Friday, February 25, 2000
Samuels ready if Bengals want tackle
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
INDIANAPOLIS — Chris Samuels arrives today at the NFL scouting combine as the best left tackle eligible for the draft.
The Bengals arrive knowing they have passed up Pro Bowlers Willie Roaf and Tony Boselli during the past eight years when they opted to stop more severe bleeding at other spots. Which is funny, given the phone conversation Bengals right tackle Willie Anderson had with Samuels last season.
“He told me his favorite tackles were Tony Boselli and Willie Roaf,” Anderson joked. “I should have hung up on him.”
Anderson, who came out of Auburn as the 10th overall pick in 1996, has been advising Samuels now and again during Samuels' last season at arch-rival Alabama. Both are from Mobile, Ala., and Anderson's agent, Terry Bolar, recruited Samuels before he went with Jimmy Sexton.
“Willie's helped, because he pretty much went through the same things I'm about to go through,” Samuels said. “Being from the same town and playing the same position, that's nice.”
Samuels is saying all the right things about possibly playing in Cincinnati — “I can't wait to play anywhere” — but Anderson doesn't think the Bengals will take Samuels with the fourth pick. Two weeks ago they locked up left
tackle Rod Jones for three more years.
But Anderson is a free agent after this season, and if the Bengals can't make any more progress on a contract extension before the April 15-16 draft, Samuels will be quite attractive.
Plus, even if Anderson has his contract extended, Samuels is good enough to get some Bengals insiders dreaming about moving Jones to left guard. But the complaining of Carl Pickens and Corey Dillon also has the Bengals looking at wide receivers and running backs with their first pick.
“Coming out of college, (Samuels is) in a class with Jonathan Ogden and Orlando Pace,” said Jim Lippincott, the Bengals' director of college/pro personnel. “He's in a tier just below Boselli. Pace is more powerful. This guy has good athletic balance. Very fluid. He's going to play right away and be a good one.”
The 6-foot-5 Samuels played at about 288 pounds as a junior, but Lippincott thought he was better this season at 307, and Samuels said he should weigh in at the combine at 317.
“It's good weight, though,” Samuels said. “I've been lifting trying to get bigger. That's one of the things Willie's been telling me. Get stronger.”
You don't have to tell Samuels much. He has been hearing it all his life from his mother, Shirley Samuels, and she knows her Sundays are going to get a lot busier. She's pastor of A Time and Season Church in Mobile, concentrating on ministering to Mobile's disadvantaged youth.
She also leads Bible studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She hasn't been able to work since a 1995 fall, and she said her husband is a disabled veteran who also can't work. But the family has hung together.
“Chris has grown up religious,” Shirley Samuels said. “Before he plays his games, he asks me to pray for him. My baby was always a man. He was born a man. Ten pounds, 2 ounces when he was born. But he's still my baby.”
Samuels scored well on the NFL's intelligence test, plus he has been doing extra homework with Anderson. In conversations, Anderson has stressed the off-field approach. Anderson still remembers the devastating aftermath of his 27-day rookie holdout.
“The coaches tell you to be at a certain weight, but they don't teach you how to control it and they shouldn't have to, because that's not what coaches do,” Anderson said. “I'm telling him to invest in himself. The past three years, I've had a personal trainer who helps me with nutrition. When you're coming out of college, you don't know any of that stuff.
“(Samuels) seems like a real humble guy,” said Anderson, who couldn't resist a joke. “I told him not to buy a Mercedes-Benz. Costs too much.”
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