Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - BENGALS SQUAD SHOW: Joe Burrow-Josh Allen ELITE QB matchup, where is TREY?, Containing James Cook

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Joe Burrow and the Bengals head to western New York to take on reigning NFL MVP Josh Allen and the Bills Sunday. Alex Frank, Jake Liscow, and Art Valero break down the elite quarterback matchup that is Joe Burrow vs. Josh Allen. While this is a matchup of elite quarterbacks, there is much more to Bengals-Bills than Burrow-Allen that will play a big role in this game. Art explains how the Bengals' linebackers must be able to contain James Cook and the Bills' running game if the Bengals are going to put themselves in position to win. Speaking of the Bengals' defense, where is Trey Hendrickson? Jake dives into the ongoing saga that is the Bengals All-Pro edge rusher still not playing with an injury, but is it as simple as that? When the guys give their keys to the game, Alex has one that very well might win the Bengals the game. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!  Aura Frames For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting https://AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames - named #1 by Wirecutter - by using promo code LOCKEDON at checkout.  FanDuel If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit FanDuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long.  PrizePicks Download the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LO...  Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.  FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm Alex Frank. And just like Al Michaels asked the question 45 years ago, do you believe in miracles? Well, we're going to find out Sunday when Joe Burrow and Josh Allen take the feel once again, Jake Liscoe. Yeah, it's going to be a big matchup for these quarterbacks. And Joe Burroughs been great against the bills, but there are a whole lot of other factors that are going to be key on Sunday. And aren't one of those keys, the Bills running game against the Bengals, young linebackers. Hey, you know what you hear about it all the time. Every defensive pro, Jeff, says you have to stop the run. And nothing is more true than this week. They have to stop the run and put, unfortunately, you have the alternative, which is put Josh Allen and his ability to throw the

ball into the game. But this is a double-edged sword. They can run the ball. They can throw it. So if you stop the run first and kind of make them one way, now you can go ahead and play on your terms. All that and much more coming up on the Bengals Squad show. The Bengals Squad, everything Cincinnati Bengals every week. Breaking down all the big hits and game-changing plays from the Queen City, the way only the locked on podcast network can. From the jungle to the playoffs, the Bengals Squad Show starts now. Welcome to the Bengals Squad Show.

It is Thursday, December 4th. I'm Alex Frank and Frankie underscore Natty. He's Jake Lisco at Jake Lisco, Art Bellaro, at Arthur Bellaro 3. We are presented today by Price Picks. Download the Price Picks app today and use code Locked-on NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Gentlemen, it is Joe Burrow versus Josh Allen, one of the elite quarterback matchups that we have in the NFL. And Jake, when you have a quarterback like Joe Burrow, Bengals fans should be confident that they can be not just Josh Allen Hill, but any team in the league. Yeah, Joe Burrow gives you a shot against anybody. right? And that's the kind of player that we've come to expect.

That's the kind of play we've come to expect from Joe Burrow over the years. But as Joe Burrow pointed out, this isn't like the last time these teams played. There has been time that has passed. They haven't played the bills for a couple of years. You can't just rest on your laurels from what you did in 2023. And so how he plays this week remains to be seen. And how this game plays out will be different than the last time these teams. teams played. The bills have been struggling mightily in run defense all year. That's something that

will be keeping an eye on in this game, I think. And Joe Burroughs' ability to throw the ball and get this offense going is probably the minimum for the Bengals to stay in this game. It could end up playing out like one of those Bengals Ravens games that we saw last year, high scoring game that's going to come down to the wire, unless one of these teams actually can show up and stop the opponent's run game, unless one of these teams can show up and unexpectedly start. to slow down their opponents. And when you talk about the Bengals linebackers against this Bill's running game, we saw them last week against Derek Henry have a really solid show.

And Derek Henry had just 10 carries for 60 yards. So how does James Cook differ from Derek Henry? And how does the Bengals defense adjust to that? Well, I think that their approach has to be exactly the, the same. They have to fill their gaps. Their run fits have to be absolute, and they've got to be able to shed and get off blocks. This is a great effort game to be followed up by the Derek Henry one. Now, the difference in the two, totally different. One's a big that is going to plot his way through, run physically, but once he gets into the clear, he opens it up and he can really run.

James Cook is very, very sudden. He runs big, although he's much smaller than Derek Henry. And Derek Henry is a big man who runs small. So you can kind of look at it from that standpoint is, you know, what are we going to get? Different style, different approach. But in actuality, as long as they maintain their leverage discipline and they stay in their gaps that they're supposed to, and then win the one-on-ones. So gentlemen, I'm going to ask you both this question because let's go,

let's get to the fact that this is, this matchup is about Joe Burrow versus Josh Allen. We have a lot of elite quarterback matchups in the NFL, including Joe Burrow and Josh Allen. We have seen it in the playoffs. We saw it in the regular season. For reasons, much bigger than football. We saw it on Monday night football in early January of 2023. But when you have this match, up. Jake, is it as simple as give Joe Borough as much as you can on his plate and let him

go cook or is it about the Bengals helping him, whether it be through the running game or whatever it may be, so that he and hit the Bengals are the team that comes out on top. The way the Bill's lineup has gone this year, sorry, the way the Bill's defense has played this year is you can't ignore the run game if you're the Bengals. Since Joe Flacco arrived in Cincinnati, the Bengals have one of the best run games in the NFL. And Joe Burrow coming back and the Bengals throwing the ball a ton last week to great effect doesn't change the fact that they have found something in their run game. And I would personally be keeping a close eye on the split in the carries between Somaget, P. Ryan, and Chase Brown this week. I think that's going to be something that I hope skews a little bit more in Chase Brown's favor.

I understand protecting him a little bit after he was really a bell count. for two weeks in P. Ryan's absence. But that probably shouldn't continue on a week over week basis. I really like Samasha P.Rine, don't get me wrong, but I think I would like to see a little bit more of Chase Brown. The point of all that is to say, well, I feel like Joe Burrow is obviously a game changer for the Bengals on offense and his ability to get the offense into the right looks, to process quickly, to throw the ball with pinpoint accuracy, leads to touchdowns

like the moment we saw Tanner Hudson score against Kyle Hamilton. you can't just totally ignore the run game. I think that, yeah, and got to have it moments, you got to go with Joe. But if the Bengals can establish the run in this game, and I'm not a big established a run guy, don't get me wrong here. I don't think that that is the preeminent goal for every game on offense, right? I think that in this game against this team that builds one of the worst run defenses in the NFL, the Bengals having figured some things out here, that can give you an advantage

in your past game if they can figure out a way to mix in the run. effectively and efficiently in this one and make Joe Burroughs life easier. Are you giving Joe Burrow as much as he can handle? What is the offensive line room like when it gets to a quarterback matchup like this? Just kind of give me your insights from an offensive line perspective. Well, I think that one thing that they go in and say, hey, our number one goal is to protect Joe. Now that he's got a great supporting cast around it in terms of the skill guys, skill players. They can all make plays.

So if we do that and it's kind of that, okay, are we 60, 40, are we 50, 50 this game? How are we going to win this game? And I think it comes down to let's establish a run. Let's give him time. And at the end of the day, we'll do whatever is necessary to win this game. All we have to do is score one more point than them. And let's not worry about Josh Allen and what the defense does. let's worry about ourselves and let's not even look at the scoreboard until it's over.

I agree with that wholeheartedly because I think definitely when you have a matchup like this, it's so easy to get caught up in the quarterbacks. But at the same time, there are so many other elements to this. Let's go to Josh Allen's side of things what we're seeing from our perspective. And obviously, if you listen to James Rapine and Joe Marino of Lockdown Bills and Bill Squad, they talk they handicapped this matchup on their. cross over edition on lockdown Bengals, which you can check that out on the YouTube channel and wherever you listen to podcasts. When it comes to Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills and

we talked about this earlier this week, you and me and Mike Santagana at Bengals underscore Sands. What is it about Josh Allen that makes him so unique to play against? Oh, you know what? A great competitor will do whatever it takes. throwing the football, great play action player. He knows he can rely on his run game, even though they have two of their starting tackles that are out. It's kind of developed that way, and it helps out, take some heat off of him.

But the things that he can do with the football, and he's much like Joe Burrow in terms of his competitiveness is you got to give him points just on that alone, just like we have the same thing where you've got to give a certain amount of points just because Joe Burrell will will his way into doing that. And that's exactly what Josh, Josh Allen does. Jake, what about you? The Josh Allen factor here that you have to be worried about if you're the Bengals, I think, is that when they need a play, his ability to just be a power runner and make you wrong, make your angles wrong, run through a guy when he needs a yard, he can get

that yard. That's the X factor to me. Alan really has played poorly in their previous two matchups, though, and that's what I'm fascinated to see is whether Al Golden, who I think is starting to figure some things out, and I said this on our preview show with James, I think Al Golden is starting to figure out the right buttons to push a little bit more frequently, but there's still the issues in terms of personnel. I got linebackers running under blocks. You got inconsistent safety play, got guys getting out of gaps. But you have to have. You have. seen the development along the front. You have seen tackling be a little bit better

the last couple of weeks. And I think if it's me, I'm going back and I'm looking at what Luana Rumo did in those previous Buffalo Cincinnati matchups and see what really worked here. What are the bills doing this year that's the same where we can take some of those lessons and apply them again?

What stumped Josh Allen in the past? But then you've got to acknowledge that this is a different bill's offense. This is going to be a run first team. They might get those couple of injured tackles back. this week. Dionne Dawkins working off the concussion on a similar schedule to T. Higgins, I almost expect him to play. And I was surprised to see that Spencer Brown was practicing in a limited capacity on Wednesday as well. And I haven't seen his status for Thursday. I don't know if the bills have practiced yet as we record this, but they might get those tackles back, which makes a job

obviously harder where this bill team against the Steelers front that's actually quite good. They have some issues at linebacker. They have some issues on that defense in general. They've underachieved in general. But the front is still really good. And the bill is just every single run for James Cook is like, we've got it blocked up inside. I'm going to bounce this outside and now I'm going to go make your corners tackle. So it's going to be an entire defensive effort in this one to even force Josh Allen to be the guy that has to beat you in the first place. But then if you can get to that point, and that's your first challenge, I think, if you're Al Golden is arts talking about, got to start by stopping the run. Then you go back and see, okay, what did Lou do that works so well?

And how does that match up with the concepts you're going to see from the bills this year? This is going to be, if I'm the bills, if I'm, if I'm Joe Brady trying to figure out my offensive game plan here, I'm thinking 13 personnel all day. I'm thinking three tight end, two fullback looks because I really want to challenge the Bengals at their weaknesses, which if I'm Joe Brady, I'm identifying, especially if I get my, my star receiving tight end back this week in Duncan, Kincade. I'm saying, okay, let's go, let's put a fullback on the field. Let's put three tight ends on the field and say, we're going to run the ball here.

And then we're going to go play action overs. And we're going to make your linebackers. robot out of there and figure out how to cover these tight-end crossers that you haven't been able to cover all year. And that's one of the ways that I'm looking to challenge the Bengals, if I'm Joe Brady and putting in an offensive game plan for the Bills, and that goes hand-in-hand with the run game now. So that's going to be a factor here. If they can stop the run, it may force the bills to get out of some of those heavy looks, some of those play action looks and rely a little bit more on a receiver group that isn't as deep as you would hope if you're a Bill's fan.

It's an interesting variable. The fact that Al Golden was not on the Bengals' defensive coaching staff in 2022 in the playoffs when the Bengals faced the bills and beat them or in 2020. When they played them on that Sunday night game in week nine, and they beat them in that game as well. And you and I talked about it earlier this week that if I was Al Golden, if I were Al Golden, I would be on the phone with Lou and Arrubo picking his brain about what it's like to face Josh Allen and this Buffalo Bill's offense. As Jake said, has it changed a little bit over the years? Sure, they're running the football a lot more than maybe they did the last time these two teams played. But it just goes back to the fact that this matchup, despite it being headlined by Joe Burrow and Josh Allen, there is so much more to this matchup.

It's going to play a big role art in this game on Sunday. Absolutely. You know what? Both teams are different. They're different on how they're built. Who's healthy? What's in the game? What's at stake?

There's a lot of things that are different. And the key, I think, to both games is the way that Buffalo comes out and just like Jake was talking about, hey, getting those heavy personnel groupings, pound the ball at them, you know, play, beat them up, play slow death as compared to making them throw the ball and play fast death. You know, and that's the one thing that Aaron Kromer does a great job with is he'll get very, very friendly. Aaron's the offense line coach with Buffalo, and I was with Aaron in Tampa. He does a great job of formation configuration of getting how those cutbacks are going to be really utilized. They're not interested in pressing at playside, but they want to get everybody moving, everybody play to that power run and then be able to bring it back. And they're going to get the wide receivers involved.

Now it's going to be really, really important for the Bengals. and their safeties to get in those run fits and don't let a wide receiver come inside the tide in and dig him out of there. But from an offensive standpoint, you're looking at it as a, hey, if you want to play small ball and you want to run it the whole time, great.

We just got to set it up. Now, on offense, we've got to keep our defense all off the field that they can't be sitting there taking a pounding the entire day. That's a worry for me, Arthur, that you bring up there. Buffalo leads the NFL in time of possession. this year. That has been a struggle for the Bengals all year is getting their defense off the field. The defense getting itself off the field. Cincinnati, one of the worst teams in time of possession this year so far. Obviously, there's been a little bit different in recent games, but Cincinnati

on the season is 29th in the NFL in time of possession. In their last three games, however, they're more like a top 10 team in time of possession, but Buffalo is still up there. They're one of the best running teams in the NFL really effective at keeping opposing offenses off the field. And I imagine that's something that is a priority for the bills this week is try to keep Joe Burrow on the sideline where he can't hurt you. And then if you're the Bengals on the other hand, and I'm sure we'll get there, Alex, and apologies if I'm jumping ahead of your schedule here. But if you can force the bills to put the ball on the ground, this is a team that has had fumbling issues. If you can bend and not break and force some field goals instead of touchdowns, I think that's how the job.

defense can give you a chance. Now, this is the beauty. You guys just did a very long tease into our next conversation, which is how the Bengals contain James Cook. And maybe to what Jake, you're saying, maybe the answer is Chase Brown. We'll get into that coming up next right here on the Bengals squad show. Today's edition of Bengals squad is brought to you by Price Pick. So you and I make decisions every day, but on Price Picks being right can get you paid. How about that? Don't miss any of the excitement of this sports season, whether you're following the NFL, the NBA, or if you're like me, both, there's no better time to jump in on the action. If you haven't tried it yet, prize picks is the simplest way to play. Just pick more or less on at least two player stats.

And if you get them right, you win. It takes less than 60 seconds to make your lineup that you can play anywhere prize picks operates, including California, Texas, and Georgia. So I've been using prize picks during both football Sundays and the NBA tip-offs. It keeps every game exciting. I like picking my favorite players like Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry to see how my predictions play out. The new stacks feature is a game changer. You can now pick more on Steph's points, threes, and assists in the same lineup. And let's be honest, you'll probably win some serious cash doing that.

Plus, if one of your players leaves early with an injury, the injury reboot saves your lineup from a loss. Download the prize picks app today and use code locked on NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineup. That's code locked on NFL for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup. price picks. It's good to be right. Don't forget to check out Jake Liscoe and James Rupin's mega preview of the Bengals and the Bengals and the Bills on the Lockdown Mangles YouTube channel. And wherever you listen to podcast, Jake and James bring you locked down mangles, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the lockdown podcast network, the number one sports podcast network in America and the world, your team every day. And of course, if you missed it, you can go back and listen to James Rapine

and Lockdown Bill's host and Bill Squad host, Joe Marino, on their crossover edition as they dive into everything, Bengals and Bills. Are Greg Olson's going to be on the call Sunday on Fox for this game with Joe Davis and Pam Oliver? You're a tight-ends coach. What impressed you the most about Greg Olson from his playing days? Oh, brilliant. Very, very smart football player played ran great routes, exceptional hands. Greg Olson is the quintessential tight end in the national football league. He could take the top half at the coverage off, and he was more than functional in the running game. And I think that that has kind of gone away from, he's a true why, if you had to put it, which is a true tight end.

Not one of those guys that's on the move all the time, but it's actually his hands in the dirt. and his work is, and his body of work is on film for everybody to watch. It's muted, sorry. My bike was muted there for a second, sorry. Not only was Greg Olson a great player. He's a terrific analyst. And this will be the first time that he's calling a Bengals game, which I'm excited for. I'll actually be at this game on Sunday.

So looking forward to that, which we'll get to a little bit of the weather conditions in this matchup as we continue here on the Bengals' squash show. So James Cook, he's one of the best running backs in the NFL. He led the NFL, I believe, in Russian touchdowns last year, was 16. The Bengals are facing him on Sunday. They've done better against the running game in recent weeks, which is a good thing. But we talked about this in the first segment. James Cook's a different running back than a Derek Henry or Ramandre Stevenson

or any running back the Bengals have faced potentially this season. So when it comes to this, is it the Bengals defense being able to contain him somehow? Or is it maybe the compliment of the counter to it is we're going to keep Buffalo's offense off the field. We're going to take the ball if we win the coin toss. We're going to unleash Chase Brown. We're going to, you know, bleed clock early and often. Then the bills have to let Josh Allen throw because they're behind. Is it that or is it more so you're concerned about the defense being able to stop James Cook?

What are you guys seeing going into this? I mean, you'd have to open a two-score lead to try to get the Buffalo bills out of running the ball and try to make them a pass-first team. And even then, I mean, you have to probably get into the second half with the two-score lead if you really want to get Buffalo to stop running the ball. I think if they can hold the bills out of, you know, an explosive run, one out of three runs, that Pittsburgh game was brutal for the Steelers in the run game. Ray Davis coming off the bench had four runs of 10 plus yards on nine attempts.

James Cook had three runs of 10 plus yards last week. He had 32 carries, four and a half yards of pop. And it's not a lot of explosives for James Cook, but when you can spell him with Ray Davis, who's coming in there and busting off 10 plus yard runs, then you're averaging four and a half yards of carry yourself. You have the threat of Josh Allen. I think that forcing the bills to stop running the ball is going to be tough.

I don't know that that's something you can necessarily game plan for. I don't think that that is a plan that Zach Taylor should go into this game, expecting that to be the way this game is going to play out. The way that Zach Taylor sometimes does, right? Like we've seen him have game plans against the Denver Broncos, for example, where he's like, I know this Denver offense, and this is a couple of years ago now, like this Denver offense isn't scoring more than 13 points. All I need to do is get us to 17 points in this game.

I can play conservative. I don't think you can take that approach in this game. And obviously, sometimes your idea of how a game, is going to go isn't going to be right. I think we're expecting a lot of points in this game on both sides. Maybe it turns out to be a defensive struggle, right? We never know how it's going to go when these teams actually suit up on Sundays. But while I would use Chase Brown early and often in this game, and I think that you need to come into the game with a balanced approach of your Zach Taylor and Joe Burrow, who checks them out of a fair number of run plays on his own accord,

I don't think that you could rely on keeping the bills off the field in this game and sure the Bengals. I think that you're probably thinking, I just, I think you got to think about it with a Baltimore approach and just keep up. And I'm talking last year of Baltimore games where you try to open up those leads. You try to take advantage of opportunistic stops if your defense can get them for you. And then in the second half, maybe then you can get Buffalo to be passed first. But trying to do it early, I think that's setting yourself up for disappointment. I think it's a great point because you want to go with what you do best.

And in this case for the Bengals, it's Joe Borough and it's the Bengals receivers. We don't know if T. Higgins is going to play. He's been practicing limited up until this live show. But, or again, it goes back to the fundamentals of football in this case, stopping the run. We've touched on it. But the bill's tight ends to me that it's the most fascinating part of this offense. It's Donald Kincaid. It's Dawson Knox.

So how do the tight ends benefit the bills in the running game? How did the tight ends help the bills run the football so successfully? Don't forget Jackson Haas either. He has been outstanding as a rookie in the blocking game for the bills. You're right. You know what? I think formationally, you can get into some very balanced looks, utilizing all the tight ends.

And then in the play action game, not only naked's and boots, you're going to get the tight ends involved in the game. And that's really going to force the Bengals of lineback. especially the young ones, it's going to force them. Hey, am I reading play action? Do I get depth or and let everything happen underneath me? Or do I stay closer to the line of scrimmage? And now I got those overroutes by the tight ends.

And it seems to be hurting the Bengals quite a bit because of their depth. They're so tight to the line of scrimmage on play actions that all of a sudden you can't stop anything underneath it. So you know what? it's going to come down to where I think that Al Golden and his defensive staff is going to say, hey, we're going to make this thing a nine-on-seven run-stopping thing first on first and second down. Force it into that situation. Don't let them bleed the clock. And on offense, let's keep the game close. Because I think if you come down the stretch and both teams are close, then now it comes a quarterback back duel and I like Joe Burrow and his ability and his and his supporting cast over Josh

Allen's not Josh Allen himself but his supporting cast. Yeah. And I think that it could come down to right down to it could be a very, very, very close game when you look at it like this. And I think the onus is going to come on special teams. Play field position football. Don't end up with long ways to go with 80 yards to go. Give us some short fields, create a turnover, and hey, let's go play football, and let's fit into the game plan and then make those adjustments on the move. It's funny to say that, because I would like to see the special teams units as little as possible this week.

You know, I want to see the kicking teams on the field as little as possible for the Bengals. I think drives that don't end in touchdowns are going to be scary. but the other thing that I wanted to mention here is the corners in this game and the run game for the bills. Like I said last week, you saw so many of these James Cook runs bounce outside. He could be patient. It reminded me of Levi-on-Bell, Joe Mixen, the patient running style on some of these plays where you can wait and you can wait and you can wait. And then it's blocked up inside, I can bounce it outside. And hey, you know what?

I'm going to make Joey Porter tackle me. And that being the approach from, James Cook in that game. There are plays they had up the middle for sure as well. But I think the corners tackling in run support in this game, if they can get a game like they got out of Geno Stone against the New England Patriots a couple of weeks ago in run support, that would be a huge shot in the arm for helping to slow down this Buffalo running attack with James Cook. It's the most impressive thing about the Bengals victory against the Baltimore Ravens, and we'll get Art back here in just a second. It's the most impressive thing

because they were able to stop the run. Aside from a long touchdown run by Derek Henry in the beginning. They held him very much in check the rest of the way. And we've seen the Bengals defense over the years when Lou Ediruma was here as their defensive coordinator do that against high-profile teams offensively. They have mobile quarterbacks and had dynamic running backs. I mean, you can even go to the Chiefs matchups where you had Patrick Mahon, but you also knew to key it on guys like Clyde Edwards-Alaire, Isaiah Fichico, guys like that. So that's what this game, I think we're hitting on it here. It's going to come down to not only the quarterbacks, but it's also going to come down to can this Bengals,

defense put the bills in second and long situations, third in long situations, because as I already mentioned, and Jake, you concur, and I do too. It's the fact that the Bengals, or the bills rather, they don't have a as dynamic of a playmaking group as the Bengals do. You look at the bills, Keon Coleman hasn't come on like they hope for. Don Kincan and Dawson Knox are really good. We know that. But outside of Keon Coleman and Khalil Shakir, it's they don't have that downfield vertical threat that the Bengals have two of and Joe Burrow and T. Higgins. So if you can put the bills in those second and long, third and long situations by stopping James Cook, it's the fact that then you're going to bait Josh Allen into some mistakes like we saw in the games in the games past.

I mean, if you can go back to the 2023 game, he throws an early pick to Cam Taylor Britt. And then there was a fumble late in the game from Don Kincaid. the Bengals have taken advantage of Allen's mistakes. To do that, though, you have to put the bills in disadvantageous second and third in long situations. Yeah, absolutely. And that's going to be the challenge, right? I think the bills are a team that coming into this game, I would expect them to stay on

schedule more often than not. And that's why I'm thinking about not necessarily a consistent stream of stops. If the punters are on the field in this game more than four times for each team, I think I'd be surprised more than three times for each team. team I might be surprised and of course now that I say that my expectation is so high for the offenses in these in this game we're going to see suddenly a defensive struggle right and we're going to end up seeing a whole lot of these punters and art talking about that bill position game is going to turn out to be prescient and and a little bit of a nostradamus moment but we'll see which

which of those ends up being the way the game goes I'm thinking instead like I said about the bills have a proclivity to put the ball on the ground. Josh Allen's had a fumble issue throughout his career. It's been a little bit better in recent years. James Cook has put the ball on the ground twice last week, has done it a little bit this season. Might be hard to get him to do it two weeks in a row, but that opportunistic defense from the Bengals against the Ravens was a huge reason that they were able to pull away in that game. Much more steady against the Patriots a couple of weeks ago, getting Drake made and make some mistakes, bottling up the Patriots run game, which had been resurgent in recent weeks for them coming into this game

and tackling was a big issue for the Bengals that improved in that Patriots game. We'll see what version of the Bengals tackling defense we get this week. We'll see what version of gap discipline we get from the defense this week. We'll see what version of physicality we get. Gino Stone was a huge, huge difference, like I said, in that Patriots game. And if he's able to bring that edge and make a bunch of plays, that's an X factor that for the most part hasn't been there for the Bengals this year.

But when it does show up, like the Patriots showed us, it can make a difference. The other thing here is this is the best running offensive Bengals have faced since the Bears a few weeks ago in week nine. Bengals run-de has been better since then, but they also haven't faced a run offense at this caliber since then either. So big test for them in that respect. You bring up an interesting point, Jake, because I agree with you.

They have not faced a run game like the Bears that they're going to face on Sunday since the Bears. But the Ravens running game, we all thought was going to be pretty good and problematic. And the Bengals defense did a pretty good. job against it or generally speaking from an offensive perspective, how important is it to stay in those second and third and short situation, stay ahead of schedule and not get behind the sticks where you have to put the ball in the quarterback's hands and knowing you got guys on the other side, they're teeing off on him. We will get to Art here in just a few minutes. So he's got some,

we will get back to him in just a few minutes. All right. So we've talked about the Bengals defense. into a guy, Art will get back on here shortly. But we're going to talk about a guy that hasn't been playing since late October since before the trade deadline. Jake and James had talked a lot about him, but it may be a little more complicated than what you at home might think. We'll get into that coming up next right here on the Bengals squad show. So we know that Trey Hendrickson has not played for the Cincinnati Bengals since the first half against the New York Jets in week eight. And I don't think anybody really knows what's going on. with the Bengals all pro-edged rusher.

I mean, look, we all thought when he got that contract raise on August 25th, when he gets a $30 million deal for this season, it was like, okay, Chase check, Higgins check, Gisicki check, Henderson check. All four guys that Joe Borough mentioned Jake at the Super Bowl were signed, ready to go for this season. So now it's, well, where's Trey Hendrickson? And while the Bengals defense has made, excuse me, some strides over these last few weeks. I mean, what exactly is going on with Trey Hendrickson? Is it as simple as he's injured,

but what exactly is his injury? What do you know that maybe we don't know currently? Yeah, we talked about this a lot on lockdown Bengals a couple of days ago. So if you're looking for that in-depth conversation and you're in the audience today, you can go back and check out that episode. That would have been Tuesday. That would have been before the crossover episode or maybe even Monday. I can't actually remember now. The week is blurring. together, but we did talk about this at length on Lockdown Bengals earlier this week. And it kind of comes down to a bunch of questions that we just don't have the answers to. I don't know that I necessarily know any more than anyone out there at this point because

the information just hasn't been forthcoming. Zach Taylor, when asked about it, seems exasperated. And you can read into that one way or another. He is exasperated that he doesn't have his star player on defense and he's being asked about it a lot. He's exasperated that he has to talk about it. it every week or he's exasperated with Trey Henderson's approach. It's one of those three things.

We don't know why Zach is short and terse when he's asked about Trey Hendrickson every week, but he's cutting off questions saying Trey's going to be doubtful. When he's asked about, is Trey going to come back at some point this year, the answer is we're going to take it week to week. It's been week to week now for five weeks. And it hasn't really moved from that point. Nobody's seen or heard from Trey. I'm actually a little bit surprised we haven't heard from Trey Henderson's camp because

it has been a bigger story this week in Cincinnati media. And the pattern has been is that when Trey is in the headlines in any way, shape, or form, we start to hear from, we start to hear from Trey's camp as a follow-up. But the bottom line is that his injury, in terms of the designation on the injury report, has changed over time. We've seen it go from a back injury to a hip injury to a back and pelvis injury. We've seen the reporting that this is now a core muscle injury that's going to require surgery in the off season.

And so there's simply too much information that we don't know is my bottom line when it comes to Trey Hendrickson. It may just be that the injury is worse than we thought and he's maybe had complications and you can't use the IR because maybe there is a rolling chance that he could be back before four weeks and then there's a setback and now pushes the timeline out a couple of weeks again. But unfortunately, the NFL, the injured reserve isn't retroactive to the last time you saw a guy play like it is in baseball. So if you were to put him on IR now, that means he's missing the next

four weeks. So as long as there's a chance that he's going to be back in the next four weeks, the Bengals continue to keep him off IR and it continues to be a mystery to all of us on the outside. Yeah, and I think the interesting thing, Jake, is, and that's a great explanation for those of us who aren't aware of this, I think the interesting thing is the Bengals winning last week kind of opens the door a little bit to where, okay, maybe he could come back. And if the Bengals getting the driver seats with the AFC North. I mean, would anyone be shocked if we heard, let's say, going into the Miami game that, oh, yeah, Trey's good.

He's looking good to play this week. Arnold, turn to you as we welcome you back. When you have a guy like Trey Hendrickson, who's been injured for a few weeks now, hasn't played, was a distraction in the offseason, how can that negatively impact a team that's playing for their postseason lives and especially with a big game on Sunday? Well, you know what? The one thing I think they look at in the locker room is as long as this goes, and it's the best kept secret in Cincinnati. You know, what is his designation on the injury report each and every week?

No one knows. And neither do the players inside. And so they're saying, you know what, we've gone this long without him. We're going to have to finish this season without him. And I think that you've seen Osai and you've seen. Miles on the other side. They have started to step up their game because they know there's not a third or that guy that's supposed to lead him. And I think that they're going about it and saying, hey, you know what? If we get him back, great. If we don't get him back, we're going to finish this season strong. We're going to play to our potential, get ourselves better, and continue to move on. And if we do, hey, he's probably going to be back, even if we do get him back some point in time the next two, three weeks.

he's going to be on a pitch count during the games until he can get himself into playing shape. And if he doesn't do that, then what he's going to do and he's looking at another injury. And it might be something totally different than what he's got right now. But right now, I think the team's looking at, okay, that's management's decision on what they want to do with them. But you know what? We've got games to play. We've got games to win. And we've got to pick it up and do it ourselves.

That's a great point because you think. about guys like Miles Murphy and Joseph Osai. Not only are they taking advantage of Trey Hendrickson being out, but Shamar Stewart, who was the Bengals first round draft pick back in April, he was drafted because they didn't know what the future help for Trey Hendrickson, and they didn't really know what Miles Murphy was going to do this season. Now, Jake, when you look at the way he's played Murphy over the last three weeks, it's like, okay, Hendrickson's out. We don't know what's going on with him, but hey, we're getting production for Miles Murphy. Joseph Osai looked fantastic on Thanksgiving. It's like, okay, we still have.

have enough defensive ends, edge rushers, and defensive linemen to be able to be a functional group up front. Is that what you sense? I think they're changing a little bit schematically in the way they're asking their edge rushers to play as well, where I think when Trey Hendrickson was healthy and when Trey Hendrickson's on the field, a lot of the defense was constructed around, we're going to turn Trey Hendrickson loose and we're going to say, Trey, you go get the passer no matter what. We're going to ask our other defensive ends to play a lot of contain. I think that that's what Samar Stewart was doing a lot in college. That was maybe the plan for him initially in the NFL.

But I think if you look at the underlying pass rush data for Joseph Osai Miles Murphy, the pass rush win rates, which are how often are these guys beating the tackle in two and a half seconds? Those numbers from the first nine weeks of the season, the pass rush win rate for Miles Murphy was nine and a half percent. The pass rush win rate for Joseph Osai was 9.2 percent on true pass sets, which are excluding play action plays, excluding screens, excluding plays where you don't really get to actually rush the passer. Miles Murphy at 12%, Joseph Osai, at 11% on those plays. Not really winning at a high rate. Both of those numbers would be in the bottom quarter of NFL pass rushers.

Last three weeks, though, much better for both players. In overall pass rushing situations, Joseph Osai's win rate all the way up to 17%, which puts him in the top half of the NFL, maybe even the top, the top, quarter of the NFL, not winning at an elite rate in the way that a Miles Murphy is going to win, or not a Miles Murphy, a Miles Garrett is going to win 35% of the time, and he's doing ungodly things for the Cleveland Browns as a pass rusher this year, but winning at a rate that you can live with. That's at least above the median. In True Pass set situations, Joseph Osai's win rate all the way up to 18%, Miles Murphy all the way up to 20%. That's nearly double for both players that the amount of

times are winning in through pass set. Gotta have it. Those are your hard mode quarterbacking snaps where you're just dropping back as a passer without the help of a screen game, without the misdirection of a play action to help your offensive linemen out. Those are the plays that you just have to trust your protection to

win their one-on-ones. And these guys for the Bengals and Miles Murphy and Joseph Osai I think have had more opportunities to play as true pass rushers, not play and contain. I think you're seeing the chemistry with Miles and Osai developing in the stunt game. And I'm sure Mike has talked about that with you guys when Mike's been on with you talking about the past rush.

And I think you're just seeing those guys taking some steps as Al Golden is finding the right buttons to push, putting guys in better positions to get those one-on-ones and those guys are capitalizing a little bit more. Again, not at the elite level, but certainly at a level that's much better than we saw from them through the beginning of the season. Yeah, it's interesting too, because what you're mentioning with the changes schematically in our first show that the three of us did together, the very first Bengals Squad show we ever did was during the bi week or actually after the

biweek leading into the Pittsburgh game, first game out of the buy. And we didn't really know what Tray Hendrickson, when he was going to be coming back. He hasn't obviously come back since. But the one thing art that we have seen is the emergence of these young players like Miles Murphy and Joseph Osai and then and them together up front. And now you got people saying on social media that Joseph Osai should maybe be deserving of an extension in the offseason. Miles Murphy obviously could be up for one unless they pick up his fifth year option for 2027.

He was a rookie in 23. So when you have Trey Hendrickson and you look at the way they've adapted without him, they've become more focused on stopping the run. But also, when a defensive line can stop the run, does that make them more apt to rush the quarterback and then get to the quarterback and force turnovers like they did so many times on Thanksgiving night? Well, you know what? If you stop the run, hey, that's key because now you're playing and they can just put their ears back, tee it up and go and run up.

Try to beat them straight ahead with just regular pass rush. And if those are a little bit stymied, you switch it up by running those second level games that they've been very successful at lately. And if not, then you mix in a pressure, an overload pressure, whether it's four strong or four weak, and create one-on-one. especially with the linebackers and those two defensive tackles they have inside who are responsible to press the pocket and to push it the depth of the pocket so now those ends can start to make place. And I think what it does is it's allowing this defensive line without Hendrickson in the game to play more and to experiment more and to show more of what they do have. Now, in terms of next year and do we extend contracts, we'll wait until the end of the year.

But right now, hey, show us what you got if you're the man. If you are the guy, show us what you got against some of the elite offensive tackles in this league. But Jake, that goes back to Trey Hendrickson in the conversation. It's because he has obviously been, let's call for what it is, disgruntled since practically April of 24 when he first requested a trade. and it's been this ongoing saga. And this year, it's more frustrating for Bengals fans and really for the team because his production wasn't great when he was playing. And now he's been injured since week six practically.

And it just makes you wonder, let's say the Bengals do end up miraculously winning the AFC North. Is he going to come back for the playoffs? Is he going to be fine then? And then it's like, what do you do in the offseason with a guy that you know when he's at his best and healthy? one of the best edge rushers in the NFL, but at the same time, he's just been this distraction for this team over the last two seasons in what's supposed to be the prime of your franchise quarterback's

career. Yeah, well, there's a couple things there. First off, I think Tray, when he was healthy, was playing at the level you would expect Tray to play at. I don't think that his level of play when he was healthy was diminished at all this year. That's just my opinion. So I would push back a little bit there. Second thing is, yeah, I mean, he's a distraction, and that has been the case, and I think he's been disgruntled for longer than just a year. I think this goes back to a couple of years ago now, and it's been ongoing now for three seasons, and I think that's part of the exasperation for both sides here, is they're both a little bit sick of each other, and the half measures that the Bengals have taken that Trey has agreed to, it takes two here, for

to get to the situation that we see, has left them in that situation. The other thing that I would say is I don't think that you can really excuse that the Bengals hand in this. If this is, and this is a big if, I'm not throwing this accusation out there, but if this is Trey Hendrickson taking care of himself, the way that we have seen players do in the past in Cincinnati, Cordie Glenn, an example of this. And Jay Morrison was talking about this over on the Growler podcast with Paul Dayner Jr. There have been some examples of guys in recent Bengals history who have not necessarily gotten the kind of deals they were looking for, and then when there have been injuries, they've made

business decisions about it, right? And if that's what Trey is doing, and again, I'm not saying that he is. I don't know. But if that is what he's doing, then it definitely leads to some of the blame being on the front office for getting into this situation. And that's on both sides, Trey accepting the one-year extension, Trey accepting the one-year bump this year after previously agreeing to the one-year extension that left him under contract this year in the first place, instead of waiting and pushing for a multi-year extension at that point in time or just getting back to free agency in this season. But the way that both sides have approached this has led to both of them being incredibly frustrated with one another and no one comes out without blame. And it leads to this ugly situation.

We're still talking about here in week 13 in December when it shouldn't be a topic of conversation until the off season when these decisions need to be made. but instead, because this has been an ongoing saga, because we're not getting straight answers, we're still talking about it here before a do-or-die game for the Bengals that could effectively end their playoff hopes if it doesn't go the way they want it to go. That's exactly right. And that's how I think a lot of Bengals fans are feeling about this situation, Jake. So, Ridd real quick to wrap up this segment, when you guys beat the Raiders in Super Bowl 37, there was a player, correct me from wrong, but there was a player on the Raiders

who, what's the story? He either went missing or had something. He didn't end up playing in the game, at least if my memory serves me correct. Could you tell the Raiders were distracted by that going into that Super Bowl? Oh, absolutely. When you have Barrett Robbins, I believe it was his name. That's right.

He was the center and controlled their offense up front. And you go through practice the way that they did. and then all of a sudden he disappears. No one knows where he's at and he shows up. That perpetuated their frustration, and you can tell with all the comments after the fact that Callahan went a different direction with the game plan, with this, with that,

all of a sudden all of this noise started to happen. Distractions and playing chicken with management and players is not a very good situation for your football team. And those distractions take away from the task at hand, which is, hey, we're going to get on a plane on Saturday, and we're going to go there for one reason, one reason only. We're going to go there to win. And regardless of the weather, regardless of anything else,

we're going there to win. And either you're with us or you're against us. And that's the mentality that they have to have right now in that locker room. Because you know what, like we talked about before, hey, these are all playoff games. They got to come down and they got to show up. They got to get in every gap. They got to stuff it and make it difficult for them to run the ball, make it difficult for them to throw the ball. And then on offense, we just got to go put on a show.

It's exactly right. And, you know, you're either with us or you're not with us. That's applicable to this week because the Bengals are going into one of the tougher environments in the NFL, high mark stadium in Orchap. Park, New York. We'll talk about that and our other keys to the game. Coming up next right here on the Bagel Squat show. It's no secret that Highmark Stadium is one of the louder stadiums in the NFL. This is its final season. It's been standing since I believe in 1973. Are you coached in the NFC South with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? So when you went into a game in New Orleans or any stadium that was incredibly loud.

As an offensive, from an offensive lines perspective, what are you telling your guys before the game about crowd noise, cadence, et cetera? What are you telling them to make sure they don't commit too many false starts or whatnot to put your offense behind the sticks? Oh, he's muted. Sorry. I believe Art is muted. So we will get to him here in just a minute.

Art, if you can unmute yourself there. There we go. Okay. I'm sorry about that. There we go. No, you're totally fine. You're totally fine. All right, he's trying to tune out the crowd noise as we speak.

So when you get to go ahead. It's just like the offensive line. They got to be technically sound. And when you're untechnically, you become mute. So I think as you go into the game, whether they and they're working all week long with crowd noise being pumped in the background, they're working on their silent cadence. They're working on everything. They might have tape over their outside ears so they don't hear the crowd noise. They can only hear Joe's voice when he is.

underneath or getting close. There's a lot of things that they're working on this week. And when you go in there, the one thing that the coaches are probably preaching to them, there's only one way to slow a fan base down, and that's to get on the board and to get on early. And if you can quiet them down, it's going to be hard for them to rep, you know, getting themselves back amped up unless you allow them to. And so I think that the onus,

goes on, don't worry about that. Because you know what, as an NFL player, and I think 90% of them, they'll tell you, hey, I love the crowd noise. We're going to need it. We need it loudly. But the one thing that is good, you don't even realize the 65,000 people that are out there. You've got a job to do, and you have to be that focused. Yeah. And it's so interesting how we haven't really had a lot of conversations as far as from a concerning standpoint when it comes to the Bengals Office of Line because they've been performing at a good. enough level these last few weeks, particularly against the Ravens, particularly against the Patriots, even Chase Brown had a good game there. So we've talked about keys to the game,

stopping the run, maybe at some point establishing the running game with Chase Brown, if you can take some pressure off of Joe Burrow. But I feel like to me, guys, there's one other key to this game. And I feel like R you alluded to it, not only do the Bengals have a superstar quarterback. They have a superstar wide receiver in Jamar Chase. T. Higgins is also one. He may play this week. He's practiced in a limited capacity up to this point. We don't know if he's going to play or not. But for me, and Jake, you remember this, when Bill's general manager, Brandon Bean, after the playoff game in 23, when he said that he was never going to have his team be bad enough to where they had to draft Jamar Chase. And that obviously didn't sit very well with

some Bengals fans. Well, there's a difference in this matchup. And that's a the Bengals have Jamar Chase at their disposal and Burrow and Chase, when at their best, are the best quarterback wide receiver combination in the NFL. If Jamar Chase has turned loose and he takes over this game on Sunday, I quite frankly think that Bengals are going to be in a great position to win the game. Is that what you both think that could happen if Jamar and Chase has the kind of game that we have seen so many times him have in his career? I think that's what gets you into that Baltimore territory from last year.

And like I said, I have no real questions about the offense in this game. I expect them to go out there and do their thing. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe I should be tempering my expectations for this offense. It's just Joe Burroughs second game back after all. But it looks like he knocked the rust off in one quarter. And he had great protection along the way. And like I've said, at least on lockdown Bengals, maybe on this show as well,

I think that there's a bigger protection challenge with guys like Dionne Walker who can challenge you on the inside, just with freak, raw, athleticism, and talent. Greg Rousseau at defensive end for the bills, really good when he can pin his ears back, really good against the run. They have the best run support corner in the NFL in Christian Benford out there, one of the best run defending corners in the NFL. So while I still think the Bengals should be able to do the thing, because I expect T to play, we'll see. Maybe I'll end up wrong about that. But it seems like that's the way that it's been trending with him doing football activities for the last couple of days here. But if you have T. Jamar Burrow, a healthy offensive line going into the game, they've essentially got their entire offense out there.

The bills have not been a great defense. So maybe that's not fair, like I said. But if they can get going on offense, that's how you get into the situation that they had with Baltimore last year, where it's a tight game and you got to score last. And it could be one of those games with a team that has a ball last ends up winning. I do want to shout out one very interesting bit of analysis that I saw this week, because you were talking about the offensive line, talking about going on the road, silent count,

and these sorts of things. Orlando Brown last week was called for two false starts because he is great at timing up the snap, but sometimes if he's a half second off, he's getting called for the false start. And an opposing team is one of them called for a false start pretty much every play because he's moving as soon as that ball is snapped and has that quick get off.

And that's how he's maintaining depth. And those are his best games is when he's getting off the snap really well. And he did that really well against Baltimore last week. in a silent count game. The officiating crew this week, some of some official stats for you here. Here we go. If you get into ref stats when you're preparing for a game, but Brad Rogers is the officiating, the lead official for this week.

And a tweet from NFL ref stats points out that Rogers crew calls a lead, leagging 77% of their overall penalties on offensive special teams. A lot of those are false start and offensive holding penalties. The bills have a lot of false. start offensive holding issues themselves. Generally, when Joe Burroughs is a quarterback, the Bengals have been a very infrequently penalized team, but I'm watching those fall start penalties this week, especially for Orlando Brown trying to leave early, the offensive line as a unit trying to stay on the same page

with the silent count. But the other thing that was fascinating to me is that this is an offensive, sorry, an officiating crew that awards the fewest automatic first down penalties in the NFL when called on the defense. And that's the disadvantage for the Bengals here because with Burrow, Jason Higgins, the Bengals offense is one of the top five in the NFL in drawing automatic first down penalties. And so we'll see what happens when rubber reeds the road here. But I'm curious just to get your perspective on this. Did you ever go into a game thinking about these are the refereeing tendencies here

that we need to play around this week? You know what? I always looked at it early in the week. Okay, first of all, which is the crew that we're dealing with, finding those people and said, okay, when are they going to be on our sideline, either first half or second half, find out where they are, and then say, okay, rarely mentioned it to the players, didn't want them thinking about anything from a negative standpoint,

just really put the onus on, okay, hey, silent, don't forget to mix up the cap snap count. Don't forget to mix up the silent snap count to keep them guessing, to keep them flat footed a little bit. But we got to go out. We got to do our job the best we can. It's a great point. And I like Jake that you included that because there are some official crews

that personally, I believe, without looking at stats, that tend to call games more tightly than others. And you just hope that it's not going to be that way for Joe Burrow and Josh Allen on Sunday. Real quick, before we conclude today's show, gentlemen, give me one other key to this game that we haven't touched on yet. I think it's going to come down to some short yardish plays. I think because of what Buffalo is going to do in terms of the running game, they're going to be in some third and three, third and two, third and one's situations,

probably more apt than they're going to be in third and long situations. And I think that it's going to come down to their short yardage and goal line offense, or excuse me, defense, to be able to be able to. to shut them down and get the ball turned over and make them punch you. I feel like the only thing I haven't talked about because I've talked about Dionne Walker. I guess maybe I haven't talked about all of the Bill's corners by name. I guess I haven't talked about Cole Bishop, the Bill's safety, second year safety, who's been really good in coverage for them.

I'm not sure what we haven't gotten to, but I think maybe one thing would be the tertiary weapons for this Bengals offense. Obviously, it's a Chase and Higgins show. But if there is an adjustment from this Bill's defense, maybe she'll be. Sean McDermott watched the Bengals play the Steelers this year. And Joe Burrow wasn't playing in that game. So I'm not sure how much you can take away in terms of defensive preparation from a game planning perspective, knowing that Joe is going to be playing in this game and Flacko was playing in that game.

But what was so effective for the Steelers is we're going to double one. We're going to double five. We're going to make somebody else beat us. We can rush four. We're going to double one. We're going to double five. If that is the approach from Sean McDermott this week, then Joe Burrow once again, And as he's done, many times in the past, the Tanner Hudson touchdown last week, illustrative of this point, we'll need to get to his secondary and tertiary weapons.

Mike Keseki, Andre Yosevas, Chase Brown in the receiving game, go down the tight end depth chart. Tanner Hudson's going to have a handful of plays again, maybe a red zone package for him again. That's where they used him last week was high red zone. Noah Phant, finding ways to get these tertiary weapons involved if the bills are hellbent on dedicating multiple resources to he. Higgins and Jamar Chase. And then the other factor here, and I have alluded to this is if there are four guys accounting for two of your receivers, because that's what they want to do, they want to double double. They want to put a cap on all these guys. They want to cloud both these guys. If that's the approach from the bills, then the Bengals running game and being disciplined with sticking with the running game when you're getting those looks will be another factor here. That's part of the chess game to me. That's going to be very interesting when the Bengals have the ball this week. So what's interesting is go ahead, Art. I mean, he's absolutely right on. You know what? I mean, if they want to do that, there's three other eligible that got to make plays.

And don't worry about checking the ball out and moving the chains. Just keep the chains moving. That's ball possession. It's field goals are okay in a game like this, but you're going to have to get down in the red zone and free up one of those guys. And that's where the creative part of the offensive schematics come in to play this week. I got one more for you, Alex.

Go ahead. One thing that I don't think I've talked about in this show, but I have mentioned on Lockdown Bengals is I think we're starting to see, and I mentioned this, I alluded to this a little bit. Al Golden is starting to get a little bit more exotic with what he's doing on defense. We're seeing the blitz rate tick up, and that's where I was saying. I feel like he's starting to get a feel for some of the things that he wants to do and implementing them a little bit more, despite some of the issues at the second level,

despite some of the issues of Gino's own consistency and honestly, both safeties. But one of the things that I think got Lamar Jackson last week is I think, and I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think we're starting to see some rain pressures getting sprinkled in along the Bengals Blitz packages, which is an option pressure. And you could probably explain this better than I can. But as I understand it, the history traces back to Nick Saban. And essentially, we're going to show a bunch of pass rushers here. And we're going to read the center.

We're going to read the protection here. And if the center slides right, whoever's over on that side is actually going to drop out into coverage. We're going to make you wrong by reading the protection and optioning our blitz. I think we started to see that last week from the Bengals on at least a couple of occasions. That can generate some really advantageous matchups for you. That can generate some free rushers for you because you're declaring after the offensive line declares, you're starting to show all those guys potentially coming on the blitz.

But as soon as they declare their protection, you're dropping guys out trying to get into short passing windows, trying to get into the hot windows, bringing the rushers on the side that they slide away from where they're not going to have enough people to account for you. I think we started to see that from the Bengals last week, very interested to see what the Blitz packages look like if the Bengals get the bills into some clear passing situations this week. Those are the kind of games that are being played within the game

that are outstanding. You know, find where the point is. Are you going to blitz the back? You're going to blitz the back. Are you going to peel, you know, show everybody and sugar them and then bail guys out? You got to keep them guessing. Once you become very static in what you do, they're going to figure you out. And I think that's some of the things that Al did last week that were outstanding.

Overload the back. You know, those tight sets, bring them off the edge because you have people that are in coverage that can get there and cover guys down. I'll point this out. And Jake and Art you both have alluded to a tertiary weapons. The last time the Bengals and Bills play, week nine and 23, the Bengals tight ends combined for 10 catches, 101 yards, and two touchdowns. The touchdowns, how about these for names, Irv Smith Jr. and Drew Sample. And in the playoff game against the Bills in 22, one of the touchdowns that Joe Borrow through was to Hayden First, one of my all-time favorite Bengals. This has been a fun show, gentlemen. We will be back programming note on. Sunday night. We're going to go a little bit more after the game because I'm actually going to the game and I'm told that traffic is a nightmare getting out of Orchard Park and Highmark Stadium. We want to make sure for you at home that we have the best audio and visual quality. So are you, me and Mike Santagina will be back. We'll say around 730 Eastern time that night breaking down the Bengals and the Bills. Jake, we'll look forward to having you on next week for much more on this game and then look ahead to next week's ultra important AFC North Showdown. between the Bengals and the Ravens here in Cincinnati.

Jake and James are back with Lockdown Bengals. In fact, that's out right now on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast with their mega Bengals bills preview. Don't forget to check out all of our other Cincinnati sports lockdown podcast, lockdown barcats with Jeff Gar, head of the Skyline, Chile, cross town shootout on Friday night at the Centas Center. And of course, Jeff also go host Lockdown Reds with Stephen Offenbaker. Maybe just maybe there'll be some free agency news over the weekend as well. when it comes to the Reds. And a certain Middletown, Ohio native.

That is going to do it for us here on the lockdown, or excuse me, the Bengals Squad show, part of lockdown Bengals to supplement law-in-form conversational twice a week show. That is part of the lockdown podcast network, the number one sports podcast network in America and the world, your team every day. For Jake Lisco, at Jake Liscoe on Twitter for Art Valero, at Arthur Valero 3 on Twitter. I'm Alex Frank and Frankie underscore 90. Thank you so much for listening. Bengals and Bill Sunday at 1 o'clock.

Mike and I are back at approximately 7.30 Eastern time on Sunday for our live. Bangal Squad Show post game edition. Until then, Houda, and we will talk to you on Sunday night.