I hate
the fact that how it ends is with him having

(01:34:45):
a dud of a season that made him kind of
a punchline. I hate that it ends with him having
the kind of a season that had him going back
and forth with fans on Twitter and maybe not the
most fun way, but you cannot talk about Jermaine Pratt
without first talking about that play that night and the
celebration it triggered. And that's what most of us at
least are always going to remember him for. If they

(01:35:05):
ever do this sort of thing where, you know, twenty
years from now or I guess it would be seventeen
years from now, or if they do a big reunion
for the twenty twenty one team that went to the
Super Bowl, which they should do down the road, when
Jermaine Pratt's a part of it, assuming he would be,
and he's introduced, the first thing anybody's going to think

(01:35:25):
of is that play against the Raiders. There are not
a whole lot of athletes in this town who, when
their name is mentioned, you think of a specific play.
Jermaine Pratt added his name to that list that night,
and it will never be removed. And it doesn't obscure
like the dude for a third round pick in the
twenty nineteen draft, especially if you look at that class

(01:35:48):
like a good career here and you know, we'll see
how it continues or who it continues with. But I
don't know, I felt like, you know, Sam Hubbard played
his last game this past season. Sam Hubbard had a
very good Bengals career as well. Sam Hubbard, like Jermaine Pratt,
is very closely identified with one specific play. Sam Hubbard

(01:36:11):
was not an All Pro. Neither was Jermaine Pratt. Sam
Hubbard was not a pro bowler. Neither was Jermaine Pratt.
Sam Hubbard was from here. Jermaine Pratt is not. You know,
Sam got his flowers when he announced his retirement. We'll
see what happens with Jermaine. I'm guessing he's not going
to retire. Some flowers should go his way as well.
Your phone calls are coming up after sports headlines on

(01:36:33):
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 5 (01:36:35):

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Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
This report is sponsored by rat Hey There we are
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(01:37:33):
kelseyshev dot Com delayed reaction Like this entire show has
been a delayed reaction. Reds and Guardians. Tonight, Cincinnati looking
to extend it's four It's winning streak to four games.
They currently have a three game winning streak. Wade Miley
will pitch makes his first start since his return to
the team in the Major leagues. Righty Luis Ortiz will

(01:37:54):
throw for Cleveland six point forty? Is this evening's first chuck?
On seven hundred double? W You're starting nine tonight? Freedom
in center, lux is dhing Elie de la Cruz is
playing shortstop. CDs at first, Stevenson catches Benson and left
Espinal's at third base, Freeley's and right MacLean is playing
second base. Did you say first chuck? First chuck? Is

(01:38:17):
that something you say often? No, I think I've never
said it in my life. Okay, Tommy throw always says lidlifter.
He does, and I'm a big fan of that. I was,
he said that. I was listening to the start it
was a game last week because I said to myself,
I like that, and I don't think anybody ever yes
that he's the only one I've ever heard. So yeah,

(01:38:38):
I forget which game it was. It might have been
the Monday night game last week against the Brewers where
he referred to lydlifter. Should we should we keep first Chuck?
Should that be a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
Now?

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
I kind of like that, and I feel like you
could maybe get some sort of a ground beef sponsor.
Oh very good, all right, if Laura's lean wants to, uh,
let me we can, We're more than happy to take
them on first Chuck. If the Reds wind tonight, they
clinched the Ohio Cup, Chase Burns has been promoted to
a Triple A Louisville. This is noteworthy for a couple
of different reasons. Number one, he was awesome at Chattanooga.

(01:39:10):
Number two, all sorts of cold water has been thrown
on the idea that he's going to come and pitching
Cincinnati this year. It shouldn't be that's worth paying attention
to Jermaine Pratt's going to be released by the Bengals.
That today was reported by Tom Pellisero of NFL Network
and NFL dot Com. We knew that already Bengals hold
their mandatory mini camp three day Mini caamp. At least

(01:39:32):
now it's a three day mini caamp. Day one is tomorrow.
Joe Burrow is going to talk Tony and Austin will
have that on. Since the three sixty hockey tonight, the
Stanley Cup Final first two games, Game one went to overtime.
Edmonton won Game two double ot Florida one Panthers hosting
Game three this evening. The series is tied at one

(01:39:52):
game a piece. Twenty four away from six o'clock five one, three, seven,
four nine fifteen thirty is our phone number in eight
sixty six seven oh two three seven seven six works
as well if you missed our conversation from earlier with
Justin Williams from the Athletic. Justin for years covered UC

(01:40:12):
sports for the Athletic and we would have him on
all the time, and then he has transitioned over the
last maybe two years into a different role where he
covers college football. I think most specifically, but college sports
as a whole. This house settlement is the big topic
in college sports right now, and Justin did a good
job of I think outlining what this is going to mean,

(01:40:34):
and I think to a large degree what this is
going to mean for area schools. I've read some think
pieces and I've listened to some hot takes about this,
and i watched an interview that Paul Feinbaum did over
the weekend where you know, he decried this as the
end of college sports as we know it. Now, there's
a difference between the end of college sports and the

(01:40:57):
end of college sports as we know it. The end
of college sports as we know it. That's happening because
it is in some respects remarkable that we have arrived
at a place if you followed college sports for any
amount of time, that now the schools themselves will be

(01:41:19):
directly paying athletes. I mean, on one level, that is remarkable.
It's not that unlike you know, the the NFL for
years was anti gambling, and Roger Goodell used to hold
that over the heads of certain areas of the country. Well,
if you ever get to a place where you legalize gambling,

(01:41:41):
if the Feds allow you to we're not going to
put events in that city like that is a thing
that happened. The NFL used to not let you even
remotely reference point spreads in broadcasts, which is how we
got Brent Mussberger and Al Michaels kind of deftly riley

(01:42:01):
referencing point spreads without directly referencing point spreads. Now you
watched NFL sanctioned pregame shows where they talk explicitly about gambling,
explicitly mentioning the point spread. I'm old enough to remember
when the NFL would just hold its arm out, stiff arm,
and would do anything it could to distance itself from gambling.

(01:42:26):
Now it has embraced it, and the other major sports
leagues have followed in toe and so as pro legalized
gambling as I am, it's still sometimes I'll watch certain
shows like I'll watch College Game Day where they talk
point spreads on college game Day. Fifteen years ago, they
weren't doing that. It's now a part of the everyday discourse.

(01:42:49):
So on similar lines, if you have followed college sports
for any amount of time, to think that we are
at a place where the school themselves are going to
be paying the athletes directly is rather remarkable, and I think,
on one hand, pretty cool. I think, on the other hand,

(01:43:10):
this is going to lead to more creative ways of
generating revenue, which is code for we're going to raise
ticket prices. But I'm interested to see if any of
this leads to a decline and interest. Like, you know,
the first thing I saw Finebaum say this weekend is well,
you know, schools at the group of five level, they're

(01:43:32):
going to be in major trouble. On a granular level, yeah,
I hate that. On a macro level, what brings people
to the table as college sports fans are not schools
in the group of five. And I say this as
a fan of a school that, up until a couple
of years ago was in the group of five. The

(01:43:55):
gap between haves and have nots has been growing for
a while now, and it's seemingly hasn't driven anybody from
the product, hasn't kept people from engaging with the product,
has only more and more people watching and consuming the product.
College football games this year, I was really interested in
the first year of like the new Big ten, and

(01:44:17):
there's no more PAC twelve and we have the absurdity
of conferences that span literally from coast to coast. I
was interested in, you know, whether or not that would
lead to a decline in viewership. And as much as
I could be a traditionalist and say that, like, I
don't want another NFL and I want some of the
things that made college football unique when I was a kid.

(01:44:39):
It was also cool to see some of the awesome
regular season matchups. We got it during the college football season.
On a week to week basis, college football viewership was
insanely high. Also, we have more teams in the college
football playoff now, and we'll probably have more within a
year or two. That you know, more teams have access
to the championship event, the NCAA Tournament. For a while now,

(01:45:03):
I've heard people wonder about the end of college basketball
as we know. During this year's tournament, if you remember,
in the day or two after the first and second round,
there were a lot of people who talked and wrote
about the lack of upsets in the first two rounds
or all the high except for I think two, all
the high seeds advanced and it was too chalky and
what the spirit of the tournament is rooted in its

(01:45:26):
ability to produce upsets, and then the final four rounds
of the NCAA Tournament had the highest ratings in thirty years.
So I'm often interested in the difference between what people
say and what they actually do. I've heard a lot
of people say college sports are being ruined, who then

(01:45:47):
spend their Saturday watching college football for twelve hours because
mostly Saturday still feels the same as it used to them.
I don't think the players getting paid directly by the
schools is going to change that. And the NCAA Tournament, which,
let's face it, for most college basketball fans, is the
event that matters, and I mean the only event that matters.

(01:46:10):
That are folks like me and others who love the
entire season, but I mean it's just the reality of
the sport. They still engage with the NCAA Tournament because
that Monday morning, when you get your bracket for your
office pool, it still feels the same as it did
before the players got paid. And that Thursday or Friday
of March bed is when you cut out of work
to go watch game somewhere, it still feels the same

(01:46:32):
as it did before the players got paid. I don't
think that's gonna change. Well, see, it is gonna be
interesting The part of this that I don't like is
I think we're gonna get a higher ticket prices across
the board. More creative ways of generating revenue. We will
see seventeen away from six o'clock five point three, seven
four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. You could

(01:46:52):
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Speaker 1 (01:47:35):
This report is sponsored by Taco Bell Taco Bell's five
seven NFL Mini Camps. Trey Hendrickson maybe showing up, maybe not,
maybe getting fined getting all mad about that if Zach
Taylor sent him some more texts. Release the text, release
the texts. I want to see you. I think that

(01:47:57):
was the part of that whole thing that people talked
about the leaf that I thought was most interesting. I agree,
here's a coach texting a player and the player didn't
exactly make the exact specific contents of the text public.
But you know, the main gist of the text that
made Trey Hendrickson mad was, you know, the fact that

(01:48:19):
Zach told him, you're probably gonna be fine if you
don't come to minicamp. And number one, that's what set
you off. Number Two, that is supposed to be kept
private between the coach and yourself like that, that's a
you know, as much as I don't think we like
to look at football coaches and players their relationship in
this regard, that is a boss and a subordinate having

(01:48:43):
a conversation that's workplace related, and I'm sure doing it
on kind of a human level, where I bet you
Zach was not wasn't being a jerk about it. It
was just hey, by the way, dude, just FYI, man Like,
if if you don't come to camp, they can find
the end. It's not unlike if I text to somebody
here at the radio station and go like, dude, man,
if you don't show up, man, like, they can fire

(01:49:05):
you for that, and they may probably will, maybe not,
I don't know, but just FYI. I like that was
the part of that entire exchange that I thought made
Trey look the worst and I thought was most interesting,
and I felt bad for Zach, Like the one thing
you could say about Zach Taylor, Tony and Austin and
I were talking about Zach being on the hot seat
or I guess he's on a list of ten coaches

(01:49:25):
who are on the hot seat, and he is on
the hot seat this year, and he should be right.
The idea is to win a championship. The last two years,
the Bengals have failed to even get to the postseason.
Last year was an organizational failure. Zach got a chance
to kind of reset the coaching staff in his own
image this offseason. But you have a coach who has
an MVP caliber quarterback, the investments they've made, and the

(01:49:47):
team offensively had a chance to have a saying who
the next wave of defensive coaches was going to be
had to say in who the next offensive line coach
was going to be? If all that adds up to
another season where Joe plays great and the Bengals are
on the outside looking in. Hell yeah, Zach should be
in the hot seat, and hell yeah, in all likelihood
the Bengals should be finding someone to replace him. But

(01:50:07):
I do think that even if you go back to
Zach's first season when he had the aj Green uncertainty
that just dominated the entire year. You know, remember he
got hurt at Welcome Stadium the first training camp practice,
and then there was the whole thing about well is
he healthy enough to go? He's out there running routes.

(01:50:28):
Zach handled that well publicly. He handled the Carlos Dunlap
situation a year later publicly, very very well. I thought
he handled the Jesse Bates uncertainty, the Ta Higgins uncertainty,
the Jamar Chase stuff last offseason. He tried to handle
it with humor. He's not the person in charge of
getting the player's contract done. He's not the person who's

(01:50:49):
not paying Trey Hendrickson. He's kind of stuck in the middle.
And yet he is the de facto spokesperson for the
organization and he serves in that capacity. Yet he's the
one that has to work hand in hand with the players,
like I think Zach has universally handled all of those
situations quite well. I think he has handled all the
questions about Trey Hendrickson quite well. So for the player

(01:51:12):
to do that to the coach, I just think it
was a really lousy thing to do. My guess is
Zach will get over it. If Trey decides to come play,
or if they reach an agreement on a new contract,
it'll be water under the bridge. But I thought, on
a human level, Trey Hendrickson doing that to Zach, who
publicly has said all the right things about the player,

(01:51:34):
was a real lousy thing to do. And my guess
is the context of the conversation wasn't Zach being threatening,
It wasn't Zach being antagonistic. It was Zach doing what
I think you would expect them to do, which is
maintain conversation with his player, all the while reminding him

(01:51:56):
of look, man, you're out now, that's fine. There's nothing
we can do about it. This is voluntary. But if
you decide to take this to mandatory mini camp, like
the word mandatory means, if you don't do this, there
are repercussions and under the rules of the CBA, the
repercussions can be find him. I said this before. If

(01:52:17):
he doesn't show up, and look, man, I'm a talk
show host. I want Trey to show up tomorrow and
do one of two things, practice and get ready for
the season, or practice and give us content. Like, let's
be very transparent about that. What's good for my business.
What's good for our business is Trey shows up. Grandstands

(01:52:40):
says more stuff is controversial, is polarizing, and we got
shows for the rest of the week. That would be awesome.
Sign me up for that. If he doesn't, the Bengals
can find him. I think when you're at an impasse,
which clearly the Bengals and Trey Hendrickson are, and both
sides are dug in, and you know, Trey even said

(01:53:02):
this has become personal, and I understand that, because how
could it not be personal. What you don't want to
do is further the divide between the two parties and
finding him, I think, does that you want him there?
You can find him. Ultimately, what's the point is is
there are there things that get us further away from

(01:53:24):
the accomplished, from the goal we want to accomplish, which
is to get Trey to come join his teammates for
camp this summer and be on the field week one,
whether it's under a new contract or not. And if
the end goal is not only that, but get the
new contract signed. Does finding him finding him, which again
is within their right, does that move us any closer

(01:53:48):
toward getting it done? Or does it just further divide
the two sides? I think it would further divide the
two sides that award winners in the books, Uh tomorrow,
Paul Danner Junior fresh from Mini Camp in the first
hour of the show, Red's Guardians, and so much more.
Anything you might have missed go find on the iHeartRadio

(01:54:08):
app thanks to Long Neck Sports Grow. Do you plan
on mentioning Austin Kerns on tomorrow's show as well? Might
do it every single day just to see if the
audience notices. Okay, I saw Austin Kerns at a hotel
and Louis when was this?

Speaker 5 (01:54:23):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:54:24):
Two years ago? Nice? Not friendly? Oh? Not friendly?

Speaker 2 (01:54:29):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:54:29):
Don't forget that, guy and Tony have since he three
to sixty tomorrow at noon and have an awesome night.
Thank you for listening. This has been the michelob Ultra
five o'clock Happy Hour on ESPN fifteen to thirty Cincinnati
Sports Station

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Mo Egger Show -- 6/9/25

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