“Oh my God. He scared Bud Carson, our defensive coordinator, to death,” Blount said. “We had the reels of film and he would speed them up to make him look even faster.”
Pittsburgh also had to prepare for Joiner, on his second team since coming over in a trade from Houston in 1972, the year before Paul Brown drafted Curtis in the first round. Along with the emergence of Anderson, the Bengals passing game took off.
But Curtis was so good, Brown was able to trade Joiner a few months after he became the first Bengal to get 200 yards in a 1975 game against Cleveland. Joiner says the trade that brought Chargers sack ace Coy Bacon to the Bengals put him in the Hall of Fame since he retired with a then all-time record of 750 catches in 18 seasons after a decade in Don Coryell’s futuristic passing game.
“He was the fastest person in the league. Isaac Curtis didn’t drop many balls. The guy had some great hands and great speed and he could run pass routes,” says Joiner, who stacked 26 years of NFL coaching on top of all those catches. “The guy was a receiver, now. An all-around receiver.
“If we’re putting in guys in the Hall of Fame just on natural skills, he’d be in there. But we don’t do that. We go by catches. You can’t do that, either. Defenses were scared of him. If you played Cincinnati and didn’t have a defense for Isaac Curtis, there was something wrong with you. The guy should be seen as a Hall of Fame player I think.”
Joiner doesn’t blame Brown for trading him. Even then, it was “hard to keep two,” No. 1 receivers and “we both made the Pro Bowl the next year,” after Bacon came up big for Cincy with 22 sacks.
“My stats were better because I played more (six) years than he did,” Joiner says of Curtis. “He has the credentials to get in the Hall of Fame. He was very quiet. He was kind of humble. He didn’t expound on everything. Everything was nice and easy and quiet. But he wasn’t like Lemar Parrish, who talked all the time.”
Curtis has plenty talking for him now. Guys like…
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