Jeff Blake won't babysit, he says. He has kids of his own. Players will do what they want. They're grown men, working for lots of money. They should be accountable for themselves. Leadership comes from within. This is what Blake says.
He is back, Lazarus-like, from his five-week exile at the end of last season when, as far as anyone here knew, there was only one football player in town. Two, if you count Corey Dillon. But even The Dillonator's angry running couldn't change the picture Boomer Esiason painted.
But now Esiason is gone, they are Blake's Bengals again, and questions are going to be asked.
"Everybody has their own flair," Blake says. Everyone has his own style. His own way of throwing long touchdowns. Of leading. With Blake, it always comes back to leading.
"You describe to me what a leader is," Blake asks Saturday. As usual, he has had a productive offseason. Blake works hard. Blake cares. Blake never forgets the twin stigmas of being a black quarterback, and a short one. He never forgets the chances he has gotten. And the chances he hasn't.
"A leader gets the players around him to play hard for him," I answer. It's a slippery concept.
"How do you do that?" Blake asks.
"Each guy has his own style," I say.
"If I say to a guy, you better do this or that, he's going to do it if he wants to. If a guy's not performing because he didn't prepare himself, is that my fault?" Blake says.
I suggest he's giving players too much credit: "Lots of guys on this team want somebody to tell them what to to do."
"You think that's my obligation," Blake says. "I don't have time to call San Diego to see if David (Dunn) is working out, or Atlanta, to see if big Willie (Anderson) is eating right. When we step on the football field and they miss a block, I'll say, you've got to make that block. I do that all the time. Everybody had the perception that Boomer was a leader, and I'm not."
Comparisons unfair
Comparing Blake's leadership to Esiason's is unfair. Esiason led the league. It's like giving Woody Allen boots and a saddle and asking him to be John Wayne.
"The Bengals won four of five games with him. They lost eight of 11 with you," I say. "Is that because Boomer was a leader. . . . "
"That was because Boomer had a running game," Blake says. Give Blake the 5-yards-a-pop Dillon in the backfield, and Blake is George Patton.
"People ask me did I learn anything from Boomer. Two years ago, when I went to the Pro Bowl, did I learn anything from Boomer? I'm not second-guessing myself for anybody.
"Boomer was able to demand more things than I probably could have. He's an older guy. If I started doing that, I may have been (called) a talker or a troublemaker. I have seven or eight years to play. I can't have that tag on me," Blake says.
Not questioning himself
I ask him what he learned by watching last year. He says nothing he hadn't learned before. Until he burst on the scene four years ago, Blake did a lot of watching.
He admits "it was humbling. It's tough being in a city where a guy has taken a team to a Super Bowl. Like Steve Young. He lived that behind Joe Montana. It's like everything I do isn't good enough."
Blake has called this season "do or die" for himself and the Bengals. The team has invested much faith and money in its core players. Including Blake, who needs to spend the season answering questions.
"I'm going to play with a fierce confidence," he says. "It's that whole realm of proving people wrong, again. That's the mode I'm in. Quieting the people who have their differences about me.
"I don't understand how you can play well for two years and then you don't know what you're doing. But I ain't got time to question myself."
Blake won't have to do that. Everyone else will do it for him.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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