Simmons, one of Lewis’ first hires, has become the most-tenured kicking game coach in the league as well as one of the most respected. He traces it back to Nov. 16, 2003, when the Chiefs came in with the greatest special teams weapons of the age.
“We controlled ‘The Human Joy Stick,’ for the most part,” Kitna says of the frightening Dante Hall.
Hall came into Paycor sniffing an NFL record. He had already returned two kicks and two punts for touchdowns that season. But all Simmons can remember Hall doing that day is getting tackled on a return inside the 20 after linebacker Khalid Abdullah slipped a block and then flinging the ball to the turf for a 15-yard penalty.
Abdullah was one of eight different Bengals to have tackles in the kicking game that day, and it was the Bengals punt returner who out-Danted Hall. Wide receiver Peter Warrick, otherwise known as P.Dub, was Cincinnati’s first draft pick of the century and he was still trying to get his footing in the NFL when he ran into history on the fourth snap of the fourth quarter.
The yeoman Bengals defense was just shoveling, allowing only two field goals as the Bengals clung to a 10-6 lead. When Warrick went out to return the punt he told T.J. Houshmandzadeh, “I’m going to seal it with a kiss.” Then he broke the Chiefs’ heart on a 68-yard touchdown he skated down the middle.
“That was a really, really proud game for me. I felt it solidified me a little, too,” Simmons says. “About what I was and wanted our guys to be. Doing things the right way and here could be the result.”
But Warrick was just getting started. Now up, 17-12 with 6:05 left in the game, Kitna caught him in a one-on-one down Elm Street for a just-as-stunning 77-yard touchdown strike as noise engulfed them.
Lewis: “After he said he couldn’t run.”
“Peter had a great game,” says Kitna, sounding like the Cincinnati high school head coach he is now at Lakota East. “They were covering…
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