Tuesday, October 12, 1999Bengals support Akili's exuberance
Teammates like fiery outburst
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati EnquirerCall him the Akililine Battery. The Bengals are hoping to draw enough energy from rookie quarterback Akili Smith to give them the edgy, aggressive mentality that has been missing most of this decade.
No one in the organization — especially Smith — had any regrets Monday over Smith's exuberant celebration of Sunday's last-second victory over the Browns in their new stadium. He called out the Dawg Pound with the most famous chest thump in Cincinnati since the Heimlich maneuver.
“That's the type of intensity I'm going to bring to the team for my whole career,” Smith said.
Bengals President Mike Brown didn't see Smith celebrate. He read about it in the newspapers.
“With what we've been through, you can understand why our guys felt good,” Brown said.
Coach Bruce Coslet bristled when asked if Smith had given the Browns incentive for the Dec.12 rematch at Cinergy Field.
“Hey, we're just happy to win a game,” Coslet said. “If (Browns quarterback) Tim Couch takes it as a personal affront, well, so what?”
In fact, some of Smith's teammates hope it's a sign of things to come.
“We've got a lot of nice guys on offense,” said cornerback Artrell Hawkins. “But to see a quarterback beat his chest like that, that's what Brett Favre would do. I've seen Jake Plummer do it once in awhile. A tough-guy quarterback. I think Akili's a tough-guy quarterback.
“It gives us an edge because Akili runs the offense. If he's got the edge, everyone has to have it. They have to come up to his level.”
But Smith knows this isn't his team just yet. Or that the 1-4 Bengals are on the verge of the playoffs. A win over Pittsburgh would give the Bengals a winning record in the AFC Central (2-1) in October for the first time since 1995.
“We've got to continue to win,” Smith said. “Everyone knows Cleveland is not the toughest opponent in the NFL right now because they're rebuilding. If we can go out and beat the Steelers then I think my teammates will start to rally around me more and more.”
But Smith made it clear he will continue to wear his heart on his No. 11 jersey, and he didn't back down by saying Monday he didn't like the way the Browns' fans treated his family or threw plastic beer bottles at him on the sidelines.
“It was a bad deal,” Smith said.
He didn't think he got a bad deal when Coslet handed out game balls. Center Rich Braham and running back Corey Dillon each got a game ball for the offense and Smith wished he had four more balls to give away.
“I would have given the entire offensive line each a ball. They were magnificent,” Smith said. “I didn't play well enough to get a game ball. Too many mistakes. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad we won. But I didn't play well enough to get a game ball.”
Coslet wasn't pleased with Smith's eight assignment errors out of 80 plays and wasn't ready to give his presentation speech at the Hall of Fame. But Coslet also said, “I had no problem with the way he played. ... for a first start, it was phenomenal, really.”
Smith said his mistakes came on reads and getting the team into the right formations. For instance, on one play, he had the right line call, but sent the back to the wrong side.
“Nothing that can't be corrected,” Smith said.
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