Remembering Greg Cook

Joe Burrow has the potential to become the greatest quarterback in the history of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Burrow is the third quarterback in franchise history to take the Bengals to a Super Bowl, joining Ken Anderson and Boomer Esiason. Both Anderson and Esiason were past NFL MVPs and four-time Pro Bowl selections.  Anderson also won four NFL passing titles. Those two quarterbacks achieved their potential.

Burrow won the Heisman Trophy at LSU, then became the first overall selection of the 2020 NFL draft. He has won an NFL passing title and been to two Pro Bowls since then. At 28, there is still potential for Burrow to achieve.

So Burrow will be in the discussion with Anderson and Esiason when the time comes for the franchise to select the quarterback of its all-time team.

Sadly, there is one quarterback who will not be in that discussion – and he may have been the most talented quarterback ever to take a snap for the Bengals.

But Greg Cook only played 12 games for the franchise.

Those 12 games made a believer out of Hall-of-Fame coach Bill Walsh, an offensive assistant on Paul Brown’s Cincinnati staff at the time. Walsh was one of the greatest offensive minds in NFL history. He would go on to develop the West Coast offense, winning three Super Bowls at San Francisco in the 1980s with fellow Hall-of-Famer Joe Montana as his quarterback.

“All the guys in my age group that saw Greg said he could have, or would have, been the next great one – maybe to the extent that he could have been the greatest,” Walsh told me during a visit at the 49ers headquarters in the early 2000s. “He was exactly like Steve Young – but he was 6-4, 220 pounds. He had the same speed as Steve, the movement, the agility…and a quick delivery like (Dan) Marino.

“Greg was going to be a flamboyant, wild-assed quarterback. He had swagger to him that was marvelous. And he was the only player I ever saw take on Paul Brown and tease him right back.”

As a senior at the University of Cincinnati in 1968, Greg led the NCAA in passing. He was one of only two college quarterbacks to throw for 3,000 yards that season – and his 3,272 yards stood as a school record for 34 years. He passed for 554 yards in a game against Ohio…back when college quarterbacks weren’t throwing for 300 yards in a game, much less 500. That mark stood for 47 years in the Cincinnati record book. His 95-yard touchdown pass to Tom Rossley remains a school record.

The Bengals, in their second year of existence, drafted Cook with the fifth overall choice of the 1969 draft. Later that summer, he was voted the MVP of the College All-Star game against the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. Paul Brown plugged him in as the team’s starter from Day 1 and he beat the Chiefs in his third game, pushing the Bengals out to a surprising 3-0 start.

But Cook suffered a shoulder injury on a tackle by Kansas City linebacker Jim Lynch that day and missed the next three games. He returned to beat the Oakland Raiders and tie the Houston Oilers for a 4-1-1 start to his career. But his shoulder was never right again.

The Bengals lost their final five games of the season to finish 4-9-1. Cook threw only three touchdown passes in those five games but was still voted the AFL Rookie of the Year that season with his 1,854 passing yards and 15 touchdowns.

Unfortunately, the injury against the Chiefs was more damaging — and tragic — than anyone realized. Cook tore the rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder and also suffered a detached biceps muscle. Both went undetected at the time and he finished the season with a rapid deteriorating arm. Cook later underwent a series of surgeries to repair the damage, forcing him to sit out the next three seasons. He returned for one game in 1973, throwing three passes off the bench in the season opener against Denver, then retired.

“It was sports medicine that did him in,” Walsh said. “Today they would have fixed (torn rotator cuff) right up. In those days they let it go and calcium developed around the tear. When they finally went in they took the muscles all apart and he was never the same. A real shame.”

So the Bengals only saw Cook for two games in full health – the first two games of the 1968 season. He passed for five touchdowns in victories over Miami and San Diego, throwing for 327 yards against the Chargers.

Jack Donaldson was an assistant for coach Weeb Ewbank with the New York Jets in the 1960s. Ewbank knows what great quarterbacking looks like. He won NFL championships with Johnny Unitas and a Super Bowl with Joe Namath on his way to the Hall of Fame. The Bengals hired Donaldson away from the Jets in 1968 and he joined Walsh on the offensive coaching staff.

“Weeb and Jack were talking about who was the greatest quarterback,” recalled Walsh of a session with his two coaching friends. “Weeb said Johnny Unitas, and then a few others. Then he said, `Whatever happened to Greg Cook?’ He would have been the one.”