By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Cincinnati Enquirer/ Michael Keating Brian Simmons and Takeo Spikes.

As a child, Brian Simmons used to sit at the window of the house in New Bern, N.C., and stare, content with his thoughts, for hours.

"My mom used to tell me, `I don't know how you play football as slow as you move,' " Simmons says.

Meanwhile, in Sandersville, Ga., young Takeo Spikes was always moving and making noise. As late as eighth grade, his dream was the U.S. Air Force, not the NFL.

"He used to tell me he was going to fly a jet over the house and honk the horn to let me know it was him," says Lillie Spikes, his mother.

Spikes' football flight path would eventually cross with Simmons' in Cincinnati after they were an unlikely pair of first-round draft picks in 1998. Teams normally do not select two players from the same position in the same round, especially the first.

Yet in Cincinnati, Simmons and Spikes became not just the foundation of an improving defense, but unlikely friends.

Simmons rarely calls his friend by his first name; it's "Spikes." Spikes refers to Simmons as "B-Sims."

Simmons, 27, is soft-spoken, a devoted husband and attentive father who likes to stay at home in Kenwood and watch television. He does not have much to say until he gets to know someone. His idea of a perfect vacation is to take his family to Disney World. The Bahamas is as exotic as he'll get.

Spikes, 25, is a bachelor, an extrovert who prefers to go out for dinner. Even when he is home alone in Blue Ash, he likes to read books that hone his leadership qualities. When he speaks, he has a little of Muhammad Ali's delivery in him. One of Spikes' hobbies is meeting people. He has developed an interest in Brazil and has gone there twice, getting stuck in Rio de Janeiro over Memorial Day weekend and missing some voluntary Bengals workouts in Cincinnati.

Opposites do indeed attract. And, in this case, they attack, too.

Spikes and Simmons are two of the NFL's best linebackers that hardly anybody has heard of. That could change this year if they lead the Bengals to the playoffs for the first time since the 1990 season. Each has been No. 1 or No. 2 in tackles on the team in each of their four seasons, other than 2000, when Simmons was lost for the year with an Opening Day knee injury.

Alliteration aside, Spikes and Simmons could now be the most identifiable pair of Bengals players since Munoz and Montoya.

But the Spikes-Simmons partnership appeared in jeopardy this past offseason. Simmons was rumored as trade bait to New England for quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Even after Bledsoe was traded to Buffalo, it looked like the dynamic duo could be dismantled in free agency after the 2002 season.

Talk about a nightmare. The Ghost of Bengals Future provided a glimpse of the defense without Simmons and Spikes in the third preseason game against New Orleans. Both players were out with minor injuries, and the Saints moved almost at will - screen passes, sweeps and quarterback scrambles, plays normally snuffed out by Simmons and Spikes.

But that game was just an aberration. Simmons had signed a six-year contract extension Aug. 13. Spikes' deal is up after the season, but the Bengals' front office could use the franchise or transition tag to make it almost impossible for him to leave. Meanwhile, the club still hopes to sign him.

Truth be told, Spikes and Simmons don't want to be split up.

"Some people might say they don't understand how we get along so well," Simmons says. "He makes my job easier, and I make his easier."

"That's why Mike Brown can't break us up," Spikes says.

Takeo Spikes and Brian Simmons met at the annual NFL scouting combing in Indianapolis in February 1998.

Simmons was a senior, on his way to earning a sociology degree at the University of North Carolina and had been the leader of the nation's second-ranked defense. A first-team All-America choice, he was among the top-five-rated linebackers in the draft.

Spikes left Auburn as a junior, when he was named national defensive player of the year by Football News.

Back in Cincinnati, second-year defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, in his second go-around with the team, was looking for linebackers to play in his zone-blitz scheme.

"We needed quickness and speed," says LeBeau, promoted to head coach two seasons ago. "We needed that ingredient to catch the football, meaning to run it down."

LeBeau and then-second-year linebackers coach Mark Duffner built the defense around Simmons and Spikes. As the team has added better players, the linebackers have led a steadily improving defense. Its ranking crept up each of the first three years - from 28 to 25 to 22 - before leaping into the top 10 at No. 9 last year.

"They're very good friends, because their situations were so similar," LeBeau said. "They're kind of natural allies."

``Takeo,'' says Rachel Simmons, Brian's wife, "he's Brian's partner."

Takeo Spikes and Brian Simmons have walked roughly the same path in their NFL careers.

Both skipped their rookie minicamp in a dispute with the Bengals over written injury protection, both held out of training camp for one day before signing twin five-year contracts and both together developed into the standard of excellence on the Cincinnati defense.

"When you're a rookie, you're always going to be close with the guys you came in with," Spikes says. "Both of us had the same thing in mind. We both wanted to be great football players. We both wanted to make this team win. Most of all, neither one of us wanted to be labeled as a bust. A lot of busts had come into Cincinnati. That was enough motivation for the both of us. I didn't ever think about coming in and butting heads."

Brian Simmons met his future wife, Rachel, in high school, where he was winner of its outstanding citizen award.

That do-the-right-thing streak runs through his life. He was honorary chairman of the March of Dimes Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Walk America 2002 event.

She remembers their first date, to the homecoming dance as seniors. Brian played in the football game, then escorted Rachel to the gym.

He gave her a carnation, but they didn't dance. They sat, hardly talking, for almost an hour.

"Finally, I said, `I'm going home now,' " Rachel says. "He said, `OK, I'll call you.' Well, he didn't call for almost a month to ask me out. But I knew he liked me. We've been together ever since."

They have a 6-year-old daughter, Brianna, who is quiet like her father. Simmons has always doted on her. He fed Brianna when she was a baby, changed his share of diapers, gave her baths.

These days, he drives her to first grade at Cincinnati Country Day at least twice a week and wouldn't have dared miss orientation night.

At home, father and daughter are inseparable.

"I'll have to be the offensive line," Rachel says. "Brianna will be the running back, and she'll say, 'Tackle me, Dad. Tackle me.' She likes to play rough with him."

Takeo Spikes has two older brothers and a younger sister, Telisa. She recalls that Takeo always had a lot of friends around him.

"They'd always been in his room playing video games," she says.

Everything he did then, as now, received his full attention and effort.

"Intense," Telisa calls him.

For a while, young Takeo appeared to be headed into the military. His favorite movie was Full Metal Jacket.

Even now, order is part of his life. When Takeo took up reading seriously as an adult, he was drawn to books about leadership - particularly The Art of War, the classic collection of essays by Chinese strategists compiled more than 2,000 years ago.

The name Takeo means "Great Warrior" in Japanese. When she was pregnant with her third son, Lillie Spikes saw a morning news program about the Japanese prime minister. His name was Takeo.

Spikes is the undisputed team leader. It is his locker room. But before addressing the teamhe sometimes runs his messages past Simmons, linebacker Adrian Ross or cornerback Artrell Hawkins - his Rookie Class of '98 buddies - to make sure he is on target.

Spikes always is looking for ways to motivate and bring players closer together.

In 2000, he invited teammates to his townhouse for Thanksgiving dinner. He served all the usual fare - plus raccoon, which didn't go over too well.

"My mother and I always cooked wild game," Lillie says. "Goat, rabbit, raccoon. That's where he learned to like it."

Even though he already has played four years in the NFL, Spikes is just 25. His years in Cincinnati have been ones of growth. His oldest brother, Irvin, 36, a high school English teacher in Georgia, has given Takeo books by important African-American authors. It sparked an interest in black history that led Takeo to become an active fundraiser for Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

The last book Spikes read was the autobiography of Bill Russell, the former NBA great who is outspoken about social issues.

"I like to read stuff that's going to help get me over the next man," Spikes says, "or give me an advantage."

Off the field, Brian Simmons and Takeo Spikes are focused on their families. After both signed their rookie contracts, they took care of their parents, buying them new houses.

When Spikes' father, Jimmie, died last October, Simmons, Ross and defensive Reinard Wilson went to Sandersville for the funeral.

"I could talk all day about what that meant to me," Takeo Spikes says. "It shows who your true friends are."

Lillie Spikes was comforted by words from Ross and Simmons.

"Brian told me, `Mrs. Spikes, don't worry about Takeo. We'll make sure he's OK.' That gave me comfort," she says. "Takeo was going back to Cincinnati by himself. We had each other down here."

Irvin Spikes moved in with his mother. The middle son, Eric, lives across town in the original family house - the one Takeo paid off before having the new one built for his parents.

And when Simmons suffered a season-ending knee injury in the 2000 opener, Spikes made sure to look after his running mate.

One night, he called for Brian, but Rachel Simmons answered the phone. She told Spikes that she was having trouble getting dinner together.

Spikes told her not to worry. He'd be over soon.

"I went to Boston Market and bought him some dinner," Spikes says. "I know he likes sweet potatoes and chicken, so I went and hooked him up."

On the field, Takeo Spikes and Brian Simmons are, says their position coach Duffner, "like peanut butter and jelly."

"We can't have one without the other. It's a natural fit," Duffner says. "They have so much productivity, so much playmaking ability. What they bring in ability and personality is major."

Ross agrees. He compares Spikes and Simmons - in no particular order - to Batman and Robin, or basketball superstars Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin.

"They're better together," Ross says.

Simmons is the middle linebacker. Spikes is an outside linebacker, usually playing to Simmons' right - his right-hand man.

They especially appreciate each other in pass coverage. They know when to hand off coverage of a receiver coming over the middle. They can anticipate each other's moves.

"That's the best thing," Simmons says. "I don't have to worry about him, and he doesn't have to worry about me. It kind of takes a load off you."

Says Spikes: "I was always taught -- and it came true as I got through high school -- I don't care how good you are, you will never reach your full potential as an athlete unless you have other great people around you who are going to bring that out of you."

Brian Simmons is signed with the Bengals through 2008.

Takeo Spikes' rookie contract expires at the end of this season.

"Definitely, we want to stay together,'' Simmons says. "Another thing, when we got here, the team wasn't very good. I'm not saying we're gangbusters right now, but we're definitely making strides. And I would be sick to play here five years and go somewhere else and then it happens - they win. Somebody just comes in and throws paint on the walls after we built the house."

"That," Spikes says, "would be the most disappointing thing."

E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com.