Cincinnati Bengals
Bengals select TE Gresham
By C. Trent Rosecrans, CNATI.com Posted April 22, 2010 10:33 PM ET
For most of the first 20 picks, TV viewers saw players in New York City at the draft or at a draft party somewhere. The 21st pick, Oklahoma tight end Jermaine Gresham, was sitting alone in his apartment watching the draft.
"To me, this is just the beginning," Gresham said. "It's happy, it's good and everything like that, but I've got a long way to go."
So how was he planning on celebrating after the Bengals took him with their first-round pick?
"I've got a flight in the morning, so I guess I better I go to bed," Gresham said.
That attitude was one of the reasons the Bengals took Gresham even though Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant was still on the board, along with some other players.
"The abilities that Gresham has in terms of work habits, in terms of the aggressiveness and the energy he plays with on the field was a real positive factor in his favor," Bengals offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said. "As coaches when we talk about a player finishing the play, this guy doesn't have a time clock, 'I'm going to block my guy for two seconds and see what's going on' this guy is pushing his guy down the field until he hears the whistle. Those things tipped the balance on him, the quality of kid he is, the work habits he brings, the love for the game and those were real positives in his favor along with his ability."
Gresham missed the entire 2009 season with a knee injury, but both Gresham and Marvin Lewis said Gresham's knee was back to 100 percent. Gresham caught a total of 111 passes for 1,629 yards and 26 touchdowns in three seasons at Oklahoma, and caught 66 passes for 950 yards as a junior in 2008.
NFL Network analyst and former NFL executive Gil Brandt referred to Gresham as "the next Kellen Winslow Sr." in a teleconference a couple of weeks ago. And when asked if he'd ever coached a tight end the level of Gresham, Bratkowski had to go back to the same player, whom he coached in college at Missouri.
Gresham could help open up the Bengals' offense, along with newly-acquired wide receiver Antonio Bryant and Chad Ochocinco. Ochocinco noted on his Twitter account that he liked the pick for the Bengals.
"You're seeing any two-deep zones anymore and corners rolling up on the receivers and the safties overlapping, it isolates a linebacker down the middle of the field with that," Bratkowski said. "Those are the situations where people were doing those things to us and it gives us that chance for him to run down the middle of the field against a linebacker. Then all of a sudden if they start playing high on him, afraid of that, it opens the underneath for him where he can get the ball in the open field. When you get the people who just want to flat out double somebody and go in and out on both sides. All of a sudden that tight end gets matched up in a very favorable (position) if he can go beat the guy and that's where we're headed. That's what we hope to get out of it."
Brian Kelly, the former University of Cincinnati head coach and current coach at Notre Dame, watched Gresham catch seven passes for 93 yards and two touchdowns against the Bearcats in 2008.
"Gresham is a get-out-of-jail-free card (for a quarterback)," Kelly wrote in a text message to CNati.com. "He will virtually always attract single coverage and with his size, (he's) a matchup nightmare."
At 6-foot-6, 258-pounds, tight ends coach Jonathan Hayes got an up-close look at Gresham's size and power when he worked him out at Oklahoma's Pro Day last month.
On a crossing route, Hayes told Gresham to run the route off of him and the tight end nearly knocked down the coach.
"We have it on tape, where he damn near ran me over running a route," Hayes said. "For him to knock me over --Brat will tell you, he's seen me work a lot of these guys out and no one has ever come close to knocking me over - this kid is a powerful man. We've just got to work with him to get it all put together."
Gresham said he thought he'd blown his chance with the Bengals by knocking over Hayes.
"I thought the team wasn't going to pick me because I was beating up on the coaches," Graham said. "But it worked out well for me."
When told Hayes was impressed, Graham laughed, "well I'm glad I did it then."
But he did make sure to note his future coach was "pretty strong. He's a pretty solid guy."
The Bengals took a tight end in the third round last season, but Chase Coffman didn't see the field as a rookie.
"If you go to some of the things we evolved to last year, even though we were short tight ends we did a lot of two tight end things," Bratkowski said. "Some of those things we substituted another tackle to in essence give us a two tight end situation."
Lewis hinted that the Bengals could re-sign veteran Reggie Kelly before the draft and Bratkowski said that's a possibility.
"I think that door still might be open, Reggie is very special. Jonathan alluded to it, Reggie's very special," Bratkowski said. "I know a lot of people didn't quite see the value in Reggie, but I know that more than once Rex Ryan has complimented Reggie saying he's never had an answer for him. He's the one guy that when they played us because of what we did with Reggie in the pass protection and run game stuff, he's given that compliment to Reggie. We think highly of Reggie and other people do as well. I think that door may still be open and if it is, great."
He'll also have talented tight ends to mentor, including Gresham and Coffman. The Bengals also have Daniel Coats and Darius Hill on the roster. Bratkowski said Gresham will be given the opportunity to start.
"The good thing about Jermaine is that he has played a lot on the line. Let's face it -- he missed a year. So, by the time we get him in here, it's going to be about a year and a half since he's played football in a group setting. We know that," Hayes said. "Like Brat said, we're going to get his feet wet. We're going to get him going. The transition for him is getting down in a three-point stance and going through all those fundamental things. I had to revisit with Chase because he'd never done it, where this kid has done it -- and he's done a lot of it -- so it's not something new to him where all of a sudden he's thinking about it constantly. He can put his hand on the ground and just go play. He's done it, and that's going to give him an advantage when he gets here."
Gresham will hit the ground running on Friday -- after a good night's sleep.
Categories: Cincinnati Bengals, Featured Stories
Tags: Bob Bratkowski, Jermaine Gresham, Jonathan Hayes, Marvin Lewis, Reggie Kelly
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