Eighteen out of twenty two previously to the Jet Cardinals, and sheets from thirty
eight yards away from the left hash to win the game for the Texans.
The snap, the swing of the right leg, the kick is up,
and the kick is good. The clock hit zero and the Texans celebrates.
They have defeated the Bengals by the final score of thirty to twenty seven.
Now I have Billy Cunningham, the Great American the debacle yesterday and the fallout
continues. Later on, we have brad Winstrip, Moegar's good friend, who's
the US Congressman. Moeger will respond to that appropriately. Later on, we
have an expert guest at two o'clock who says that it's possible for a six
month old baby to be a racist, and you must you must have an
anti racist baby. Moegar. Welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And
can I first give you my opening remarks? Of course, it's your show.
You do whatever you want. Hostechxon's I think had a quarterback yesterday playing
named Warren Moon and it was handing off to Earl Campbell. I kind of
look at the statistics here, how about five hundred and forty five yards a
total offense for Houston Texans. How about C. J. Stroud, who
was taken second in the draft, not first because there was questions about him.
Throws for about three hundred and fifty yards. It's twenty three of forty.
The QBR had to be over four hundred and ten. And then you
have Earl Campbell, also known as this singletary dude, rushing for one hundred
and fifty yards one hundred and eighty eight yards overall. And the Bengals now
find themselves in last place, firmly affixed. Watching some of the morning talk
shows, it appears that it's going to be Armageddon on Thursday night. Only
one team will survive. Of course, the Ravens are still in first place,
and if they lose, there are much better shape than the Bengals.
And right now they're five and four, which is what they were the last
two years. You may know that, but this year it just feels differently.
You have a Pits team that's six and three that looks terrible on paper,
but they keep winning football games. You got the bult you got the
Cleveland Brownies. They look terrible, except they're also six and three, and
they got a much easier schedule that the Bengals are playing every team from the
eighty five Bears through the five Patriots. They have to win basically six of
the next eight. Moe, tell me why I should have hope. Tell
me why I'm not in despair. Tell me Joe Burrow has not been bengalized.
Go well, So, to me, yesterday was about three things.
The first thing yesterday it was about the Houston Texans. You know, if
I'm looking at this from a more objective perspective where I'm not focusing so much
on the team that lost, the takeaway for me was CJ. Stroud is
the guy. And I know you know he threw the pick late in the
game. It was just his second this year. There's nothing better. And
we know this feeling here, Willy, as an NFL fan, there's nothing
better than feeling like, you know what, we got our guy, Because
once you got your guy at quarterback, it's not easy, but it's a
lot easier to fill in around him than if you don't have a guy.
So to me, the way that they move the ball, Devin Singletary comes
off the street. He was terrific. But more than anything, it was
about a Texans team that is going in the right direction. That's number one.
Number two, this is a reason to not feel despair what the Bengals
did yesterday to themselves. There were a lot of sort of outlary things.
Joe Burrow made some uncharacteristic mistakes. I count on Joe to not repeat those
mistakes. Tyler Boyd drops a pass in the end zone that if he catches,
chances are we're talking about a terrific Bengals comeback victory. And we're excited
about Thursday playing a Baltimore team than just lost. If they're in a similar
position on Thursday and Tyler Boyd's open, his track record suggests I should trust
him to catch that football. I also feel like there's a track record with
lou An Arumo's defense. Look late in the game, it's twenty seven.
All get off the field, let's go to overtime and win. They couldn't
do it. That felt somewhat outlary to me, although we have to revisit
that here in a second. I think the third thing that yesterday was about,
though, was math. At five and four, you can't go five
and five if you want to win the division. Now you have to win
this game on Thursday. If you lose on Thursday, you're going to lose
a game against Baltimore in the standings. You're gonna lose a game against either
Cleveland or Pittsburgh in the standings. Yesterday to me was also about, is
that a game that we revisit, a winnable game at home in which you
were nearly a touchdown favorite and you mount this awesome comeback late in the season.
Do the Bengals lose a playoff berth by a game? Do the Bengals
lose playoff positioning by a game and maybe have to go on the road in
the playoffs and play somebody? Or had they won that game yesterday they're playing
at Pey Corps Stadium, do they miss out on a division title by the
narrowest of margins? And do we go back and look at that game yesterday
that was so winnable and go God, had that game against Houston gone any
better, maybe this team would be sitting atop the AFC North that game.
To me, let's re visit it later, because from a pure football perspective,
if what we saw yesterday becomes the norm with Joe making all sorts of
mistakes and the Bengals not able to execute critically down the stretch in lou Anarumo's
defense, bending too much, then yesterday becomes the turning point. But I
prefer to say, look, we saw some outliery things. This team's going
to be okay. Big picture, they have more than a puncher's chance to
beat Baltimore, and they may and if they do, we're gonna feel a
lot better. But by the time they've played seventeen games, how much do
we go back and look at what happened against the Texans and wonder how they're
positioning, how their season could have ended differently had they won that football game.
We spoke a few days ago. Houston was hosting the Bearcats and Cincinnati
was Hope hosting Houston. Here, when I look at some of the statistics,
you deal with the poetry. I deal with the facts. Four sacks
of Joe Burrow, including being hit nine times. That's about thirteen times he
was running for his life. There was some play call near the end of
the game and which Joe Burrow appeared to have called or called in his helmet,
so to speak, a quarterback draw. And I'm thinking, no,
wait a minute, you're like on the ten yard line and you got a
quarterback draw, and you have Joe Burrow about to get his head taken off
by the Houston defense. An offensive line that's costing about a billion dollars,
allowing thirteen occasions when he was hit or sacked, plus the number of times
he had to rush the ball, that's a problem. And so offensive line
for the Texans did better as opposed to ours. The quarterback, believe it
or not, did better as opposed to ours. Overall, the defense for
the Bengals gave up five hundred and forty five yards, which is unbelievable.
They were terrible. There were wide receivers running loose in the secondary constantly,
you have a situation where on offensis. In general, the eye test gave
me the idea that the Bengals are playing a better team, and it just
looked like the eye test, the Texans were much better. And on top
of that, the fact that Mike Tomblin and Pittsburgh somehow found a way to
win. The Bengals are a much better ball club than the Pittsburgh Steelers.
I think the Bengals are a better ball club than the Cleveland Browns, although
they always beat them. Do you agree with my math that at the next
eight games is Ford home, four in the road, that Ben Galley's must
go at a minimum six and two against a death schedule to get to the
wild card, assuming they win or lose on Thursday. Well, I don't
know. Six and two would mean they finished with eleven wins. Now,
I think you're going to have to win eleven games to win the AFC North.
I don't think eleven wins. You know, remember we have one more
wildcard team per conference. I don't think eleven wins is going to be required
to get the seven seed. Now. You know. Look, let's say
the Texans catch fire and the Bengals and Texans have the same record and they're
both fighting for the last seed in the AFC Wildcard pitcher. Well, then
Houston's going to win the head to head tiebreaker. We'll see how that unfolds.
I think if they five, if they win five more games the rest
of the way, they're going to be okay and at least be a playoff
team. But let's be honest, Simply making the playoffs this year wasn't the
idea. The idea was to win a Championship. We all said at the
end of last season, don't want to have to go back to Arrowhead Stadium
in play, don't want to play the AFC Championship game on the road.
Don't want to have to go and try to win all these road games they've
been so good at winning. Let's play some more playoff games at home.
Well, the chances of that happening the more you lose, obviously, the
decrease. I think the big thing for me is and the offensive line is
complicit in this. Obviously, the Bengals have been really good at scoring on
their first touchdown drive, or scoring on their first drive, scoring a touchdown
on the first drive, and they've done a good job scoring on their second
drive, and then they go to sleep offensively yesterday five consecutive punts, and
then they pick things back up late in the game. Now again, some
teams that can work. It almost worked against the Texans yesterday. It worked
to a degree, I guess against the Buffalo Bills. But in the sort
of games that we want this team to win, is that gonna work on
Thursday? Where you just go into these long, prolonged stretches where you're not
even moving the football, much less scoring points. I don't think the answer
is yes. And this has now been this has been something that is I
think offensively kind of dominated much of the season. They come out hot and
then they go to sleep for way too long. Not good. That can't
be the norm. Unfortunately it's becoming the norm. Well, here we said
broken hearted, and I'm thinking, Okay, bengaled and must arise like a
mighty tsunami in difficult circumstances. I think they're gonna be favored and to lose
only in about two of the remaining games. I guess in Kansas City as
the line out. Yet on Thursday night with Baltimore, I would assume they're
a couple of three point underdog. Yeah. The last I looked, and
I'm pulling it up right now, I saw last night it was it was
five. The Bengals were underdogs. Those thing things tend to move. We've
seen a lot of movement. Right now, I'm looking at Baltimore. Baltimore
is laying four points, four points, and that might have been what I
saw last night. Baltimore is laying four points. O. T. Higgins
don't know about him, likely not if he couldn't play on Sunday. I
don't think ninety six hours later he's gonna but that'd be great if he came
back. Tyler Board is inconsolable. And the one to pay attention to is
Trey Hendrickson, who on the last play from scrimmage obviously you know, hit
the deck. Ian Rapaport of NFL Network this morning said it's a hyper extended
knee. So there's good news there. We're not talking about a tear or
an ACL tear or anything like that. It feels like the kind of injury
that he's gonna be able to come back from. But can he come back
in time to play on Thursday? You know, you just saw what this
defense look like without Sam Hubbard. What if you have to play against Lamar
Jackson without Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard this game on Thursday. If I would
have said yesterday morning, Willie, the Bengals are gonna split their next two.
Now, you would have said, okay, that means they win right
against Houston lose to Baltimore, said okay, well, okay, that can
work. Now you've got to win this game on Thursday against the Raven.
It's a death match from the Bengal perspective, I think Baltimore, they're seven
and three. They can lose and me seven and four and keep going.
Looking at the future schedule, the Bengals have a terrible future schedule as opposed
to Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore. It's terrible, and they're gonna have to
play at the highest level. They're gonna be played like they played against the
Buffalo. They're gonna have to play at the highest level imaginable to win six
of the next eight, to win at Baltimore, to win at Kansas City,
those are not easy. And then also you have Pittsburgh. They got
to win at Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh's here for some reason. Pittsburgh's always had
the Bengals number. How they're doing it this year six and three is beyond
me. I mean, they're terrible, except they must have the greatest coach
in the history. I thought Chuck Nole was good, but I tend to
think Mike Tomlin might be better because he, I mean, Chuck Nole did
it with all time greats. And talk about the defense of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Who knows who those guys are? And basically he's got them playing good
and it's unbelievable. Can you tell me again why Joe Burrow did a quarterback
drawl at the end of the game. Can you tell me that. I
can't. It had to be something that he saw. But you're right in
talking about the math. If they lose this game on Thursday, you know,
just again do the math. They're five and five, Baltimore will be
sitting there with eight wins, and they will have beaten you twice, which
means they win the head to head tiebreakers. So just call it what it
is. If they lose on Thursday, we're talking about the Bengals making the
playoffs as a wild card team, which means you're playing on the road in
Round one. If you lose on Thursday, you're going to lose not only
a game to the Baltimore Ravens, but you're sitting a game behind Pittsburgh in
Cleveland. One of those teams is going to win because they play against each
other. So if you lose this game on Thursday, all right, not
only are you three games behind Baltimore in the win column and we'll have lost
the head to head tiebreaker, you're going to be two games behind the second
place team of the division and still a game behind the third place team of
the division and sitting there at five and five. What you didn't want to
do was create a scenario where winning in Baltimore was a must and unfortunately because
they lost yesterday. If you're harboring hopes that the Bengals are going to win
the division now they have to go to Baltimore and win on Thursday, and
perhaps do it without their top two defensive lineman, well, the best place
for the Bengals to be in the fourth quarter of Thursday night is fourteen points
down. If somehow the Bengals could be fourteen points down, guess what,
They're going to win the game because Baltimore stinks at the end of the game.
That is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Well, yeah, I think there's
two things about the game yesterday. Don't ignore the fact that the Ravens scored
thirty one points on a terrific Cleveland defense. Also, don't ignore the fact,
and this is scary, Deshaun Watson was really really good in the fourth
quarter of yesterday's game. That's a Browns team. Say what you want about
not having Nick Chubb. The weirdness of the quarterback situation. They're a half
game out of first place. They have a head to head victory against Baltimore.
They split the season series. And what did we all say after that
first game, the boy the Browns, they're just a bad matchup for the
Bengals. Well, guess who the Bengals have to play Week eighteen. They
have to play the Cleveland Browns. So you know, the Ravens did fall
apart in the fourth quarter yesterday. I sort of made similar to yesterday's game
here in Cincinnati. I kind of made what happened in the fourth quarter in
Baltimore more about the Browns than the Baltimore Ravens. Regardless, you still have
to play against the Lamar Jackson. You still have to play against the Baltimore
team. Even when they were beaten up last year playing without Lamar. Heck,
they nearly won that playoff game played in Cincinnati. They were the better
team when they played Week two. They're playing on a short week at home,
coming off a loss. This is going to be a formidable challenge.
If the Bengals clear it, I think we're gonna go. You know what,
all things good here. We're six and four now, the season can
take off, lose this one on Thursday, and again we're talking about the
Bengals in relation to the team's chasing a wild card spot and the Bengals this
year, about halfway through the season, they won a total of one game
against an AFC opponent. One time. They've beaten the AFC halfway through,
which is really almost unbelievable. All right, Mo, we gotta go,
but dark days lie ahead. I'm not optimistic about this thing. I worry
about Joe Burrow and Zach Taylor becoming bengalized. They just have that vacant look
in their eye. When Joe was on the bench looking at I guess looking
at his iPad, whatever he's looking at, he had that far distant look
in his eye, thinking what the hell's going on? The quarterback drawl didn't
work, and I'm thinking, but as he almost brought his team by me.
Look, Joe wasn't great yesterday, but no, he throws a touchdown
past the Tyler boyd that if he catches it. The story today is about
how clutch Joe Burrow was, how Cam Taylor Britt made an interception that turned
the game around, on how the Bengals figured out away at the end.
And you hate to make it about one play, but Tyler Boyd, who's
very reliable, very shorthanded, he catches that pass. That the story is
different. Nobody's talking about Joe being bengalized. Unfortunately he didn't. And now
what comes to the forefront are all the things that led to the loss,
all those terrible memories of a ghost. I mean, they're just kind of
seeping in the back. I hear the distant thunder and lightning and dark clouds.
They're kind of forming over Ellesmere and I just sensed it. I can
just feel it, you know. And I hope that's not the case.
But I would have caught that ball. Mo. You put me on the
field at the goal line, I would have caught that pass. Now I
don't have any doubt. Now here's my question for you, changing topics,
very very slightly, go ahead, your beloved Xavier Musketeers. Tonight opportunity to
play a team ranked in the top three of both major polls. Did you
even know that game was taking place tonight? Let's take a short break,
and moeh, I want to thank you for coming on again. And I
got my comments about Israel coming up? Do you want to weigh in on
Israel? I won't weigh in on Xavier if you don't weigh in on Israel
I fudge Sunday. I'll take Sean Miller. You take Matt Paynter, hot
fudge Sunday. What do you think? How many points? How many points?
Well, now you're gonna make me look this up. Aren't you give
me points? I need points. I'm like a democrat and I need some
unfair advantage. Give me the point Savior is getting a Xavier is getting seventeen
and a half points tonight. I'll take it. In fact, I'll bet
you too. I get seventeen and a half points and Sean Miller for a
hot fudge Sunday. I'm not in tomorrow because I'm doing my show at the
Morelin Logger House. I'm in on Wednesday. I get Xavier. Tonight,
I got Xavior. I got Xavior. I'm Xavier. I got just a
minute ago you wanted nothing to do with him, and then I tell you
to and a half. I'll take the points, all right, I'll take
Purdue, all right, produce no good all there, bunch of engineers,
a bunch of bunch of skinny white guys with Harry legs. I'm taking Xavier
plus the points. Write that down, Tony Bell right then to produ that
I could have. Yes, I was a pencil neck geek with a ruler
in my front pocket and a pencil behind my ear. All right, Mo,
thank you very much for your analysis. Joe Burrow is not yet Bengalized.
Okay, see you Willie thank him. Oh all right, let's continue.
Moe didn't want to talk about Israel, but I will on news radio
seven hundred WULW. Nothing says welcome home like insanely clean carpets from Zero's Carpet
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the grid. Iron two Rough trailer