Former LB Spikes revisits where it all began

Next Game

Who: Cincinnati Bengals vs. Kansas City Chiefs

When: 8 p.m. Thursday

Where: Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City

TV: Ch. 12, 22

Radio: 1530-AM, 102.7-FM, 104.7-FM

Upcoming Camp Schedule: Today 6-8 on practice fields; Saturday 1:30-3:30 in Paul Brown Stadium Family Day; Sunday off

It was Throwback Thursday at Paul Brown Stadium as former Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Takeo Spikes returned to the city where his NFL career began, and where he made sure it would not end.

Spikes, who was in town as a member of the media with the Sirius/XM NFL Radio training camp tour, was drafted 13th overall by the Bengals in 1998 and played his first five seasons in Cincinnati.

But the team never won more than six games during his time in stripes, and despite the firing of Dick LeBeau after 2002 and the hiring of Marvin Lewis, Spikes had no faith that things would ever change under team owner Mike Brown.

“I wanted to win, and I felt like I didn’t have a commitment,” Spikes said Thursday afternoon. “I didn’t know Marvin, and I told Marvin that back then. ‘Yeah, I know you won the Super Bowl in Baltimore, which is cool.’ I just knew Mike Brown, and I felt like Mike was gonna run it, which he still has.

“What I did not know was that in order to relinquish some control, (Brown) had to have a trust factor,” Spikes continued. “And I give Marvin a lot of credit for that because he came in and built that trust factor up with Mike.”

Spikes left Cincinnati for Buffalo, where he went to back-to-back Pro Bowls in 2003 and 2004. He played four seasons for the Bills, one in Philadelphia, three in San Francisco and two in San Diego.

Prior to flying to San Diego to play the Chargers in 2012, Lewis talked about how much he regretted not trying harder to keep Spikes in Cincinnati.

“I wish I would’ve done a better job,” Lewis said then. “It’s one that got away.”

Lewis said he wonders how things might have been different had Spikes stayed, and Spikes said it’s something he’s thought about as well. It certainly crossed his mind Thursday as he toured the facilities and saw the inner workings of an organization that looks completely different from when he left.

“The cup overfloweth with confidence,” Spikes said. “It used to be where you had a head coach or one coach with credibility, now it’s damn near the entire staff has credibility. Proven winners. Proven teachers. That’s what I see.”

Spikes said he can already see a new attitude created by the promotion of Hue Jackson to offensive coordinator and Paul Guenther to defensive coordinator.

“On the offensive side of the ball, you see the mentality switch,” he said. “It damn near looks like the defensive side. That’s what I want to see. I’m excited.

“This team is loaded with talent, and they felt like they left it on the table. For them to put up season highs over a three-year period on the offensive side of the ball and the defense made a lot of noise and in Houston for two years and last year against San Diego, it just felt like it was unfinished business. That’s what I feel. They’re out to do it.”

Spikes has an unfortunate kinship with many of the players on the Bengals roster in that he, like most of them, never experienced a playoff win.

Spikes never even got to appear in a playoff game, although that may be have been different had he listed to Lewis and stayed.

But despite playing 10 more seasons for four other teams after leaving Cincinnati on contentious terms, Spikes he said he will always think of himself as a Bengal.

“I’ve always been a Bengal at heart. Always,” he said. “It’s a part of me. It’s what started it out.”