The day after her husband resigned as Bengals coach, Kathy Coslet said he was as relaxed as she had seen him in a long time.

        “It's a lot of stress off him,” Kathy Coslet said of her husband, Bruce, who stepped down Monday, a day after his team was beaten 37-0 by the Ravens to fall to 0-3.

        “He's out hitting golf balls,” Kathy Coslet said late Tuesday afternoon. “He was looking for something to do.”

        She said he told her Sunday night when he got back from Baltimore that he was going to resign. He then went to bed and had his best night's sleep in months.

        After meeting with Bengals president Mike Brown on Monday morning at Paul Brown Stadium, Coslet called his wife and told her,

        “It's done.”

        She said she heard the relief in his voice.

        The resignation ended an ordeal for Coslet that stretched back to the start of the 1998 season. After the 1997 season, his first full year as the team's boss, he had a 14-11 record.

        He was 7-28 since.

        Coslet resigned as Bengals coach for his health and because he didn't like how the stress of coaching one of the NFL's worst teams was wearing on him and affecting how he treated the people around him.

        “I hate to say it, but it was for selfish reasons,” Coslet told a team media relations employee in an interview published on the team's Web site, bengals.com.

        “It has to do with my health, with how I was treating people. Not those closest to me, but associations with people in the building, my coaches, my players. People I respect immensely. When it started to affect those relationships, I had to take a real hard look at it.”

        Coslet said he was affected, too, by a letter to the editor he read in The Enquirer a few days after the opening loss to Cleveland. The letter writer, a Bengals season-ticket holder, was critical of Coslet for his occasional cursing in media conferences broadcast live on the radio, and for his negative attitude.

        “The guy was dead on,” Coslet said. His resignation wasn't for “financial reasons or because I didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. It's just that I've been around people who have a little bit of power who acted like I was starting to act, and I didn't feel good about it.”

        Coslet also reflected on his four years — three full seasons — as coach.

        His major regrets, he said, were not pushing harder for quarterback Boomer Esiason to resign with the team after the 1997 season, in which the Bengals won four of five and clearly fed off Esiason's leadership. Esiason retired as a player to take the color commentator's job on Monday Night Football.

        “That was the turning point,” he told the Web site of the Esiason decision. “We let him slip away, and that hurt our team. It was nobody's fault but mine.”

        Coslet said he regrets not pushing harder for president and general Mike Brown to accept New Orleans' offer for the Bengals' first-round draft pick in 1999 in exchange for the Saints' nine picks.

        The Saints wanted Cincinnati's No.3 pick to take Texas running back Ricky Williams. The Bengals took quarterback Akili Smith with the pick instead. They might have had Cade McNown, now with the Bears, at No.12.

        “I think Akili is a marvelous player,” Coslet said. “I felt he was the best quarterback prospect in a great quarterback draft. He's got it all: Size. Speed. Arm. I just hope he doesn't get so down and discouraged and it affects him later in his career.

        “In the same breath, we needed defensive guys badly, and I still thought we had a shot at McNown. I eventually bought Mike's argument that you don't win without a big-time quarterback. But I should have argued more for attempting the trade, because it would have put us on a course to fill so many holes. One guy wasn't going to fix that hole. It was too big. But once that decision is made, you support it. Mike always did that with me when he did something I wanted. And he never would come back two years later and say, "We should have done ...'”

        Coslet also had nothing but good things to say about Brown and his family, for whom he worked as a player, assistant coach and coach for 24 years.

        “I owe Mike Brown and his family for my career,” Coslet said. “Mike is a fine man. You won't find me badmouthing Mike Brown.”

        Brown wouldn't answer questions Monday about Coslet's contract status with the team, saying it was between him and the former coach. But club insiders said they believe Coslet will be paid the rest of his salary for the 2000 season, believed to be about $800,000.

        Though Brown makes all decisions pertaining to the team, he gives his coach almost total say on player person nel matters.

        “For me to say I couldn't win because of (organizational structure) is a cop-out,” Coslet told the team employee. “That wasn't the reason for my downfall.”

        As for his future, Coslet said he would return to coaching again, even as a special teams assistant.

        He is a respected offensive mind in the NFL and is responsible for the mid-1990s performances of several outstanding Bengals players, including Pro Bowl quarterback Jeff Blake and receiver Carl Pickens.

        He has high hopes for his former top assistant and golfing buddy, Dick LeBeau.

        “I hope this change and bringing in Dick make a difference,” Coslet said. “God, I wish them nothing but the best.”

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LeBeau wants Bengals to attack Stress, personal concerns led to Coslet's resignation

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