Same guy, Pat Sims.
"I'm always going to go in there and do my job. I'm just a guy that goes in there and stops the run and anything else you ask me to do I'll put my efforts in there, too,"
Sims said Friday. "My main focus is stopping the run."
Sims, the run-stuffing former Raider, chatted with some Bengals beat writers on a conference call a day after he signed a one-year minimum deal that re-united him with his old team. So it was hard to know how good of shape he's in, which at times was an issue with the coaches during his five seasons here.
But it bodes well he's coming off a stretch he didn't miss a game in back-to-back seasons for the first time in his career that is going into its eighth year. Luck or training?
"I mean, you could say its some luck and I was getting noticed," Sims said. "But it was just pretty much staying on top of my body and doing extra stuff here and there to try and keep from being injured. I was just thankful to be healthy those two years."
Sims, 29, admitted that the close proximity of his agent and mentor in Cincinnati, former Bengals defensive tackle John Thornton, should help him. Thornton has told him taking care of his body is going to allow him to play until he's 35.
"I pretty much could. I still feel young. I didn't take a lot of snaps early in my career. I still haven't taken a lot snaps except for my first year in Oakland. I still feel young," Sims said. "We'll get it in. I don't mind that. Thornton's been on me ever since I've known him."
Sims played nearly 700 snaps for the 2013 Raiders, a career-high, before he played about 200 fewer last year after Oakland drafted Mississippi State's Justin Ellis in the fourth round. The most snaps he played in Cincinnati were 570, and that was in his second season. Because of injuries, he played a total of 481 in his last two years with the Bengals.
But those were top ten years for the defense and Sims flourished in a rotation that still has ends Michael Johnson and Carlos Dunlap and tackles Domata Peko and Geno Atkins. Thornton said Sims almost came back to the Bengals last season and when Johnson returned after a one-year hiatus in Tampa a few weeks ago, Sims was ready to come back.
"When they signed Mike back, I looked at the situation like they're trying to put the whole team back together," Sims said. "I'm just glad to have a chance to play back with Mike and Geno and those guys again."
The Bengals have felt like they've been a bit undersized in the middle against the run since the 310-pound Sims left. He figures to be vying with Devon Still for the fourth and final tackle spot, along with, potentially, a couple of drafted and undrafted rookies.
"There's going to be a competition at all the positions," Hayes said. "We'll see if he's still playing at the level he was at when he was here. It's been two years. He was a good rotation guy on short-yardage and goal line. He's a load in there. We'll see." SLANTS AND SCREENS:Not much went down as far as rules changes this week at the owners' meetings, but the biggest change will probably come at the May meetings regarding the extra point. There are a couple of different versions, but Bengals president Mike Brown is for change.
"You could narrow the goal posts. I would be in favor of that. The kickers have gotten too good," Brown said earlier this week. "Now they make too high a percentage of their kicks, certainly extra points. I wouldn't even be opposed to abandoning the kick for a point. Make everybody go for two — which would then be one in my mind. You have to get it in with a scrimmage play.
"On the other side of the argument I do think the extra point has a strange value. What I call a celebratory moment which gives people, fans, a chance to feel good a little longer. I like that aspect of it. It has the tradition that is what we have known forever. Quite honestly when it gets to be 99.8 percent for sure or whatever it is, it's very high, why bother? "
The biggest change that probably came out this week is that the play clock can be reviewed at the end of the half and game. While Brown thought that was the most acceptable of the myriad of instant replay proposals this week because it was the cleanest, he most likely didn't vote on it because he's against replay in the first place….
The Bengals are checking out Brandon Copeland, a 260-pound linebacker who came out of Penn undrafted in 2013 and has bounced around Tennessee and Baltimore and various practice squads….
