Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - DOMINANCE: Bengals CRUSH Dolphins Behind BIG Day From Joe Burrow and Opportunistic Defense

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals had some fun in Miami, and takeaways led to a runaway victory as Joe Burrow threw for 4 touchdown passes and the Bengals turned in a ton of highlight plays. Jake Liscow and James Rapien break down what matters after a game the Bengals dominated despite being eliminated from playoff contention, including the ramifications for future Bengals teams.Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans.Click here to learn more and join your team’s community:** https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclubJoin the Locked On Bengals Insider Community! https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengalsFind and follow Locked On Bengals on your favorite podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-bengals-daily-podcast-on-the-cincinnati-bengals/id1159723162Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AObc0lh0WmQl5fJVgtajsGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbG9ja2Vkb25iZW5nYWxz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwio_sXtj8nuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-bengalsSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!CarGurusShop the way you want with the tools, data, and unbiased deal ratings that make it easy.  Buy or sell your next car today at http://CarGurus.com.FanDuelIf 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. PrizePicksDownload 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/LOCKEDONNFLGametimeDownload 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.

The Bengals are out of playoff contention, sure, but they had some fun in Miami as they put a beat down on the dolphins. Let's break you 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 Locked on Bengals podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network now, the number one sports podcast network. He's James Rapine. I'm Jake Lisco.

We are your host of the Lockdown Bengals podcast covering your Cincinnati Bengals every day. We've been doing it since 2016. It's your best place on the internet, even on the week of Christmas, James, to get all things Bengals. And we will have you covered this week. We will have a programming change this week for the holiday, but you'll still get your episodes as the Bengals season goes on. And they prepare to host the Arizona Cardinals next week. Today we talk about an absolute stopping. The Bengals win 45 to 21 on the strength of a 21 to 0 third quarter.

What was it, 35 straight points at one point for the Bengals as Quinn Ewers and the dolphins couldn't stop turning the ball over. The Bengals capitalizing on those opportunities playing complimentary football against a bad football team. And you wonder why they couldn't have just done this against the Jets. But there were a lot of highlights in this game for the. the Bengals James. And yeah,

playoff contention, not part of that. But in today's episode brought to you by a Fandall where if you want to be in the middle of the action all season long,

you can place your live bets at fandwill.com. There's still a lot of highlights in this game, right? There are a lot of nice moments in this game. Joe Burrow after the game saying he had fun.

A lot of Bengals fans down there. The Bengals weren't on a silent count, which tells you a little bit about how many Miami fans are at that game, at that stadium behind you for those of you that can't see, James recording with us from the stadium down in Miami. And nice day for the Bengals to go out there and get some feel-good vibes going on.

Yeah, it was. It was, you're right, it was odd. So obviously I'm in the press box and I spend most of the game in the press box, but I went down in the crowd at halftime and for the start of the third quarter and watch that first turnover that kind of really put the Bengals in control. And that's when they took this game over is honestly a 751 stretch, less than eight-minute stretch, where they score 21 points. They forced two turnovers. The offense moves the ball down the field for the first touchdown.

Samadj P. Ron, Chase Brown gets two touchdowns in there. Miles Murphy with the huge fun. Like, that's where the game completely changes. And you're right. Like, when the Bengals made a play, like, during that turnover, I could really feel, oh, there are a lot of Bengals fans here. And you saw them, but it got really loud. It got really loud when they got that fourth downstop. And that doesn't happen on the road.

Usually it's silent. Usually it's fans that are like, what in the world is going on, right? And that's what they should have been wondering. And I'm sure Dolphins fans that were here were wondering that. But to your point, Bengals fans had fun today, too. There were a lot of fans here at Hard Rock Stadium. And it was fun. I think it was enjoyable watching Joe Burrow.

and this team do what they did. I think it was pretty predictable. The more I thought about this game going into today, I talked to a buddy of mine that I wrote in with, and I was like, look, I think the Bengals are going to whip their ass. I just, I thought Joe was going to play really well. And Quinn yours, you expect him to make a mistake or two. And that's sort of how the game played out.

And it wasn't a beat down from the jump. It was 14 to 10 dolphins late in the second quarter. But I never really thought that this was in danger. It just felt like again, the Bengals were going to win. And they did win. And I think a lot of fans are like, eh, you know, it's like a hollow victory almost, considering the circumstances. Oh, it's definitely hollow.

There's no doubt about it. You cannot take too much away from this game. That's just the reality of it. That's like the overall framework from which. Wait, you're saying they can't build on this game into next week, into the week after, into the offseason, into trade. for the next couple weeks sure but like neither of us to make it clear for everybody out there listening neither of us believe in momentum carrying over from one year to the next I don't know if you believe

in momentum period I barely believe in momentum period I don't know if I do believe in momentum period that's conversation for another day during the game for sure in game there's momentum yeah conversation for another day but for sure you don't carry it over from season to season there are different players there could be different coaches although for the Bengals maybe that won't be the case, we'll see if there are any changes on the staff or not. It doesn't sound like they're planning to make changes. But what did I say going into this game? Was in these last three games, if they're running this back, they better go whip these teams that are bad, man. They better go put on a show. In the first half, I did have doubts. You said you weren't really afraid

of the game being in danger at any point for the Bengals. But while they were winning at halftime, Miami was starting to do some Miami thing. Like Devin Aiton was breaking off some runs and Quinn Ewers was throwing to Darren Waller and they were finding the crossers and they were getting the misdirection going and they were doing a little. The Bengals were missing some tackles, Gino Stone, you know, and there were some plays that Miami was making. And it was like, all right, here we go. This defense is, I mean, we saw the defense do this against a terrible team earlier this year. Miami is one games lately. I know Quinn Ewers is making his first start.

We know the Bengals history against quarterbacks making their worst start. You were way more nervous about this game than me. Look at this. Well, it would just be so typical, right? It would be so typical for their history. And then in the second half, it wasn't even like terrible mistakes from yours. There's a fumble. There's, you know, a batted pass interception.

There's a really good play from Jalen Davis on a sideline ball. This probably left a little bit too inside. And a fourth time. I have run downs. Yeah. And the Bengals capitalize on all those. They're all in Miami territory. and it's a short field

and the Bengals play complimentary football and then the game, so like pretty quick when it was like 24, 14, I was like, okay, it's going to be pretty tough for the dolphins from here. But if they hadn't gotten that first takeaway, I don't know what could have happened because the defense, like they made plays again,

but it's just like all the other games where they made plays, like a lot of the underlying issues are still there. And while we have confidence in guys like Jaylon Davis and Daxhill and DJ Turner going forward, that's the only unit that there's any sort of real long-term confidence in, right? I mean, do you have confidence in another unit of this? Well, not unit.

Right now looking forward? No, not unit. I think Miles Murphy is. Yeah, that fifth year option, you better get that money ready. Mike, Mikey B better be putting that money aside because Miles Murphy just keeps making splash place, man. I mean, the rundown on Derek Henry got all the love of like a month ago on Thanksgiving. This run down on Greg Dulcich to recover that fumble that Jordan Battle forced, by the way,

and I think Jordan Battle continues to just make some splash plays. I know he's not perfect, but like Gino Stone, like does nothing. Like I don't even know what, Geno Stone does nothing. Jordan Battle will miss a tackle, but then it'll force a fumble. Like I can deal with that. I like that. I like the splash plays. That works for me.

You can deal with Jordan Battle. Yes. I was thinking Jalen Davis. I was also looking at Jalen Wright's name in the box where you can deal with Jordan Battle. A lot of games. If there's somebody better than Gino Stone playing with him in that safety tandem, and that's got to be obviously a priority for this team in the off season. And so overall units, no, like obviously the defensive front needs to be better.

Obviously, they need an upgrade at Gino Stone. Why would you play him the final two games? I don't know. I've been asking that question, too. Like, what is the upside? he had a chan he squared up got chute but like that's like come on yeah come on and so that that at that moment i was like oh is this defense going to be like yeah that bad where they yeah and so i i do get that yeah you get it all right good i get that like you're like are we in for it again but i just thought

that there's no way Joe loses today. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of confidence in the offense throughout the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and I also thought that this would be a very typical, like, Zach Taylor bounces back. Oh, yeah. There's nothing. There's nothing on the line.

Soft team. Nothing on the line. Of course they were going to win this game. Yeah. So that's how it felt to me coming in as I was like, you know this is what's going to be. And of course it was. And there's a lot. There is some good things that you.

can build on. Some positives. I do think that we're there in this game. Hit on a few. There's plenty to get to. We should talk about Joe Burrow a bit because Joe Burrow, the second best passer rating of his career, had a few career milestones today as well.

So plenty of discussion. That's Jeff Hobson's stat. Jeff Hobson had that stat. So we'll continue the Bengals conversation on a victory episode of Lockdown Bengals coming up next. Today's show is brought to by Car Gurus. It's the end of the year, you're probably thinking, I need new wheels for 2026. Well, Car Gurus is going to put the fun back into car shopping.

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Car-Gurus.com. A lot of positives that we can get to in this game, James. We can spend a little bit more time talking about Miles Murphy, Joe Burrow, T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, Mike Kosicki, Dalton Reisner, Amarius, Mens. The list goes on for quite a while. And we well do that. Just want to really quick, shout out our everydayers,

remind people that the Everydayer Club is out there. If you haven't heard us talk about this yet, if you're one of those people out there that really likes to listen to podcasts without advertisements, there is an option for you to now check out. If you want to get this podcast, an audio version of this podcast with no ads whatsoever, you can check out Supercast or sorry, LockdownBengals.supercast.com and find out all the details to sign up for the Lockdown Bengals Every Day or Club. There's also a members-only Discord channel that you can check out, but the ad-free episodes are what would call me to this sort of thing. Hopefully we can build up that Discord channel too. That's one of those

snowballs and once it gets rolling, it won't be stoppable. So again, that's locked on Bengals at supercast.com if you want to check out an ad-free version of this podcast. And James, let's dive into those positives. We talked about Miles Murphy a little bit earlier just to tie the bow on that. Really good game for him as a run defender. You talked about the fumble that he went and got on. Jalen Davis obviously had the awesome interception covering Jalen Waddle, DJ Turner, I thought, played well. Dex Hill continues to play well. The corners. as a group, talked about that earlier, feel good about them. Josh Newton was in on creating an interception, the first takeaway of his career for Barrett Carter.

So a lot of things that were flash plays, nice plays for the defensive side of the ball. And it's a Miami Dolphins, so this is what you would hope to see. But nice to see Miles continuing to build on what he's been showing, continuing to play really physical, aggressive football that leads to him being in position to make plays. Because one of the things we've talked about with him is you need him to be. play more physical. That's been a big issue for Miles throughout his time and him converting and finding a way to do that on a more regular basis. Like he said, for Jordan Battle too. Like it's not perfect for him all the time, but making so many more plays now than we had seen from Miles before, he kind of got this

opportunity in this stretch and has taken advantage of it. Yeah, it's huge. It feels like he can be a piece. Like Dax Hill checks that box. DJ Turner checks that box. I think Miles Murphy has checked that box. Jordan Battle in the process of checking that box. That doesn't mean that they're all stars, but pieces that can matter for next year, and that's what it is. Like, Miles Murphy's a big part of it in a big part of the evaluation process over the final stretch of this season. Can he continue to ascend the way he has over the past five to six weeks?

Check that box today. Boom, did that. I thought that, and I think that that evaluation process has started for Shamar Stewart, and that's something that we're going to need to see. He did have a couple of tackles, did finish with a tackle for loss. Can he build on that? I don't know how close to 100% healthy he is. I'm not saying we're going to see the flashes that we've seen from Miles from Shamar,

but you hope to see something because obviously he's here. Barrett Carter, you hope to continue to see something from him. Obviously, the interception was big. And that's it. I wish we would have seen more. I didn't notice Demetrius Knight a bunch this week. last week he obviously had a couple plays that I noticed he had one in particular where he's on the line of scrimmage and that's been something we've been critical of like using him on the line of scrimmage he

held up at the point of attack he was matched up with the tight end but he held up at the point of attack did his job let the rest of the defense flow over there to make a bun stop I think it was a one-yard gain and often for him when he's been on the line of scrimmage and they've attacked him he's been getting blown off the ball not the case on that play did his job on that play I think He had a couple of stops in this game. So it wasn't nothing for Demetrius night. There was nothing crazy flashy, like not a takeaway or anything like that, obviously. But there are a couple things there.

Yeah. And that's what you need because that's what it happened with Miles is it did snowball. Everything that you were mentioning with the everyday air club, that's what's happened with Miles. And suddenly it's like, all right, well, you just kind of expect 99 to make a few plays every week. And you hope that some of these other guys can start that. Because while I don't think like team success can continue in the offseason, I do think that players that put up numbers or feel good about how they're playing down the stretch of a year, that can bleed into offseason training.

That can take the weight and the pressure and the lack of confidence that can change it as they go into the offseason. So for like specific players, I think that can matter. And that's a big part of how we evaluate. Like if you're Jalen Davis, you're feeling really good, man, because he had the interception today, had a really nice tackle in the backfield today. Like it feels like he's just making a player or two with how they're using him.

Makes me wonder, hey man, why? Why didn't you get that man on the field sooner? I mean, he, because he could have mattered. Outside of the Darren Waller, which I don't expect Jalen Davis to hold up against Darren Waller, but 35 played really well today. He's been playing well since he's been playing full time. And that is a conversation that we'll have at some point

because he's been around the scene for so long. to be 30 years old next year. There's definitely a level of confidence in Jalen Davis. Don't get me wrong, but there's not a high enough level of confidence where I'm like, yeah, we're good at corner. They don't need to do anything. We'll have that conversation, I think, another day. Let's talk about the offensive side of the ball, James, where I, you know, talk about guys

snowballing. Amarius Mims, since Joe Barrow returned to practice, Amarious Mims has been the top-rated tackle from the 2024 draft class. And that includes a Patriots game when Joe got back in practice. Amaris has been playing consistently good football for the last six weeks. Is that six weeks? Five, six weeks, whatever that is. And that trajectory has been kind of linear for him this year.

And we've seen this from several offensive linemen. Like obviously there's a couple plays. It seems like there's a couple plays every week where you're like, man, Orlando, what the hell happened at the left tackle shop? But besides that, he's fine. And we've obviously talked a lot about the ascension of Dylan Fairchild. and him being a piece for the future. Dalton Reisner has been awesome, having a career year as a run blocker.

That's why we're buying the stock, the Scott Peters stock at this point in the season. But just talking about guys that are really ascending. And you talk about guys developing, taking that into the off season into next season. That's where I'm at for Marius Mims. Like this guy is the right tackle of now and in the future. And excited to see that that development has really started to hit the last few weeks.

and he's putting together a string of consistent games of high-level play. Such an important spot for them to invest a premium asset and finally hit on a guy in Amarerr-sims with everything they want to do on offense with Joe, Jamar, and T. Yeah, you want him to be part of that. After Joe and Jamar and T, especially with Trey and his future, really up in the air, that fourth spot is just right there. And maybe Mims can get to number three. You never know, right?

And that's where his ceiling is is one of the best, I think one of the best offensive tackles in football. Like there's no reason why physically he can't get there. I think he works hard. I think he's taken steps this year. And you want him to continue to build on that. And that's another guy. If he goes into the offseason with confidence, which I think he is.

I think he's playing well. And I think he knows he's playing well. I talked to him a few weeks ago about some things. And he's like, yeah, man, we're rolling now. And they just, they're a confident group. and the Reisner aspect of it, I think that matters too. That whole room, they feel like a team. They went through it early in the year.

They felt all of the criticism and everything when Joe went down. They felt all that. And I think they responded the right way. I think Scott Peters responded the right way. And you saw that today. I mean, Joe Burrow was sacked a couple of times, but this offense did a lot of what it wanted to do. Like, anytime Miami, you think Miami wasn't trying to do something to get to

Joe or to force a turnover to try to rebound when it was 1714 and they just gave the ball up in the negative territory in their own territory like of course they did and in this offensive line I feel like overall held up well obviously Joe's protection checks and all those issues that he had last week went out the door yeah I think there's maybe one protection bust like one of the sacks was definitely a protection bust but Miami was definitely throwing some stuff at him. And for the most part, it did settle in. And Joe did a good job of managing the pressure. After those couple sacks early, where obviously they had some misuse. I was disappointed to see that. Like at halftime, I was really disappointed in the protection. Joe getting hit at all in this game

was going to be below my expectations because Miami just hasn't been a good pass for us this year. But they settled in. They figured it out down the stretch. Only one hit for Joe in this game that really caused me to cringe. And then he came back through another touchdown and that was it for him. Got to see Flacco. That was fun. Let's finish up with Joe Burrow and these weapons. Somehow the last segment of the show, focusing in on Joe Burrow and the weapons.

Obviously, James didn't put together our plan for this episode. We'll finish the show with Joe Burrow, T. Higgins, Jemar, Chase, Mike Keseki, Chase Brown, coming up next. Well, you might like weapons. You might like football. Well, that football is all about Fandul, and the weapons could be all about the prop bets, right? Whether it's T. Higgins, whether it's Jemax,

whether it's Jamar, Chase, whether it's Joe Burrow and Joe Burrow, man, 309 yards, a 146.5 quarterback rating. Well, with Fandle, you can wager on all of the props, live bets. Maybe you thought like me that the Bengals were going to roll, and I mean roll in the second half. And I never really doubted it that they were going to win. I didn't see four turnovers and 21 straight to open the third quarter and everything that they did. But maybe you thought that. Well, you can live bet it with Fandall.

And that's the beauty of Fandul, especially with Week 17 right around the corner. Fandle is the place to go for all of the odds, all of the props, all of the NFL action. If you're eliminated in fantasy, well, it's the perfect time to get in on the fun with Fandle. You can bet next touchdown scores, drive results, totals, and so much more that keeps you locked in to every snap. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fandle.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. Fandle. The game moves fast, and so can you. Think about this offense, James.

They bring Dalton Riser back. You got to deal with tight end, wide receiver depth, running back depth, these things. There's opportunities for you to get better there, but you can feel pretty good about that group because of the way things have gone. And a lot of that is that these playmakers and Joe Burrow, when they can play football together, they're all in the field. T. Higgins wearing a new helmet out there.

They get good results. T. Higgins started this game. Awesome. Explosive. Awesome touchdown catch. Jemar Chase. awesome explosive catch chase chase brown a couple touchdown catches and a touchdown run samajai p rind contributing in both categories of the game picking up a couple first downs himself like a secke's

scoring a touchdown andre yosemash catching his only touchdown or is only his only target sorry for a 20-yard game yep big play borough had one mistake didn't get punished for it and outside of that he was pretty dang good in this football game and so were his weapons yeah they were they were they were i mean Joe, any time you're going to put up numbers like this, you take it. But 25 of 32, that 78% of his passes were completed, 309 yards, four touchdowns. The 146.5 quarterback rating is the second best of his career. Like, you take that all day long, and it was just very clean. It was a clean game.

You had the jump ball to T that he made look routine. You had the ball that you couldn't put as much on because you were under a pressure, to Jamar where Jamar, it looked like the the AFC championship game in Kansas City on 4th Down where Jamar goes up and makes a play, double teamed. Had no business making that play, but does. And those are the type of

this gave us, this was really a teaser, man, of like how the Bengals, I think in reality we're hoping to play. Young opportunistic defense, offense takes advantage of anything they have. utilizes all their weapons. If they get a turnover or two and they win that because the quarterback's playing clean,

they win the turnover battle, then they're going to be in control of most games. I think that's what their vision was. And look, it was a bad Miami team. But Joe Burrow and this offense, I was pretty convinced early on that they were going to score even more than they did. And the short fields help with that. But man, this could have easily been a 50-point game. It would have been their first 50-point game in 21 years, the 58-48 game against. against the Cleveland Browns Battle of Ohio in 2004.

So it's been a long time since they got to 50. Maybe they'll do it next week against Arizona. But it was a good day today for Joe and company. And Joe Cross is a 20,000 yard mark. I think Chase Brown set a franchise record for running back catches in a season. I saw Joe Goodberry tweet that. I have not fact-checked it myself, but seems reliable enough to me. Chase Brown with four catches, 43 yards, two touchdowns.

And one of them, the Bengals manufacturer busted coverage with some motion at the snap. The other one, he turns Jordan Brooks around in the flat and space and just undresses him. Great individual effort on that play for him. His rushing touchdown was one of the best blocked runs you could have in the Red Zone period. Every single guy won their blocks. And Chase Brown was untouched from what, like the seven yard line or so. The Bengals turning in a number of explosive plays in this game. the very late in the snap, flick to Drew Sample,

even Drew Sample, it's turning in an explosive plays. Andre had a 21-yard catch, your sample had a 27-yard catch. Chase Brown had a 23-yard catch. T had the 35-yard catch, and Jamar had the 36-yard catch. And that's something that the Bengals need to do more of, they need to be more consistent with hitting explosive plays.

They have not been very good at that, even when Joe Burrow has been at quarterback. This might shock you, James. And the seasons where Joe has been healthy the entire year, 21, 22, and 24. the Bengals are ranked worse than 20th, an explosive play rate in that time with these weapons, with this quarterback. That is something that we've been talking about for a long time with this team.

Just came up today because they hit some explosives. And it reminds me of some of the ways they've had to win in the past because they see more cover too than anyone else in the league, right? Teams don't want to get beat deep by Jamar and T down the sideline. So they're clouding those guys all day. And so Joe got really good at taking what's there. And the Bengals have one of the best success rates in the league, but they're not explosive when they do it. One of the better EPAs were playing in the league, but not hitting explosives as they do it.

And they hit some today, so that's good to see. Hopefully that's something they figure out going forward. But just kind of underlines what kind of day it was for this offense when you're hitting explosives with one, two, three, five different receivers. And Mike Gaseki had 17 yards on his longest catch, so pretty close to a 20-plus yard catch for Gaseki, too. Yeah, you got Mike Gaseki grittying at the 50 on his way to the. the sideline after the touchdown. This game showed a lot. To me, it was a reminder like, yeah, it may feel like you're really, really far away,

but when you have Joe Burrow, you're a lot farther ahead than a lot of others, right? And so hopefully they're willing to make the changes that are necessary. And because it doesn't have to be a huge, crazy, multi-year process when you have Joe Burrow. put it that way. The Dolphins would give up their entire roster in all of their draft picks and all of their cap space to get Joe Burrow right now. You know, like that's, that's it. And it doesn't mean that the Bengals are close. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying it's a heck of a place to start. You're turning down a trade offer from Miami, even if the money worked, that is literally every Miami offensive player for Joe Burrow. You're turning that trade down if you're the bank.

And every draft pick for the next three years. It's still because it's not even a conversation. hard to find. Like it's too hard to find. That's why they turned down the original trade that somehow became news again this week. It did. It did. Which that's also a reminder that the Bengals really, really valued Joe Burrow. In days like today are reasons why they're right, though. They should be really, they should be the most explosive team in the league to be quite honest with you. And why they're not is, I mean with Joe Burrow on the field. That's how they should be. That's how they should operate. And if not number one, number two or three, not number 23. Yeah, that can't happen. They're not close. But regardless, regardless, let's end it on a positive here. Joe Burrow, still really good at football. Have fun. Awesome.

Yeah, I asked, hey, have fun. Yeah, of course it was fun. It was great being out there. The other thing is Joe Burrow has 152 touchdown passes in his career. He's the third quarterback to reach 150 passing touchdowns in 75 games in his first 75 games, shortening Patrick Mahomes and Dan Marino. So, sure. there you go pretty good list for joe burrow four touchdown passes for him we had a locked on bengal

insider come really close to hitting a like plus 4,000 parlay today that involved joe burrow passing yards jemar chase catches devon a chan rushing yards which he missed and darren waller receiving yards there might have been one other he came pretty close it was a heartbreaker we were talking about it throughout the game. If you're interested in the Lockdown Bengals, Insider page, by the way, you can check that out at join subtext.com slash lockdown Bengals, a direct text line to James and I where we text you occasional little tidbits and details that we have, some opinions and stuff like that. And you get to chat with us that way, a direct line to us that we make sure we monitor

every day. But the Bengals win. The game, unfortunately, doesn't have meaning for the playoffs, doesn't really have a ton of meaning for 2026, but we will be able to look back on these games down the stretch, see how some players are developing. and that will inform some of those decisions going forward. Like we talked about Miles Murphy a lot in this episode, James. With a spoiler, for some point in the next few weeks, we're still going to talk about a need for an alpha pass rusher. And that conversation might circle back to Trey Hendrickson at some point,

I'm sure it well, as he's set to be a free agent, obviously, this offseason. And conversations for the future. The Bengals win on Sunday, 45 to 21. They move to 5 and 10 on the season. Their draft pick remains for now, as of the time. of recording at ninth in the picking order so they don't move in the draft order today. I assume they will move by the end of the season. We'll have to talk about the draft order at some point as well for this team as they continue to try to win games.

But that's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening. Hootay and have a good one.