| THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER | FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1998 |
Defining the Line
BY CHRIS HAFT
"It was like you were a plug getting put into the socket," Lapham said, "And on came the juice."
Fleetness. Cleveland's Carl Hairston thought he was about to live a defensive lineman's dream in a game against the Bengals. He had taken a lateral from teammate Clay Matthews, who had intercepted a pass, and was churning toward the open end zone. All of a sudden, someone -- someone big -- pulled him down from behind. Anthony Munoz.
"He came from all the way across the field," Hairston said, still smarting in disbelief. "Where the heck did that guy come from?"
Force. To "pancake" an opposing lineman is to knock him entirely off his feet and flat on the ground. Former Bengal Bruce Kozerski remembers a 1988 game when Munoz pancaked Raiders defensive end Mike Wise on each of the first 13 plays.
"He did his job as well as it physically could be done," Kozerski said of Munoz. "As gentle as he is off the field, when he had his man down on the field, he could bury him."
Naming the greatest offensive lineman ever is a challenge, because the nature of football and the size of its players have changed drastically from one era to the next. A select few linemen, such as Mel Hein, Jim Parker and John Hannah, belong in any discussion of top performers. So, too, does Anthony Munoz, who hastened the evolution of linemen from stationary blocks of granite to roving dynamos of irresistible power and balletic grace.
There had been dozens of offensive linemen as big as Munoz when he brought his 6-foot-6, 280-pound frame to the NFL in 1980. Many could match or exceed his strength, quickness and agility. Yet few have possessed the breadth of skills that Munoz, the first full-time Bengal to reach the Hall, displayed as Cincinnati's left tackle for 13 seasons.
"He was the best big athlete that played the offensive line," said Hudson Houck, Munoz's position coach at the University of Southern California. "People weren't used to a big man being as good an athlete as he was."
Today, people cherish Munoz more for his stature as a man than as an athlete. He has remained active in charitable affairs since his playing days. He's a family man who has embraced Cincinnati as his home -- and the region has embraced him back. Munoz, 39, receives more endorsement requests now than he did as a player.
But his accomplishments in shoulder pads still command attention.
Eleven consecutive Pro Bowl selections testified to his greatness. His selection as one of only three offensive tackles on the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team confirmed it. His Hall of Fame enshrinement on Saturday will immortalize it.
"I thought he was special from the beginning," said Forrest Gregg, another Hall of Famer and All-75th Anniversary offensive tackle who was Munoz's first Bengals head coach. "And it turned out he was."
Force in the shadows
Offensive linemen might be the most anonymous beings in professional sports. No statistics exist to measure a lineman's effectiveness. Fans rarely watch them, choosing instead to follow the ball. Because linemen don't carry, catch or throw the ball, they're never considered for major postseason awards.
"Forrest Gregg probably said it best," said Hall of Fame guard Gene Upshaw, now the executive director of the NFL Players Association. "If you're an offensive lineman, you can rob a bank and nobody notices."
Yet if a player with Munoz's talent and power played under today's salary structure, he might own a bank. "He'd make $10 million a year," said Tennessee Oilers General Manager Floyd Reese.
"What would he be worth today? It would be worth more than what was paid for the Bengals' franchise, I'll tell you that," Upshaw said.
Understanding Munoz's excellence means exploring the art of playing offensive line.
Ideal attributes in a lineman include balance, for establishing and maintaining leverage; quick feet, for positioning one's body optimally against an onrushing defender; and immense strength, for neutralizing angry 300-pounders.
"When you explain some of the details of what goes into it, most people say, ŒYeah, right, you're just big fat guys trying to get in the way of people,' " Kozerski said.
"You can't get involved in the yo-yo effect, in highs and lows," said Hall of Fame tackle Art Shell, the Atlanta Falcons' offensive line coach.
Kozerski defined a lineman's approach as "channeling aggression and doing it with violence. It's kind of contradictory."
Munoz, it is agreed, had everything.
"I'm looking at him right now, down in that low stance with that foot way back," said former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Mike Merriweather, who holds the team's single-season sack record with 15 in 1984. "I always used my quickness to my advantage, but somehow he was always back there with me when I tried to turn the corner. I think Anthony is probably the only Bengal I didn't get a sack on."
"He was so powerful with his hands," Kozerski said. "I've seen him buckle defensive linemen's knees with a Œjam,' just hitting them in the chest with his hands."
Houck, now the Dallas Cowboys' offensive line coach, said he marveled at Munoz's ability to transfer his weight so smoothly.
"Quite honestly, there were some things I was able to learn from him that I keep teaching to this day," Houck said. "We tried to emulate a lot of things he did, because he did them without wasted movement. You'd take a videotape and slow it down and say, ŒAh, this is how you do it.' "
One of Munoz's moves that couldn't be taught was his "hip snap," an ability every lineman covets. When two behemoths are grappling with each other at the line of scrimmage, the one who can turn his hips to generate superior power will subdue the other. Munoz's uncanny coordination and athleticism gave him an overwhelming surge.
"His body was perfect in terms of physics for football," said Lapham, now a Bengals radio commentator.
Munoz's athletic development while growing up in Ontario, Calif., was simple: He played whatever sport was in season. Small wonder that as a Bengal, he occasionally lined up as a tight end and caught seven passes, including four for touchdowns.
"Everything helped," he said. "In high school, I played football, of course. I played basketball, and I was 260-270 (pounds) having to guard guys 170-180. In baseball I played third base, so I needed that foot speed, the lateral, backward and forward movement, having to charge a bunt.
"I look at the instincts and the reactions I established growing up and I see how that helped me with what I had to do with the Bengals."
Munoz's mental and emotional discipline enhanced his skills.
"He spent as much time studying for an opponent in his 13th season as he did in his first year, though he may have played against a guy 10 times," Kozerski said. "Of all the people I played with or against, he's the one guy who exemplified being a professional."
"He never said a word," Merriweather said. "He was a rock on that side."
This "rock" preferred to entrench himself immediately during games.
"He was going to let you know whoever you put out there as a rusher was a waste," said Reese, the Oilers' linebackers coach during Munoz's playing days.
"I knew I had to play hard, or else he'd kill me," Hairston said. "Against Anthony, you had to do things almost perfectly just to come close to beating him."
To Munoz, a quick advantage was a lasting one.
"Physically, you could lay down the ground rules early in the game, and that's the key to the battle for the whole afternoon," he said. "The guy across from you knows you're in control and it's going to be a dogfight the whole day."
Driven to succeed
Munoz never took his dominance for granted.
Shell, who played in eight Pro Bowls and 24 postseason games, cited a "fear of failure" that distinguishes great athletes. Told what Shell had said, Munoz wholeheartedly agreed.
"That's huge. That hits it right on the head," he said. "For me, that's why I took maybe a day off after the last game and started running and lifting. When I went on vacation, the first thing I looked for was where to run and lift. You are afraid of failure. I can honestly say that's what drove me. I did not want to fail. I wanted to be able to play at the level I started at as long as possible."
He did, and the Bengals were the beneficiaries.
Bengals running backs have rushed for more than 1,000 yards only eight times -- six during Munoz's tenure. Also during that period, Cincinnati twice led the NFL in total offense and twice paced the league in rushing.
"You knew that in tough situations, short-yardage and goal-line, they were going to run the ball behind him," said Kansas City Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer, formerly of the Cleveland Browns.
"They never had to use a back or a tight end to help him," said Tampa Bay coach Tony Dungy, who tried to neutralize Munoz as Pittsburgh's defensive coordinator. "It allowed them to be more creative on offense."
Big shoes to fill
Munoz's legacy endures today.
His skill and influence on the Bengals' offense almost instantly made him that rarest of athletes: a prototype, like Babe Ruth or Magic Johnson.
"He was 15 years ahead of his time," Reese said.
"He became what everyone was looking for at left tackle," Dungy said.
Because of Munoz's success, effective offensive linemen became valuable commodities. Witness the lucrative contracts signed this past offseason by Dallas' Larry Allen (six years, $24 million), San Diego's John Jackson (six years, $26 million) and Minnesota's Todd Steussie (five years, $22 million).
Before Munoz, such salaries for linemen would have been unthinkable.
"People at that point in time thought, if you can get (a decent lineman), great, but you wouldn't necessarily go out of your way to get one because they weren't difference-makers," Reese said.
Every prodigiously talented left tackle who enters the NFL is compared to Munoz.
One is Jacksonville's Tony Boselli, named twice to the Pro Bowl in his first three seasons. "I'd have to say he's probably one of the guys I love to watch the most," Munoz said of Boselli.
Another is St. Louis' Orlando Pace, the former Ohio State Buckeye who was the first overall selection in the 1997 draft. "I thought about Anthony when I saw Orlando," Hairston said. "Orlando is going to be the spitting image of him."
But Boselli, Pace and their ilk must excel for a few more seasons before they command the respect Munoz did.
When Munoz was playing, Hairston would scan the regular-season schedule as soon as it was issued to see when the Browns faced Cincinnati. "I wanted to see how much time I had to prepare for him," Hairston said.
Hall of Famer Lee Roy Selmon was considered the league's preeminent defensive end during his career (1976-84) with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As far as he's concerned, "Anthony's the best I've ever played against."
Ranking as the NFL's best offensive tackle never has consumed Munoz. What mattered was being the best man he possibly could be. One of his favorite passages from the Bible is Colossians 3:23: "In whatever work you do, do it with all your heart, as for the Lord, not for man."
"It doesn't say in some jobs, in some areas of your life. It says in all your work. And it doesn't say do it half-heartedly," Munoz said. "To me, that's what it's all about. In living my life, I want to give it everything."
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