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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 29 > Entry
COLUMN: Mike Brown does Brando
CINCINNATI — Asked if he was going to try to pump up or preen before facing the cameras, Mike Brown shook his head and sounded as if he was mirroring Marlon Brando:
“I’m bald. I’m fat. I’m old. I’m probably a little addled. If that’s how it comes across, that’s how it comes across.”
Isn’t that Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, the rogue character Brando played in Apocalypse Now?
While the look may be the same, the Cincinnati Bengals owner wants nothing to do with that title.
The Apocalypse — one winning season in the past 18, the rash of arrests a couple of years back, last year’s injuries and losses and dissatisfaction — he hopes is in the past.
And Brown believes that’s what people will see when the Bengals are documented by NFL Films this preseason and turned into HBO’s “Hard Knocks ‘09: Training Camp with the Cincinnati Bengals.”
Over 1,000 hours of film will be shot for the five-week mini-series whose first installment will air Aug. 12 at 10 p.m.
The Bengals report to camp at Georgetown College Thursday, July 30, and the cameras and microphones will be recording everything they can on and off the field.
Four other NFL franchises — Baltimore, Jacksonville, Kansas City and Dallas twice — have gone through the process in years past and, as Brown noted before the Bengals preseason kick-off luncheon Tuesday at Paul Brown Stadium, “they did it easily and it worked out well and I don’t see why it should be a problem for us.”
He thinks the show will help promote the team and the city of Cincinnati and not — as has too often been the case — become Bungalized and turn into a boomerang that circles back and slams them all in the head.
More than being just a bonding agent between the team and its fans, Brown said the show will “give us a chance to set the record straight…so everyone can see what our people are really like.”
He used the oft-arrested, but newly-resurrected Chris Henry as an example:
“If you only knew him by hearsay, you would think he’s some kind of ogre. But it’s not true. He’s a good person. When you see him up close, you’ll find that you like him. He’ll be a soft-spoken, pleasant person and people who understand him to be differently will now know better.
“We have a lot of good guys. They’re interesting personalities, as well as players, and if that comes through in the program I think that helps the Cincinnati Bengals.”
He said people will see how hard his players and coaches work and they’ll get some insight into the contract negotiations that go on in the front office. And, though he is often reclusive, Brown said they will get a glimpse of him “if it’s required.”
But the real thing Brown wants to happen this preseason is for his team to begin it’s reversal of last year’s fortunes:
“We disappointed our public last year…and we disappointed ourselves. We want to get out on the field and prove we are a good team, a winning team, a kind of team that could be a playoff team.”
Channelling Brando again — this time with a bit of a twist to that famous line — he wants to be a contender.
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