Cincinnati Bengals legend Anthony Munoz knows what it takes to get back to the Super Bowl.
Munoz’s jaw-dropping resume includes 11 Pro Bowls, nine First-Team All-Pros and two Super Bowls, albeit Super Bowl appearances that came seven years apart.
And now he’s seeing a young Bengals team tasked with not repeating history by struggling the season after getting back to the big game.
He’s got one key lesson he’d love to share with the current players.
“Don’t let the distractions keep you from getting ready again for the next season,” Munoz said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “That was the biggest thing. You get pulled from every direction. There’s this drain on your time and then all of a sudden you start moving in that direction and you forget what got you in position to do the things that got you to the Super Bowl.”
There’s one more thing Munoz says is for locker room leaders: “Keep staying vocal and keep an example on how to continue to stay focused. Accountability, man. Hold guys accountable. It looks like they have those guys.”
We’ll see if Bengals players have followed this style of advice closely enough to get back. But by most accounts — when the franchise quarterback is running extra sprints after voluntary practices and new tight ends are using some of the six-week break to attend extra camps — the players are putting in that extra work.
Given the core team leadership that got the Bengals to the Super Bowl ahead of schedule already, it’s pretty safe for fans to feel confident the team will at least put in the right amount of work in the pursuit of getting back.
