Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - What REALLY MATTERS From Bengals’ Film—Myles Murphy Continues Progressing, Offense Showing Off Sustainability

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

The Cincinnati Bengals dismantled the Miami Dolphins on Sunday as Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins reignite the offense. Jake Liscow and film expert Mike Santagata examine the Bengals’ revitalized play-calling, the impact of improved offensive line performance led by Amarius Mims and Dalton Risner, and Chase Brown's role as a versatile complementary weapon.Key discussion points include Myles Murphy’s defensive breakout, lingering issues at linebacker and safety, and why the Bengals’ offseason priorities have gotten clearer and clearer over the course of the season.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 Cincinnati Bengals have been, of course, eliminated from playoff contention, but there are some things we can take away from their performance against the Miami Dolphins. Let's dive into what mattered as the Bengals put a beat down on my end. 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 Locked-on Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network in the land.

I'm Jake. Let's go join today by our resident film expert, Mike Santagga, a part of the Bengals Squad Show as well. You can find Mike's work over on the squad show, which is supplementary content to the Locked-on Bengals podcast. He's with Alex Frank and Art Valero in the post-game shows. You can find those live on YouTube after the game. And you can also find his work at,

bengals talk.com where he does his film breakdowns alongside co-host of Lockdown Bengals, James Rupin, on that fantastic website. A lot of great Bengals coverage there. Today we dive into the tape as the Bengals put a beatdown on Miami on the strength of a bunch of takeaways and complimentary football in the second half. And you got to be careful with games like this, right? You don't want to take too much away from dead cat bounce performances against really bad teens and meaningless games,

but we will try to distill the things that we can take away and focus on what matters for this team going forward as we dive into the film in Miami, Cincinnati from yesterday. And welcome back to all the everydayers out there. Welcome back to all of you who make lockdown Bengals your first list and appreciate all of you who are making us part of your routine. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season,

visit Fandul.com. and place your NFL live bets all season long. And Mike, let's dive in here to what went right in this game that we think matters for the future. And there is a difficulty to this conversation for a couple of reasons. One, we know that major coaching changes aren't expected, and the Bengals winning this game really puts any of that to bed

further than it already kind of was over the last week where we learned about Zach Taylor's contract status. We got some reporting around his. expectations to be back from national reporters. So knowing that this coaching staff is going to be back, we're looking for the coaching staff to continue to find ways to do things that help the team. And on the offensive side of the ball, getting T. Higgins back, huge difference for this offense.

The approach in this game, very successful. And I know it was against the dolphins. I know it was a meaningless game. I know that they felt a ton of pressure from the outside world. and wanted to stick it to all the doubters in this game. But as you watch this offense perform with the trio that makes it go, Joe Burroughs, Mark Chase, D. Higgins, what were your thoughts about the way they approached this game against my team?

I was impressed and frustrated a little bit because very impressed by some of this play calling, design, they're running some concepts, some run concepts that they haven't, and they're running them very well. They're putting Burrow under center, getting some play action to give him some easy throws. Think of the slide route to Jamar Chase across the formation for an easy eight yards and just things you think about that are easy buttons.

And then that leads to me a little bit frustrated because why did this game plan happen against the dolphins? Maybe it's because the dolphins have on paper, pretty, you know, lackluster talent group. But it sure feels like they could have used these type of easy buttons for Burrow last week against the Ravens. And really, I feel like some of this stuff wasn't really there for the Flacco offense either. Flacco had some really good under center plays, but I just think of some of this run game stuff that they're putting in there.

A lot of eye formation, a lot of split-back zone. They had a down-g rep. They had all this stuff that's just, they're creating great angles for their offensive line. and put them in good spots to make the run blocking easier for them and getting some great blocks as well from some of these guys that are asked to do something difficult, thinking of Ted Karras on that down G-REP. But why couldn't you have done this against the Ravens last week

where it felt like most of their run game was what it is at its worst, inside zone duo, and it's an afterthought. It's in there to take a playoff for Burrow, rather than being in there to actually attack the defense, which is what it was this week. I feel like it was in there to actually attack the structure in front of this defense, and they did a great job of it. So many weird things about that Ravens game in retrospect, like how Burrow played, how the game plan went. And obviously the Ravens are better up front.

Miami's pretty bad in the trenches. The Ravens don't really have guys that win one-on-one as pass rushers, but they still have some guys that are hard to move in the run game. The run game really unsuccessful for the Bengals last week in addition to just getting protections wrong. And that might have creeped into this week too, but I think we got a good game from Burrow, as you would expect. When Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, and Joe Burrow are all out there together, you get a match up against the secondary that is missing. Make a Fitzpatrick for one and two just like doesn't match up well. T. Higgins is dunking on Jack Jones, right? Yeah.

We're early in this game. Joe Burrow crediting that for changing the way Miami wanted to defend them. Like they got dunked on twice on that drive. They're like, well, guess we can't do this. Better make a wholesale change. And then for the most part, Joe Burrow really good in this game. We got to see the effects of T. Higgins and Jemar Chase on a defense when they're out there together and how much harder it makes it for opposing defenses.

Was there anything that you thought was a nice move in the passing game? You talked about some of the easy button stuff that the under center slider to Jemar Chase. that was very noticeable to me as well. But what else worked for them in the passing game this week that makes you think like, yeah, you know what, this offense, and I think you should think this, but like this offense should be fine going forward with the big caveat of like, can they keep all three guys healthy together and on the field? I think the past protection in general makes you feel that way where they're running some

concepts like Y-cross and hitting the second window. That's that play that Yosevas, where he has, that takes like three, three and a half seconds, I think three and a half, really, to get there, unless you got a real speedster run that crossing route. And Burroughs fine. I think there's a few plays in this game, and he got pressure a couple of times, but there's also a few plays in this game where he's able to hang in the pocket longer than you can remember.

So they're getting to some of these concepts that take longer to develop, like Y-Cross. Like they ran a couple of four-verts, and it worked out. And I don't know if that's like something you put in his past game innovation, but it's just interesting because I don't think you see them run four verts a ton in general. They run like three vertical type 989 when they want to run that stuff. Instead they ran fourverts and that got Chase Brown the ball in space because a lot of the times fourverts is kind of a screen where he's just kind of send everybody out there. They take up some guys and then you dump the ball down to the running back. I saw this one of the Steelers, Russ Wilson, threw for like 500 yards and it was four verts,

dumped the ball down. And now you've got Jalen Warren against Jermann Pratt in space. Go Jalen Warren. You'll be fine. This was Chase Brown against whatever they have in space. Go ahead, Chase Brown, go make a guy miss, go pick up 15 yards. So I think there's just some wrinkles here and there. I do think a lot of it is also the standards, but the standard stuff has usually been good. Like they run that rap concept or they have a guy sitting,

a guy wraps around him. They run levels a bit, kind of like a Peyton Manning staple, where you have a short inn on the outside and a deeper inn inside of that. It kind of got to the Zeus one of that, and they didn't throw the out route, which that's an out route from the inside. guy instead of an in-rout. Peyton Manning made that up with Dallas Clark because they kept getting so much too man. So they'd run Zeus because an out route, an out route will help him because

it's all inside leverage. So they ran that and it's working well. And the reason I bring that up is because in 2020, this is way back there, 2022, they tried that a few times and it went terrible. Burrow kept throwing picks on it and never completing passes. So I feel like that's kind of a little bit of Burrow progression is that he's able to read this out a little better now because this is a difficult concept. I'm talking about Peyton Manning staple. I mean, that guy had a real processor up there. So I think like Burroughs processing, getting the right protection, the past protection is as good as we have ever seen it with Joe Burroughs and they can run some of these long developing plays. That's where I think you find in the past game what you're excited about is just, man, you can

actually get to some plays that are going to take you three, four seconds to develop and straight drop back pass now. Yeah, we got a backside dig it felt like for Mark Chase sitting in between zone defenders as well. I didn't notice what else was going on on that play, but speaking to the past protection in general remains encouraging. I think that's a great point because when you have T. Jamar Joe, ancillary weapons, Chase Brown had a lot of plays as a receiver in this game. Mike Gaseki had the touchdown catch in this game.

Andre Yosefosch turned his one target into an explosive play. On a really good play for Joe Burrow where he manipulates the second level defender, gets him out of the throwing window, and you know, she kind of double catches it. But, but It's an explosive play, and you take those. And a lot of that goes back to the pass protection as you're discussing it, giving them the ability to run some of these longer developing concepts with some more confidence. I want to talk a little bit more about this offensive line,

buying the Scott Peter stock at this point, buying the development, the little things the offensive line is doing, how easy the path forward is for this offense in 2026 compared to the defense. We'll hit those topics as we keep an eye toward the future as we review yesterday's film coming up next. The show is brought to you by Fandall. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly, everything feels different. That's what makes live betting with Fandall so exciting.

You're not just watching the game. You're reacting to it in real time. Maybe it's immediately after the Miami Dolphins turned the ball over early in the second half against the Cincinnati Bengals. You sense that momentum shifting. You sense that the Bengals are about to. put this thing away, run away with the game. But with Fandall, you can place live bets as the action unfolds. Every time there's a momentum swing, every time there's a highlight moment.

And when the game starts to shift, when there's a big momentum shift, you can jump into the moment with Fandul as live spreads and money lines adjust instantly. And you can take advantage of those opportunities. Player props update as guys heat up. So 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. the game moves fast, so can you. Mike, let's talk about this offensive line a little bit more here because they've been

really impressive since Joe Burroughs return. One of the guys that's been really impressive to me specifically is a Marius Mims. I think Dalton Reisner has shown since he was reinserted into the starting lineup that he very clearly should be in the starting lineup and should be considered for the future, having his best year as a run blocker, which is the most interesting development to me in the Dalton Reisner story. but the consistent development that we've seen from Amarius Mims and Dalton Riseners fit with the rest of these guys on the offensive line. Ted Harris's play is a run blocker this year.

Ted Harris generally quite consistent. Had a couple of plays yesterday where he gave up pressure. But generally so pleased with the offensive line that to me the path forward on offense is so clear. It's re-sign Risener probably find a tackle for the future, left tackle for the future. Orlando Brown going into the last year of his deal. He's shown that he'll give up. up like one or two plays every couple of weeks or every other week and it's like man what's going on with Orlando but then he's fine besides that for the most part but what do you see from this

offensive line in terms of development over the course of the year and the path forward where there maybe is still some room for improvement I mean they have had remarkable health we'll point that out here I think there's been a lot of continuity there but what are your future looking thoughts on this offensive line yeah I think you start with Amaris Minle and Dylan Fairchild and you're building out from that. Like that feels like a solid foundation to an offensive line to me where you've got an ascending right tackle who's been good. And no qualifiers for that.

Not good in this, good at that. Like, good. I think he's a good pass protector. And I think he's become a solid run blocker. He had some plays in this game that make you go, hey, that's not what you expect out of Marius Mims. He's more of a pass pro guy. So I think what he did against Chion,

Robinson was impressive where you just don't notice he's running Chop Robinson around the back of the pocket almost every play because Robinson wants to basically run around him most of the game. When he tries to run through him, he anchors down. Where he's weakest, Amari Swims is still probably the inside move and some communication stuff. But that gets nullified a little bit when you get a vet right guard in there. You got a guy that, one, you communicate with really well and does a great job passing stunts with you. And then two, when you have a vet guard, he knows if my guy leaves, I should expect maybe this guy to come inside and I can kind of give a presence there.

I don't know if him and Rivers had this type of connection. I thought Amari Smith was still playing better than his rookie season when he was on that stretch with Rivers. But ever since Riser has been inserted, like you said, Amari Smith's has been awesome. And I think Fairchild, it's more rookie type performances for him. But I think his performance has been overall good and especially in past protection. I think that he's really exceeded my expectations of past protection. but out of any rookie guard that's tossed into this offense

where you have to pass protect and drop back passing situations more than probably any other team in the NFL and you're able to just get thrown into the deep end of playing guard in pass protection and succeed. I think that's worth commending too. But yeah, you've got some guys in the next year. If you resign Reisner, you've got one year of Reisner,

one year of Brown on the other side, two years of Karras, if he can keep up his level of play where I think he's really improved. And I think what you look at is Scott Peters, where some of this run game stuff is really interesting, but everybody's kind of playing to their potential. And that is something I don't think you've been able to say

about a Bengals offensive line in a while. It's just so clear what the offense needs to do, right? There's not much they need to do. Like you need to bolster depth a little bit to be a little bit more resilient when injuries occur, but your starters look relatively set for next year. I think Drew Sample is going to be best. By the way, that's probably a conversation for another day.

Maybe I shouldn't just drop that casually. But Drew Sample has a very specific role in this offense where they're putting them at fullback. They're using them in all these different protection roles. And he's still a very limited player, but I think that he's still a big part of what they want to do on offense for better or for worse. Is it catching passes when he's a design blocker and running for 40 yards? Yeah, that's the best. I love it. It's very funny when that happens.

It doesn't happen very much. and there are times that he's a net negative to put on the field. But he's also had, he's recovered from an early part of the season where I thought he was like really bad to put him on the field. Some of that's also like Jake Browning offense stuff, which I still can't believe was this year, the Jake Browning stuff. Like that was this season. It feels like it's been a really long season.

But building around Fairchild and Mims, it's nice to have two young building blocks on this offensive line for the first time in a very long time. you would love to have Tate Ratledge as well. And so that gripe, if you have it, if you had those three guys, who, I mean, you're cooking with some young offensive linemen at that point. But what Dylan Fairchild has been given the expectations for him and that he is starting right away in this difficult offense on offensive lineman,

it reminds me a little bit of Amaris's rookie year. You saw some development over the course of the year, and now you can reasonably have expectations for that year-two, leap there. We're seeing the year two progress from Amarius Mims now where in the last five weeks since Joe Burrow returned to practice, he is the top rated PFF offensive lineman from the 2024 draft class, sorry, offensive tackle from the 2024 draft class. So in a draft class that was seen as a really good tackle class, Marius Mims, when Joe Burrow got back to practice, he's like, all right, man, I'm locked in for the rest of this season. Joe Burrow is going to be

playing again. And you start to see that development. from Ramarie's and it's really like after the bye week and all these things but like you're seeing him settling in with Dalton riser next to him and when you get that kind of progress from a Bengals offensive line that's been so thirsty for offensive line talent it's nice to have the building blocks and the clear like all right let's get a developmental tackle let's get a developmental interior lineman and they might feel like they have that in Jalen Rivers I don't know but probably developmental tackle there's like some tight end depth maybe a wide receiver for some depth,

and you're feeling good about the offense. The defense, I think it's pretty clear too. There's just a lot more that you need to do on that side of the ball. And I want to talk about the run defense this week because Miami has been a good run game. We should talk about that. We should talk about Miles Murphy continuing to put together some promising games. He had a real standout Sam Hubbardy game this week

where the run D was really good. still need an alpha pass rusher on that side of the ball, I think. And there's some obvious needs outside of that. So let's get to this defense the way they perform, what it tells us about the defense in the future, Mike, to finish this show coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by Car gurus. Car gurus knows that car shopping should feel exciting, not confusing.

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You'll always find the best deal. Shot the way you want with the tools, data, and unbiased deal ratings that make it easy. Buy or sell your next car car gurus today at car gurus.com. That's C-R-G-U-S-com. Carguerys. dot com. Mike let's talk defense. Promising performance in Run Dey and they've put some of these together lately. Talk to me about the high level takeaways. Who stood out to you? What does that tell

you about the direction for the bank was going forward? We'll see if we're on the same page here because to me where the offense is pretty simple and there's not a lot to do. The defense is also pretty clear cut and there's a lot to do. But let's start with those high level thoughts as to what your takeaways were in this game. High level thoughts is that from down to down, it was good run defense. And they just kind of won in the trenches. And that is Miles Murphy, BJ Hill, even some T.J. Slate McKinley Jackson, all of them were doing well and winning their matchups in the trenches.

And then their coverage was pretty good on the back end, especially when they got Quint Ewers into a situation where we had to throw the ball. I still think high level, the reverses, the plays with a lot of eye candy, just the stuff that gets to the perimeter quickly. still gets them. And I think that happens, which we'll probably get to, and guys that you know you can build around and guys that you don't know if you can build around. But Miles Murphy's standout game. And you mentioned Sam Hubbard. Yeah, it was really good run defense from him. He had one quarterback hit where he got some pressure on Austin Jackson and was able to push him back into Quinn Ewers on a play. And he had a screen where he retraced down the line and made the stop for about one yard. I thought overall

just looks like a guy over ever since Hendrickson got hurt really but he's gotten better and better each week it seems like looks like a guy that you feel pretty good about starting on a defensive line rotation maybe not being the alpha pass rusher you probably need a guy like Trey Hendrickson with him because you don't know if he's going to develop into that guy but as Sam Hubbard was a quality starter for years it seems like Bos Murphy looks like maybe and it's a small sample so far could be a quality starter for them on this defensive line. You look at McKinley Jackson, maybe that's a guy that you want to see more of,

but he keeps having games where you think, that's a guy that could be in this D-line rotation in the future on what you hope is going to be a good defense. And Sam Humber was a starter on a good defense. And I think you can look at Miles Murphy and go, he could take DE2 snaps on a good defense. Yeah, you just need the studs. You need the playmakers.

You need the Trey Hendricksons of the world, the Jesse Bates is of the world, the guys that are going to make the plays and elevate the guys around him. And then if you have the guys like Miles Murphy and these corners that are on this team, heck, even Jordan Battle, who continues to be a roller coaster where the highlights, the high end is great. And then there's a couple of miss tackles here. They're like the touchdown run for Devon A-chan when you watch that on the All-22

and you see what Jordan Battle is doing on the backside as a split field safety, I think, on the weak side of this play. he has a chance to stop this thing for 20, 25 yards, but then he forces a fumble and is leading the Bengals in havoc creation in the secondary this year with the interceptions and the forced fumbles and has occasionally been like this big hitter, de-cleader, tone setter,

and then there's some miss tackles. But these are guys that if Jesse Bates is out there and Trey Hendrickson is out there and DJ Reader's out there and not to retread too much of the last time the Bengals defense was decent, but like if you have that kind of player with these other guys, then you're like, okay, we have a serviceable defense. Now, we haven't talked about the second level at all.

And there's still a needed overhaul there, I think, but you're getting the clarity here late in the season to like, okay, Miles Murphy is an NFL player. He's playing with the level of physicality and effort and understanding of what's going on that you can get a good NFL career out of. You're seeing that for him. him now. He's making the place. It's not just flashes. It's becoming a little bit more consistent. Do you need to still see it? Yeah. But same thing with these corners, man. So

impressed with Dax Hill retransitioning back outside to corner instead of playing in the slot again. He continues to play well at any corner alignment that he's really asked to. He had the one blip, one bad game in there, his first game back outside since then. I think he's been pretty good. Jalen Davis putting up teach tape highlight reel coverage, but as good as you can do it against Jalen Waddle on that interception. And, you know, even Josh Newton getting into this game and making a great play on dagger, like great play recognition there to get a hand on the ball and lead to that pass breakup. DJ Turner playing through the flu playing pretty well as long as he can be out there too.

So you feel pretty good about some of those guys, but then there's some clear issues, right? The ability to deal with misdirection and eye candy, one of those. and a lot of that goes to the second safety linebackers and not having a guy that can really create havoc on his own on the defensive line. Yeah, I think we look at what's happening there and a lot of it is rookie linebackers, rookie second level, and sadly the vet guy that they have in there in Berks,

none of them are like this fast processing. I'm going to go kill that play. I can see what's happening. I see the wide receiver running backwards. Why would he do that unless this is a reverse? So I'm going to start moving in that direction. And then I can go cheat it a little bit and go cut it off and go make a play on that reverse. You don't have that on this defense, it feels like.

You don't have a guy that's a step ahead of what the offense is doing. They're reacting to what the offense is doing and some of them faster than others. I think that's how you end up with a lot of this. They still have the angle issues. They still have the issues where they're not, they're trying to go underneath of these blocks in space. And they just take themselves out of plays instead of trying to fighting and getting over the top of that block or running through that block, and at least slowing down the running back.

You might not make the play, but you'll force it back closer to your help versus trying to go underneath that block. As Office of Lyman, you go, great. I don't have to do anything on this play. Like, you just took yourself out, and I get a plus one in the film room for doing my job. So that's the issue is Barrett Carter was better in this game

than I think a lot of games he's played. He had the interception. He had a couple of plays. He still had a couple of issues, both with the misdirection stuff, and then also just completely whiffing on that one tackle in the backfield, getting caught and kind of bailed out by that OPI, which guy gets in his way.

But you're also supposed to be getting out of the way, not running right through him because you typically don't get that call. So you have to go over the top of that to go make that play. I think he looks more ready than Demetrius Knight at the second level or how Oren Berks has been playing. But none of them look like guy. I feel like where everything starts with this defense is, you need better second level performances and you need a safety that is going to do what they thought Gino Stone would do instead of what they have in Gino Stone.

Yeah, I think that those are the clearest things, right? Alpha kind of playmaker, the defensive line. Shout out, by the way, Walter Nolan. He tore his Achilles yesterday and just sending some love out that way. He was a draft crush, obviously. Bengals play the Cardinals next week. The Bengals got snifed for that pick. still hate to see a young player

go down with an Achilles. But like that alpha player, whether it's a defensive tackle or an end, that can create the havoc, get the wins on his own, be that alpha kind of player in the trenches, the second level of performances, like you said, the safety. But you feel like, you know, you can build around

these corners that you got. Bring Jalen Davis back, maybe supplement that a little bit with a day two pick or a veteran somewhere in free agency. Because you do want to, I think, maybe it's even a day three pick at slot corner because you can find those guys on day three. But you want to bolster that a little bit because it is a strength. You want to make sure that remains a strength. Corner death is always going to be tested. But yeah, it's like finding

a way to elevate these linebackers, finding a way to get better at the second safety spot because I don't think you're replacing both safeties in the off season. I think you're still Jordan battle starting next year. And I think there's a good argument to keep him as a starter if you can get better play as his running mate in the secondary. And so some very clear priorities for the defense. And they should have a ton of resources to put into this because of what we talked about on the offense where it shouldn't require a ton of resources to keep the offense at a high level, requires them to stay healthy.

And it's frustrating that this is a year where the offensive line has stayed healthy and Joe didn't. And then when Joe got back, he started having tea with the concussion issues and glad to hear all the stuff about T.C. and the specialists and him being okay, him getting that additional clearance that he was going to be okay to return and got the new helmet on, no issues for him on Sunday. That was great to see. But the underlying stuff on this defense needs help. And what do you think about this kind of like narrative? This being reported by national reporters talking about Al Golden that, you know, we've heard Zach and Al, Al,

talk about impressors were like, yeah, they're getting better. Do you buy that there are things improving with individual players on this defense? Like Miles Murphy very clearly, right? DJ Turner early in the season, clearly. Dax Hill took a game to adjust to playing outside again. But like, I'm not really seeing the consistent improvement from the linebacker level. Maybe it's more visible in the building. But what were your thoughts around the narrative of improvement that has been out there a little bit?

I guess maybe you're seeing better game. Small improvements where I do feel like the linebackers were, to me, kind of the worst duo I had watched earlier this year in at least recent memory. And now there's games. You don't feel like that. You feel like in this game, you're like,

Barrett Carter, if he had a guy next to him, you would have felt fine with that performance. And last week, I think you might have been able to say that about Demetrius Knight because he was going forward, got the couple of sacks and everything. and if he had a guy next to him,

maybe you feel good about, or at least okay, about that performance. The issue is that they're together. So it's kind of hard to think about where if it was just one guy and he's kind of stumbling but improving, I think it's there. I think you could say they're improving a little bit, but they're still stumbling upward and it's not moving to a situation where you feel like that's a guy that you should feel good about starting next year. I think that's the issue.

Whereas there might be improvement, but it's not enough improvement from where they were to make me think that you should build around these two guys at the moment. Yeah, if we're putting it in PFF grade terms, and you can look at these. Like if they went from like a 45 to a 55, like how good do you feel about that being your future, where they're still giving you below average play? The caveat that I'll put out there, and this is like cope, I recognize it as cope for the kids that use that word, they're both rookie linebackers. And rookie linebackers shouldn't really be playing. Like once they have more experience under their belts, if they can grow together, that's the path that the Bengals, I think. think would like to see for these guys is that they settle in, the game starts to slow down

for them, and you see that growth together. We'll see if that's the case. I think there's a very clear need to just get better at that spot in any way you can. And we'll continue to keep our eye toward the offseason here over these last few games and continue to look for the things that can be lessons or indicators about the direction this team needs to take in the offseason. as they try to build a team to compete in 2026. As it is Christmas week, for those of you that made it all the way to the end of the episode, just a quick programming note. We're going to be missing at least one episode here this week on lockdown bangles.

We'll have the crossover episode for you. And I think we are going to record an episode on Friday. We will have you updated on social media when we finalize that plan. But right now, I would expect to see an episode tomorrow. So we'll have an episode up on Tuesday evening. and we'll miss a couple days, be back on Friday. So you'll still get four episodes this week,

but I think with the Christmas holiday being where it is this week, we're going to miss at least a day, and we'll still get you four episodes this week. And as always, you can find Mike on Twitter at Bengals underscore Sands. Find his writing over at benglestalk.com. Find him on the Bengals Squad show,

the Bengel Squad post game show, that little bit of supplementary content that we've added to the Lockdown Bengel's YouTube channel where you can find a couple of live shows every week. as well. And until next time, that's going to do it for this episode of the Locked-on Bengals podcast. Thanks for listening. Who day? Have a good.