October 19, 2018 • 39 mins
Geoff Hobson speaks with Bengals coaching legend Sam Wyche in this edition of Hobson's Choice Podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of the nineteen nine of the nineteen eighty eight Bengals podcast,
Sam White, it's actually Hobson's Choice podcast. Sam. We get
kind of uh, we're kind of formal here on Bengals
dot com. But thank you, thanks very much for joining us. Well,
you know a couple a formal guy. I am too,
So this is good Friday in with me. Sam. You've
(00:21):
had a very active day to day. I know you
were out on your Meals on Wheels route and actually
you do that by the bike. Yeah, well, we my wife,
I've written our name down here somewhere, Jane and I
kind of split the meals on Wheels route and then
(00:42):
we have lunch afterwards. And then after that I decided
to get on that bike. I was going to try
to do twenty miles. And I got out and I
couldn't remember whether I had my phone with me or not,
or if I left it on the back of the car,
on the trunk of the car, And so I turned
around after about twelve miles and came up and kept
about six miles and roll six more backs, so twelve miles.
(01:03):
But that was my daily run. Normally I did fifty
or twenty miles, but I'm trying to do it three
or four or more times a week. Well, that would
answer the next question. It sounds like the heart is
doing great, heart is doing unbelievably good. And I can't
tell you how many times I repeat this over and
over because I was one of the lucky ones that
(01:24):
happened to get a heart that was my size, which
is important, and my compatible blood type. I'm a positive
and this happened to be a positive as well. But
you know, if there aren't a lot of donors, then
there aren't a lot of hearts or lungs, or livers
(01:44):
or kidneys and testines. And I coordinate corneas and skin
for skin grass. Literally, you save seven or eight people's
lives with your passing. If you're a donor and you
enhanced maybe another fifty people or sixty people, depending on
you know how much skin they needed to help a
(02:06):
burn victim, for example, you enhanced the life that they
will have. But I'm one of the ones that whose
life was saved. I was definitely I had been asked
to let hospice take care of me or told that
hospices would take care of me twice, and the last
time I said we're not taking no financier that you've
(02:28):
got maybe a few hours left or certainly aren't going
to live through the night. So when you hear that,
life becomes very real. Every second became a free a deck.
I'm important. And then, unbelievably, at the last second, literally
when they were going to take me and put me
in that ambulance and take these you know home, let
me go home quote to die in my own bed.
(02:49):
And I told him right away, I don't care whose
bed I die him for our sakes. Yeah, I'll just
be happy to die right here, just in case something
were going to happen. And something unbelievably did happen to heart.
My size, my blood type came available, and they got
into me within minutes, certainly no more than an hour
(03:09):
before my heart was going to fail. Well there's a
reason for everything, isn't They said, you know, well, well,
let's out of my heart, and actually had stopped for
for over an hour before the heart got there and
had what's called an ELBAD pump left ventricular assistance device ELBAD,
and that had taken over the activity of the job
(03:32):
of the less out of my heart, and the right
side was slowing down so fast that they said, you
may have had, you know, maybe maybe half a dozen
beach left, maybe a dozen beach left. But Jeff, let
me tell you. I talked to a doctor in training
that observed this operations or my heart transplant, and she
(03:53):
said that when they took my heart out and made
the snip and the new heart immediately have they were
six surgeons doing, by the way, so everybody's got something
to do, and timing is important. They took the other
down and they put it in a pan beside the
operating table. She said she watched that heart and my
heart beat for a good five minutes outside my body
(04:14):
myself after they took it out of my heart, which
I told the doctors later said, you guys are nuts
because I thought I had like twelve heart beat lip
I had a good five minutes left eat. But they
did a great job. I got a strong heart. That's
important to that you get you know, you don't know
what you're getting as I transplant. Sometimes it's super strong
(04:36):
and sometimes um it's not. But at least you're you're surviving, right.
That's quite an amazing story. It's it's I did fancy
transition from that into football. But I guess in a
I guess in a way, Sam, you were a you're
a you're a you're a doctor of offense. You know
(04:57):
how to operate on You knew how how to operate
on xes and o's and still do. And I know
you're probably taking a look at this season that has
been you know, they're calling it the season of offense,
and you saw plenty of those as a player and
as a coach. Where exactly do you see the state
of offense, the state of football right now as far
(05:18):
as it comes to scoring points, Well, I think the
I think the uh, you know, everybody always say you've
got to have a good running game to compliment your
passing game and your running games supporting Let's analyze it
just a little bit. Who makes the blocks for the
running game. It's the office, you line up, the league
or maybe a lead blocker who makes the blocks to
(05:40):
hold out the pass rush when the quarterback sits up
to pass and not only pulls them out, that gives
the quarterback a line of sight down the field. Other
words of that rush is maybe being held out. But
they're just a few feet away from you. You can't
see over these guys are six six six seven, you're
feet six feet seven inches tall, and then they stick
(06:02):
their hands up on top of that. So it's important
that they be held out and you've got three or
four yards that you can have a line of sight
between these blockers. You're not going to see over So
that's the first thing that comes to mind, is that
maybe we're overlooking the extremely gifted athletes that go down
(06:25):
the field and catch passes. And those guys are most
of them are bigger targets, not all of them, but
at stop with that bigger target, and if they're not big,
they can jump like a big guy can't get up
and get them reception. You see more and more passes
thrown where the guys really covered. The quarterback puts it
out there and just expects the receiver to make a
(06:48):
play at the other end. I think that has become
in vogue and more than it was years ago. And
of course the quarterbacks have gotten smart around the league,
and I have to have made a good time. I
believe in this all my life. Is the longer you
hold that ball, the more you should drop your eyes
(07:09):
and look for somebody short to throw the ball to.
Number one. You can even if you're being tackled, you
must live out there and number two, let him make
the run after the catch. If everything's covered down the field,
there means just somebody open underneath. That seems to be
more of a that seems to be in vogue too. Yeah,
I think. I think you see a lot of short
(07:31):
passes that become twenty yard games. You're not just green passes,
which you're designed to do that. You pull a couple
of interior linemen out there to block. But if you
look it down the field, nothing develops. Generally, the reasons
something doesn't develop if there's somebody between the passer and
the receivers, so that would be a linebacker most of
(07:51):
the time, maybe a strong safe you need rolls up type,
but you get an individual and occasionally a defensive linement
that'll back out of there in its own ledge. But
between the quarterback and the receiver, if there's a defensive
layer standing there, there's an interception. So you take your
second pick and find that guy. They're sitting with a
(08:11):
clear line of flight of the ball to the receiver,
and many times your ods go Most of the time,
your odds go way up. If you're throwing that eight
to ten yard pass or maybe that passed behind the
latter screws a swing pass, and if you try to
throw the ball twenty five yards down the field, it
seems like it's become more of a league of less
(08:33):
less field position and more time of possession. I mean limit,
you know, limit the offenses. It doesn't really matter where
you are on the on the field. Just make sure
that you limit may make sure you keep the ball,
you know, so maybe you go on fourth and one
more instead of putment. Well, you know, statistically you get
(08:55):
about three possession. Each team gets about three possessions for quarters,
so they get a total of about twelve possessions. Maybe
they get a two minute drill at the end of
the first half and maybe the second half maybe, so
you end up with thirteen or fourteen possessions. But that's
what you go into a game saying yourself, I've got
three possessions a quarter. Well, at the end of the
(09:17):
you get laid in the second quarter and you've had
the ball twice and they're putting to you. You're saying
to yourself, this may be my last chance to score,
which could affect your play calling, especially if you've got
a fourth down situation right on the edge of a
long field goal distance. But time of possession is important,
(09:38):
and field position is I think just is important. I
don't think there's one over another one. I'd much rather
have to go, you know, fifty yards and get the
ball at midfield, and I would have to go eighty yards.
I remember Jim help me here, Jeff Head, coach of
New Orleans for a long time, Jim, Jim Moore and
(10:00):
black Um. But I didn't get a lot of broad
blood to my brain during the surgeries. I'm okay, excuse.
I don't have an excuse for a lot of things
I did before the surgery. That problem. But Jim Martin
told me one time at a league meetings that you know,
they have the dome and the crowd is loud and there.
He said, we just ran some studies and the odds
(10:24):
are scoring the touchdown. If you started the twenty yard
line in those days, you keep well, uh, you know,
out of being son for example, going eighty yards. The
odds are doing that are like one in six or
something like that. The odds of if you get the
ball at the thirty forty to fifty the odds go
up each time, you get better field position. And the reason,
(10:46):
part of the reasoning was that they had a loud crowd.
It was a factor in the step down, the factor
in the timing of the offensive play. If they, you know,
been eleven guys on the field, only the quarterback could
hear himself many times, that's about it anyway. You just
react to the step of the ball like the defense does.
And you're right, I mean, both of them are important,
(11:09):
but I wouldn't put one above the other. I'm not
sure which I would rather have at the end of
the game. Is the clock on my side where we
had board in time with the ball maybe those fourteen
possessions instead of twelve, or whether I'd rather have field
position every time. I think I'd probably choose field position.
(11:30):
Same when you watch games now, I mean obviously, I
mean every team has some some version of the old huddle, right,
you know, every level. You have seen that, even in
high school, and I see some middle schools down here
in South Carolina that that's what they do. They have
their version of the no huddle, and the no huddle
(11:51):
really is not a hurry up. I keep you were
seeing and hearing people talk about the hurry up office
it was initially and then to some people who turned
it into a fast paced offense, But initially it was
the threat of a hurry up. You were standing there
at the ball in illegal formation and your people are
(12:12):
being still. I see now where they go, no huddling.
You see eleven guys all wandering near their you know
their position, but certainly not in illegal formation because they're
all moving at the same time. They're looking to the sideline. Again,
signals from two or three different coaches, and the original
no huddle. I would signal to the play into Boomer,
(12:34):
Kenny Anderson or Boomer most of the time when it's developed,
and I would signal to play in. That's all. He
memorized the formations and we would change the formations. We
wouldn't change the play, or we would change the formations.
So the defense was looking at a different defensive problem
at the snap of the ball, and Boomer had to
(12:56):
memorize those formations and he would just yell out double
wings split by a double wings split right. He would
just yell the formation because at the snap of the ball,
or as soon as he got through with that, he'd
say and he would call the play. Pirate trigger, Bruce
Pirate trigger Bruce will Crust didn't mean anything to the
defense when the formation they were going to show it anyway,
(13:18):
and then he would help move and they would all
sprint to their formation that he'd given them. They all
knew the play, they had time to think about it,
but at any moment that the defense tried to substitute
and got more than eleven guys on the field before,
we just yelled settlert settler and the means the ball
was going to be snapped on, ready set, and we
(13:40):
had a design play where we quick snapped the ball
and through whoever the receiver was to the visiting side,
our opponent's side. He ran a little quick out so
that people running on and off would be in the way.
The official would have to call it, not that he
ever always did. There was resistance from officials as well.
(14:00):
And then we had the other guy on our side
of the field wide receiver run a goat pattern. We
scored a lot of touchdowns with a goat patter because
there was just nobody covered sometimes, right, what do you
think the mean? I mean, what's the main difference now
when you see what the pros are doing with it?
What do you what do you think it's the main
difference that David I don't see him in a legal position,
(14:21):
a legal formation. They're they're moving around. You see. The
linemen are turned into like a forty five degree of
the sideline getting a call. That's one difference who we
got one call and then he took over the quarterback
in and the formation, the snap cap and the play
and he would give a snap cap. I can't remember
if we did this all the time or just part
(14:43):
of the time, but he did not yell one twenty
eight one twenty eight. Well, the middle digit was a
snap cat one two eight. Balls can be snapped on
two and if it was if he had one seventy
six one seventy six, seven was sat it's on set.
So that was our little way of doing it. And
(15:04):
other teams have, you know, different code words, and we
let the team or idead anyway. I let the team
come up with as many words as a good figuring
they would remember them. If you know, maybe Rodney Holman,
who went to Tulane, came up and he wanted to
name a particular play U lane JU lane. Everybody would
remember it. Probably have a good laugh from the meeting
(15:27):
room when he came up with it. Any but who
runs it? Who runs it? Who was it the best?
Now you think who runs it? Who runs it the way?
You know, the best from where we could where we
originally did it. Yeah, well I guess who. Yeah, I
guess that's yeah, that's the right question. Yeah, that's what
(15:48):
I killed me on that, which I don't I don't know.
I think there are a lot of them. I mean,
there are some that I don't know if it's a lot.
To be honest, I think most of the ones that
I see a I mean, you have to see it. Blab.
That's the other thing. By the way, that you know
when they in the initial years of the naddle, the
film that was exchange or the tape that was exchanged
(16:11):
between teams started when the quarterback approached the center approach,
putting his hands under center, they would start the film,
started the recording, and then when the tackle was made,
it usually ran a second or two afterwards, and then
it stopped, and then the next thing you saw was
the quarterback putting his end. You really didn't know unless
you had a personal scout there, whether you went into
(16:34):
the huddle or not, or whether they're eighteen. Well, now
you can see on the video that the teams are
standing and just you know, their hands on their hips
and they're standing and looking back to the sideline, and
the two or three coaches are making calls. The line
coach is telling the line what blocking scheme it might be.
(16:54):
For example, running back coach and receiver coach are given
pass routes. And of course the quarterbacks didn't whole play.
It wasn't like that in the old days. Obviously it
wasn't though. It wasn't like that old days. The quarterback
had to take over. I would give it literally just
maybe I touched my nose. I just, you know, kind
(17:15):
of swiped my nose a little bit. And in the
original days, that was a draw play, and Boober would
call out the play and the code words for draw
in those days, I don't know where they are anymore,
but the code word for draw was painter. If you
draw your paint and Picasso paint Payton pretty good thing. So, uh,
(17:40):
you know, he might yelled Picasso, Picasso, or paint or
paint or painter, and that was the play. And everybody
knew that that would have been a in the huddle
if you wouldn't. The huddle might have been forty draw
forty drawing. The one thing I wrote about the CDA team, uh,
I guess on the twenty fifth anniversary was that how
(18:01):
it was kind of it? You know, it was a
snapshot of the twenty first century. I mean, on offense,
you were running the no huddle, which is now everybody
does it. And on defense, Dick lebau Is aren't on
his own blitz. Everybody does that some form of it,
maybe not all the time, but some form of it.
The same thing with a no huddle. I mean, it
really was. You guys, we're on the cutting edge of
(18:23):
stuff that would become a staple in the next century. Well,
we you know, definitely had prominent the best, one of
the best. There were a lot of good ones. One
of the best defensive coordinators maybe the history of the league.
But you know, I would make how to make a
(18:44):
suggestion and he would polish into where it would actually
work and other times of the court. Most of the
time he would be coming up with ideas. And I
don't think I ever said no to anything because I
was willing to try anything. I should have been letting
anybody else get their way as well. We're talking about
(19:06):
Dick Labo obviously Dick Labard. Yeah, it turned out to
be almost impossible to stop if you had you have
to nimble deepitz Laman to do it, because sometimes they
have to drop back into short coverage. And that was
really an answer that was really he was trying to
he was trying to have an answer for the West
Coast offense. That was that was basically trying to run
(19:29):
the ball with short passes. Yeah, the West Coast was
And you know, I've had I've been lucky. I was
hired about Bill Walsh back in nineteen seventy nine when
he first got his well his first head coaching job
of the forty nine ers. And then of course in
the first draft, we draft Joe Montana. So we had
a good young quarterback coming along, Steve de Burgh, as
(19:50):
smart as a whip veteran in UH at the beginning
of the year, at least he was the starter until
Joe was ready. But it was a crossing pattern. Usually
in the crossing pattern didn't mean you kept going, and it
it was his zones. So you got between two linebackers
covering each of their zones. You snapped around and squared
(20:11):
your shoulders. Quarterback knew you weren't going to move anymore
in each popped the ball to turn around and make
four bore yards before they could tackle you, and went
long before you were just marching up and down the
field with the West Coast and the West Coast. By
the way, the original name that we call it was
forty nine or football. That's always said, and the media
(20:33):
gave it the name because for San Francisco and the
West Coast, the West Coast Office, So that was not
named it in the locker room. It was named in
the newspaper somewhere the subset it should be the eighth
Street Viaduct offense, since it was it came from Cincinnati, Ella,
you know what it was. It was probably polished a
(20:56):
little bit, but the fundamentals of the West Coast came
from Paul Brown offense that he had when he was
in Cleveland. And uh, the years I could remember, I
was one of the original Bengals in nineteen sixty eight
and for three years before irustrated. But I remember when
I went to San Francisco, Je persists. Some of the
(21:18):
plays were actually even called the same numbers, you know,
series was used again. Yeah, I was talking to I
was talking to Dan Fultz a couple of days ago,
and he's and he had I didn't realize this, but
he had Bill Walsh for a year before Dawn Carroll
Correll came to San Diego, and of course he was there,
and the first thing he remembered Walsh saying, is I'm
(21:39):
gonna go get Charlie Joyner. You know, and who was
who had worked Uh so well, we worked so well
with Isaac Curtis and Cincinnati. Yeah. Bill loved Isaac Curtis Bellwood. Yeah,
we kept looking for that guy that was part wide receiver,
part running back all the time. And James Brooks probably
(22:02):
was as close as anybody you could come to. Maybe
Stanford Jennings could play all the positions as well, but
you know, we would we would line up a running
back out like a wide receiver and uh, you get
a cornerback cover and the running back in that minute
safety or a linebacker had to cover the wide receiver.
Well there's your mismatch right now. Well, there's a two
(22:25):
guys you just mentioned with such huge guys and at
eighty eight club Brooks and Jennings. I mean, I don't
think you've got a chance to come up to the reunion.
But I know you've talked to you know, and I'm
sure that that was that was tough because of the weather, right, Yeah,
we had a hurricane down here, Yeah, Lawrence, right was
we we actually aboided the big hit, but we didn't
(22:46):
know we were going to. It was seeing catastrophic wins
they end or get out from the bundle up, and
so we did. We have we have horses and dogs
and cats and let to rescue animals here we love
and you just feel like we couldn't felt like we
couldn't leave, but you did. But you were able to.
I think you were able to come up with Kenny
Ann a few weeks later to Kenny Anderson's Legends. A Right,
(23:09):
that was fun we had. I got to see the
Miami game and then after the game at the boat house.
UM had a big crowd and story storytelling is always dangerous.
The way I found, the longer you are away from
what actually happened, the more spectacular it was. What was
(23:32):
the best story you heard? What was the best story
you heard there that day? Well, you know I heard
stories that were I don't remember him the same way
in fact, I don't think many of the stories I
heard were the as I remember them. But even if
I can tell you implea guilty The more I tell
his story, the more I remember get slightly differently until
(23:53):
it's almost not recognizable before. But we had we had
good players, and we had some great great Sunday afternoons.
We had a fun team to watch us, for sure,
Yet an eighty eight team, I guess you would. I mean,
it was, it was. It was so good the league
tried to stop you. The day of the AFC Championship game,
(24:17):
well one game, I remember Jeff that and this is
why I remember. In fact, I'm not even sure who
we're playing where. I think we're playing the Jets, but
I'm not sure. At Riverfront Stadium, and um, we had
a I don't know, we were like the twenty yard
line or something. Bloomer drops back, throws a touchdown pass
(24:38):
I think to Rodney home, and the first one touchdown
the end zone they call holding marches bat. So now
we're on the thirty yard line and next play we
throw a touchdown pass I think that Chris collins Worth
that second one, and once again holding. We're now back
to the forty yard lit then he throws a touchdown pass.
(25:02):
I'm trying to thank you that. I think he'll byvent
Eddie Brown that one. The third one, and they called
illegal formation that the wide receiver covered the tight end up.
So now back to the forty five. We throw him
three touchdown passes in a row. The next one he
hits Kim McGee on a deep crossing pattern in the
back of the end zone. I don't know how how
(25:24):
he got that deep, how the line held him out
that long, and maybe they were just tired from the
first three times in the score, but Jim McGee in
the back of the ends that we scored four straight touchdowns,
four straight plays and got seven points out of it. Well,
I know, I was reading about one of those games
in eighty eight and it was you kind of you
(25:47):
kind of as you would want to do. I think
you kind of gave the refs a pretty good you know,
you read on the riot act pretty well after the game.
But one of them was because they wouldn't let Ikey seller,
they wouldn't let it do the Ikey shuffle. And yeah,
I think you were you were of the mindset. Look,
that's that's you know, that's not that's not really full
(26:07):
with the game. That's you know, and I think you
told Ikey to go ahead and do it. Yeah, well,
you know, the higgy shovel was a fun thing. It
wasn't a dawning thing that what they need Bundy's things.
It was that. In fact, he would try to find
an empty spot in the end zone afterwards to do
the shovel. And it really started to remember that old
bosmobile commercialist is not your dad Gelos Wilbil Right. He
(26:29):
made one of those commercials and his mom said, when
don't you do that shovele you do? And he did,
and that's where you know, it all kind of came
to be. But they ended up telling me he had
to go to the sideline, which we ended up doing
and facing the crowd. He couldn't be facing the field.
I mean, he got to be a little bit ridiculous.
(26:50):
But you know, there are a lot of people that
took a firm stance that had no place in the game.
And I'm not sure where I stood on it, but
I sure did like when he did it right after
a touchdown. Yes, I think Paul Brown was of the
same mindset there. Yeah, I'm all was okay with it.
I mean, and I can remember more than watched looking
(27:13):
up there in that in that owner's box after a
touchdown like that, Nick, he's going crazy and Paul is
up there almost almost doing the shovel to trying to
get it started a little. And he was into a
big time. He uh, he had a fun time that year.
I mean, that was just kind of I think more
like the more like the more more so than the
(27:34):
eighty one team. The eighty eight team I think was
more his style. It was kind of a fire fallback.
And I mean I think, you know, he loved offense
and he certainly got it with that with that eighty eighteen. Yeah,
I don't you know, I don't remember Paul. I remember
him questioning me about the no huddle. You know, but
tell me the theory of this, tell what are the
(27:54):
advantages disadvantages Almost but never did he say I don't
think this is you know, worth the time, or this
is this can't take too long to install and to
get it going. But it really didn't. It's not just
your basic offense is just the tempo, and the possibility
of a change of tempo throws that defense off. The
(28:18):
defensive coordinators trying to get the right personnel in the game.
He's trying to make the right defensive call and fam
the ball's coming up in the middle. Ball that mindset.
And but anyway, Paul was behind that one hundred percent.
Same with Mike Michael. I think Mike had joined it.
I mean we did. I know, we sold a lot
of stadiums out, We scored a lot of points, and
(28:40):
we probably hurt the concessions a little bit because nobody
wanted to let their seat. They missed something right. Well,
the like I said, the eighty eight championship game, they
obviously both Mike and Paul stood with you. Um, of
course it really had no choice. I mean, how can
you come to a guy two hours before the game
and say, uh, you know, you got to change the offense.
That's that's some was laughable. Well it is, you know
(29:02):
it is. But that's what happened that I got work
that they were going to do that. That night before
the AFC Championship game against Buffalo. Winner goes to the
Super Bowl, loser goes home, and Bob called me and said,
you'd better sit down. You're not gonna like this. You're
not gonna let you run the no huddle to mow
and and that was Bob Trumpy, right, because Bob was
(29:26):
the Trumpy the former Bengals Tyan who was the broadcaster,
absolutely and you know, a good friend and I was
a rookie when he was a rookie and in nineteen
sixty eight, but this was in nineteen eighty eight, twenty
years later a broadcaster, and he was in the production
meeting along with Merlin Olson and Dick he Burg did
(29:49):
the ball game that day, and Don Shula was in
there representing the competition committee, and they were told that
that People's el had gotten a phone call from or
believing the coach of the Bills saying that he was
going to fake injuries on every down, like like Seattle
that you know, they faked Joe Nash would take an
(30:09):
injury on third down between second and third down so
that they could get their nickel peopled in the game
and then be right back in there on first down again.
And so there was a threat of that, and Pick
didn't People's l didn't want to make a first of
a high profile game like the AF Championships, so he
(30:30):
said we couldn't run the no huddle. Well, Trump. He
asked him in the night before when he heard about it, said,
when you're going to tell Sam the games tomorrow and
tell him right before the game. And their answer was
that's our plane. Well, that's our plan. Well, I don't
know how disrupted. I don't know how much it would
(30:50):
have disrupted the guys, but I wasn't going to I
wasn't going to bend on that one. So when they
came in about two hours before the game, in my
little office outside of the locker room there, I told
him I shouldn't get people set on the phone. Let
me just reminded him he's commissing all the competitive balance
of the game. Yeah, and you know my comment was
(31:13):
I wouldn't be walking around Manhattan without a lot of
bodyguards because there's a whole lot of money riding on
this game. Well, that's was actually that was one that
was this This was a new part of the story
that was revealed at the UH at the Legends that
one of the stories that came out there actually Trump
that Trump had told you the night before. Um, and
(31:35):
that was which was I'm sure that was helpful And
I've often wondered what later that year in Marge rape
or whenever the league meetings were held. Um, we took
a break from my general session where all the head coaches,
general managers and owners are in the meeting room, and
people kept me at People was helped to kept me
(31:56):
on the shoulder of the city and to speak conference room,
big auditorium almost and they were taking a thirty minute
break and testing them the shoulder. And he said, I
just want to kidn't um, you know, I didn't just
notify you two hours before the game. We told Paul
Brown the after Saturday afternoon that we were going to
(32:18):
do this. Well, what was Paul Brown going to do?
And what was like I was supposed to do giving
if they told me Saturday afternoon or two hours before
the game? Right, Because the office we'd run for five
years straighte office we had I think we led the
league in office three of those five years. We were
in the top five all five years and we were
(32:43):
we were good and we were going to change it.
So I told him with almost got to throw the flags,
West would have to face the consequence if we lose
the game because of those flags. Right, That'll be the
first thing and the only thing I'll talk about at
the post gap jobference. Yeah, later in that session, in
(33:04):
that off season, after that season, that that happened. U
was the it was the moment that peoples asigned. I
don't know that they had any factor at all. Maybe
he was planning to do it anyway, but kept me
on the shouldren. Later about two days later in the
meeting and the owners being he announced his resignation. Um
(33:27):
number signed. And you guys play and you guys played
it like you you played it like you normally did,
and nothing was said. You would go. You know that
was the weird thing. You went out and uh, I
think what I think? Um, the Bills couldn't stop in
any way, but they were. It wasn't so much they
couldn't stop the no huddle, they didn't. I mean, I
think you guys were h didn't even really have to
(33:50):
wait for him to go to Nickel. You would just
run on the ball so well on him. Well, it was.
It wasn't a high scoring game and it really wasn't
a real it was. It was kind of a sloppy game.
It was turnovers on bootball teams twenty one to ten.
I think, yeah, the twenty one to tip. But the
real factor there is that, you know, your factor in
everything is that we had beaten them in the preseason
(34:11):
game and we beat him in the regular season, and
this switch. Jim Kelly was at his peak and they
were They were an excellent football team and we were
an excellent football team. And it's tough for two, you know,
for somebody to beat a really good football team three
times in one year. It's just the odds turned with you.
(34:32):
So even though if you got home field advantage, which
we had because of our record, we had the best
record in football that year. The one last thing, uh Sam.
I know a lot of the guys when they're at
the reunion, they talked about how you roomed your rooming
assignments at the beginning of training camp Black White offense
defense veteran rookie that they thought that was a huge
(34:56):
factor and they still think it's a huge factor today
while they're still close. I mean, there was Ikey talking
about Rich Romer his his rookie year roommate um, something
that made a real impact. Yeah, and you know, we
had to shake it up. We'd had a in the
eighty seven season was a terrible record, and we had
(35:20):
had a good team, but we just did not recover
well from the strike. There was a lot of um
conversations going on that had to be and hurt Felix
and angry folks that had to get back together again.
And so the best way to do it, to me
was to put guys that on one of them. You know,
(35:42):
if I had a strong leader, trying to put him
with somebody who was an extullent football player, but maybe
it wasn't his personality didn't cause him to stand up
in front of the crowd and give it a go
get them speech. Put those two guys together to try
to motivate each other in different ways. And of course
the reason to have offensive defensive guys together was if
(36:04):
you think about a football team, you go into a
table eating normally in the morning channel session, everybody on
the team's here, coaching gives them a little bit for talk,
and then tell them what we're going to do that
day in practice, and then the offense goes in one room,
defense goes in another room. Then they have breakdowns with
the defensive positions and then other rooms offensive positions. You're
(36:27):
out on the field and you're on different ends in
the field. A team get just to teamwork and then
you're going against each other one I want to so
you don't spend a lot of time if I'm a
defensive back with a running back or a left guard,
just you just don't. You don't eat will them at night?
You tend to go with the guys that you, you know,
(36:47):
spend most of your other time with. So I'm force
them to spend about forty five minutes and that's about
all you're doing about forty five minutes a night before
they go to sleep. They would learn each other's what
was important in their lives, what their wives, names were,
how many kids they had, what they wanted to do
after football, and became a much closer than team. And
(37:10):
that was my hope and invited word. I kept asking me, guys,
how many of you guys, as soon as we have
bit go room with who or you know, leave your
room and go to another room smout back. And apparently
that did not happen. So that was always good news
when I heard that. Was there any pair Was there
any pairing? Sam? It gave you a little bit of
concern or one. He was always a concern with who
(37:34):
you would play with Boomer because you know, Boomer was
really hard to live with I'm on a kid. He
was special on that team obviously in the crucial part
of it, but it still is by the way he
does things from people all the time. He is very
unselfish guy, but still the leader of that team. Stanford
(37:55):
Stamford Jennings. Right, we had more defensive, I mean more
offensive guys. We did because you guys on the roster
at training camp. By the way, this was just at
training camp. This wasn't the night before the game at
the hani best, but that they wanted to root with
the night before the game, or you know, the quarterbacks
wanted to room together so they could quiz each other
on what audibles they had and when they when they
(38:18):
would call them that was that would help us win
and when it got down to the kickoff. But the
training camp was to make sure that we went into
that first game the United Team ready to play. And
Boomer and Stanford were kind of they were kind of
the gold standard of roommates. Right. I think you probably
(38:38):
paired them together, like you know, this is the way
it ought to be. Yeah, there were two leaders to
a smart guys, to hard working and extra affrit guys,
and they would show by example not just by what
they said in the meeting rooms. But um, and they're
still good friends today, which is kind kind of the
(39:00):
way that team is. That's symbolic of that team right now. Yeah,
I'm I'm actually surprised every now and minute how many
advance I see. There'll be so many of those guys
from that team that I am still doing favors for
each other or you know, attending charity events for each
other and supporting each other even today. Well, Sam, thank
(39:23):
you for doing me this favor. I really, I really
appreciate it. It's the easiest forty minutes in the history
of Bengals dot com. And I thank you for your time,
and I can't wait to talk to you again. You
call me, I will talk to you again for sure.
I enjoy it. Great talking to Jail. Same here, Sam,
thank you as always.
Of the nineteen nine of the nineteen eighty eight Bengals podcast,
Sam White, it's actually Hobson's Choice podcast. Sam. We get
kind of uh, we're kind of formal here on Bengals
dot com. But thank you, thanks very much for joining us. Well,
you know a couple a formal guy. I am too,
So this is good Friday in with me. Sam. You've
(00:21):
had a very active day to day. I know you
were out on your Meals on Wheels route and actually
you do that by the bike. Yeah, well, we my wife,
I've written our name down here somewhere, Jane and I
kind of split the meals on Wheels route and then
(00:42):
we have lunch afterwards. And then after that I decided
to get on that bike. I was going to try
to do twenty miles. And I got out and I
couldn't remember whether I had my phone with me or not,
or if I left it on the back of the car,
on the trunk of the car, And so I turned
around after about twelve miles and came up and kept
about six miles and roll six more backs, so twelve miles.
(01:03):
But that was my daily run. Normally I did fifty
or twenty miles, but I'm trying to do it three
or four or more times a week. Well, that would
answer the next question. It sounds like the heart is
doing great, heart is doing unbelievably good. And I can't
tell you how many times I repeat this over and
over because I was one of the lucky ones that
(01:24):
happened to get a heart that was my size, which
is important, and my compatible blood type. I'm a positive
and this happened to be a positive as well. But
you know, if there aren't a lot of donors, then
there aren't a lot of hearts or lungs, or livers
(01:44):
or kidneys and testines. And I coordinate corneas and skin
for skin grass. Literally, you save seven or eight people's
lives with your passing. If you're a donor and you
enhanced maybe another fifty people or sixty people, depending on
you know how much skin they needed to help a
(02:06):
burn victim, for example, you enhanced the life that they
will have. But I'm one of the ones that whose
life was saved. I was definitely I had been asked
to let hospice take care of me or told that
hospices would take care of me twice, and the last
time I said we're not taking no financier that you've
(02:28):
got maybe a few hours left or certainly aren't going
to live through the night. So when you hear that,
life becomes very real. Every second became a free a deck.
I'm important. And then, unbelievably, at the last second, literally
when they were going to take me and put me
in that ambulance and take these you know home, let
me go home quote to die in my own bed.
(02:49):
And I told him right away, I don't care whose
bed I die him for our sakes. Yeah, I'll just
be happy to die right here, just in case something
were going to happen. And something unbelievably did happen to heart.
My size, my blood type came available, and they got
into me within minutes, certainly no more than an hour
(03:09):
before my heart was going to fail. Well there's a
reason for everything, isn't They said, you know, well, well,
let's out of my heart, and actually had stopped for
for over an hour before the heart got there and
had what's called an ELBAD pump left ventricular assistance device ELBAD,
and that had taken over the activity of the job
(03:32):
of the less out of my heart, and the right
side was slowing down so fast that they said, you
may have had, you know, maybe maybe half a dozen
beach left, maybe a dozen beach left. But Jeff, let
me tell you. I talked to a doctor in training
that observed this operations or my heart transplant, and she
(03:53):
said that when they took my heart out and made
the snip and the new heart immediately have they were
six surgeons doing, by the way, so everybody's got something
to do, and timing is important. They took the other
down and they put it in a pan beside the
operating table. She said she watched that heart and my
heart beat for a good five minutes outside my body
(04:14):
myself after they took it out of my heart, which
I told the doctors later said, you guys are nuts
because I thought I had like twelve heart beat lip
I had a good five minutes left eat. But they
did a great job. I got a strong heart. That's
important to that you get you know, you don't know
what you're getting as I transplant. Sometimes it's super strong
(04:36):
and sometimes um it's not. But at least you're you're surviving, right.
That's quite an amazing story. It's it's I did fancy
transition from that into football. But I guess in a
I guess in a way, Sam, you were a you're
a you're a you're a doctor of offense. You know
(04:57):
how to operate on You knew how how to operate
on xes and o's and still do. And I know
you're probably taking a look at this season that has
been you know, they're calling it the season of offense,
and you saw plenty of those as a player and
as a coach. Where exactly do you see the state
of offense, the state of football right now as far
(05:18):
as it comes to scoring points, Well, I think the
I think the uh, you know, everybody always say you've
got to have a good running game to compliment your
passing game and your running games supporting Let's analyze it
just a little bit. Who makes the blocks for the
running game. It's the office, you line up, the league
or maybe a lead blocker who makes the blocks to
(05:40):
hold out the pass rush when the quarterback sits up
to pass and not only pulls them out, that gives
the quarterback a line of sight down the field. Other
words of that rush is maybe being held out. But
they're just a few feet away from you. You can't
see over these guys are six six six seven, you're
feet six feet seven inches tall, and then they stick
(06:02):
their hands up on top of that. So it's important
that they be held out and you've got three or
four yards that you can have a line of sight
between these blockers. You're not going to see over So
that's the first thing that comes to mind, is that
maybe we're overlooking the extremely gifted athletes that go down
(06:25):
the field and catch passes. And those guys are most
of them are bigger targets, not all of them, but
at stop with that bigger target, and if they're not big,
they can jump like a big guy can't get up
and get them reception. You see more and more passes
thrown where the guys really covered. The quarterback puts it
out there and just expects the receiver to make a
(06:48):
play at the other end. I think that has become
in vogue and more than it was years ago. And
of course the quarterbacks have gotten smart around the league,
and I have to have made a good time. I
believe in this all my life. Is the longer you
hold that ball, the more you should drop your eyes
(07:09):
and look for somebody short to throw the ball to.
Number one. You can even if you're being tackled, you
must live out there and number two, let him make
the run after the catch. If everything's covered down the field,
there means just somebody open underneath. That seems to be
more of a that seems to be in vogue too. Yeah,
I think. I think you see a lot of short
(07:31):
passes that become twenty yard games. You're not just green passes,
which you're designed to do that. You pull a couple
of interior linemen out there to block. But if you
look it down the field, nothing develops. Generally, the reasons
something doesn't develop if there's somebody between the passer and
the receivers, so that would be a linebacker most of
(07:51):
the time, maybe a strong safe you need rolls up type,
but you get an individual and occasionally a defensive linement
that'll back out of there in its own ledge. But
between the quarterback and the receiver, if there's a defensive
layer standing there, there's an interception. So you take your
second pick and find that guy. They're sitting with a
(08:11):
clear line of flight of the ball to the receiver,
and many times your ods go Most of the time,
your odds go way up. If you're throwing that eight
to ten yard pass or maybe that passed behind the
latter screws a swing pass, and if you try to
throw the ball twenty five yards down the field, it
seems like it's become more of a league of less
(08:33):
less field position and more time of possession. I mean limit,
you know, limit the offenses. It doesn't really matter where
you are on the on the field. Just make sure
that you limit may make sure you keep the ball,
you know, so maybe you go on fourth and one
more instead of putment. Well, you know, statistically you get
(08:55):
about three possession. Each team gets about three possessions for quarters,
so they get a total of about twelve possessions. Maybe
they get a two minute drill at the end of
the first half and maybe the second half maybe, so
you end up with thirteen or fourteen possessions. But that's
what you go into a game saying yourself, I've got
three possessions a quarter. Well, at the end of the
(09:17):
you get laid in the second quarter and you've had
the ball twice and they're putting to you. You're saying
to yourself, this may be my last chance to score,
which could affect your play calling, especially if you've got
a fourth down situation right on the edge of a
long field goal distance. But time of possession is important,
(09:38):
and field position is I think just is important. I
don't think there's one over another one. I'd much rather
have to go, you know, fifty yards and get the
ball at midfield, and I would have to go eighty yards.
I remember Jim help me here, Jeff Head, coach of
New Orleans for a long time, Jim, Jim Moore and
(10:00):
black Um. But I didn't get a lot of broad
blood to my brain during the surgeries. I'm okay, excuse.
I don't have an excuse for a lot of things
I did before the surgery. That problem. But Jim Martin
told me one time at a league meetings that you know,
they have the dome and the crowd is loud and there.
He said, we just ran some studies and the odds
(10:24):
are scoring the touchdown. If you started the twenty yard
line in those days, you keep well, uh, you know,
out of being son for example, going eighty yards. The
odds are doing that are like one in six or
something like that. The odds of if you get the
ball at the thirty forty to fifty the odds go
up each time, you get better field position. And the reason,
(10:46):
part of the reasoning was that they had a loud crowd.
It was a factor in the step down, the factor
in the timing of the offensive play. If they, you know,
been eleven guys on the field, only the quarterback could
hear himself many times, that's about it anyway. You just
react to the step of the ball like the defense does.
And you're right, I mean, both of them are important,
(11:09):
but I wouldn't put one above the other. I'm not
sure which I would rather have at the end of
the game. Is the clock on my side where we
had board in time with the ball maybe those fourteen
possessions instead of twelve, or whether I'd rather have field
position every time. I think I'd probably choose field position.
(11:30):
Same when you watch games now, I mean obviously, I
mean every team has some some version of the old huddle, right,
you know, every level. You have seen that, even in
high school, and I see some middle schools down here
in South Carolina that that's what they do. They have
their version of the no huddle, and the no huddle
(11:51):
really is not a hurry up. I keep you were
seeing and hearing people talk about the hurry up office
it was initially and then to some people who turned
it into a fast paced offense, But initially it was
the threat of a hurry up. You were standing there
at the ball in illegal formation and your people are
(12:12):
being still. I see now where they go, no huddling.
You see eleven guys all wandering near their you know
their position, but certainly not in illegal formation because they're
all moving at the same time. They're looking to the sideline. Again,
signals from two or three different coaches, and the original
no huddle. I would signal to the play into Boomer,
(12:34):
Kenny Anderson or Boomer most of the time when it's developed,
and I would signal to play in. That's all. He
memorized the formations and we would change the formations. We
wouldn't change the play, or we would change the formations.
So the defense was looking at a different defensive problem
at the snap of the ball, and Boomer had to
(12:56):
memorize those formations and he would just yell out double
wings split by a double wings split right. He would
just yell the formation because at the snap of the ball,
or as soon as he got through with that, he'd
say and he would call the play. Pirate trigger, Bruce
Pirate trigger Bruce will Crust didn't mean anything to the
defense when the formation they were going to show it anyway,
(13:18):
and then he would help move and they would all
sprint to their formation that he'd given them. They all
knew the play, they had time to think about it,
but at any moment that the defense tried to substitute
and got more than eleven guys on the field before,
we just yelled settlert settler and the means the ball
was going to be snapped on, ready set, and we
(13:40):
had a design play where we quick snapped the ball
and through whoever the receiver was to the visiting side,
our opponent's side. He ran a little quick out so
that people running on and off would be in the way.
The official would have to call it, not that he
ever always did. There was resistance from officials as well.
(14:00):
And then we had the other guy on our side
of the field wide receiver run a goat pattern. We
scored a lot of touchdowns with a goat patter because
there was just nobody covered sometimes, right, what do you
think the mean? I mean, what's the main difference now
when you see what the pros are doing with it?
What do you what do you think it's the main
difference that David I don't see him in a legal position,
(14:21):
a legal formation. They're they're moving around. You see. The
linemen are turned into like a forty five degree of
the sideline getting a call. That's one difference who we
got one call and then he took over the quarterback
in and the formation, the snap cap and the play
and he would give a snap cap. I can't remember
if we did this all the time or just part
(14:43):
of the time, but he did not yell one twenty
eight one twenty eight. Well, the middle digit was a
snap cat one two eight. Balls can be snapped on
two and if it was if he had one seventy
six one seventy six, seven was sat it's on set.
So that was our little way of doing it. And
(15:04):
other teams have, you know, different code words, and we
let the team or idead anyway. I let the team
come up with as many words as a good figuring
they would remember them. If you know, maybe Rodney Holman,
who went to Tulane, came up and he wanted to
name a particular play U lane JU lane. Everybody would
remember it. Probably have a good laugh from the meeting
(15:27):
room when he came up with it. Any but who
runs it? Who runs it? Who was it the best?
Now you think who runs it? Who runs it the way?
You know, the best from where we could where we
originally did it. Yeah, well I guess who. Yeah, I
guess that's yeah, that's the right question. Yeah, that's what
(15:48):
I killed me on that, which I don't I don't know.
I think there are a lot of them. I mean,
there are some that I don't know if it's a lot.
To be honest, I think most of the ones that
I see a I mean, you have to see it. Blab.
That's the other thing. By the way, that you know
when they in the initial years of the naddle, the
film that was exchange or the tape that was exchanged
(16:11):
between teams started when the quarterback approached the center approach,
putting his hands under center, they would start the film,
started the recording, and then when the tackle was made,
it usually ran a second or two afterwards, and then
it stopped, and then the next thing you saw was
the quarterback putting his end. You really didn't know unless
you had a personal scout there, whether you went into
(16:34):
the huddle or not, or whether they're eighteen. Well, now
you can see on the video that the teams are
standing and just you know, their hands on their hips
and they're standing and looking back to the sideline, and
the two or three coaches are making calls. The line
coach is telling the line what blocking scheme it might be.
(16:54):
For example, running back coach and receiver coach are given
pass routes. And of course the quarterbacks didn't whole play.
It wasn't like that in the old days. Obviously it
wasn't though. It wasn't like that old days. The quarterback
had to take over. I would give it literally just
maybe I touched my nose. I just, you know, kind
(17:15):
of swiped my nose a little bit. And in the
original days, that was a draw play, and Boober would
call out the play and the code words for draw
in those days, I don't know where they are anymore,
but the code word for draw was painter. If you
draw your paint and Picasso paint Payton pretty good thing. So, uh,
(17:40):
you know, he might yelled Picasso, Picasso, or paint or
paint or painter, and that was the play. And everybody
knew that that would have been a in the huddle
if you wouldn't. The huddle might have been forty draw
forty drawing. The one thing I wrote about the CDA team, uh,
I guess on the twenty fifth anniversary was that how
(18:01):
it was kind of it? You know, it was a
snapshot of the twenty first century. I mean, on offense,
you were running the no huddle, which is now everybody
does it. And on defense, Dick lebau Is aren't on
his own blitz. Everybody does that some form of it,
maybe not all the time, but some form of it.
The same thing with a no huddle. I mean, it
really was. You guys, we're on the cutting edge of
(18:23):
stuff that would become a staple in the next century. Well,
we you know, definitely had prominent the best, one of
the best. There were a lot of good ones. One
of the best defensive coordinators maybe the history of the league.
But you know, I would make how to make a
(18:44):
suggestion and he would polish into where it would actually
work and other times of the court. Most of the
time he would be coming up with ideas. And I
don't think I ever said no to anything because I
was willing to try anything. I should have been letting
anybody else get their way as well. We're talking about
(19:06):
Dick Labo obviously Dick Labard. Yeah, it turned out to
be almost impossible to stop if you had you have
to nimble deepitz Laman to do it, because sometimes they
have to drop back into short coverage. And that was
really an answer that was really he was trying to
he was trying to have an answer for the West
Coast offense. That was that was basically trying to run
(19:29):
the ball with short passes. Yeah, the West Coast was
And you know, I've had I've been lucky. I was
hired about Bill Walsh back in nineteen seventy nine when
he first got his well his first head coaching job
of the forty nine ers. And then of course in
the first draft, we draft Joe Montana. So we had
a good young quarterback coming along, Steve de Burgh, as
(19:50):
smart as a whip veteran in UH at the beginning
of the year, at least he was the starter until
Joe was ready. But it was a crossing pattern. Usually
in the crossing pattern didn't mean you kept going, and it
it was his zones. So you got between two linebackers
covering each of their zones. You snapped around and squared
(20:11):
your shoulders. Quarterback knew you weren't going to move anymore
in each popped the ball to turn around and make
four bore yards before they could tackle you, and went
long before you were just marching up and down the
field with the West Coast and the West Coast. By
the way, the original name that we call it was
forty nine or football. That's always said, and the media
(20:33):
gave it the name because for San Francisco and the
West Coast, the West Coast Office, So that was not
named it in the locker room. It was named in
the newspaper somewhere the subset it should be the eighth
Street Viaduct offense, since it was it came from Cincinnati, Ella,
you know what it was. It was probably polished a
(20:56):
little bit, but the fundamentals of the West Coast came
from Paul Brown offense that he had when he was
in Cleveland. And uh, the years I could remember, I
was one of the original Bengals in nineteen sixty eight
and for three years before irustrated. But I remember when
I went to San Francisco, Je persists. Some of the
(21:18):
plays were actually even called the same numbers, you know,
series was used again. Yeah, I was talking to I
was talking to Dan Fultz a couple of days ago,
and he's and he had I didn't realize this, but
he had Bill Walsh for a year before Dawn Carroll
Correll came to San Diego, and of course he was there,
and the first thing he remembered Walsh saying, is I'm
(21:39):
gonna go get Charlie Joyner. You know, and who was
who had worked Uh so well, we worked so well
with Isaac Curtis and Cincinnati. Yeah. Bill loved Isaac Curtis Bellwood. Yeah,
we kept looking for that guy that was part wide receiver,
part running back all the time. And James Brooks probably
(22:02):
was as close as anybody you could come to. Maybe
Stanford Jennings could play all the positions as well, but
you know, we would we would line up a running
back out like a wide receiver and uh, you get
a cornerback cover and the running back in that minute
safety or a linebacker had to cover the wide receiver.
Well there's your mismatch right now. Well, there's a two
(22:25):
guys you just mentioned with such huge guys and at
eighty eight club Brooks and Jennings. I mean, I don't
think you've got a chance to come up to the reunion.
But I know you've talked to you know, and I'm
sure that that was that was tough because of the weather, right, Yeah,
we had a hurricane down here, Yeah, Lawrence, right was
we we actually aboided the big hit, but we didn't
(22:46):
know we were going to. It was seeing catastrophic wins
they end or get out from the bundle up, and
so we did. We have we have horses and dogs
and cats and let to rescue animals here we love
and you just feel like we couldn't felt like we
couldn't leave, but you did. But you were able to.
I think you were able to come up with Kenny
Ann a few weeks later to Kenny Anderson's Legends. A Right,
(23:09):
that was fun we had. I got to see the
Miami game and then after the game at the boat house.
UM had a big crowd and story storytelling is always dangerous.
The way I found, the longer you are away from
what actually happened, the more spectacular it was. What was
(23:32):
the best story you heard? What was the best story
you heard there that day? Well, you know I heard
stories that were I don't remember him the same way
in fact, I don't think many of the stories I
heard were the as I remember them. But even if
I can tell you implea guilty The more I tell
his story, the more I remember get slightly differently until
(23:53):
it's almost not recognizable before. But we had we had
good players, and we had some great great Sunday afternoons.
We had a fun team to watch us, for sure,
Yet an eighty eight team, I guess you would. I mean,
it was, it was. It was so good the league
tried to stop you. The day of the AFC Championship game,
(24:17):
well one game, I remember Jeff that and this is
why I remember. In fact, I'm not even sure who
we're playing where. I think we're playing the Jets, but
I'm not sure. At Riverfront Stadium, and um, we had
a I don't know, we were like the twenty yard
line or something. Bloomer drops back, throws a touchdown pass
(24:38):
I think to Rodney home, and the first one touchdown
the end zone they call holding marches bat. So now
we're on the thirty yard line and next play we
throw a touchdown pass I think that Chris collins Worth
that second one, and once again holding. We're now back
to the forty yard lit then he throws a touchdown pass.
(25:02):
I'm trying to thank you that. I think he'll byvent
Eddie Brown that one. The third one, and they called
illegal formation that the wide receiver covered the tight end up.
So now back to the forty five. We throw him
three touchdown passes in a row. The next one he
hits Kim McGee on a deep crossing pattern in the
back of the end zone. I don't know how how
(25:24):
he got that deep, how the line held him out
that long, and maybe they were just tired from the
first three times in the score, but Jim McGee in
the back of the ends that we scored four straight touchdowns,
four straight plays and got seven points out of it. Well,
I know, I was reading about one of those games
in eighty eight and it was you kind of you
(25:47):
kind of as you would want to do. I think
you kind of gave the refs a pretty good you know,
you read on the riot act pretty well after the game.
But one of them was because they wouldn't let Ikey seller,
they wouldn't let it do the Ikey shuffle. And yeah,
I think you were you were of the mindset. Look,
that's that's you know, that's not that's not really full
(26:07):
with the game. That's you know, and I think you
told Ikey to go ahead and do it. Yeah, well,
you know, the higgy shovel was a fun thing. It
wasn't a dawning thing that what they need Bundy's things.
It was that. In fact, he would try to find
an empty spot in the end zone afterwards to do
the shovel. And it really started to remember that old
bosmobile commercialist is not your dad Gelos Wilbil Right. He
(26:29):
made one of those commercials and his mom said, when
don't you do that shovele you do? And he did,
and that's where you know, it all kind of came
to be. But they ended up telling me he had
to go to the sideline, which we ended up doing
and facing the crowd. He couldn't be facing the field.
I mean, he got to be a little bit ridiculous.
(26:50):
But you know, there are a lot of people that
took a firm stance that had no place in the game.
And I'm not sure where I stood on it, but
I sure did like when he did it right after
a touchdown. Yes, I think Paul Brown was of the
same mindset there. Yeah, I'm all was okay with it.
I mean, and I can remember more than watched looking
(27:13):
up there in that in that owner's box after a
touchdown like that, Nick, he's going crazy and Paul is
up there almost almost doing the shovel to trying to
get it started a little. And he was into a
big time. He uh, he had a fun time that year.
I mean, that was just kind of I think more
like the more like the more more so than the
(27:34):
eighty one team. The eighty eight team I think was
more his style. It was kind of a fire fallback.
And I mean I think, you know, he loved offense
and he certainly got it with that with that eighty eighteen. Yeah,
I don't you know, I don't remember Paul. I remember
him questioning me about the no huddle. You know, but
tell me the theory of this, tell what are the
(27:54):
advantages disadvantages Almost but never did he say I don't
think this is you know, worth the time, or this
is this can't take too long to install and to
get it going. But it really didn't. It's not just
your basic offense is just the tempo, and the possibility
of a change of tempo throws that defense off. The
(28:18):
defensive coordinators trying to get the right personnel in the game.
He's trying to make the right defensive call and fam
the ball's coming up in the middle. Ball that mindset.
And but anyway, Paul was behind that one hundred percent.
Same with Mike Michael. I think Mike had joined it.
I mean we did. I know, we sold a lot
of stadiums out, We scored a lot of points, and
(28:40):
we probably hurt the concessions a little bit because nobody
wanted to let their seat. They missed something right. Well,
the like I said, the eighty eight championship game, they
obviously both Mike and Paul stood with you. Um, of
course it really had no choice. I mean, how can
you come to a guy two hours before the game
and say, uh, you know, you got to change the offense.
That's that's some was laughable. Well it is, you know
(29:02):
it is. But that's what happened that I got work
that they were going to do that. That night before
the AFC Championship game against Buffalo. Winner goes to the
Super Bowl, loser goes home, and Bob called me and said,
you'd better sit down. You're not gonna like this. You're
not gonna let you run the no huddle to mow
and and that was Bob Trumpy, right, because Bob was
(29:26):
the Trumpy the former Bengals Tyan who was the broadcaster,
absolutely and you know, a good friend and I was
a rookie when he was a rookie and in nineteen
sixty eight, but this was in nineteen eighty eight, twenty
years later a broadcaster, and he was in the production
meeting along with Merlin Olson and Dick he Burg did
(29:49):
the ball game that day, and Don Shula was in
there representing the competition committee, and they were told that
that People's el had gotten a phone call from or
believing the coach of the Bills saying that he was
going to fake injuries on every down, like like Seattle
that you know, they faked Joe Nash would take an
(30:09):
injury on third down between second and third down so
that they could get their nickel peopled in the game
and then be right back in there on first down again.
And so there was a threat of that, and Pick
didn't People's l didn't want to make a first of
a high profile game like the AF Championships, so he
(30:30):
said we couldn't run the no huddle. Well, Trump. He
asked him in the night before when he heard about it, said,
when you're going to tell Sam the games tomorrow and
tell him right before the game. And their answer was
that's our plane. Well, that's our plan. Well, I don't
know how disrupted. I don't know how much it would
(30:50):
have disrupted the guys, but I wasn't going to I
wasn't going to bend on that one. So when they
came in about two hours before the game, in my
little office outside of the locker room there, I told
him I shouldn't get people set on the phone. Let
me just reminded him he's commissing all the competitive balance
of the game. Yeah, and you know my comment was
(31:13):
I wouldn't be walking around Manhattan without a lot of
bodyguards because there's a whole lot of money riding on
this game. Well, that's was actually that was one that
was this This was a new part of the story
that was revealed at the UH at the Legends that
one of the stories that came out there actually Trump
that Trump had told you the night before. Um, and
(31:35):
that was which was I'm sure that was helpful And
I've often wondered what later that year in Marge rape
or whenever the league meetings were held. Um, we took
a break from my general session where all the head coaches,
general managers and owners are in the meeting room, and
people kept me at People was helped to kept me
(31:56):
on the shoulder of the city and to speak conference room,
big auditorium almost and they were taking a thirty minute
break and testing them the shoulder. And he said, I
just want to kidn't um, you know, I didn't just
notify you two hours before the game. We told Paul
Brown the after Saturday afternoon that we were going to
(32:18):
do this. Well, what was Paul Brown going to do?
And what was like I was supposed to do giving
if they told me Saturday afternoon or two hours before
the game? Right, Because the office we'd run for five
years straighte office we had I think we led the
league in office three of those five years. We were
in the top five all five years and we were
(32:43):
we were good and we were going to change it.
So I told him with almost got to throw the flags,
West would have to face the consequence if we lose
the game because of those flags. Right, That'll be the
first thing and the only thing I'll talk about at
the post gap jobference. Yeah, later in that session, in
(33:04):
that off season, after that season, that that happened. U
was the it was the moment that peoples asigned. I
don't know that they had any factor at all. Maybe
he was planning to do it anyway, but kept me
on the shouldren. Later about two days later in the
meeting and the owners being he announced his resignation. Um
(33:27):
number signed. And you guys play and you guys played
it like you you played it like you normally did,
and nothing was said. You would go. You know that
was the weird thing. You went out and uh, I
think what I think? Um, the Bills couldn't stop in
any way, but they were. It wasn't so much they
couldn't stop the no huddle, they didn't. I mean, I
think you guys were h didn't even really have to
(33:50):
wait for him to go to Nickel. You would just
run on the ball so well on him. Well, it was.
It wasn't a high scoring game and it really wasn't
a real it was. It was kind of a sloppy game.
It was turnovers on bootball teams twenty one to ten.
I think, yeah, the twenty one to tip. But the
real factor there is that, you know, your factor in
everything is that we had beaten them in the preseason
(34:11):
game and we beat him in the regular season, and
this switch. Jim Kelly was at his peak and they
were They were an excellent football team and we were
an excellent football team. And it's tough for two, you know,
for somebody to beat a really good football team three
times in one year. It's just the odds turned with you.
(34:32):
So even though if you got home field advantage, which
we had because of our record, we had the best
record in football that year. The one last thing, uh Sam.
I know a lot of the guys when they're at
the reunion, they talked about how you roomed your rooming
assignments at the beginning of training camp Black White offense
defense veteran rookie that they thought that was a huge
(34:56):
factor and they still think it's a huge factor today
while they're still close. I mean, there was Ikey talking
about Rich Romer his his rookie year roommate um, something
that made a real impact. Yeah, and you know, we
had to shake it up. We'd had a in the
eighty seven season was a terrible record, and we had
(35:20):
had a good team, but we just did not recover
well from the strike. There was a lot of um
conversations going on that had to be and hurt Felix
and angry folks that had to get back together again.
And so the best way to do it, to me
was to put guys that on one of them. You know,
(35:42):
if I had a strong leader, trying to put him
with somebody who was an extullent football player, but maybe
it wasn't his personality didn't cause him to stand up
in front of the crowd and give it a go
get them speech. Put those two guys together to try
to motivate each other in different ways. And of course
the reason to have offensive defensive guys together was if
(36:04):
you think about a football team, you go into a
table eating normally in the morning channel session, everybody on
the team's here, coaching gives them a little bit for talk,
and then tell them what we're going to do that
day in practice, and then the offense goes in one room,
defense goes in another room. Then they have breakdowns with
the defensive positions and then other rooms offensive positions. You're
(36:27):
out on the field and you're on different ends in
the field. A team get just to teamwork and then
you're going against each other one I want to so
you don't spend a lot of time if I'm a
defensive back with a running back or a left guard,
just you just don't. You don't eat will them at night?
You tend to go with the guys that you, you know,
(36:47):
spend most of your other time with. So I'm force
them to spend about forty five minutes and that's about
all you're doing about forty five minutes a night before
they go to sleep. They would learn each other's what
was important in their lives, what their wives, names were,
how many kids they had, what they wanted to do
after football, and became a much closer than team. And
(37:10):
that was my hope and invited word. I kept asking me, guys,
how many of you guys, as soon as we have
bit go room with who or you know, leave your
room and go to another room smout back. And apparently
that did not happen. So that was always good news
when I heard that. Was there any pair Was there
any pairing? Sam? It gave you a little bit of
concern or one. He was always a concern with who
(37:34):
you would play with Boomer because you know, Boomer was
really hard to live with I'm on a kid. He
was special on that team obviously in the crucial part
of it, but it still is by the way he
does things from people all the time. He is very
unselfish guy, but still the leader of that team. Stanford
(37:55):
Stamford Jennings. Right, we had more defensive, I mean more
offensive guys. We did because you guys on the roster
at training camp. By the way, this was just at
training camp. This wasn't the night before the game at
the hani best, but that they wanted to root with
the night before the game, or you know, the quarterbacks
wanted to room together so they could quiz each other
on what audibles they had and when they when they
(38:18):
would call them that was that would help us win
and when it got down to the kickoff. But the
training camp was to make sure that we went into
that first game the United Team ready to play. And
Boomer and Stanford were kind of they were kind of
the gold standard of roommates. Right. I think you probably
(38:38):
paired them together, like you know, this is the way
it ought to be. Yeah, there were two leaders to
a smart guys, to hard working and extra affrit guys,
and they would show by example not just by what
they said in the meeting rooms. But um, and they're
still good friends today, which is kind kind of the
(39:00):
way that team is. That's symbolic of that team right now. Yeah,
I'm I'm actually surprised every now and minute how many
advance I see. There'll be so many of those guys
from that team that I am still doing favors for
each other or you know, attending charity events for each
other and supporting each other even today. Well, Sam, thank
(39:23):
you for doing me this favor. I really, I really
appreciate it. It's the easiest forty minutes in the history
of Bengals dot com. And I thank you for your time,
and I can't wait to talk to you again. You
call me, I will talk to you again for sure.
I enjoy it. Great talking to Jail. Same here, Sam,
thank you as always.
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