Brian Simmons and John Thornton, the defensive leaders of that first Marvin Lewis team to make the postseason 10 years ago, are still in the game.
Simmons, the club’s 1998 first-round pick who became the most versatile Bengals linebacker ever, is a college scout for Jacksonville combing parts of the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Thornton, a defensive tackle who was Lewis’ first major free-agent signing back when the Bengals had to do that sort of thing, is now an agent signing players and coaches to those deals.
We’ve come full circle Saturday night. Ten years later and it’s a post-season rematch at Paul Brown Stadium of a Wild Card Game (8:15-Cincinnati’s Channel 12) that more than lived up to its name in an AFC North showdown between the division champion Bengals and sixth-seeded Steelers.