Saturday, November 06, 1999Simmons may be Bengals' lone Pro Bowler
Linebacker leads team in tackles
BY TOM GROESCHEN
The Cincinnati EnquirerYou can count the Bengals' Pro Bowl candidates on one hand, or maybe even one finger. Second-year linebacker Brian Simmons might challenge for that honor if not on a 1-7 team.
Simmons leads the Bengals with 67 tackles, according to weekly pressbox statistics published by the team. He is on pace to record the third-most tackles in one Bengals season.
“He's having a Pro Bowl season, I'd go as far as to say,” Bengals cornerback Artrell Hawkins said.
Takeo Spikes, Simmons' running mate at inside linebacker, is next with 41 tackles. Simmons also leads the team with seven tackles for negative yardage and is tied for second with two sacks.
And here's a switch: Simmons is not itching to leave town on the first plane. Whereas some Bengals count the days until their contracts expire, and others rip the team after they leave, Simmons wants to be here when/if things turn around. He has three years left on his contract.
“I'm feeling the pain of losing,” Simmons said. “I want to feel what it's like when we're winning. ... You want to feel you had a part of that success.”
The Bengals are just 4-20 since Simmons and Spikes arrived in 1998, but the poor record is little fault of theirs. They were first-round draftees and are the core of the defense but have had little help.
Spikes got all the press last year with a team-leading 112 tackles, while Simmons ranked second with 78. But Simmons started only 12 games after preseason knee surgery and wound up beating Spikes in several categories, including sacks (3-2). The Bengals believe Simmons deserved as much acclaim as Spikes.
Simmons is considered one of the fastest linebackers in the league. At 6-foot-3 and 233 pounds, he is also quick and intelligent and has a ferocious on-field disposition that belies an otherwise calm persona.
“I could be doing better,” Simmons said. “Whatever stats I have, it really doesn't matter, because it's a team game.”
There are a lot of tackles to be made when the Bengals are playing, because the team's inept offense keeps the defense on the field. And while Simmons and Spikes are in the prime tackling position in football, they also don't miss many stops.
“They're both unhappy unless they make 10 or more tackles,” Bengals linebackers coach Mark Duffner said.
While there is a discrepancy between the weekly pressbox statistics and the Bengals coaches' game-film stats, Simmons and Spikes still lead by a wide margin among linebackers. It's Simmons 67, Spikes 41 and Steve Foley with 17 tackles on the pressbox stats, which the league uses. The coaches' grades are Simmons 93, Spikes 85 and Foley 33. Whereas Duffner doesn't like to rate who's better between Spikes and Simmons, he acknowledges that Simmons has the lead in a statistic Duffner calls “contact ratio,” which measures a player's number of tackles against how many downs he has played. Simmons beat Spikes in that category last year and leads him again by a slight margin this year, Duffner said.
“He's a darned productive player, but he doesn't swagger around like he's an All-Pro,” Duffner said of Simmons. “He's a mature guy, a class guy. He and Spikes are both that way.”
Duffner said Simmons and Spikes both often come in on Tuesdays, the Bengals' weekly off-day, to watch film. For Simmons, who calls the defensive signals in the huddle, it's a labor of love.
“There's so much negativity around here right now, but we've got to keep working,” he said. “If we can get a few more wins here, we can feel good about ourselves. But if we're 1-15 or 2-14 or even 3-13 again, that won't get it done.
“But talking about it isn't going to get us any victories. We have to show some kind of progress, and we have to show some this week.”
Bengals Stories
Simmons may be Bengals' lone Pro Bowler
BENGALS NOTEBOOK
Redshirt decision for UC's Grove today
UC-Louisville could be air show
Griffey in pinstripes? Yikes!
Griffey voted top player of '90s
PREP FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS
Suspect rankings yet another blow to boxing's rep
Roughness readies RedHawks for Zips
Buckeyes playing for bowl
Mighty Ducks 2, Springfield 2
Milwaukee 4, Cyclones 4-1