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Bengals Booth Podcast: Time in a Bottle · Bengals Booth Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hi again, everybody.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Hoard, and thanks for downloading the Bengals.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Booth podcast, the If I Could Save Time in a
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: Bottle edition, as I talk to longtime NFL writer Peter
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: King about the many connections to the Bengals in his
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: new book, The Game.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Then I'll follow up on last week's conversation with Fox
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: analyst Mark Schlereth who came away from broadcasting the Bengals-Dolphins
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: game with effusive praise for Joe Burrow. The Bengals Booth
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Podcast is brought to you by Paycor, proud to be
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the Bengals' official HR software provider. By AltaFiber, future-proof fiber
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  Speaker 2: internet designed to elevate your home, business, and community to
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: a new level. And by Kettering Health, the best care
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: for the best fans. Kettering Health is the official healthcare
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: provider of the Bengals. Now, here's a quick reminder. that
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: you can have the latest edition of this podcast delivered
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: right to your phone, tablet, or computer by subscribing wherever
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since Jamaican Oxtail.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Traveling with the Bengals is a first-class experience, and one
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: of the fun things that the team typically does on
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the flights home is offer catering that is specific to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the location of the game. For example, in Baltimore, it
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: might be crab cakes. In Pittsburgh, it's often Primanti Brothers,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: a famous local sandwich chain. Well, one of the options
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: on the flight home from last week's game against the
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Dolphins was Jamaican oxtail on rice, a popular dish in Miami.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: When I was a minor league baseball announcer, I remember
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: many of our Latin American players saying that oxtail was
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: their favorite food. So I jumped at the opportunity to
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: try it. It might have been the best meal I've
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: ever had on a Bengals flight. I would describe it
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: as being similar to pot roast. The meat fell off
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the bone with a slightly spicy sauce, and it came
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: with carrots and plantains. Additionally, the aroma was fantastic. Now,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I would describe myself as an adventurous eater. I'll pretty
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: much try anything once. So, if you are somewhere where
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Jamaican oxtail is an option and are reluctant to give
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: it a shot, take my advice and order it. I
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: am as confident that you'll like it as I am
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: when Evan McPherson lines up for a field goal. Now,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: let's get to this week's guest. Former Sports Illustrated writer
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Peter King has released a book about the 40 years
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: he spent covering the NFL. The name of the book
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: is The Game, and it went on sale on Tuesday.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Peter has been making the rounds to promote the book,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: and to make our conversation a little bit different, I
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: focused mainly on his many ties to the Bengals. Peter,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: you announced in March that you were writing a book
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: about your 40 years in the NFL. I've been excited
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: to read it ever since. And it is in bookstores
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and available online this week. This is not a best
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: of Peter King collection where the best stories of your
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: career are basically repackaged in a book. Tell us what
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: you decided to do when you wrote the game.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: First of all, Dan, I really appreciate you having me
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: on to talk about it. Um, I, This was when
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: I retired at the end of the 23 season. I
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: think I wrote my last column in March of 24.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: One of the things that I really wanted to do
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: was kind of get away from it for a little bit.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: For like the next six or seven months, I didn't
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: do a darn thing. I was on the Let's Go
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: podcast with Jim Gray, but it was just me sitting
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: on my couch having, you know, fan-ish opinions with maybe
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: a little bit more education. But essentially what happened was
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: I just decided watching games that year, I said, you know,
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: there's so much that I'm still curious about of, you know,
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: I've got some great stories, but I don't want to
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: write Peter King's greatest hits. I wanted to go back
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: and find out how, you know, why, for instance, in 1985,
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: I just got this feeling leaving a long interview with
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Pete Rozelle, the commissioner at the time, even though I
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: was only 28 years old, commissioner at the time saying, man,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: you might be staying too long at the party. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: so I went back to look into that. And then,
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: you know, the strike season, 1987, how weird it was.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: Why did that happen? What exactly happened that year? You know,
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: how'd the Herschel Walker trade really happen? Um, how, you know,
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: how did Reggie White end up in Green Bay? Did
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: he really want to go there? I think probably not. Um,
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: so there were a lot of stories about the time
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: that I have covered the game that I wanted to
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: go back and delve into actually starting going back with, uh,
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: you know, my first year covering the NFL, working for
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: the Inquirer and covering the Bengals. And, you know, having
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: Boomer Esiason and, you know, look, I've said this to people, Dan,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: a hundred times that really I'm the luckiest man on
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: the face of the earth because I entered football coverage
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: at a time when it was the wild west. If
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: you were industrious, there's a lot of things you can
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: do that you could never do these days. And there
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: was a head coach who said, said to me in
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: training camp, because I lived in the Bengals dorm in
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: training camp in Wilmington, Ohio. He said to me, if
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: you ever need me, just come knocking at my door.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: So like at 945, I don't know, five, seven, eight
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: times that year, I would knock on his door and say, hey,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: what does this mean? What does that mean? What's wrong
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: with Larry Kinnebrew? Whatever. What are you going to do
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: a quarterback? How long a leash does Ken Anderson have?
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: That kind of stuff. And So it was a great
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: team to cover with the players on that team. Collinsworth, Munoz,
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: you know, Rodney Holman was a great guy. Kaczorski, a boomer, obviously. Kaczorski,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: I think, was a rookie that year. But, you know,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: so many good guys. Reggie Williams, a lot of guys.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Ray Horton, who at the time were not necessarily big
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: stars in the league. But, man, they were available. And
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: they were just really, really good dudes. And it was
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: a great, great first year for me to break into
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: covering the NFL.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: That first chapter about you covering the Bengals is titled
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: The Magician and the Blonde Bombshell. The magician is Sam Weiss.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The blonde bombshell is obviously Boomer Esiason. There are a
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: ton of great stories and anecdotes in that chapter, including
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: the story of you going to the airport the day
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: after the 1984 NFL draft. and telling first and second
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: round picks Pete Koch and Boomer Esiason that you were
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: there to pick them up. Now, there was actually a
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: limo provided by the Bengals waiting at baggage claim, but
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: they thought that you were what you said you were
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: there to do to pick them up. So you put
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: them in your tiny little car and drove them to
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Spinney Field. What did the team think when you did that?
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And what did the players think when you eventually came clean?
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: I never asked them.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I never.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: I never, I never, I don't think I ever told
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: anybody with the team that I had done that. And
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: nobody ever, I don't think, uh, Dan, that anybody ever
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: said anything to me. Um, and as far as coming clean,
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: I may have just told Boomer this in the, in
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: the last year that the team actually did send somebody
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: to pick them up. And I kind of lied that
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: I was there to I mean, I was there to
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: pick him up. I don't know that I lied. But
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: I just said, hey, I'm here to pick you up.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: And Boomer goes, a media guy picking us up at
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: the airport? But the craziest thing was, quite honestly, having,
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: you know, Boomer Esiason and Pete Koch both like 6'5.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: I guess Boomer was maybe 6'5, 230. Pete Koch, 6'6, 285.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: Something like that, whatever. And they're in a two-door Volkswagen Rabbit.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: have to stuff their duffels in the trunk alongside. I
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: had to take my eight-month-old daughter, Laura. She's 43 now.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: I had to take her car seat and shove it
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: in the trunk of the car and try to stuff
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: their duffel bags back there so everything would fit. And
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: that's why Boomer just shook his head. And he was
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: not having a good day. He was not happy. He
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: went 38th in the draft. And this was not the
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: day after, by the way. This was the day of.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: I picked him up maybe, I don't know, 5.30, 6 o'clock.
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  Speaker 4: You know what? Dan is one of my favorite things
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: about that day. It isn't that I went to pick
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: him up at the end. Well, that was fun. And
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: hearing Boomer Grouse about being the 38th pick when Washington
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: had told him that they were probably going to pick
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: him and then picked a guy who ended up never
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: playing a snap in the NFL alignment from Oklahoma. But
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: what was really cool about it is that that night
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: at Riverfront Stadium, like maybe, I don't know, 9,700 people
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: rattling around the ballpark for this early season matchup, and
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: Nolan Ryan was pitching for the Astros. And I just thought,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: you know, this is such a cool thing that the
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: big story in the paper the next day is not
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: going to be Nolan Ryan pitching against the Reds, but
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: it's going to be Ricky Hundley and Boomer Esiason and
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: Pete Koch, you know, being the new foundation of the Bengals,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: even though, you know, Ricky Hundley didn't end up being
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: a foundational piece for the Bengals. They ended up trading
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: him after a contract dispute to Denver.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: There's a touching story in the chapter about a kind
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: note that Paul Brown wrote to your father. And later
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: in the book, you listed Paul, number three on the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: list of 100 people who have helped make pro football
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the national obsession that it is. Describe your relationship with
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Paul Brown.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: Well, that first year, there were four people who covered
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: the Bengals, the two papers in Dayton at the time.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: and the Cincinnati Inquirer and the Cincinnati Post. So there
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: were four of us at practice. I don't remember many
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: days where Denny Jansen or John Popovich or Walt Mayer
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: or any of those guys from TV side would have
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: shown up at training camp. I'm sure they did. I
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: just don't remember very much that they were there. But
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: we were always there. And I found out that if
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: you didn't disturb or bug Paul Brown too much, that
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: he didn't mind you going up and asking him a
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: question or two during practice. And he covered every practice. And,
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: you know, I'll just say this, Dan, for those people
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: who've covered training camp in the Midwest, and at the time,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: you know, Wilmington, Ohio, I mean, there is absolutely, totally
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: nothing there other than Wilmington College. There was a McDonald's.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: There just really wasn't anything there. And this was it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: You didn't have much to do. So I had so
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: many encounters that year, especially just watching practice many times
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: with Paul Brown. The biggest regret I have in my career,
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: and I am dead serious, is that I didn't keep
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: notes from what Paul Brown told me during those practices.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Because as I once asked Sam Weitsch about Paul Brown
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: and whether he was having any undue influence on either
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: what plays he would call or how he was coaching
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: the team. And he goes, Peter, listen, if you live
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: next to a library, wouldn't you check out the books
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: once in a while? And I said, yeah. And he goes,
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: how stupid would I be if I didn't go ask
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: Paul Brown what he thought about certain issues? And I
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: thought that was perfectly, perfectly put. And I think he
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: was an excellent resource for Sam. Unfortunately, he couldn't curb
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: some of Sam's worst instincts. For some reason, Sam could
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: not get over the coming of women in the locker room.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: He could not ever get along with authority figures in
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: the NFL office, hated the NFL office. And it just,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: I think it was like a constant distraction for him.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: But those were people who really were a bedrock part
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: of my pro football education.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Former Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer gets a chapter as you
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: describe what it was like to spend a week embedded
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: with him in 2015 in the Cardinals team facility at
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Carson's home as he prepared for an upcoming game. How
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: did that week in the life of an NFL quarterback
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: compare to what you expected it would be?
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: There were two things that were different. Number one, I
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: learned and I knew really that, you know, Tom Brady's
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: totally anal. Peyton Manning is beyond anal. I have a
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: chapter on him and you'll read about his, you know,
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: his anal tendencies that go all the way down. He won,
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: I was still working for SI in, I think it
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: was 13 or 14, I forget which year it was.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: He won Sportsman of the Year, Sportsperson of the Year
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: And the event was going to be held in Denver
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: celebrating his accomplishment. And so the day before we're going
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: over run of show and I'm in, I'm the point
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: person for SI out in Denver and I'm sitting with
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: Peyton and Patrick Smythe, the PR guy of the Broncos
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: and Peyton's looking at the run of show and he
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: starts looking at the menu and Peyton did not like
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: the two vegetables we had on the menu and he
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: changed them. He edited the menu to change which vegetables
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: we were going to have at that dinner. True story. But,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: but anyway, and I learned about the fact that all
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: really good quarterbacks have to have tendencies, anal tendencies, because
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: it comes down to when Carson Palmer's got a, He
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: uses quite literally in pencil, he's got a separate page
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: in his loose leaf notebook, and he writes in pencil
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: notes about every play, the 171 plays in that game plan,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: so that when he starts to practice them, stayed up
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: really late Tuesday night when he got the game plan,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: goes in there so that when he practices them, he's
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: going to have the best chance possible to know it
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: as well as the coaches do so that when this
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: play is called in the game, he knows exactly where
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: he should go, what he should do and all that.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: And I was amazed at how quickly he was able
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: to do it, but it did take him a long
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: time and he had painstaking work with everyone. The one
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: other thing, I thought it was so interesting their use
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: of the ocular device that he puts on so that
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: he can see all of the defense and what the
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: defense is doing when he's watching and studying tape. He
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: wants to know the tendencies of, in that particular week,
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: what the Cleveland Browns are going to do on defense.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: And so he studies not only the film of the Browns,
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: but he studies how he believes that his defense, his
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: scout team is preparing. And look, they were, Bruce Arians
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: and Carson Palmer were so incredibly upfront about everything that week, everything.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: And so I think if you read that chapter about
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Carson Palmer, you'll not only know I wanted to write
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: a chapter. How do you get to do a story
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: like that? How does that story come to be? And
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: how did I convince them that they should do this?
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: And one thing I've always learned is nobody cares that
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: you want to do the story. All they care about
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: is either A, what's in it for me, or B,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: why should I spend time during my crucial time of
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: the season, spending any time with a media guy, why
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: should I do this? I remember I told Carson, look,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: you've got four kids under the age of eight. One day,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: they're going to want to know what did dad do
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: for a living, just show them this. And I called
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: him last year, obviously now he's a very successful, in
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: his second year, very successful high school coach in California.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: And I asked him, I said, I've always wanted to know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: you really didn't want to do this, but now you
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: look back, you're happy you did it. And he said,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: I'm really happy I did it because I got a
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: young quarterback right now who's going to go on, I think,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: in playing college football. And I can show him this
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: and say, this is what you need to do to
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: succeed at the next level. And he said, my other,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: my son, who's the backup quarterback, you know, it's not
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: necessarily time for him to read it now. But when
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: he gets to be like a senior and I'm going
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: to show this to them and say, hey, listen, you
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: want to go play big time college football? Here's what
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: it's going to take to win, to succeed. So I
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: appreciate that. And I think sometimes guys, when I have
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: tried to do stories, because I've been turned down a
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: lot over the years, guys can't see the forest for
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: the trees. They see the immediate things in front of
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: their head and they say, oh, my God, I got
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: so much to do. I'm so busy. And they don't
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: understand that one day they're probably really going to want
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: to know what it was like in that job. And
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: I think Palmer is happy he did it.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: More with Peter in just a moment. But first, a
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: quick reminder that the Bengals Booth podcast is brought to
• 19:14
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• 19:22
  Speaker 2: your home, business, and community to a new level. And
• 19:25
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• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Kettering Health is the official health care provider of the Bengals.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Was there something at the top of the list that
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: you got turned down for that you really wish the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: subject would have said yes?
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: Well, over the years, a couple of times I asked
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: a few people uh, about, you know, I would have,
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: I would have liked to, uh, I would have liked
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: to report on Bill Belichick's, uh, lab potential last game
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: in new England.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: But I got turned down for that. And one of
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: the reasons I get turned down, it wasn't necessarily, I
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: wasn't even sure whether it would be his last game.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: I didn't know at the time, but understand that in 2006,
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: I wrote a lot of negative stuff about Spygate. And
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: I was very critical of Belichick about his role in Spygate.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: And Bill remembered that. And I, you know, Dan, it's
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: now been quite literally 20 years since I have spoken
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: to Bill Belichick. And he just held a very hard
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: grudge against me because I used to have a great
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: relationship with him. And in fact, I went to do,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: after he won his second Super Bowl, I went to
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: do a story about Bill Belichick's childhood and what it
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: was like. And I went, his mother and father welcomed
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: me in their family home in Annapolis. And his mom said,
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: would you like to see Billy's room? Why, yes, Mrs. Belichick.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: In fact, I would like to go see his room.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: And so I think he felt like because I had
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: been sort of in the inner sanctum that I was
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: either going to protect them or not necessarily, you know,
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: slap them around because of what was to me, I mean,
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: really an egregious, violation of league rules. But anyway, that's
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: just the way it goes sometimes.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Another great fly on the wall story where the subject
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: said yes involved you riding across the country with John
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Madden in the Madden Cruiser, which many of us remember.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Did that change the way that you traveled after that?
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Not that you traveled by car or by bus, but
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: did you look at the places that you visited differently?
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: That's an interesting question. I really felt like at that time,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: and this is sort of an odd way to look
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: at it, but I felt at that time like John Madden,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: this was 1990, John Madden had hosted Saturday Night Live.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: He was the number one spokesperson for advertisements in the
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: United States. Miller Lite and hardware and mufflers and everything. Okay.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: And he was also this incredible football broadcaster and every
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: man who everybody kind of wanted to know and wanted
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: to be, you know, be near. Everybody loved him. And
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: he was my white whale. I really wanted to do
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: this story. I don't think he really wanted to do
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: it so much. Have a stranger, not a stranger. I
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: knew Madden, but have somebody in his bus for three days.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's no escaping the bus. Now he's got
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: the back third of the bus, which is his bedroom.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Probably the back 40% of the bus is his bedroom
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: and his private space. And when he's in there, nobody
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: even knocks at the door, you know? But I just
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: really wanted to do that badly. And it was so educational.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: One of the great educational parts of it is, The
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: fact that he just looked at me at one point
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: and he said, you know, I think anybody who runs
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: for national office in the United States should do this
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: because the fact is I go and eat at Chewy's
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Mexican restaurant in a small town in Texas. I ate
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: at Grandpa's Steakhouse in Kearney, Nebraska. I ate at the
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Big Boy restaurant in Elko, Nevada. I mean, I am
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: out seeing how this country works, and I don't think
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: politicians really do that. And he said, they need to
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: see what life is like in America. I remember he
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: was telling me this one story about how he stopped
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: in Omaha, Nebraska one night, and he went to the
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: minor league baseball game in Omaha. And one of the
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: big things between innings, there was a contest and the
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: winner got a case of Franks and Beans. And he
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: thought that was the greatest thing in the world. So
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: he just loved Americana. And quite honestly, I wrote the
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: story for SI and I wrote about John Steinbeck travels
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: with Charlie. That was one of the inspirations for Madden
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: to do this. He loved every minute he spent on
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: the road. Never got sick of it. Never got tired.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: He loved the fact that he can just disappear for
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: three days while he was driven across the United States.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Peter, you wrote recently that you watch almost as much
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: football as you used to. So you undoubtedly see a
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: lot of Joe Burrow. Share some thoughts on Joe.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I love Joe Burrow. One of the reasons I love him,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: it's interesting, is, and look, I loved, I loved when
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: Joe Burrow gave Jeff Hobson the time before this season,
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: and Jeff, who is a very good friend of mine,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: I love Jeff, he was very forthcoming with Jeff on
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: a bunch of issues. And look, you know, what Joe
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Burrow could have done is he could have said, you know,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: I'm going to wait until Sal Palantonio gets in town,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: and I'm going to do my long interview with ESPN.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: But Joe doesn't really care about that stuff. And the
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: story I've told people a few times, I remember before
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: the Kansas City Cincinnati playoff game in Kansas City, I
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: remember being in Kansas City and being out with Jimmy Burrow.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: I'm an Ohio University grad. Jimmy obviously raised Joe right there,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: and he coached for the Bobcats for a long time.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: So I've gotten to know Jimmy some over the years.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: Really nice guy. He and Robin did a great job
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: with Joe. I mean, a great job. But one of
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: the things last night, I said, hey, Jimmy, give me
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: some advice. I said, Joe is always available to me.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: He's good. He's okay. But he never really says anything.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: I said, give me your advice now. on how I
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: might be able to draw Joe out of his shell
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: a little bit. And he goes, well, if you can
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: help him with some advice or some coaching point about
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: how to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, I think he's
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: going to be a lot better to you. If not,
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: he said, what you see is what you get. And
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: I just laughed and I said, okay, fair enough. That's very,
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: very good. I admire somebody. I don't need in my
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: life some guy to phony up some relationship with me
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: if he doesn't want to. And I respect guys who
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: are real. Joe Burrow's real. And even though I don't
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: know Joe Burrow any more than I know the guy who.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: Who I go to the grocery store to buy his
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: stuff in Brooklyn. I don't know Joe, but I have
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: great admiration for him because I think he's a real guy.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Peter, for those of us who love the NFL, you
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: have enhanced our enjoyment for decades, and you have done
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: it again with your book, The Game. Best of luck
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: on your book tour, and thanks so much for your
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: time today. I greatly appreciate it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Dan, really, really appreciate you having me. Man, so much
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: of my life, the base was made in Cincinnati, and
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: I'm grateful for any time that anybody from Fort Mitchell
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: to Hamilton to anywhere in the region, that I can
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: talk to them because I'm so grateful for my time there.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: On the last episode of this podcast, one of my
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: guests was Fox Sports analyst and former NFL offensive lineman
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Mark Schlereth. He has strong feelings about the importance of
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the Bengals leaning on their running game more and hasn't
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: been shy about criticizing Zach Taylor. But after broadcasting last
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: week's Bengals-Dolphins game, Mark has changed his tune, at least somewhat.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Here's a snippet of a recent episode of his podcast.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: It's called The stinking truth podcast.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I understand most of you people insist that I hate
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: my guts. And I get it.
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: I mean, I get that you hate me. But there
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: are certain things that I just believe about football, right?
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: I believe you got to have balance. I believe you
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: got to run the ball. I believe in all that stuff.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: And they did that on Sunday against the Miami Dolphins.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: But.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Funny. This is funny. Like, so I walk in on
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Saturday night.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: And I talk with Joe Burrow and I talk with
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Al Golden, their defensive coordinator. I talk with sexy, Dexy,
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: Dexter Lawrence. And, you know, and I have all this conversation.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: with these guys. And then Zach Taylor walks in. He's
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: the last guy. And I said, listen, Zach, there's part
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: of me that feels like I owe you an apology.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But you're not getting it. And he goes, oh, really?
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Like that. OK. And I color me a tree.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Let me know what's going on.
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: I go, you know, I am diametrically opposed to the
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: way sometimes you guys call a football game.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: It just is like I'm a dinosaur and I don't
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: believe in it. And I hate it with every ounce
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: of my fiber.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: By the way, that takes a certain amount of.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: Onions to be sitting next to Zach Taylor and go,
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: sometimes the way that you call offenses offend me.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that's being honest. But I will tell
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: you this.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: He goes, yeah, and I'll be unapologetic about the way
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: I call it. And I'm like, okay, good. We've found
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: common ground. So I go, you know what I'm going
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: to do? And I've already looked at a ton of film, right?
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: I've already done all this film study. I'm like, I'm
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: just going to look at every throw that Joe Burrow has.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Had this year. Okay, well, I can do that, right?
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: So I can get on my iPad and plug in
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: game one, game two, game three, game, and every throw, right?
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Here I go. Let me just tell you something.
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: I walked away from that film And Joe Burrow, like
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: you're going to need– Joe Burrow might need a restraining
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: order to keep me away from him because I just
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: fell in love. I have like this man crush on
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: Joe Burrow. That dude is so freaking good. He is so–
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: he is like– I always knew he was good, but
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: until you see some of the stuff that he does–
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: that just sets him apart. One, I'll just give you
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: a list of things, okay? One, think about the way
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: he throws the football. And think about being in a cylinder.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: Think about being cylindrical. That dude never leaves that cylinder.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: So when he throws, man, he is right here, compact,
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: steps up in the pocket, and just, yah! Yeah, and
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: it's just right here. His feet are there. His shoulder,
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: his front shoulder is in so he can drive the football.
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: He stays on top of the football, and he just
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: never leaves this little cylinder. It's the most Brady-esque mechanics
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: that I have ever watched. And he works on his
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: mechanics every day. He told me, I work with Jordan
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: Palmer in the offseason for a couple of weeks, but
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: I constantly work on my mechanics. That's all I do
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: is work mechanically. And his mechanics, they never waver. So
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: you wonder why he's so accurate? They're always in this cylinder.
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: Number two, he never escapes out of the back of
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: the pocket.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Ever.
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: Dude, that dude climbs the pocket, he finds space side
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: to side, and he climbs the pocket even at his
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: own detriment. He'll deliver a football and take one square
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: in the teeth. He is all balls. He is fearless
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: in the pocket. And he's always climbing up, always climbing up.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: He is the best. I used to say this about
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: Brady all the time. He's the best scrambler I have
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: ever watched that doesn't leave the pocket. He just doesn't
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: leave the pocket ever.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: He is Brady-esque in the pocket.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: With climbing it, manipulating the pocket, staying in there and
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: being tough. And he's Joe Montana when it comes to
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: getting through stuff, just like boop, boop, boop, boop.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: It's like unreal, right?
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: And so I'm sitting there watching it, and I spent
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: probably three hours going through every throw he made, and
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: I walked away going.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe I would never run it either. If that guy
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: was my quarterback, I would never run it either.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Mark spent about 16 minutes talking about the Bengals-Dolphins game,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: and it's definitely worth a listen. Again, his podcast is
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: called The Stinkin' Truth Podcast, and the episode to listen
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: to is called The Leftovers Cincinnati Bengals vs. Miami Dolphins.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: That's going to do it for this episode of the
• 34:22
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• 34:25
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• 34:28
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• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Dan Hoard, and thanks for listening to the Bengals Booth Podcast.