Sunday, April 18, 1999
Did Bengals get it right this time?
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Draft Day is the best day of the year for the Cincinnati Bengals, because (1) they almost always have a high first-round pick, (2) they can speak glowingly of their top choice and nobody can contradict them and (3) they don't have a game.
Cincinnati made Oregon quarterback Akili Smith its No.1 pick on Saturday, prompting you to do one of two things: throw up your hands and dial the local chapter of the Browns Backers or cross your fingers and pray the Bengals get it right this time.
Good football teams use the draft to plug holes. The Bengals use it to re-invent themselves. Annually. This year they're adding a quarterback while probably losing their best receiver, Carl Pickens. One step up and two steps back.
He talks a great game
Is Smith the answer? Beats me. Nobody knows. Not even Mel Kiper, whose amazing hair lately has assumed the size and dimensions of a mushroom cloud. NFL teams study college players more than the CIA studies Castro. And they still pick Heath Shuler.
Reporters talked to Smith for 20 minutes on the phone after the pick. He walked the wire like a Wallenda between confident and brash. He was impressively Boomer-esque.
“I would like to say (if) you put John Elway's arm on Randall Cunningham, that's kind of what you're getting in me,” Smith said. “I throw an awesome ball. I've been throwing a ball like that my whole career. I'm ready to get out there, get into the playbook and get after it. I want to learn the system as quickly as possible, so the game will seem like it's in slow motion to me.”
At one point, Smith even said his agent, Leigh Steinberg, told him that Bengals emperor Mike Brown “was kind of tight.” If Smith throws bombs the way he throws candor, the Bengals may be on to something.
But unless Smith is the next Dan Marino, the Bengals have sentenced their fans to a few years of abject misery while Smith figures it out. Then again, their fans were probably going to be miserable anyway, with or without Smith. They have been miserable for years. What's a couple more?
Now we wait and watch
Don't get too overheated about the draft, as it applies to the Bengals. Nine times in the 1990s the Bengals have had a choice among the first 15 picks in the first round. Five times they've picked among the first six. That advantage has helped them to the league's second-worst record of the decade.
A fan can take only so many David Klinglers and Dan Wilkinsons before his hopes go numb.
It is this team's supreme irony that while Brown worships QBs, he has been unable to find and keep a decent one since he took over the team. Ghost of Quarterback Past, Neil O'Donnell, is packing as we speak. Ghost of Quarterback Present, Jeff Blake, is serving time until the team decides Smith is ready to take his job. The other Ghosts — Paul Justin and Eric Kresser — are not in the local plans.
Akili Smith wants to be an “on-the-job learner.” He made it clear Saturday he doesn't intend to stand around and play the good student while Blake starts. Smith wants it all, quickly.
“I'm going to try to be a leader immediately, get the veteran players to try and rally around me,” he said. “I'm going to show them, day in and day out. I'm going to get in the weight room, I'm going to be working hard with Ken Anderson, I'm going to be working hard on and off the field.”
It will be interesting to see how the veterans react to Smith. But he shouldn't be sold short. This is a player who, in just 19 college starts, went from a probable free agent to the third pick in the draft. He hired a tutor to improve his score on the NFL intelligence test. (Shouldn't the league give its coaches and personnel men the same quiz? How do you think Dave Shula would have done?) Smith understands the demands of being a pro athlete, having spent three years playing minor-league baseball.
He has a chance. Of course, so did Klingler.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
Join the discussion at our Bengals forum
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