Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Do 2025 Defensive Adjustments Give Hope for Al Golden and Young Roster?

Starting point is 00:00:00 For a large part of the 2025 season, the Cincinnati Bengals defense was one of the worst we'd ever seen statistically. But they made some big changes halfway through the season that might have pointed them in the right direction. Let's break it down. You are locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. your team every day and the number one sports podcast network in the land. Shout out to the everydayers who are with us again today as we take a deep dive into the Bengals defense.

Starting point is 00:00:44 I'm joined today by James Rapine. I'm Jake Liscoe. We are your host of Lockdown Bengals and Cody Alexander with Matchquarters.com just took a deep dive into the big changes that Al Golden made in season with the Cincinnati Bengals. And could that have pointed them in the right direction? And that is what we're getting into today in addition to what Cody sees as some potential next steps for the Bengals. And Cody, you spent a lot of time, I think, digging into this Bengals defense. And I got to be honest with you.

Starting point is 00:01:16 I didn't expect anybody who doesn't cover this team every day to want to sit through Bengals defensive tape in 2025 and try to figure out what was going on. What's start there? What prompted you to be like, you know what? I want to watch is one of the worst defenses we've ever seen. That's what I want to do with my time and write about. Well, what I do every offseason. So the moment that the Super Bowl ends, I basically am going to go and watch all the teams. I think there's only going to be a couple of teams that I don't watch just because either their defense

Starting point is 00:01:46 coordinator is not in the league this year or it just doesn't matter. But, you know, yes, I have watched the Jets tape. So if you've been following me on Twitter, I'm showing Jets clips. See, the Bengals will be next. But that's essentially what I was doing. And going through this, it was very evident at the beginning of the year. They were trying to do a lot of different things. And what I thought was really ironic is that they hired Golden to come in and be simple, right?

Starting point is 00:02:14 Because Anirumo, the complex coverages, he's trying to do these five-man pressures with quarters behind them. But then we're also trying to do these other rotations. We're trying to do a bunch of stuff, right? But the secondary couldn't fix it. And then you watch the tape and it's like they did the exact same thing. And it feels like it was like, hey, we want to do some of these things that he was doing, but make it simpler.

Starting point is 00:02:36 And I think we've seen that in time and time again, when defensive coordinators are given a directive, that we want you to do this certain thing that's not necessarily who they are. You see that. And so that's kind of what I wanted to look at was like, what was the evolution of this defense? Because it did get better in the second half. And it was pretty evident after the by week what exactly happened. Yeah, I think that's what I was going to ask next, is when you noticed the change,

Starting point is 00:03:05 you just said it was evident. What was the eureka moment where you're like, oh, this is completely flipped and they're doing things much, much differently than they did early in the season when a lot of our listeners and viewers wanted to gouge their eyes out if we're seeing from this defense. Well, I said in the article, they literally went from a sit-and-get defense

Starting point is 00:03:25 where we're going to diagnose everything. We're going to use coverage disguise. We're going to use alignment structures and kind of move guys around. I think they were trying to play everybody right and left so that you essentially are double teaching everything. You come back off of the buy and it's essentially they played almost, I think it was over 68% single high coverage. Then their blitz rate goes up. They were the lowest blitz rate in the NFL heading into week 10 by. at one point at the very beginning of the year, they had like a 4% blitz rate.

Starting point is 00:04:02 I mean, they literally, that's why I said, sit and get to then run and hit. So it was like, then you come back and it's man coverage. Guys are in the positions that they're just going to play. They're running to the football. They're less diagnostics before the snap. Everything is kind of in front of you. You know exactly what you're going to do. They picked up a little bit on the blitz rates.

Starting point is 00:04:26 think it ended up being closer to 30% in the back half of the season, which is right around league average right now. So it was very much a, we're trying to diagnose everything to very much like, hey, I'm going to tell you where to go and you're going to do it or you're going to have this man and you're going to cover him and really simplified it that way. When you compare those two approaches, because there's a spectrum in the NFL, right, as far as what level of complexity you're getting, what level of simplicity you're getting. And in any case, the level of talent you have is going to play up. If you have a really talented group, maybe they're able to execute some of the more complicated stuff.

Starting point is 00:05:04 If you have a really talented group and I'm thinking of Houston, when I say this, you can go out there and do what you do at a really high level. And it's just going to work because you have the talent to make it work. And the Julian love quote after the Super Bowl talking about why Seattle's defense worked really stuck with me when he said, you know why it works is essentially talent, obviously crediting the scheme. but like we have the guys to make this work at every level. Where do you think the most successful defenses in the NFL are on this level, on the spectrum of complexity as you're discussing where the Bengals started,

Starting point is 00:05:36 what they were trying to do and where they finished and what they ended up doing? Yeah. So there's kind of a sliding scale, right? Like I think if you're in what's interesting is like if you're not talented, you have two choices. You have to either try and smoke. and mirrors, move around, do different things, force the issue, or be really simple and just focus on technique. Focus on the fundamentals. On the other side of that, when you're really

Starting point is 00:06:04 ultra-talented, yeah, you can do a bunch of different things, but it's kind of like I look at Seattle and you mentioned Houston, they can do complex things. And there are times that they bring those schemes out. But they don't have to do that. Those guys can already diagnose at a high level. They can then fit and kind of cover where they want. There's a lot more nuance involved in both of those schemes than overall just, hey, look at this really cool blitz we did, or look at this really crazy coverage rotation, or we really tricked the quarterback on this one. A lot of it is just we're taking away space. And I think what you saw with the bingles was more or less like, look, we're catching runners. We're not getting, we're not meeting. We're not meeting

Starting point is 00:06:52 anybody at the line of scrimmage at the second level. Then at the third level, it was like, we're really just not making tackles because guys are worried more about being in the right spot than they are about, you know, necessarily tracking where the ball is going. So then in that back half, it's like, look, what if we just went into more of a 425 cover one, we're going to then walk Demetrius Knight down onto the line of scrimmage, don't drop him into coverage, actually allow him to do what he's good at. which is being a blitzing linebacker, get in.

Starting point is 00:07:25 And so the nuance there or like the, because we don't want, that's the other thing in the NFL. You don't want to just run like a four, two, five, cover three. Like we've seen that. Like Gus Bradley's a great example with the Colts. It's just that you sit in the one thing and then everybody kind of figures it out. And then you don't really have an answer for anything. And so what you saw was we'll simplify it,

Starting point is 00:07:45 but we'll have a few little tweaks in the back end and then on the front end to give you different presentations that can then help us as we go through the season. Cody Alexander of Matchquarters.com is our guest. Cody, I have a question about the sit-and-get philosophy, especially at the beginning of the year and see maybe how it might have applied to the Bengals plan entering last season. So we'll get to that and probably talk a little linebacker play as well coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by five-hour energy. Five-hour energy is, well, here for you, and it's here for you because it's going to help power you through an off-season that could be busy. And the five-hour energy flavor draft, well, they're looking at every aspect of the draft.

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Starting point is 00:10:25 That's a job for Indeed sponsor jobs. All right, Cody. Let's dive into this, sit and get a little bit more because I think the way the Bengals looked at it with Al going into last year was we have Joe Burrow. They always talk about getting out to the lead. I feel like Zach Taylor, if he had a dollar for every time he talked about playing with the lead, he'd have twice the salary that he makes on an annual. basis. Did that match, like the idea that they would win with their weapons, they would get out to a lead, they'd have this offensive firepower with the defensive philosophy you saw maybe in the first half where they thought they would have Joe Burrow and an MVP candidate and playing with the lead? Does that line up at all?

Starting point is 00:11:09 Yeah, I thought, I mentioned it in the offseason when they hired out golden, they really didn't kind of do anything for the defense. It was kind of like, okay, they're going to college style. It's like Big 12 football, right? Like old school big 12 football where they're just going to try and score 40 points a game and then hope to hang on and just get enough stops, right? Get some turnovers. And I think that's what you saw with just a really passive way of playing is we're just trying to get guys with their eyes on the ball, get some, you know, don't let, don't give up any explosives.

Starting point is 00:11:41 We'll tackle, you know, the ball carrier and we'll keep everything in front of us. And hopefully we can get some turnovers. And that just, I think that the. two wins at the beginning probably exacerbated the problem going forward because it's like, okay, look, yeah, this plan's going to work. I mean, like I said, they weren't even, they weren't even attempting to, a 4% blitz rate is insane. Like, even for a game, like, you're not even trying to affect anything when you do that. And so then you were looking and it's like, okay, they've got guys kind of playing left and right or they're trying to move guys around to

Starting point is 00:12:14 kind of get matchups. So everybody's trying to learn something technical on the back end. And it just Once Burrow went down, it just kind of, it imploded, right? Because you could just see this. And even then, you're still allowing almost eight yards a pop on dropback passes. So it was like they weren't, they weren't getting. It wasn't like they were turning people into Checkdown Charlie's like the Seahawks. They were literally getting almost a first down every time they were passing. So it just didn't work.

Starting point is 00:12:40 Who is Charlie? Is that like Charlie batch? Is there like a specific guy? Like, are you throwing, is somebody catching a stray with Checkdown Charles? No, I think, you know, it's just the phonetic of like CHCH, right, Charlie. Yeah, I would hate to be a quarterback named Charlie and then being a checkdown, Charlie. Yeah, only a couple of those that I can think of up. I mean, I went to Charlie Batch for crying out of.

Starting point is 00:13:02 But let's talk a little bit more about what wasn't working. Is that? Yeah. I mean, the next Charlie I was thinking of is Charlie Kohler, who would be the recipient of some of the checkdowns. Like, there you go. Not a lot of it. Charlie Joyner. There's a good one.

Starting point is 00:13:17 Let's talk a little bit more about the first half of the season here because as you described this philosophy to me, I don't think that the guys they had could even execute on the plans that they had, not even just from a schematic perspective, but from a physicality perspective, right? You're talking about we're going to keep this in front of us and then tackle. Do you think that tackling, which is an issue that we've talked about on this podcast, much more than we would care to talk about the fundamental of defensive football. Is that something that you think improved as guys were able to play faster? Was it that they were thinking too much, not playing fast enough?

Starting point is 00:14:00 Or is it more complicated than that? Is it also like literally a physical limitation of the guys currently on this roster? Well, I think it's a tracking problem. And I think at the second and really at the third level from the, secondary, it's a tracking problem. We're playing a lot of zone coverage. You have guys that just are having a difficulty tracking. One of the things that you are seeing more and more NFL kind of defenses go to is getting either having a guy on staff. Partridge was a great example for the Seahawks, who was basically what's called a tackle boss. And this is something that you're seeing from the

Starting point is 00:14:37 high school level, college level, and going on into the NFL. If you are a fan of the NFL, you probably don't realize the NFL has about 60 to 65 plays a game. Of those, you're looking at maybe 35 to 40 tackles. Think of all the incomplete passes. Think of all the guys that just run out of bounds. So this is not something, and it's really interesting because one of my good friends is Richie Gray, who is essentially the NFL tackling guru. He's a guy that taught the Seattle C, I mean the Philadelphia Eagles, the tush push.

Starting point is 00:15:09 So he's kind of a rugby guy. He's the only human being he's worked in rugby league, rugby union and the NFL. Like the guy is a tackling guru. He is like the best guy. And one of the things that he talked about when he came to the, came to America, was like he couldn't believe that the, especially at the NFL level, they just didn't teach tackling. It was like, well, you're a professional athlete.

Starting point is 00:15:30 You'll figure it out. And so I think like there's a, there's a little bit of some of these organizations are lagging behind the trend of getting an actual tackle boss or getting consulting from somebody that that's all they do is tackling and coming in. How can we implement this into this and make it part of it? I think there's so many people that are afraid of injuries or we're trying to not, you know, go what the rugby guys call bone on bone every week and really smashing these guys.

Starting point is 00:15:55 How can we keep them healthy? And so I think what to your point is when you're a linebacker and you are young and you're trying to diagnose and you're trying to learn how to fit and I've got, you know, I'm basically watching the play. what can happen is you become a watcher. You're not attacking. And so if you're like, I have to remember this coverage check. I have to remember this alignment check.

Starting point is 00:16:18 I have to get the front set to this way. So you're going through your pre-snap checklist. By the time that you get to the fact that, oh, I've got to go run and hit somebody, you're in a fog. And so when you see things in front of you, and I thought like the whole premise of my piece was centered around Demetrius Knight because I felt like he was kind of that, person that really kind of exemplified what the change was. Here we have a kid that's literally catching the runner at about six and a half yards. He's lining up at about five yards off the ball.

Starting point is 00:16:52 So that gives you a little bit of a perspective. He's literally catching the runner. He has no idea where to fit, how to get into where he's going. When he was excellent, it was when he was blitzing. And like you just blitz him into a gap. And it wasn't great in coverage, because I'm trying to figure out all these different things. And now that's not necessarily a signal that he can't handle it mentally. It was just at that point in that time, you were just seeing this across the board. So that passive style of like, well, just don't get beat. We've seen this time and time again at almost any level of football.

Starting point is 00:17:28 If you're playing to lose, you're going to end up losing. A couple things there. And I think we'll talk more about Demetrius. But do you know if Richie's available for August? I know Bengals fans are probably going on. I'm sure he is. I tell Rich all the time, I do a lot of his marketing work for him. But yeah, so, but he, you know, there's other, there's other obvious entities.

Starting point is 00:17:50 And then obviously a lot of these coaches, I think that's the other thing, too. A lot of these coaches know how to teach tackling. It's just the, what happens a lot of times is coaches are so focused on the schematics of it. And they're so focused on the down to down that they forget that the. end of the play is actually as important as where you're starting. And so I think the emphasis on tackling and that I think it's really interesting. The best defenses in the modern game right now are able to tackle it corner. And if your corners will tackle, that typically means everybody on your roster will tackle.

Starting point is 00:18:27 And so go and look at like you mentioned the Texans. Those corners hit. Even Stingley. Stingley, he was up right. I mean, he has every excuse to not hit. Well, why did Rick Wollin not pull? play very often for Seahawks. I mean, they had to basically bench him two years ago when McDonald got there because you refused to tackle. You know, you had a little bit of a better

Starting point is 00:18:45 year last year and then we were kind of back to the same thing. But Joe and Witherspoon, you put those guys close to the box. They will tackle. Well, who's the one guy in a wide zone scheme, which has been taking over the NFL now for what, almost a decade, is that the corners are left unblocked. Alex Gibbs, the basically the inventor of the wide zone, you know, in a clinic. It's this, it's famous quote now of like your, your corners are as bad at tackling as ours are in the NFL. That's why we don't block corners. So there's already a deficiency. And what you're seeing is smart defensive coordinators realizing, well, hey, if we if we really dig into these fundamentals and we really lean into the technical pieces of the, what is football, the

Starting point is 00:19:28 foundations, it's like building a mansion on sand. If you have no foundation, it's going to sink, right? It's going to fall off of a cliff. And so what you need is that solid foundation and those come from the fundamentals. Yeah, they certainly do. There was a Gino Stone joke in there that I'm not going to make, but there were a few times where I was tempted, but you're on a role there, Cody. But yeah, we'll get into the linebackers and continue this conversation coming up next. Hey, it's Matt Derry from the Lockdown Lions podcast. The people I love depend on me. If I'm gone, the financial responsibilities don't disappear. I didn't want my family figuring things. out during the hardest moment of their lives. That's why I knew only one place to go. I chose life

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Starting point is 00:21:07 initial design didn't work, but we want to get to what worked in the adjustment they made and how Demetrius Knight, in your mind, was at the center of it. Because we're among them, a lot of people that follow this team closely or cover this team have been fairly critical of Demetrius Knight as a second round pick, given his pre-draft status and where we thought he'd be picked, the other players that were available at the time and how he played as a rookie who was really thrown to the wolves, along with fellow starting rookie linebacker Demetrius or Barrett Carter. So what was the thing that clicked for Demetri's like?

Starting point is 00:21:41 What did he do well in your eyes down the stretch for this team? Well, I think it goes with what the NFL defensive meta is starting to become, especially in Nickel, is that, yeah, you may line up in a four down front, but we've got to get to some of these five-man front structures. And so what I think what you saw post-by was we're going to use him as almost like a de facto edge. And that was the other thing, too, with him. Hendricks being, being hurt for much years, like, how can we manufacture more of a pass rush? Okay, well, hey, we have this kid ultra athletic.

Starting point is 00:22:15 He's not really good at diagnosing. What they were doing at almost a 60% rate pre-buy was they were lining him up on the line of scrimmage and then just dropping him into coverage. And a lot of times, and I have a clip in my article of where it's just like, he's kind of just hanging around the line of scrimmage. He has no idea where he's supposed to go. He's just kind of feeling around. And then the ball goes right over him where he's supposed to actually.

Starting point is 00:22:37 be dropping. And so I think when you start digging into it, and I noticed it. It was really interesting because the way that I watched film, because I'm not, I'm not riding for a beat and I'm not trying to, like, I'm not trying to tell you how the playbook works. I'm really looking for like tendencies. I'm looking for, you know, schematic trends, like what's going on. I just started noticing. I was like, wow, okay, they're starting to really blitz night all the time. And so then I started doing a little bit more research, getting into the stats. And I'm like, yeah, this is a completely different defense on the back half of the season. You just really see it. He starts lining up on the line of scrimmage and he's blitzing. It wasn't that we're putting him there and then we're dropping

Starting point is 00:23:13 him out. He's not diagnosing anymore. He's actually going. And then you start seeing them, using him in some of these internal blitzes that were just, he starts getting tackles for loss. And so kind of highlighting his strength there, I think also leaning into base to make it a lot more easier. They started running a lot more loaded boxes, meaning that there's eight guys around the box. Well, what does that do for you? It gaps you out. So, everybody has a gap, you know exactly where to fit, and you fit that gap. And so I think just simplifying the process for him and then just using him more as a blitzer in that hybrid, like a Frankie Louvre or a Zach Bonn or a Jehaw Campbell, even from the Eagles,

Starting point is 00:23:51 like they have two of those guys. And what are we talking about? You mentioned like Arvall Reese at the very beginning. It's like, what makes him special? Well, he lines up on the line of scrimmage and can actually blitz and has the size of an edge but can play that off ball backer. And I think more and more defenses are looking for that. And so to me, Knight kind of fit that role.

Starting point is 00:24:11 And on the back half of the season really showed that they were leaning into that kind of new NFL meta. Do you think that's kind of more of what Al Golden wanted to do? Or is he adapting to his personnel? Was it more like, I'm going to do more of what I did at Notre Dame? You mentioned the single high, a lot of cover one stuff. Or do you think it's him realizing what he had and how we could get the most out of his players? Well, he's not even the only one too, but I mean, like Dax Hill primary like primary boundary corner. I'm just going to leave you over there.

Starting point is 00:24:40 I think it's a Jaden Davis move. Just, hey, we're going to leave you at nickel. Like so you started seeing like guys that are like, this is your job. You will play this. I'm not going to ask you to do a bunch of different things every single week. He was part of that. So yeah, I think that, you know, you watch those Notre Dame tapes, a lot of cover one, a lot of hybrid fronts. it was it was basically like what I said at the beginning of this is it looked like he was directed

Starting point is 00:25:07 hey we really want you to keep things passive just keep everything up front we like some of these things that we that anorumo is doing or hey we kind of like what the ravens are doing over here because there were some these cover six rotations that you see from the fan geo guys and and the ravens crew where they're kind of moving their cover two around and their split field coverages and then after the buy those kind of went away like I said it was almost 70 single high coverage and it was mostly man coverage and and it just everything just got better and so it was just very very evident on the film as far as demetrius knight is concerned just to go back to him a little bit because when when he was drafted in the second round everybody's eyebrows went up due to his age and all of those things you're right he made plays down the stretch is are you hopeful that that he can be one of these these pieces of a equality bengal's defense moving forward is that real based on what you saw in the second half of the season? Yeah, I think they found a role for him.

Starting point is 00:26:08 And I don't think that he necessarily has to be a all-pro guy like a Frankie Louvo. I think if he can grow in that role and you make it simple for him and it's like, hey, you're really going to be our main blitzer. We've seen this play over and over. Drake Thomas for the Seahawks, he was the main blitzer. Ernest Jones really didn't blitz that much. He was kind of more of the diagnostics guy, the Mike. guy getting everybody in. Drake Jones was kind of used as a leveraging tool because he could,

Starting point is 00:26:37 he was a good blitzer. We've seen this with, uh, pace with the Vikings, uh, where he's kind of that B gap insert guy, uh, that he's more of the blitzer guy. Uh, so you kind of go through the NFL and there tends to be certain guys that have this, especially in this hybrid off ball role, where they become essentially the blitzing linebacker. And then you have kind of your best linebacker is more of that diagnostic guy. He's the green dot. He's trying to get everybody in line. That guy's you're kind of your box linebacker and he's the one that sits there in the middle. So I do think that there is some potential. I mean, he's super athletic. He's very big. And just sometimes it takes a second for people to figure out what role on the team. And I think that you don't have to,

Starting point is 00:27:23 again, you go back to what Golden did it at Notre Dame. It wasn't exotic. They played the most cover one in all of college football, but where they were kind of, you know, if you want to put exotic tag on it or where were they different, is that they were hybrid in the front. They bounced around from even to odd. And though that seems like a very simple thing, going from an open B gap bubble to no B gap bubble for a modern offense, who was trying to search for that BGap bubble, it really changes the structure of your play calls. And when you're doing it post-snap, or I mean, pre-snap, and you're changing, it really quickly, you're putting the mental load back on the offensive line, who now has to

Starting point is 00:28:04 recalibrate how they're going to block this run concept that was just called, or, hey, now they gave us a five-man front, everybody's going to have to man block. That changes our blocking scheme as well. Everybody now has to be on the same page in terms of protection. So it's a, I call it passive pressure because it's not overt raw pressure, but you're kind of in a nuanced or passive way applying a lot of mental pressure onto the offensive line and then the quarterback. So I have two questions that are forward looking to kind of wrap up and think about where this thing can go because we've talked a lot on this podcast about the Bengals need to add to all three levels of their defense.

Starting point is 00:28:44 They need talent. And even if they figure out the scheme, which is part of my question here, they need talent. They need to improve their pass rushers and their stock there. We've talked a lot about adding a starting veteran level linebacker. and I'm curiously at your take on on that piece in particular. I think they have a need at safety very blatantly, very clearly. There's a reason that Bengals fans are talking about Caleb down so much looking ahead to the draft. So the two questions are, and I guess maybe these are pretty big questions.

Starting point is 00:29:15 One, do you think that Al Golden found what he wants to do in the NFL, a defensive identity for how he wants to approach this thing? And two, are you kind of on the same page as us where you see this as like a third? three level talent acquisition priority for the Bengals this offseason. Yes. And I think that if you're looking for a high priced free agent to come in or look, it would be awesome if you could go get Rick Wollen and put him to the boundary, put Daxhill to the field and just say, hey, we're really not asking you to do much, but other than cover the X receiver, right? But I just don't think that that's going to be necessarily what's going to happen. I do agree with you that you need somebody on each level.

Starting point is 00:29:56 So you need an edge. You need somebody because what you're seeing is you really only need one edge because I think Knight can actually play that role of, hey, if we need a blitzer or so you really need one premium guy. I think at linebacker, if you feel comfortable with Knight going into kind of year two and him growing in that role and developing him a little bit more, you did like you mentioned, you did put a second round tag on him. So you're going to want him to end up playing. finding more of a box linebacker,

Starting point is 00:30:27 kind of that signal caller, the leader of the defensive front, I think is another example of that and cleans up a lot of that interior, kind of those second level runs, right? Like, okay, our D line didn't hit,

Starting point is 00:30:38 but we're going to be able to clean it up with the guy next to you. And then I think, like you mentioned, the safety play in general, just since Jesse Bates has left, has really been what has killed this defense. And that's something that I've talked about,

Starting point is 00:30:53 if anybody's followed me that I've talked about too over and over. It's just really since Jesse Bates left is like they have not been able to figure out that safety room. I think that there will be a few free agents that fit that role. But again, this free agent class is not great. And there's not a lot of guys that you're looking around saying, okay, we think he'll be a cat casualty and then we can go after him. So I do agree with you in, I do agree with you. in the sense, like in the draft, you're probably going to have to, I mean, look, if Caleb Downs is there,

Starting point is 00:31:28 you probably do need a draft and because it cleans up a lot of your nickel position, but then he can also play back so that hybrid role playing a lot of man coverage. I think that you have that ability to do that. But those are definitely spots. And that's not something you necessarily want to enter into a season where you're like, okay, Joe Burroughs going to be healthy. Offense. We feel like we've got it figured out. I just need you to be 16th best defense in the NFL. right but it's like you have glaring issues i mean even with both of your edges now like osai is is a free agent are you going to bring him back and then hendricks are you know how what what's that whole saga how's that going to end i mean i know i'm sure you guys are done talking about it uh the linebacker position i think

Starting point is 00:32:12 you're really young yeah but can we get a veteran guy that starts for us yeah so that we don't have this, you know, so that we can kind of use the other two young guys as kind of these fitters. And then by, like you said, the safety room has to get figured out. I think the interesting thing to me as you were kind of rattling off all the things that they need and we know that they have a ton of needs, we may learn a lot more about Al Golden as a defensive coordinator this year if they do add the necessary talent that we're expecting them to add next month and in the draft. And at least there's a sign.

Starting point is 00:32:49 And go read about it. Matchboarders.com, the whole write-up over there from Cody Alexander. You can also find him on Twitter. I said something recently that you got to be careful about who you follow on Twitter because anybody can, you know, in this age of TikTok analysis, anybody can put up a piece of film and talk about it authoritatively. I think Cody knows what he's talking about. Find him on Twitter at the underscore coach underscore A. Cody, we appreciate the time, the in-depth breakdown on what's going on with this Bengals

Starting point is 00:33:13 defense and an interesting perspective on Demetri's night. And I got to say that's going to be something. that we revisit because while we acknowledge certainly that he had some strong games down the stretch there, I think this kind of puts it in a new light for a lot of people that I think a lot of Bengals fans and our listeners haven't heard that level of, I think I would describe it as optimism for Demetrius Knight's future and how he fits into Al Golden's defense going for us. We really appreciate the time and the great conversation. Cody again, find him at the underscore coach underscore A on Twitter and match course.

Starting point is 00:33:49 orders.com for everything he does. And until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the lockdown Bengals podcast, Hoodey and have a good.

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