CINCINNATI (AP) -Only a sophomore in high school, Jermaine Gresham had a tough decision to make, one that would direct his life.
Basketball? Or football?
The tall, muscular athlete loved basketball. He’d already led Ardmore High School to the Oklahoma state title game twice already, losing both times even though he dominated inside as a 6-foot-4 center. Surely, he could get a free ride to college by playing hoops.
His football coach saw it differently.
Mike Lloyd sat down with Gresham and told him that he’d be just another good basketball player if he decided to go that way. Put him on a football field with his size, strength and hands – well, that might get him even further.
“My coach told me, ‘You know what? Your future’s going to be in football,”’ Gresham said Friday. “I could see the changes happening, and he was right. I finally realized football was my calling. What I could do on the football field compared to what I could do in basketball was rare, in his eyes.”
first-round pick – the Cincinnati Bengals chose him 21st overall on Thursday night.
A day later, he got on a plane in Oklahoma City, flew to Detroit, then took a connecting flight to join his new team, which went out of character when it decided that the Oklahoma tight end was the best fit. It’s only the second time in franchise history that the Bengals took a tight end in the first round.
Gresham, now 6-foot-6 and 258 pounds, is being counted on to open up a one-dimensional passing game that depends almost entirely upon the receivers. The running backs and tight ends combined for only two touchdown catches last season, both by tight end J.P. Foschi.
Gresham caught 66 passes for 950 yards and 14 touchdowns at Oklahoma in 2008. By that point, he already was ranked among the nation’s top tight ends because he could block as well as catch.
“It gives us more options right out of the shoot at tight end,” offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said. “There hasn’t been very many of them to come out over the past few years that you think are going to be really efficient in both areas.”
The Bengals’ history with tight ends hasn’t been inspiring lately.
They took Bob Trumpy with one of their 12th-round picks as an expansion team in 1968 – not a bad start. They took Al Chandler out of Oklahoma in 1973. Dan Ross, a second-round pick in 1979, helped them reach their first Super Bowl two years later.
Rodney Holman went to Cincinnati in the third round in 1982 and helped them reach their other Super Bowl in 1988, when they lost to San Francisco again.
They’d drafted only six tight ends in the previous 16 years – Marco Battaglia, Damian Vaughn, Sean Brewer, Matt Schobel, Matt Sherry and Chase Coffman – before deciding to make Gresham a first-round investment. Although Gresham hasn’t followed the Bengals closely, he understands the significance. He arrived on Friday with as many expectations as any tight end in team history.
“I’m OK with that,” he said. “I just have to be me.”
The Bengals will give him a chance to win the starting job, although they caution that Gresham could need some time to get up to speed. He missed last season at Oklahoma because of surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right knee, but convinced NFL teams that he was fully healed with his performance at the scouting combine in Indianapolis.
“There were a lot of medical questions, especially at the combine,” he said. “I performed well at the combine and at my pro day, so I think I answered a lot of questions.”
The biggest one is how long it will take him to refine his blocking. The Bengals adopted a run-first philosophy last season, and won the AFC North. Gresham’s playing time will depend more upon how well he blocks.
technique. I’m still improving. The sky’s the limit on my blocking.”
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