Boomer: 'No regrets' Friday, November 20, 1998
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
This week the Bengals celebrated the one-year anniversary of Boomer Esiason's elevation to starting quarterback in place of Jeff Blake. But now he is safely tucked away in the ABC broadcast booth and Cincinnati is 2-8, Esiason has no second thoughts about retiring from a team that desperately needs him.
"No regrets. Not now," Esiason said on Thursday as he analyzed coach Bruce Coslet's switch to Paul Justin from Neil O'Donnell. "Maybe they would have been benching me. I feel horrible for Bruce. I feel badly for Neil. I saw this coming eight months ago. I knew what the schedule was going to be and they were going to go with young guys on defense and sign veterans to just try to fill gaps on the line.
"Before Neil signed I told him he can make a lot of money and maybe start, but you have to realize it's going to be a tough first year." While Esiason could usually guess what play Coslet and offensive coordinator Ken Anderson would call, O'Donnell is learning a new offense. Esiason thinks it helps that Anderson and O'Donnell are the same type of QB, while Blake's throw-it-down-the-field style has never meshed with Anderson's.
Esiason believes the West Coast offense's hardest lesson is reading four passing options from the pocket.
"No question I had the benefit of experience," Esiason said. "There's 14 different pass protections. You have to not only know the hot receiver on a blitz, but also there might be a different receiver on third-and-3 than third-and-7. Kenny Anderson was great at it. We had mutual understanding. I don't know if Neil and Kenny are there yet."
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