Tag: Anthony Munoz

Bengals HOF tackle Munoz likes Washington OT Troy Fautanu

Anthony Munoz reveals which OT he likes for the Bengals in the draft.

The Cincinnati Bengals are currently in need of a right tackle since Jonah Williams is about to be a free agent, but with the draft coming up late next month, there are a lot of options available they could take in the first round.

One of those players is Washington’s Troy Fautanu, who could still be available when the No. 18 pick comes around. A former Bengals Hall of Fame offensive tackle likes what he sees in Fautanu according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com.

Here’s what Anthony Munoz, who played in the Pac-8, said about the Pac-12 tackle:

“There’s not a lot of respect for the Pac 12, but the left tackle for Washington is pretty impressive,” said Munoz, who has his weight exactly right. “Since they were in the playoffs, I saw a lot of him. Impressive. I watched his workout and they had him at 317 pounds and he was moving pretty well. The guy from Oregon State is also excellent.”

Fautanu had an impressive showing at the scouting combine with a 5.01 time in the 40 and a 1.71 time in the 10-yard split, a top-10 time.

If he is available when the Bengals pick comes up, the Bengals will certainly have their eyes on him.

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Bengals Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz ‘amazed’ by Joe Burrow

Anthony Munoz with a fun interview about Joe Burrow.

Even during the week of the Super Bowl, the Cincinnati Bengals and their quarterback Joe Burrow are fresh on the minds of people.

Bengals Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz was very complimentary of the franchise quarterback on CBS Sports on Feb. 7.

“Every part of his game, I just sit there and I’m amazed,” Munoz said. “I go to every home game when he’s playing. The way the guys fight for him. You hear guys talk about him. They love him, they love playing for him.”

It’s nothing new to hear about Burrow, but even after a year in which he started off slow and had to sit much of the season because of wrist surgery, he is still getting recognition as a great player.

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Bengals Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz to provide items for auction

Bengals legend Anthony Munoz gets involved in a good cause.

When Super Bowl LVIII comes around, the National Football League Auction and Hunt Auctions will work together to host the 17th annual Super Bowl Live Auction Event on Feb. 10, 2024.

Cincinnati Bengals Hall of famer Anthony Munoz will provide some items from his collection for the auction.

“The memories I have from my time within the NFL as a member of the Cincinnati Bengals are something I will never forget,” Munoz said in a release. “Bengals fans and the city of Cincinnati have been there for me both during my career and after to which I will always be grateful. My time spent at USC and the relationships developed with alumni and fans alike are equally meaningful to me. The Super Bowl seemed like an ideal place to share a few items from my personal collection with the fans and to contribute to NFL Auction charities.”

Some of the items that will be included are a Munoz final game Bengals uniform, a 1980s jersey of his, a 1980s Howie Long Oakland Raiders helmet, a Munoz game-used Pro Bowl jersey and a Ronnie Lott San Francisco 49ers helmet.

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Pac-12 goodbye tour: Remembering USC football’s unbeaten 1979 season

#USC finished No. 2 in the 1979 season, the third time in four seasons under John Robinson that USC was a top-two team.

We have written a lot at Trojans Wire about the 1980 Rose Bowl between USC and Ohio State. It is one of the great games in USC football history. It featured one of the greatest drives in USC football history. It was the centerpiece game for one of the greatest football players USC has ever produced.

It also has a great backstory, as we noted earlier this year:

“When you listen to Anthony Munoz talk about the 1980 NFL draft with Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya on Trojan Conquest Live, you can tell he wasn’t absolutely convinced he was going to be a top-five pick or even a first-round pick. The injuries were a concern. Munoz was intent on doing whatever he could to prove to an NFL team that he could contribute. That’s not how a top-five pick would think about his place on the draft board. He really didn’t know what was about to happen at that draft.

“Why did Munoz go at No. 3 in that draft, despite his injury-marred run at USC? It’s very simple: Paul Brown, who won a national championship as the head coach at Ohio State nearly four decades earlier, was at the 1980 Rose Bowl in which Munoz and USC played against the top-ranked Buckeyes.”

The 1980 Rose Bowl capped an unbeaten season at USC. The Trojans weren’t perfect, but no one beat them. They finished No. 2 in the polls, marking the third time in four seasons they were a top-two team in the nation.

Relive the 1979 USC season as part of our Pac-12 football goodbye tour:

The astounding, incredible fact about Anthony Munoz at the 1980 NFL draft

Munoz told @TrojanConquests and @LBCTrojan something that seems virtually impossible to believe, 43 years later. #NFLDraft

Yes, it’s true that Anthony Munoz had multiple knee injuries in his playing career at USC. Munoz did not play full seasons for a majority of his collegiate career, missing multiple games against Notre Dame and also missing the Rose Bowl Game before finally playing in the Granddaddy in his Trojan finale in 1980 against Ohio State. It was reasonable for NFL teams to worry about Munoz and have reservations about his status as an NFL prospect heading into the 1980 NFL draft. There’s nothing wrong with that.

However, if any NFL team had reservations about Munoz’s health and durability, wasn’t the obvious solution to work out the offensive lineman and directly see what he was — and wasn’t — capable of?

Munoz shared some amazing stories with Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya at Trojan Conquest Live in early June. Munoz participated in a workout conducted by the Cincinnati Bengals and head coach Forrest Gregg, who was himself an all-time-great offensive lineman and therefore someone who knew what Munoz could do for the Bengals if he was physically up to the task.

The Bengals were smart enough to work out Munoz.

Guess what? No other NFL team did.

That’s right: Not one other NFL team held a workout for Anthony Munoz, to see up close if his body was ready for the rigors of the NFL.

The New York Jets picked at No. 2 in the 1980 NFL draft. They took a receiver from Texas, Lam Jones, who never made even one Pro Bowl and was a complete bust. Imagine if the Jets had worked out Anthony Munoz and saw what the Bengals saw. They might have picked Munoz at No. 2 instead of allowing him to fall to No. 3, where Cincinnati stepped in and took him.

That’s why the Jets are the Jets … and that’s why the Bengals, with Munoz, made two Super Bowls in the 1980s.

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Anthony Munoz shares epic story of legendary lineman Forrest Gregg

Anthony Munoz told tons of great stories to @TrojanConquests and @LBCTrojan, but this one involving Forrest Gregg might be the best. #Bengals

We mentioned on Sunday that one coaching change had a profoundly positive effect on Anthony Munoz’s NFL career and, by extension, his life trajectory. NFL Hall of Fame offensive lineman Forrest Gregg was hired as the new head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals heading into the 1980 NFL season. This was before the 1980 NFL draft in which the Bengals took Munoz with the No. 3 pick and changed their fortunes in the 1980s with two Super Bowl appearances. A great offensive lineman recognized the value of drafting a talented offensive line prospect.

Munoz, on the Trojan Conquest Live show with Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya, told an amazing, all-time anecdote about the workout Forrest Gregg conducted with Munoz. Gregg flew out to Los Angeles to visit Munoz and hold the workout on Munoz’s home turf. Munoz was eager to prove that he was ready to be a great NFL offensive lineman and give the Bengals the best player they ever had.

At the 45-minute mark of the show, Munoz relates the story of how he knocked Forrest Gregg to the ground. It sounds horrifying and disastrous, but the story had a very happy ending … for Munoz, for Gregg, and the Bengals, who drafted one of the best players in NFL history and made two Super Bowls as a result.

Trojan Conquest Live airs Sundays during the summer at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific, at The Voice of College Football.

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One central reason Anthony Munoz found an NFL home with the Bengals

Munoz told @TrojanConquests and @LBCTrojan that a coaching change made a defining difference in his NFL career.

The Cincinnati Bengals, in 1980, were still led by Paul Brown, the team’s owner and founder. Before the football legend died in 1991, he was still the lead decision-maker for the organization. To a considerable extent, Brown can be viewed as the main reason the Bengals picked Anthony Munoz with the No. 3 selection in the 1980 NFL draft, a move which changed Munoz’s life and the Bengals’ trajectory as a franchise.

Yet, Brown’s selection of Munoz didn’t happen on an island. Brown made two coaching changes before the 1980 season which smoothed the path for Munoz. One was the hire of offensive line coach Jim McNally. The more central and important of those two changes was the decision to release head coach Homer Rice and hire Forrest Gregg, who had coached the Cleveland Browns for three seasons and had spent 1979 coaching in the CFL with the Toronto Argonauts.

If you don’t know who Forrest Gregg was before he became the coach of the Bengals, here’s the essential, central fact about the man: Gregg was part of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line on the dynastic Vince Lombardi teams of the 1960s. Gregg was as good an offensive lineman as the NFL had seen at the time. He was a legend of the game when the Bengals hired him as head coach, even though he had not registered a top-tier coaching achievement.

Notably, Munoz became the man who enabled Gregg to achieve richly as an NFL coach. It was Munoz who transformed the Bengals into a Super Bowl-caliber team in 1981. Veteran quarterback Ken Anderson needed an elite lineman and pass protector to distribute the ball to elite receivers such as Isaac Curtis and Cris Collinsworth.

The main point to emphasize is that Gregg’s background as an offensive lineman enabled him to see and appreciate the value and importance of picking Munoz.

Watch Munoz tell this and related stories in his one-hour interview with Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya at Trojan Conquest Live. The USC YouTube show airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. Pacific this summer.

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Anthony Munoz explains how Hudson Houck prepared him for the NFL at USC

Munoz told @TrojanConquests and @LBCTrojan how Hudson Houck, one of the great O-line coaches of all time, taught and drilled him at USC.

If you haven’t yet watched the one-hour interview of Anthony Munoz at Trojan Conquest Live, you should find some time to do so.

Munoz sat down with show hosts Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya for a full hour, telling stories about USC, the Cincinnati Bengals, his early childhood, his post-playing career, and so much more.

Every part of the interview is fascinating and worth watching, but one detail in particular is worth passing along.

Munoz’s offensive line coach at USC was Hudson Houck, who has produced a decorated career and a sterling track record as one of the greatest offensive line coaches in football history.

What makes Houck so good? There are lots of reasons, but fullness of preparation and completeness of teaching are two primary ones.

Munoz said that even though the late-1970s USC teams primarily ran the ball and emphasized the running game, Houck put Munoz and other USC linemen through extensive and detailed pass-blocking drills. Yes, USC was going to run the ball with Student Body Right, but that didn’t mean Houck was going to stop short of giving his players all the tools they needed to succeed in the NFL. He was going to teach the full dimensions of playing offensive linemen. He was going to coach everything about the position, not just the plays or skills USC was going to need.

Houck was — and is — a total coach who never cut corners. That’s why he’s the best.

Trojan Conquest Live with Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. Pacific at The Voice of College Football.

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Anthony Munoz explains how great offensive line play is created

Anthony Munoz told @TrojanConquests and @LBCTrojan how #USC gave him the tools he needed to be great.

There is no question that a great offensive lineman needs a few specific characteristics to be great. Many people might debate which traits are more important than others, but the collection of traits is evident to anyone who studies football.

Anthony Munoz, the USC and Cincinnati Bengal legend, explained what makes a great offensive lineman and what feeds into great offensive line performance. He talked to Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya on Trojan Conquest Live about the keys to elite offensive line play.

His basic answers aren’t surprising at all. Munoz identified technique, mindset, and conditioning as three core pillars of great offensive linemen. That’s nothing you haven’t heard before. However, it’s really worth listening to Munoz talk about offensive line performance because he fills in the gaps and the details. He explains how elite coaches cultivate quality and maximize those three keys: technique, mindset and conditioning. Everyone knows what the goals and objectives are. The best coaches figure out how to reach them.

Watch Anthony Munoz talk about that process and a lot more in his interview on Trojan Conquest Live, which airs Sundays at The Voice of College Football. For purposes of internet searching and accessibility, Munoz appears on Trojan Conquest Live 14 (episode 14 of the show).

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Orlando Brown Jr. getting advice from Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz

Orlando Brown Jr. reveals he’s getting advice from a Bengals legend.

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The Cincinnati Bengals’ biggest signing of the offseason, Orlando Brown Jr., has been adjusting well to Cincinnati and has been able to learn from one of the best Bengals linemen there has been.

Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com reported that Brown got the chance to talk with Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz, who told him consistency is one of the most important things when it comes to having success as an offensive lineman in Cincinnati.

“I’m looking for his mindset and approach and he said he went into every training camp like he had to make the team,” Brown said. “He’s the best to ever do it and he went into it like that. It makes you think. And I had a lot more questions I didn’t get to.”

Brown said he enjoyed being able to talk to someone who played the same position and said he hopes he can get lunch with Munoz in a few weeks.

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