WhoDeyRevolution

Bengal Heroes - Ickey Woods

Number 7 on NFL.com's list of "One Shot Wonders" is none other than Elbert L. "Ickey" Woods.  Of course, Woods, who played fullback in the same backfield as James Brooks, had a brilliant rookie season in 1988 rushing for 1,066 yards and scoring 15 touchdowns all of which were followed by the infamous "Ickey Suffle" (which until now, was relatively un-findable on the Internet...at least I couldn't find it despite multiple periodic searches over the years, which is a contributing reason for this post).

The next season, Ickey tore his ACL against Pittsburgh, which seemed to begin a curse that captured the ACL of another in the 2005 playoffs against the same team (in addition to Kijana Carter...and Kenny Irons...I have to stop now or I will cry).  Woods mounted a brief comeback attempt in 1991 but he wasn't the same.  He has not played in the NFL since and was out of the league at the age of 26.  According to his Wikipedia profile, since then, Woods has sold steaks door to door, made appearances as a boxer on television and is currently the football coach of the Cincinnati Sizzle, a women's football team. 

But today and always, we remember Ickey Woods, for his contributions in the 1988-89 season.  We can only hope someone will surprise us as much as the rookie out of UNLV did that year.  Here's to you Ickey.

Bengal Hero: Harold Green

Part three of Bengal Heroes takes us back to near the beginning of the disastrous Mike Brown era when everything started to go wrong in Bengladom. The year was 1992, Dave Shula was coaching the Bengals to a 5-11 record, Anthony Munoz would play his last NFL game, and Boomer (he played terrible with a 57.0 QB rating that was the worst of his career) was replaced as the starting quarterback by David Klingler (the rookie showed just how bright his future would be sporting a 66.3 QB Rating). Amidst all the doom and gloom the Bengals lone ray of sunshine that year was running back, Harold Green. 

Bengal Hero: Tremain Mack

Chris Henry, Odell, Frostee Rucker, etc. are not the first character risks the Bengals have taken.  The Bengals have been taking huge character risks in the draft for quite some time now.  Obviously Mike Brown loves the draft value of a guy who’s slipped a round or four because of their giant red character flags.  Tremain Mack was the epitome of this.  Mike must have loved him some T-Mack because how else can a quote like this be explained.

Tremain's a very likable guy," said Mike Brown, Bengals owner/general manager. "But to read the media accounts a year ago, you would think he and John Dillinger were cellmates.  (What??? John Dillinger???  Who the hell is that???  Ohhhh, a famous bank robber from the Great Depression, what a hip reference for the end of the 20th century.  Now if Mike had said T-Mack would have been a great getaway driver then I would have loved it)

Tremain Mack was drafted out of the U by the Bengals in the 4th round of the 1997 NFL draft (Another paragon of morals values Corey Dillon was also taken by the Bengals in this draft). This Hurricane was rated as a first round talent at the time but somehow T-Mack slipped to the 111th pick of the draft.  While the rest of the NFL seemingly took him off their draft boards the Bengals apparently saw a talent that just couldn’t be ignored. Now you might be wondering why the rest of the NFL didn’t want to draft T-Mack.  After all he was 1st team All Big East and a special teams dynamo at Miami. Well I’m going to go out on a limb and say the answer probably had something to do with T-Mack’s SIX alcoholic related arrests in his 4 years as a Hurricane and that even BUTCH DAVIS suspended him because of a DUI.  Now in all fairness to the Bengals they apparently claimed they didn’t know the severity of T-Mack’s problems.  I guess the Bengals three scouts not related to the Brown family missed that little nugget. 

But just for now I’m going to ignore all the Bengals idiocy and mismanagement because quite simply T-Mack was the best Bengals kick returner of my lifetime. His best season was 1999 when T-Mack led the AFC in kick returning average and set a Bengal club-record averaging 27.1 yards per return.  This season was made even more amazing because T-Mack didn’t play in the first four games of the season after shockingly being suspended by Commissioner Tagliabue after another DUI arrest.  T-Mack’s off-season conditioning program consisted of spending his summer locked up in the Hamilton County Jail (Jamal Lewis has nothing on T-Mack).  So when he came out for the 5th game of the 1999 season he came out blazing.  Personally I loved Tremain Mack because on every kick off (and there were lots of kicks to return in 1999 as the Bengals started 1-10 on their way to another 4-12 season while they closed Riverfront Stadium in style) I imagined special teams coach Al Roberts telling him to just pretend like he was running from the law.  It must have worked because T-Mack ran so well from the law in 1999 that he was chosen as the AFC’s kick returner in the Pro-Bowl. From county jail to Honolulu all in span of one season. Simply amazing!!!

Sadly as you may have heard T-Mack didn’t have a happy ending with the Bengals.  T-Mack could only run from the law for so long.  He continued to rack up DUI’s at a record pace including one that would have made Bob Huggins proud when the Cincinnati police arrested Mack after finding him sleeping behind the wheel of a car at 3:45 a.m. Surprisingly the cops got suspicious after Mack's vehicle had been parked in the middle of a Clifton intersection for at least an hour.  This Huggins style arrest came two years after WLWT-TV (Channel 5) caught Mack on tape driving to and from Paul Brown Stadium with a suspended license, from the two DUI charges he’d already picked up in Hamilton County. That was great piece of Cheaters style investigative journalism, but the Bengals front office was not pleased with the report referring to the report as a sting operation (more importantly where was channel 5 when we needed them to follow Chris Henry around? you know you would have watched it).  After some more jail time T-Mack was done with the NFL but on the Brightside seems to have cleaned up his life eventually suiting up for the Arena Football San Jose SaberCats. 

But I’ll always remember T-Mack as a bald headed demon who ran like the he heard police sirens blaring behind him.  For T-Mack was running from the law and into the hearts of Bengal fans everywhere. Tremain Mack a Bengal Hero.

T-Mack is the second in what hopes to be a long series of Bengal Hero profiles.  (If you missed part one you can read all about Jeff Query’s glorious 1993 season right here.) 

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The Curse of David Fulcher

In college, my roommate and I rediscovered original Nintendo, the last remnant of our untainted youth, and more importantly Tecmo Super Bowl, the wondrously complex game of glory, defeat, the jumping high five and surging bomb deep in the face of pressure.

Everyone knows Bo Jackson dominated the Tecmo Super Bowl landscape the same way Richelieu laid waste to Europe a couple hundred years ago. But few people know David “Tiger Hawk” Fulcher could single-handedly shut down a running game while simultaneously covering 3 receivers 60 yards downfield.

Every time my roommate’s vaunted Raiders squared off against my crafty Bengals (the flea flicker is the backbone of the Bengal’s playbook), the house’s circuit breaker would blow out by halftime. There was just too much carnage on the field.

Over fifteen years ago, Fulcher roamed Riverfront like Blackbeard took to the seas. Then, in what we now realize is classic Mike Brown, Fulcher signed a deal with another team, taking his tenacity and ruthlessness with him. Since then, the Bengals have been plagued by the likes of Bo Orlando, Cory Hall and Dexter Jackson.

The curse of Fulcher? Wouldn’t count it out.

Since his departure for the Raiders, I can’t think of a single good defensive back besides Ashley Ambrose, who briefly resurrected his career so he could fleece New Orleans into one more payday.

Fulcher was quite possibly the best defensive Bengal in the team’s history. I know, you’re probably saying right now that Dan “Duddy” Wilkinson and Rod “Toast” Jones need to be considered, but outside of those two fabled defenders, no one else makes the cut. Fulcher, in his career, amassed three straight Pro Bowl appearances (It’s unverified, but that number is probably 2 more than anyone else in team defensive history), 31 interceptions, and 8.5 sacks. All while playing with only one leg. That’s right, he had a wooden peg leg, stemming from a freak pirating incident before he decided to play ball. You probably couldn’t notice it because of how shitty TV viewing was before HD, and we’re used to our safeties looking a leg slow anyways.

Attention Mike Brown: we need more one legged hard hitting defensive players out there. Dexter Jackson need not apply.

Happy 41st Birthday JEFF QUERY

The man, the myth, the legend, Jeff Lee Query was born March 7, 2007, and is the first of hopefully many profiles of amazing Bengal Single Season Hero Performances.

 

Query looks like he wants to punch Klinger in the head

Jeff Query played parts of 4 glorious seasons as a Cincinnati Bengal, and contrary to popular belief he was more than just the proud owner of the greatest Kentucky Waterfall this side of Andre Agassi. (One can only imagine how big a heartthrob Query was around the greater Cincitucky area)  People forget but for one amazing season Jeff Query was a damn fine NFL wide receiver.  The year was 1993 and rumor has it that his wallowing around in the toxic waste that surrounded Spinney Field gave him superhuman abilities. Nothing else could explain these new found powers that led Jeff Query to flat-out dominante opponents during the Bengals fall 1993 campaign. That the Bengals went 3-13 that year is but a minor side note to Query's virtuso performance. In 1993 Jeff Query was unstoppable as he amassed 56 catches for 654 yards at 11.7ypc to go along with 4 big TD grabs.

Just take a look at his game log from the season:

Regular Season Games Receiving Rushing Fumbles WK Game Date Opp Result G GS Rec Yds Avg Long TD Att Yds Avg Lng TD FUM Lost 1 09/05 @ CLE L   14-27 1 1 3 80 26.7 51 0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 2 09/12 IND L   6-9 1 1 4 44 11.0 13 0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3 09/19 @ PIT L   7-34 1 1 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 4 09/26 SEA L   10-19 1 1 6 59 9.8 17 0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 Bye -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 6 10/10 @ KC L   15-17 1 1 3 69 23.0 25 0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 7 10/17 CLE L   17-28 1 1 4 32 8.0 11T 1 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 8 10/24 @ HOU L   12-28 1 1 5 45 9.0 18 1 1 5 5.0 5 0 -- -- 9 Bye -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 10 11/07 PIT L   16-24 1 1 6 48 8.0 12 1 1 8 8.0 8 0 -- -- 11 11/14 HOU L   3-38 1 1 2 30 15.0 24 0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 12 11/21 @ NYJ L   12-17 1