1st & Goal: Solomon Wilcots, Former Bengals Defensive Back

The NFL season is inching closer and closer.

Who are the contenders and who are the pretenders? We have four downs to figure out your team's future. It's time now for First and Goal on The Zach Gelb Show. Let's talk about one of the better teams in the NFL with a former Cincinnati Bengals. Does a great job with Believe Podcast with Adam Pacman Jones. And you can hear him each and every morning on Sirius XM NFL radio.

And that's our pal in Solomon Wolcott to preview the Bengals. Solomon, appreciate the time as always. How are you? Zach, good to be on with you. Everything's great. I hope you're doing well.

Well, I appreciate you coming on. And Bengals fans, they had a scare last week and they could exhale because Zach Taylor told reporters that Burroughs only going to be sidelined several weeks due to his calf injury. And then I did see today that Bengals reporter Mike Patraglia said that Burroughs was in the locker room at his locker with the sleeve on his right calf walking with no limp. So it looks like they dodged what would have been a major bullet here. Yeah, I mean, it could have been something worse. However, you know, a calf strain considering the grade and something we still don't know about, whether it's grade one, grade two or grade three, could still be very serious. Liking it to but to a lesser degree, like a hamstring injury where you're walking around, you seem to be fine.

But when you start to move around, run or even sprint, let alone have an explosive move, it could come back to haunt yourself. Still need to be cautious moving forward. But yeah, this is not as bad as it nearly as bad as it could have been. And we know what happened in year one, then year two, they they go to the Super Bowl and last year, another good year for the Bengals. That's my only concern really with Cincinnati Solomon is just make sure that the quarterback who looks like he could one day be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame stays healthy. Well, there's no doubt that with Joe Burrow, good things have come to Cincinnati. You think about it the previous 50 years prior to his arrival, they had won five games in the postseason. And just the three first three seasons they won. They won five postseason games with Joe Burrow as their quarterback. So they've been able to equal the previous 50 year production in the postseason.

They've been able to equal that over the last two seasons. And that's saying a lot. So he's the fourth multiplier. There's no doubt it. He's the rising tide that that they hope will lift the program to a championship.

Let's get to the next down. Solomon Wolcott's here with us contractually. We've seen Justin Herbert get a deal done this offseason.

Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts as well. Now all eyes are on the Bengals and Joe Burrow. You feel like a deal will eventually get done? The question just becomes when as he gets said to enter year four? Oh, yeah, I think the deal gets done.

In fact, we were I was talking with some reporters today. We believe that before he steps out on the field again, that he will have a deal done. It's just a matter of what it's going to look like. To be honest with you, Zach, will it be a longer term deal to kind of help spread that money out over space and time? Or will he get it over the course of a five year deal, much like we saw with Jalen Hurts and Justin Herbert and Lamar Jacks? And I couldn't fault him if he said I want to be the highest paid player ever and do it over a five year deal. But now the Mahomes deal looks even better now where he's a seventh or eighth highest paid quarterback in the league, which is crazy. Ultimately, you know and Joe a little bit.

What do you think he will do? Because it's easy for us in the media to say, hey, the guy should take less money, but I don't fault any player that tries to go get the most amount of money possible and tell the team to figure out the rest of the roster. Yeah, we're all capitalists.

I mean, if you were born and raised in this country, you kind of get the deal, right? Everybody, everybody is going to maximize their potential earnings while still trying to do some of the other things. I don't look at it as an exclusive situation where you say, hey, get the most money you can get and all else be damned. He wants his receivers. He wants to keep his players around him. I think you can accomplish both. It's about how you do it. And so let's face it, Joe Burrow was born and raised, well, he wasn't born here, but he was raised here in Ohio.

Okay. So he has lived here. His parents live here. He's put down roots here. His friends are that he grew up with are not too far away.

They can always come and see him. So to think that, you know, while other quarterbacks may not want to make maybe Cincinnati or Ohio their home, I think for Joe Burrow, that's perfectly okay. And so the deal that he could strike with the Bengals could look, I think, a lot different than maybe what we would creatively think for maybe some other quarterback.

Yeah. My only question on that is I feel great about the Burrow deal getting done and I'm with you probably gets done before the start of the season. I got to think eventually they'll get the Jamar Chase deal done because you know how much Burrow loves Chase going back to their LSU days. And the question just becomes what happens with T Higgins because he could be a number one wide receiver on a lot of other teams. And I know Mike Brown will tell you there's only so many hogs and so many corn that could be put out there.

I wonder if Higgins is the odd guy out. I don't see it that way. You got to ask yourself, can you pay your quarterback over time and still have two quarterbacks, say at $20 million a piece? I mean, the Dodgers seem to be doing it, right?

So it's not out of the realm of possibility for it to get done. The salary cap continues to go up. So being able to spread the money around the players, I think every single year it becomes possible to do more and more. When owners tell you, Oh, if I paid you, I can't pay the other guy. It's just not true.

I think it's one of the biggest misnomers is one of the, but listen, if you are the business owner, wouldn't you want your workers to believe that kind of helps you kind of helps you do whatever you're trying to do. But if you're trying to win, and I do believe Mike Brown, where he is right now, um, he wants to win championship and he knows that he stands a better chance of winning it with T Higgins and Jamar Jason. I know borough feels that way and they're doing everything they can to try to keep that trio together. Um, and so I expect them to find a way to get that done.

It's not going to be challenging, but they are working to get that done. Let's get to the next down talking about contract Solomon Wilcotts. I'm actually surprised. I know the renegotiate his contract and took less that Joe Mixon, after all that talk, this off season is still on this team.

And I even go back to the super bowl. They use Samaj P Ryan late more than him. I I'm shocked that he's still on this team.

Solomon. I'm not because if you think about, I mean, what he's gone over 1200 total yards of office, three of the last four years, um, he is a duo threat running back and for his side and the kind of leader that he is the better leader than what most people could possibly imagine. Remember Mixon was here during some of the dog days when things were really hard around here, came out in 2017 Joe burrow didn't show up until 2020 when Mixon was getting a new deal and new contract. And, um, he's a guy, he's the reason why, how, how could the Bengals poach an often to tackle like Orlando Brown junior, go check where he played ball at, who he played with and who he blocked for at Oklahoma. It was a running back by the name of Joe Mixon. And so Joe may not be the best path protector that P Ryan was, which is why P Ryan would stayed in the game at the end of the super bowl because path protection was at a premium. There was a guy named Aaron Donald stalking burrow all day. Pretty good football player. Yeah. That's the only reason why it came out of the game.

You're not going to get coaches to tell you that, but I think that's why you have me on the show tonight because I will. And also the other thing I think from the organization standpoint, Mixon willing to take a half of the salary pretty much and reduce that shows you that people want to be in Cincinnati now because this bangles team, they have a big window to go win a championship. Yeah. And look, he would have, he probably would have had to move on from the team or maybe try to play one more year, but this is sure that he'll be around now for two more years. So he restructured his deal. He was able to lower his deal, but he's, he can get almost within what, 8 million, which is only a million shy of the nine he would have made, but he can get back to 8 million with incentives. So I do think the bangles were able to split the baby. They allowed, um, Joe Mixon to keep his dignity of saying, look, we still value you.

You can make the money back based on the incentives. And if you perform and play it the way that we think you will, you'll be made whole, but yet we ensure that you'll be around now for two more years as opposed to just one or like Dalvin cook, maybe not even dealing with the team for 2023. So I think they were able to strike a really good court and he wants to be here.

I think that's the real key there. He wants to be on this team because as Mike Tomlin would say, you want volunteers, not hostage. A hundred percent Solomon Wolcott's here with us. You mentioned the Orlando Brown Jr connection, and it's weird to say that he was an underrated off-season acquisition because we know how good of a player he is, but you know this, the big boys up front usually don't get that much love and only get talked about when there's a crucial holding penalty or they miss an assignment. This is back to back off seasons. The bangles have just done a phenomenal job and keep on improving that offensive line. Absolutely, and look, we lost three of the five starters up front as they were heading into the playoffs, and I think it cost them. You know, I think Chris Jones looked really good against some of the Bengals backups, but they're back and they're healthy.

It starts with Ted Karas at center. Alex Capra, remember he came over from Tampa, did a great job last year until he was lost to injury at the end. Cordell Volson, the fourth round pick out of North Dakota State is at the other guard, and then Jonah Williams moves from left tackle to right tackle. He did play some at that position when he was at Alabama in college, and then Orlando Brown Jr. is a guy that could anchor in left tackle, and what do you got to know about Orlando Brown Jr.?

A road grader in the run game, and if you're going to beat him in pass, bro, you're going to have to beat him from the outside. What the Bengals want to do is secure the pocket from the inside out with a stationary guy like Joe Burrow, who, oh by the way, moves as well in the pocket as any quarterback in the league. And I know that Lael Collins in December suffered the ACL injury. Is there any hope that he'll be back this year? Because that could be a big late season push for the Bengals and acquisition if you get Lael Collins back.

Oh, no, you're right, and that's the reason why there's no rush because they now have depth on this offensive line. You got a guy like Lael Collins kind of waiting in the wings. He gives us stability, and he's a road grader too in the run game. So he's the guy that can play the, you know, God forbid something should happen. He can come in at right tackle. You can swing Jonah Williams back over the left tackle. So they've got great depth and versatility up front on the offensive line, and they haven't been able to say that since the days of Andrew Whitworth. Let's get to the last down.

Alrighty, last one for you Solomon Wolcott. You know, this has been the only team that has made Kansas City look human. They beat him three times in a row, once in the playoffs, and then last year they talked a lot of smack on the defensive side of the ball leading into that AFC Championship game, and they didn't walk out there with the victory. What do you think this team learned from coming up short last year against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game? I think they learned that, you know, games are decided in the final moments, and even with a guy like Patrick Mahomes, you cannot give him the ball last, cannot hit him if he runs out of bounds. You know, he's got to really be on par, but you know, Joe Burrow talked about this. He said that game went just like the previous three.

Came down to the very end. Somebody's going to make a play, and you just hope that you have the ball in your hand. Joe Burrow didn't get the ball like he had in the previous situations, and then everyone knows that Patrick Mahomes is a stone cold killer. You give him the ball with a few seconds left on the clock, he's going to find a way to put points on the board.

It's going to come down to that every single time. Last guy with the ball typically wins. Inside the AFC North, one, two, three, four. I know you're going to rank, and deservedly so, the Bengals won, but how do you rank the other three teams and the Ravens, Steelers, and Browns? Hey, look, you cannot deny Lamar Jackson.

That guy went healthy. He's must-see TV, and he's going to put up some plays because the wide receiving core around him. I think I counted, what, four first-round picks on the wide receiving core. So that tells you about the way that they're all set up.

They're ready to do some things. Look, I think Cleveland should be number three. It's just about the rest or rust quotient when it comes to Deshaun Watson, but that is a loaded roster that I think is ready. You can see three teams going to the playoffs, and I wouldn't be surprised. And only because Kenny Pickett is a young quarterback that the Steelers would be finishing fourth, but they could still be above 500 and still finish fourth in their division.

So that's the way I have them stacked up. Make sure you check him out on the Believe in Bengals podcast on the Believe podcast network, and then also each and every morning on the opening drive on Sirius XM NFL radio. He's our pal Solomon Wolcott. Solomon, appreciate it as always. Thank you. Thanks, Zach. Keep up the great work, my friend.