Sunday, December 13, 1998
Jeff Blake, QB
Will the real Jeff Blake please stand up?
Say all you want about Mike Brown's loyalty and Bob Bedinghaus' grit, but the guy who saved pro football in Cincinnati just might have been this guy. How would you have liked to have gone into that March 19, 1996 stadium vote with David Klingler as your quarterback? Instead, Blake was coming off a Pro Bowl season and the Bengals were up-and-coming at 7-9. Then they went 8-8 the next year with Bruce Coslet and Blake throwing 24 touchdowns and that got the luxury suites and club seats sold.
But Blake lost his long-ball touch and instead of a swashbuckling sixth -rounder stunning the league with big plays his first 2.5 years, he became a struggling journeyman trying to force the big play.
Unbelievably, the franchise may be lower than that day in 1994 when Blake went from No. 3 quarterback to No. 1 for an 0-7 team. If he is to revive it again, he must let the game come to him. And the Colts' third worst NFL defense just may be the foe to regain the touch.
Carl Pickens, WR
In 1995 and 1996, Pickens and Blake went together like Unitas and Berry, Namath and Maynard, and anyone with Rice. They hooked up for 29 touchdowns and Blake always seemed to put it where no one but Pickens could catch it.
Pickens is having a big year without Blake, but he can't get into the end zone like he did in what now looks like the glory days. One of his four TDs came off a patented 67-yard strike from Blake in Baltimore. He's also coming off a tough two weeks in which his dropped passes have led to killing interceptions in the second half. But a Colts' secondary that has 5-foot-8 Tyrone Poole could get the 6-foot-2 Pickens out of his funk. Remember how he tortured 5-9 Dwayne Washington while skewering the Steelers for 13 catches? And how about some history? In three games against the Colts, the Blake-Pickens duo has 17 catches for an average of 14 yards and two touchdowns.
Peyotn Manning, QB
The kid is going to be OK.
In his first six games, he looked like Johnny Appleseed with six touchdown passes and 14 interceptions. In the last seven, he's been more like Johnny Unitas with 15 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Back in October he served notice when he lost a shootout to Hall-of-Famer Steve Young in San Fransisco, 34-31. He threw for 100 less yards (331-231), but he threw three touchdowns and one was a 61-yarder. The interceptions are plentiful, but he'll also set every rookie quarterback record imaginable.
He'll have a challenge today in the second straight game without his speed receiver Marvin Harrison, out with a separated shoulder. Manning could manage just 159 yards passing against the Falcons last week. He'll also get every zone blitz look in the book from the Bengals. The closest Manning has come to a 3-4 scheme is the Bills, and he has struggled completing balls against them, going 34-for-70 in two games Buffalo won.
Marshall Faulk, RB
Feast your eyes on just the second man since Roger Craig to gain 1,000 yards running and receiving in the same season.
Don't look too hard, Bengals' fans. He's the same guy the Bengals were going to take with the first pick in the 1994 draft until Dan Wilkinson stepped out of a Columbus phone booth and threw down the best pre-draft workout in history.
Faulk already has 1,113 rushing yards and needs 177 through the air to get 1,000 receiving. He's racked up three 100-yard rushing games and three 100-yard receiving games. No one from Anderson to Zainesville would be surprised if he went 100-100 against a Bengals' defense that's allowed eight 100-yard rushers and five 100-yard receivers this season.
Cincinnati's linebackers and safeties better come to play. Faulk is more dangerous as a receiver nowadays because he's being used out of the backfield and going to town on matchups against lumbering linebackers and slow safeties. In previous years, the Colts split him out as a receiver and he'd get matched up with a defensive back who was just as fast.
Blake ready to roll dice
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