Boomer Esiason - Happy Birthday

Boomer Esiason celebrates a birthday today. He was a darned fine quarterback for the Bengals who was the pilot of a pretty impressive offensive machine. More importantly, he is the leader in the fight against Cystic Fybrosis because of his son Gunnar through the Boomer Esiason Foundation.

Marvin Lewis 2011: Can He Duplicate Love Smith 2010?

Now that Marvin Lewis re-upped with the Bengals for two more seasons, the question is: Can Marvin Lewis in 2011 do what Lovie Smith did in 2010?

Lovie Smith was coming off a bad season in 2009. The Bears were 7-9, but the last two games were wins, and the season felt worse than 7-9. Jay Cutler was not playing well, the offense didn’t look good at all, the O-Line had some real issues, and the defense didn’t look good. The Bears had a lot of injuries. Many were surprised Lovie didn’t get the ziggy right then and there, and most didn’t expect him to last beyond 2010.

Lovie made some changes in his coaching, got a few new coaches (namely Mike Martz on offense, replacing Ron Turner; and Rod Marinelli as the new defensive coordinator, replacing … Lovie Smith). The Bears signed Julius Peppers, who played really really well, and got Brian Urlacher back from the DL, who also played really really well.

Bottom line: 11-5, NFC North Championship, Lovie has new-found respect.

I do think that Marvin could do something like that for the Bengals. They have some real weaknesses on the defensive side of the ball. But a free agent or two could shore up that defensive backfield. One good offensive lineman, maybe, and a veteran wide receiver who would run a route, lose TO and Ocho, and who knows? Also, I would like to see the Bengals get a personnel director who would have some real power. I don’t think they are getting a GM, but it would be a (very very small) step in the right direction to get an experienced personnel man from the outside who could shore up that department.

Pete Johnson Turns 55

Pete Johnson, the Ohio State and Bengals' fullback, turned 55 today. He was born on March 2, 1954. He was, I think, the closest thing that I'll ever see to Marion Motley. He was 6-foot-nothin', 255 pounds, fast, tough, a real danged fullback. He blocked for Archie Griffin on the way to Archie's two Heismans. Johnson was a complete fullback. It is not a position that get carries any more in the NFL. So we shall see if there is another Pete Johnson that comes along. At the end of his career, he was traded to the San Diego Chargers for James Brooks, who went on to a great career for the Bengals. Johnson was done.

James Harris Out for Jags; Bengals GM Postion Open!!

James Harris, who was a key member of the Baltimore Ravens personnel staff before their Super Bowl run, and who helped Jacksonville become one of the strongest teams in the NFL.

The Bengals need a GM. James Harris is the best available man for the job. I want Cincinnati to keep Marvin Lewis as its coach and to sign James Harris as its GM.

Harris was a scout at Tampa Bay from 1987 to '92. He was assistant GM for the Jets from 1993 to '96. He then moved on to the Ravens as director of pro personnel from 1997 till 2003, when he moved to the Jags as the vice president of player personnel.

Let's look at the record. TB never was good while he was there. And several of the draft choices were not that good. But, there were productive, outstanding, and long-lasting choices as well. Vinnie Testaverde, Paul Gruber, Broderick Thomas were the first-round picks in the first few years, and they provided a lot of years. But there were misses as well. Of course, as a scout, no one knows how much Harris was involved in the ultimate choices.

The Jets also weren't any good from 1993 to '96. But the drafts were, as with TB, productive. And they also started to show a trend: Bigger, stronger, tougher, from bigger schools.

In 1997, Baltimore picked up several contributors, Peter Boulware, Jamie Sharper, Kim Herring, Jeff Mitchell, and Cornell Brown. The next year they found Duane Starks at the top of the draft. They were able to find Priest Holmes as well. The next year, Chris McAlister, Brandon Stokley, and Edwin Mulitalo. And they picked up Rod Woodson. In 2000, they drafted Jamal Lewis, Travis Taylor (eh), and, in the sixth round, Adalius Thomas. At tight end, they picked up Shannon Sharpe and Ben Coates, and at defensive tackle, they took Sam Adams and Tony Siragusa. The Ravens won a Super Bowl. After that, there was Todd Heap, Ed Reed, Ed Hartwell, Anthony Weaver, and Chester Taylor.

With Jacksonville, he did a great job. Byron Leftwich, Rashean Mathis, Vince Manuwai, and George Wrighster drafted the first year. Reggie Williams (eh), Daryl Smith, Greg Jones, Ernest Wilford, Josh Scobee, and Bobby McCray the next. OK, Matt Jones the next year (but ... Kahlif Barnes). Marcedes Lewis, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Clint Ingram last year.

I'm ready. Let 'er rip.

thankyouverymuch,

OldCleat

Al Beauchamp, Cincinnati Bengals Linebacker

Al Beauchamp, Cincinnati Bengals linebacker from 1968 to 1975, celebrates a birthday on June 25. He was born June 25, 1944, in Baton Rouge, LA. He was a fine player, and he held down an outside backer job from the Bengals inception for eight years. He also played in St. Louis for the football Cardinals.

Beauchamp played at Southern University, and he was picked in the fifth round of the 1968 draft by Paul Brown. The Bengals had an interesting draft in 1968. They were a first-year expansion team, so a lot of the players had an opportunity to impress right away. Also, Paul Brown didn't have a team to coach in 1967, so he was able to scout full-time. And he was the GM-head coach, so he didn't have to answer to anyone, so it was a little like building the Browns back in 1946.

Besides Beauchamp, Brown found Howard Fest, Bob Trumpy, Jesse Phillips, and Paul Robinson in later rounds in that draft.

The image of Al Beauchamp is the 1969 Tresler Comet Bengals card, and it comes from footballcardgallery.com.

Chuck Bresnahan Gone -- Bengals Fire D Coordinator

Chuck Bresnahan is no longer the D coordinator of the Bengals. This is good news to all Bengal fans who have suffered through a third-down easy completion for 15 yards on a third-and-12 by a crapola offense quarterbacked by Brock Berlin or Shaun Hill.

The Bengals need some help on their team. But this was the No. 1 problem on their team if you ask me. Not getting off the field on third down killed the Bengals. This problem has hurt them for years.

And it made everything else on their team seem worse. Their offense looked pretty good. But they always seemed to be pressing (especially Carson Palmer). And usually it was because they weren't on the field very long, and when they were on the field, they were usually having to score.

Marvin Lewis ran one of the greatest defensive teams in the recent history of the NFL when he ran the Baltimore Ravens. He needs to find a D coordinator who believes in his philosophy. I don't think that Bresnahan did.

Bengals History: Additional Twists

There were some additional twists in the history of the Cincinnati Bengals franchise.

In 1967 a Cincinnati-based ownership group led by Paul Brown was granted a franchise in the American Football League.

By 1966, Paul Brown wanted to become involved in professional football again. James A. Rhodes, then the governor of Ohio, convinced Brown that Ohio needed a second team. Cincinnati was deemed the logical choice, in essence, splitting the state.

However, Brown was not a supporter of the rival American Football League, stating that "I didn't pay 10 million dollars to be in the AFL," He only acquiesced to joining the AFL when he was guaranteed that the team would become an NFL franchise after the impending merger of the two leagues.

There was also a complication: the Major League Baseball Cincinnati Reds were in need of a facility to replace the antiquated, obsolete Crosley Field, which they had used since 1912. Parking nightmares had plagued the city as far back as the 1950s, the little park lacked modern amenities, and New York City, which in 1956 had lost both their National League teams, the Dodgers and the Giants to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, were actively courting Powel Crosley. However, Crosley was adamant that the Reds remain in Cincinnati and tolerated worsening problems with the Crosley Field location, which were increased with the Millcreek Expressway (I-75) project that ran alongside the park.

With assistance from Ohio governor James A. Rhodes, Hamilton County and the Cincinnati city council agreed to build a single multi-purpose facility on the dilapidated riverfront section of the city. The new facility had to be ready by the opening of the 1970 NFL season and was officially named Riverfront Stadium, which was its working title.

Here is another take:

Planning for the Cincinnati Bengals franchise began three full years before the team began playing in the American Football League in 1968. Paul Brown, who had enjoyed exceptional success as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns for 17 seasons before departing in 1962, had the urge to get back into pro football. In 1965, he met with then-Governor Jim Rhodes and the two agreed the state could accommodate a second pro football team. A year later in 1966, Cincinnati's city council approved the construction of 60,389-seat Riverfront Stadium, which was scheduled for completion by 1970. The next year, a group headed by Brown was awarded an American Football League franchise that would begin play in 1968. Brown named his team the Bengals in recognition of previous Cincinnati pro football franchises with the same name in the 1930s and 1940s.

And then there's this monkey business that tells of the original ownership group, and a little of how Mike Brown gained control of the franchise.

During the dance to keep the Cincinnati Bengals from moving to Baltimore, team president Mike Brown was asked in 1995 if he could help fund a new stadium in Cincinnati.

During the dance to keep the Cincinnati Bengals from moving to Baltimore, team president Mike Brown was asked in 1995 if he could help fund a new stadium in Cincinnati.

He's right. He didn't. Twelve years earlier, his father, Paul Brown, the legendary NFL coach and founder of the Bengals, signed away the family's profits so that one day 10 years down the road, his son Mike could own and control the team.

From 1984 to 1993, the Bengals paid out every penny of profit — $66 million — to shareholders. Nearly all of that money was paid to John Sawyer and Austin Knowlton, the men whose money brought the new franchise to Cincinnati in 1968.

And some more:

Upset at losing control of and being fired as coach of the team that bears his name by the Cleveland Browns upstart owner Art Modell, football pioneer Paul Brown rebounded by planning to bring a professional team to Cincinnati.

Brown sought the political clout of Ohio Gov. James Rhodes but needed money. He turned to John Sawyer, owner of a farm management and estate brokerage firm, and a Columbus-area construction company owner named Austin E. Knowlton, known to all as "Dutch."

Before the Bengals were born in 1967, Knowlton already was a wealthy construction company owner interested in professional athletics. In addition to helping form the Bengals, over his lifetime Knowlton also was the majority owner of the Cincinnati Reds and was active in the horse racing industry, serving as a trustee of the Brown Jug Society, which runs the Triple Crown for standard bred pacing horses, as well as a breeder of show horses at his Emerald Farm outside Columbus.

As owner of 236 of the 586 shares of Bengals stock, Knowlton controlled the largest block of shares, something Chesley believes irked Mike Brown, current team president and son of Paul Brown.

That, Chesley suggested, was the driving force behind the Brown family's eventual purchase of 60 of Knowlton's Bengals shares that gave the Browns control of the team. Brown and Knowlton signed a controversial 1983 document that gave the Brown family the option to buy those 60 shares for $6 million, or $100,000 per share, a shockingly low price, Chesley maintains.

Bengals History: It was 40 Years Ago Today

Bengals History:

I saw this today on the NFL website:

NFL History
September 27, 1967
A group with Paul Brown as part owner, general manager, and head coach, was awarded the Cincinnati franchise.

Growing up in Cincy, I was a fan. All my life.

I looked up some history of the franchise. I found some on some interesting websites.

In 1965 Paul Brown and Ohio governor James Rhodes met with Cincinnati civic leaders about bringing a pro football team to the city. In 1966 Cincinnati city council set aside a 48 acre site that later would be used to construct a stadium that would house the Reds and a pro football team. With the promise of a new stadium Brown was awarded an AFL expansion team on September 27, 1967. Although many names were suggested the most popular being the Buckeyes, Brown rejected it to avoid confusion with Ohio State University and name the team the Bengals in honor of an earlier Cincinnati AFL football team of the late 30's and early 40's.

This was a recently published article that I thought was very well done:

Brown signed Stofa, the ex-Miami Dolphin, as the first Bengal on Dec. 27, 1967. Now the team needed a center. So Brown tapped Bob Johnson, an All-America from Tennessee, as his top draft pick on Jan. 30, 1968, and immediately installed him as the captain.

"I was the first guy drafted, so for an expansion team it was like I was one of the few guys that probably knew he was going to make the team," Johnson said. "You walked in and Coach Brown made me the captain, but you were the captain of sort of a strange, unusual collection of people.

"If you look back at that group, there were some good players, but as you would expect, there was no really good players in the prime of their career. They were either at the tail end or were viewed to be marginal."
Johnson played 12 seasons (1968-79), and his number — 54 — is the only one retired in club history.

Here is how the Bengals website has the history:

The Bengals arrive on Sept. 26, 1967 in a birth announcement at a packed house in the Sheraton Gibson Hotel as the newest member of the American Football League.

But the labor pains begin long before on the back porch of Paul Brown's home in exile in La Jolla, Calif., where one of his former Ohio State players, Bill Hackett, a London, Ohio veterinarian, urges him to be NFL commissioner when the job opens up again.

Brown tells Hackett what he really wants to do is own a team and the comments spark a Dec. 14, 1965 meeting of 125 Cincinnati businessmen listening to Brown make the irresistible pitch to bring an American Football League franchise to Cincinnati with local entrepreneur John Sawyer as a critical go-between.

The city and the sport are meeting in just that right intersection of opportunity and luck. Professional football is about to explode on the American scene and overtake baseball as the national pasttime, and even though Brown has been out of the game more than two years he remains one of its most recognizable faces and names.

Mike Brown, Paul's son and a Cleveland attorney, has surveyed potential cities for pro football expansion and recommends Cincinnati because of its market size and his father's Ohio ties.

The road is arduous. There must be a stadium built and there must be an accommodation with baseball's Reds, one of the country's most treasured civic prizes.

Plus, amid the NFL and AFL's trench warfare, there are peace talks about a merger, and Brown's group has to negotiate through the political minefields of not one, but two leagues.

They have help.
Ohio governor James Rhodes takes a break this night from the introductory news conference outside the hotel and recalls how he made "22 trips outside of Ohio just on this." NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, who owes his position in some measure to the day in 1960 Brown turned down the job, is a key ally. Cincinnati city officials like mayor Gene Ruehlmann roll up their sleeves in brokering a deal with the Reds and Bengals for one multipurpose stadium on the riverfront.

"When I assured (Rhodes) that I was serious enough to invest a sizable amount of my own money, he began setting up a series of meetings that really started the franchise on its way," Brown later writes in his autobiography with Jack Clary.

"It wasn't too long before I was commuting often between California and Cincinnati in 1966, meeting prospective members of our ownership group and working on the details that attach themselves to such a massive venture. When I wasn't in Ohio, I was being awakened nearly every morning in La Jolla by Bill Hackett's phone calls giving me the latest news."

But it is the sheer force of Brown's personality and accomplishments that drive it. A legendary high school coach in Massillon, Ohio. Coach of a national champion at Ohio State. One of the founders and coach of a Cleveland Browns franchise that became the NFL's first dynasty.

Since Brown's firing at the end of the 1962 season by Browns owner Art Modell, all eyes have been on his return to pro football and five years later the microphones and cameras find him in Cincinnati as owner, general manager and, everyone assumes, head coach.

"This is like coming home," Brown says, barely a month removed from his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction. "I'm living again. It's a happy day for me and I hope it turns out to be a happy day for Cincinnati and its environs."

There are plenty of details still dangling.
Two of the sites mentioned as possible venues for the two seasons before the stadium is finished are the University of Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium and the Reds' Crosley Field.

And there is the matter of a name, although no doubt the name of Cincinnati's pro team in the late '30s, the Bengals, will resonate with Brown.

Even the coaching job has yet to be hammered down definitely. Brown, who'll turn 60 the day after his team's first game in September of 1968, admits he'll probably coach at least that first season and "take the bumps."
But two things are certain.

Cincinnati is a two-sport town on the pro scene and Paul Brown is back.

"I'm breathing again," he says on a September night the Bengals take their first breath.