Remember when the NFL squeezed ESPN to ditch the Playmakers show because the league believed it painted an inaccurate picture of life in the NFL? If anything, it was inaccurate because it was too tame.
Former Bengals quarterback Jon Kitna recently shared some stories with Ryen Russillo about Kitna’s time in Cincinnati.
“There were some things that were hard to believe [with the Bengals],” Kitna said, via Cincinnati.com. “There was a time that I played a game with a guy that was drunk in the huddle. There was a time that a guy showed up late to a game. In the NFL, you need to be there two hours, two hours and 15 minutes ahead of time. And he showed up under an hour before the game’s start. Those are weird things, now. That’s tough. I’m not sure if the staff knew. But I think the guy was like -- that was kind of his normal. I mean he was drunk and had close to 200 yards receiving now. So it was crazy.”
Kitna didn’t name names, but the circumstances make it not impossible to identify the possibilities. Given that Kitna played for the Bengals from 2001 through 2005, it’s not difficult to identify which receivers “had close to 200 yards receiving” in a game during that five-year stretch.
We’ve done the research and compiled a list of players that it could have been. Three had games of more than 150 receiving yards during Kitna’s time with the team. One had games of 189, 161, and 152. One had 171. Another had 152.
Kitna didn’t name names, so we won’t, either. There are so few that it could be that the ones who it isn’t should be upset that Kitna has defined the possibilities so narrowly.