Latest / Height Differential / Quick Take: Duke Tobin Speaks - What It Means for the Bengals’ 2026 Outlook?

Transcript

Quick Take: Duke Tobin Speaks - What It Means for the Bengals’ 2026 Outlook? · Height Differential

• 0:00
  Duke Tobin. Did you listen to the presser?
• 0:04
  I did, I was at work. I, I, I read the, I read the,
• 0:07
  the transcripts, I read the quotes.
• 0:09
  I heard it all. It to me, it's still a bunch of
• 0:11
  word vomit. It's he still has confidence in
• 0:14
  the talent that we have. He wants to improve.
• 0:17
  He basically what I, what I, the gist of what I heard was he
• 0:19
  wants to improve the, the, the lines, the front lines of the
• 0:23
  offense and the defence, but mainly the defensive line.
• 0:25
  And his philosophy of pressuring the quarterback would, will take
• 0:28
  off the pressure of the secondary.
• 0:29
  And maybe it wasn't all their fault because we didn't get
• 0:31
  pressure on the quarterback. We didn't do that last year
• 0:34
  either. You didn't fix it.
• 0:37
  Right, that's what I'm saying. It's all to me thinks he
• 0:41
  understands the problem but he I need I need him to fix it.
• 0:45
  Before we RIP it into like, were there any positives you took
• 0:48
  from it? Because there were there were a
• 0:50
  few I took. What's here?
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  What are your positives? I mean, I I think at least
• 0:55
  admitting that they need to do more on defense and they need to
• 0:58
  do more on free agency. Well, if he doesn't say that,
• 1:00
  he's not going to have a job, Nick, of course he's going to
• 1:02
  say that. What are you trying to say?
• 1:04
  Hold on. So you expected so you're
• 1:06
  positive is he got up there and said that the defense wasn't
• 1:09
  good enough? What was he going?
• 1:11
  To say good enough, they didn't do anything in free agency.
• 1:13
  What was he going to say? He didn't talk last year either.
• 1:16
  We did, he just didn't talk at Paycore after the season was
• 1:22
  over. That's what I'm saying.
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  He didn't have this press conference last year.
• 1:25
  So no, I did not expect him to get up there and say, man, the
• 1:29
  defense, it wasn't their fault. Well, like, of course if he
• 1:32
  doesn't get up there and say it's not acceptable, then
• 1:34
  they're going to have a problem. Otherwise, what are you talking
• 1:36
  for? No.
• 1:38
  I mean, yeah, but really, that's about the only positive I took
• 1:43
  from it. So the only problem was him
• 1:44
  admitting the defense wasn't good.
• 1:45
  Well, the numbers say that because we were 30th and 31st
• 1:48
  and scoring. It was not just defense, it was
• 1:51
  not getting stops late and he's he and not playing complimentary
• 1:56
  football, which he's he's right with that.
• 1:58
  I mean, even when the defense was a little better, I mean the
• 2:02
  offense, I mean, you can't have two turnovers for pick sixes.
• 2:06
  You can't have how many, how many touchdowns did the offense
• 2:08
  give up this year? I agree I.
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  Mean you you can't do that either.
• 2:12
  So you have to fight figure out a way to play complimentary
• 2:14
  football. But I mean, you're right, like
• 2:19
  it's he's very defensive the whole time.
• 2:22
  He like there was a question asked about trying to do get
• 2:27
  contracts done earlier and like, and you've got Dax Hill and
• 2:31
  you've got DJ Turner guys that are eligible for contract
• 2:34
  extensions. Go ahead and trying to get them
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  done. And they he acts like they've
• 2:39
  tried to do that in the past. And no, you didn't.
• 2:41
  And that's why you had to over like pay more for Jamar and T
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  Like if you would have got those done earlier, you would have
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  spent less money and then your entire offseason wouldn't have
• 2:50
  revolved around their extensions and you would had an opportunity
• 2:53
  to maybe go after some more free agents.
• 2:55
  That is correct. Did in front of some of this
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  stuff that. 100% quit. Telling me that we've done it
• 3:02
  before. We've done it before, Yeah, you
• 3:05
  have. You got to the Super Bowl, you
• 3:06
  got to the AFC Championship. That was four and five years
• 3:10
  ago. That was four and five years
• 3:12
  ago. Just because you did it doesn't
• 3:14
  mean you can do it again. Like you have to change.
• 3:18
  Like you have to change the way that you're doing things.
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  And, and I know it's small that I get a little bit of positives
• 3:26
  from the fact that he's like, we got to get in the free agency.
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  And the reason is because they didn't do that last year and
• 3:34
  they knew this defense sucked. Is the reason they but is the
• 3:37
  reason they didn't do it last. And I don't want to give him an
• 3:40
  excuse because I think he sucks and he doesn't know what he's
• 3:43
  doing. But is the reason that they
• 3:44
  didn't do it last year's because they were so wrapped up in the
• 3:47
  Jamar and T and Trey drama and trying to get that done that
• 3:51
  they just basically ignored everything else because A, they
• 3:53
  probably didn't know how much money they had to spend and B,
• 3:56
  you know, it was just basically taking up all of their all of
• 3:58
  their focus. Well, if that's true, then
• 4:03
  that's just a negative on the franchise as well.
• 4:05
  Well, this is another because you've got to be able to
• 4:07
  multitask. But, but I think you're right.
• 4:09
  I I think it absolutely played a role in why they weren't active
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  in free agency. Maybe this so, so if you're
• 4:16
  looking for a positive, maybe the positive this year is you
• 4:19
  don't have that drama anymore. They're wrapped up.
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  There's no looming big contract extensions that are out there to
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  that magnitude. Trey's going to be a free agent.
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  You know, you free up that space, that, that money that,
• 4:30
  that his contract would have been.
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  And you know, now let's just go out, focus on actually getting
• 4:35
  dudes. Just go get dudes.
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  And I think I, I saw a quote when he was talking about
• 4:39
  improving the, you know, the pass rust and the pass rust.
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  And, and if he doesn't do it for you, do it in the draft.
• 4:43
  Well, he's tried that in the draft over the last several
• 4:46
  years with Miles, Miles Murphy and Joseph Assai.
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  And those guys are not working out.
• 4:50
  They're not working out. So you trying to address this in
• 4:52
  the draft and Shamar Stewart, Shamar Stewart, another example,
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  you trying to address the pass rush in the draft.
• 4:58
  It it we need to stop with that. Let's just go get a proven dude
• 5:01
  that can actually get after the quarterback that knows what he's
• 5:03
  doing at this level. You also need to find somebody
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  and get to the the quarterback from the deep, from the inside.
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  That's not a hedge rusher. Like if you can get some
• 5:11
  pressure up the middle too, you can add a guy of that caliber.
• 5:15
  They they. You tried that with Sheldon
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  Rankings because Rankings sacked Joe Burrell twice in a game and
• 5:21
  thought the Sheldon Rankings was the next coming of.
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  That's another example of why they're idiots, because you had
• 5:27
  the worst rushing defense in the NFL.
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  You lose DJ reader and you you don't replace him with another
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  rushing rush stopper. You had a a a sack defensive
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  tackle and that was just an embarrassment.
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  Like, I will say the thing that just irked me more than anything
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  is him talking about how nobody works as hard as he does.
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  And look, but look, you can believe that.
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  But I mean, whenever anybody says that, I just feel like you
• 6:01
  are you're defending like over defending yourself.
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  Like if you're really good at your job, you don't need to tell
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  somebody. Nobody works harder or not.
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  Yeah, the. The the the high school kid
• 6:13
  bagging my groceries at Kroger down the street works as hard as
• 6:16
  Duke Tobin does. Like that kid works hard.
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  Everybody works hard at their gym.
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  Most people do work hard at their jobs because you want to
• 6:23
  be good at your job. You don't want to suck because
• 6:24
  then you get fired. And usually when you suck at
• 6:26
  your job, you get fired. Unless your name's Duke Tobin.
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  It should go without saying, and if I'm conducting a job
• 6:32
  interview and somebody comes in and says nobody's going to work
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  as hard as me, what is that? That does nothing.
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  That's what I expect out of you. That's an expectation.
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  It's not a positive, it's an expectation.
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  Obviously you don't know that you don't know that you can't
• 6:51
  prove it. You can't prove it.
• 6:53
  No, you're right. It is, it is tangible.
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  Like you can't, you can't prove it.
• 6:59
  But also it's a, it's an expectation that you're going to
• 7:01
  come in and work hard at your job and work as hard as you can.
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  Like, I don't know if anybody is, is working as hard as you or
• 7:07
  harder than you, but if you can tell me that you're working as
• 7:10
  hard as you can and that's all I can expect.
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  But that is an expectation. It's not a, a brag on yourself.
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  Oh, I'm working really hard at this.
• 7:17
  That's your job. Because otherwise you suck at
• 7:20
  your job to get fired. And what you should what should
• 7:23
  be happening here is plain as day.
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  And it's not happening. And and we talked about this
• 7:29
  last week and you didn't believe it was going to happen.
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  But this just shows the differences in the franchises of
• 7:36
  the Cincinnati Bengals and a team like the Baltimore Ravens,
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  who they missed the playoffs. What this one year didn't meet
• 7:44
  expectations and they fire a Super Bowl winning coach.
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  A coach has gone to four AFC championship games, won multiple
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  division titles, probably going to be in the Hall of Fame at
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  some point, won a ton of games, more than he's lost.
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  And they fired him after one year because they didn't meet
• 7:59
  expectations. And here we are hanging on to
• 8:02
  these bombs, Zach Taylor and the Duke Tobins, when we haven't
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  made the playoffs in three years, when we've got the
• 8:08
  quality of talent of the Jamar Chase, the Joe Burrows, the T
• 8:11
  Higgins and the rest of those guys.
• 8:14
  Like we don't take it seriously like they do.
• 8:15
  They take it dead serious. Well, I, I said it last week
• 8:19
  when I told you that John Harbaugh was not going to get
• 8:22
  fired, that if he does get fired, then I'm definitely going
• 8:26
  to fire Zach Taylor and he can come on, just drive on down to
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  Cincinnati. I, I wouldn't fire John, I
• 8:32
  wouldn't fire John Harbaugh. I.
• 8:33
  Would not have either. I would not have either.
• 8:35
  I would have given him a little more leniency, but that's how
• 8:38
  seriously that organization takes winning.