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CINCINNATI — He's the one guy all the Bengals flocked to in the postgame dressing room. He'd made the afternoon possible.

It was not Carson Palmer, who threw for 358 yards and two touchdowns, running back Rudi Johnson, who'd bulldozed for 145 yards and two more scores, or any of the other Cincinnati players who were a big part of the 34-17 rout of the Cleveland Browns Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium.

The guy — an 84-year-old man leaning on a cane with an old lineman's hand that sported NFL championship and Pro Football Hall of Fame rings — was bigger than all that.

Bill Willis is the NFL's version of Jackie Robinson — actually, he came before Jackie — and one of the greatest Cleveland Browns ever. He's the All-Pro middle guard whose story Bengals' coach Marvin Lewis told his team Friday — even reading them a poignant 60-year-old letter from Willis to Paul Brown, thanking the Browns' coach for giving him a chance — and that stirred everyone, said tackle Willie Anderson.

Thanks to Paul Brown, Willis first reintegrated Ohio State football in 1942 and the Brown-coached Bucks promptly won the national title. In 1946, again due to Brown, Willis and Marion Motley joined Cleveland and toppled the segregation fence that kept blacks from the pros for nearly 15 years.

On Friday, an exhibit featuring Willis — put together in part by the Bengals staff and narrated by Lewis — opened at Cincinnati's Freedom Center.

Before Sunday's game, a tribute to Willis — the boyhood hero of Bengals' owner Mike Brown, Paul's son — was played for the crowd.

Later in private, Brown told how as a kid when his dad was the Cleveland coach he'd join Willis and Motley for card games in one of their training camp rooms at Bowling Green while white players went into town: "I never saw them as black or white, they were just my friends....

"I love (Bill) to death and I think he played a real significant role in American racial relations. No one seems to know it and they should."

Thanks to Brown and Lewis, Bengals players now do. And if they were excited to meet Willis, he was just excited to meet them

As Willis was brought into the dressing room in a wheelchair, Brown asked: "Who you want to see?"

"All of them," he said emphatically.

As his chair was guided toward Rudi Johnson, Willis stopped it, pulled himself onto his cane and offered a hand to the bruising back.

"I told him to 'keep on keeping on,' " Willis beamed.

Johnson later grinned: "He told me his two greatest teams were in Ohio. ... Guess who they were? ... Ohio State and the Cincinnati Bengals — us!"

Defensive line coach Jay Hayes brought his two sons to meet Willis. Other Bengals assistants brought over young players.

'"We've got to see a man like this to know where we came from," Anderson said. "You have to know who paid the dues. Imagine the pressure a guy like him and Jackie Robinson went through and handled with dignity. It might sound cliche, but they are the reason we're here."

And now that they are here, Willis is impressed by them.

"I think this is their year," he said of the Bengals.

Brown squirmed and held up a cautionary hand: "Be careful ... I've got to get you away from these guys."

He meant the two sportwsriters with them, not the players.

There's no getting the Bengals away from Bill Willis now.

They've bonded.