“I wanted him here,” said Jackson, who was Houshmandzadeh’s position coach with the Bengals from 2004-05 and his head coach in Oakland in 2011.
“He’s someone I have a lot of respect for as a person and as a player,” Jackson continued. “And I know he has a message that he can share with our group, not just the receivers, but the offense in general. This revival is about having some grit and getting the things done we need to get done.”
Houshmandzadeh, who played for the Bengals from 2001-08, ranks third on the team’s career receptions list (507), and his 112 catches in his lone Pro Bowl season of 2007 still stand as a single-season franchise record.
He also ranks fifth in career receiving touchdowns (37) and seventh in career receiving yards (5,782), so he has plenty of advice to offer what is mostly a young receiving corps.
“It’s a matter of what they need, what they want to learn,” Houshmandzadeh said following Tuesday’s practice that kicked off the third and final week of Organized Team Activities.
“Can I help them? I think I can,” he continued. “But it’s possible what I have to say they know or don’t want to hear. So that remains to be seen.”
Houshmandzadeh spends his falls an assistant coach at Long Beach (Calif.) Poly High School, and he devotes the rest of his time to coaching his daughter’s 12-year-old softball team, Firecrackers T.J.
“We’re good,” he insisted. “Look us up. We’re top five in the nation.”
Houshmandzadeh said he loves coaching, but he isn’t sure yet whether the wants to purse it as an occupation in the NFL, or at least not yet. His two-week stint with the Bengals will be as much about learning as it will teaching.
“Do I want to coach,” he asked. “I would probably say yes. But as of now I doubt it because I have too many kids, and I would like to be around them and make sure they are getting what they need and doing what they need to do.”
Bengals offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth, who is one of only four current players who played alongside Houshmandzadeh, said his former teammate will be a big help when it comes to relating to the younger skill position players in the locker room.
“Outside of the offensive line really, offensively we haven’t had a lot of veteran players around a lot of these young guys,” Whitworth said. “So they’ve kind of all learned it on the go and really learned some of the stuff they know from veterans at different positions, not necessarily theirs. So it’s always good when you can have a guy like him come into the receivers room and say ‘Hey, this is the way I figured out how to make plays work.’
“Every day in practice was almost a fight with T.J. because he was going to get that football and he was going to get open and he was going to fight for position every single snap,” Whitworth continued. “That’s something he can bring to this group and something that those guys can get from him. The fire and tenacity he played the game with is something that definitely can carry on.”
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