As head coach Zac Taylor looks for even the smallest of edges in an effort to keep making it fresh, the Bengals find a re-shuffled locker room when they report to Paycor Stadium Monday for the start of offseason workouts.
The offensive and defensive lines have swapped positions, putting Pro Bowl quarterback Joe Burrow closer to his O-linemen. At the head of the row where retired Bengals dean and defensive end Sam Hubbard once sat, left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., their most experienced offensive lineman and one of last year's captains, now lockers kitty corner to Burrow.
Brown stays next to last spring's first-rounder, right tackle Amarius Mims, and the line continues with another captain from last year, center Ted Karras.
A subtle but significant change well-grounded in B.P. Bengals history.
Before Paycor, they headquartered at Spinney Field in a far different, more intimate, and less structured time. Where Norman Julius Esiason reigned as the Pro Bowl quarterback and annual NFL MVP candidate who dressed in the middle of the offensive line's group of lockers.
"For me, it was natural," says Esiason, master of the no-huddle offense huddled up in the Bengals Ring of Honor. "I did it at Maryland. I did it in high school. Some of my best friends in high school were offensive linemen. The way I looked at it, I hoped they saw it as a sign of respect and appreciation that every quarterback should have for his line."
It's also a natural for Burrow, a coach's son who has an affinity for the underdog and appreciation of team. During various junctures of his first five seasons, he could be found sitting in the O-line row before a practice or mingling with them after a game to check on them.
Now he won't have to cross the room.
"He'd always overhear the scuttlebutt, and that way he wouldn't hear about a rumor," says Bruce Reimers, Esiason's Super Bowl left guard. "But that was part of our makeup. Every Thursday night, Boomer took us to eat at The Boathouse, and unless you had a funeral, you had to be there."
It also helped melt potential ugliness into hilarity.
Once, the day after a scribe had written a story noting how injuries and age had taken their toll on one of the league's perennially best offensive lines, he showed up to find that he had been put on "Double Secret Boomer Probation." That meant one of the NFL's all-time quotes was off-limits to only him.
"You don't screw with my boys," Esiason says still now.
His linemen were also off-limits. The row of lockers had been cordoned off by athletic tape.
"That's our boy," says Super Bowl center Bruce Kozerski. "And on game day, when we went over to Riverfront to play, he was right in there with us. No. 7 was right there (even though) we were lockered by numbers. Jimmy (offensive line coach McNally) didn't have far to go to find us. And it helped with communication."
While running head coach Sam Wyche's fast-break, cutting edge no-huddle offense no NFL team had ever run before, Reimers says communication was paramount.
"We'd always be trying to overhear what Sam and the quarterbacks were saying," Reimers says. "Yeah, you'd be around everybody and that all helped."
Esiason became an honorary offensive lineman through his head coach on Long Island at East Islip High School. Sal Ciampi, a three-year starting guard at Purdue, saw future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese virtually embedded with his line.
Every practice at East Islip started with the line gathering to say the offensive lineman's prayer, and Esiason was in the middle of it.
"That's the way it has to be no matter what the season looks like," Esiason says. "Whether it's 12-4, or I guess now 12-5, or 4-13. No matter the season, that always has to be a galvanizing relationship."
Despite coming into the league in the COVID year of 2020 when there were basically no such things as locker rooms, Burrow naturally took command and has kept up the echo of Boomer by treating his line like gold. Last year, Burrow gave them ancient Japanese swords for Christmas four decades after Esiason gave them Tiffany obelisks etched with that old offensive lineman's prayer.
"I think Boomer was the first guy who really stepped up the Christmas giving for his line. That's when (Dan) Marino was giving out gloves," Kozerski says. "He wanted his offensive linemen to know that he cared so they cared about him. That's not a bad philosophy if your life depends on them."
Esiason was among the first quarterbacks to make $1 million per year and Reimers remembers if you were the highest-graded lineman that week, Esiason gave you an envelope.
"But you had to use the money on the other guys, too," Reimers says. "If you didn't have the receipts to show that you did, he wanted what was left back and he put in some kind of a pool."
A different time.
"Those guys were mad at me because I wasn't making $60 million a year," jokes Esiason, still the master of ceremonies. "Those guys weren't making much. They were either undrafted, or seventh-, eighth-, ninth-round picks. Boots. Watches. Mix it up a little bit."
A different time.
"Look at what some of the offensive linemen are making now," Esiason says. "Hey, pay me."
But maybe not all that different.
"It's the friendship," says Kozerski, the center who was in the middle of it all. "That's the part of the sport you miss when you retire. The camaraderie."
