‘It was electric’: Former WSU quarterback Jack Thompson recalls Cincinnati Bengals’ 1982 Super Bowl run

PULLMAN – Jack Thompson returned to Cincinnati and reunited with his former NFL teammates earlier this season, when the Bengals hosted a reunion to commemorate the 40-year anniversary of the franchise’s first AFC Championship.

“It was awesome, and sure enough, we’re going to the Super Bowl this year,” said Thompson, a Washington State football legend who backed up star quarterback Ken Anderson during Cincinnati’s 1981-82 campaign.

That team was honored before the contemporary Bengals improved to 3-1 with a victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sept. 30. Even at that early juncture of their breakthrough year, Thompson sensed something special in the air.

“It wasn’t really settled, the tempo of their season, but being in that stadium, you could tell,” he said. “Cincinnati is on fire, and they’re on fire because the Bengals are giving them reason to be.”

They’re in the Super Bowl for the third time in franchise history.

The Bengals, who fell to Joe Montana’s San Francisco 49ers in January 1982 – and again in ’89 – face the Los Angeles Rams at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

Thompson can’t wait.

“I’m nervous, but it’s an eager anticipation,” he said. “No. 1, for the city of Cincinnati.”

The Spokesman-Review caught up earlier this week with the WSU fan favorite, who’s still very much a presence in the Pullman community, for a wide-ranging phone chat centered around his days in a Bengals uniform – the 1981-82 Super Bowl run, in particular.

“It was electric,” Thompson said when asked about the buzz surrounding the Bengals in ’81. “Very similar (to this season), but it was new territory back then.”

Thompson spent four of his six seasons in the NFL with the Bengals, who drafted him out of WSU with the third overall pick in 1979.

Affectionately known as “The Throwin’ Samoan,” Thompson dazzled as a Cougars starter from 1976-78, setting a standard of QB excellence at the Pullman school. Among a heap of other accomplishments, he piled up a then-NCAA record 7,818 career passing yards, collected two first-team All-America nods and finished ninth in Heisman voting as a senior.

Thompson said the experts had projected him to go seventh overall in the NFL draft to the New York Giants, but the Bengals made an unexpected move and scooped him up early.

“I remember talking to (Giants coach) Ray Perkins and he said, ‘Have your bags packed and ready to come to New York,’ ” Thompson said. “Cincinnati surprised everybody by taking me.”

He wound up playing 32 games in orange and black, starting five in his first two seasons. He threw for 2,072 yards in his Bengals career, completing 175 of 370 passes for 14 touchdowns against 19 interceptions. After a trade sent him to Tampa Bay, Thompson made 19 starts for the Buccaneers from 1983-84, but his loyalties remain with Cincinnati.

“That’s the team I claim,” he said. “I was never a Bengals fan before I got drafted, but when I was drafted, my allegiance was built once I became close to my teammates. We had great teammates.”

A veteran defense filled with longtime Bengals complemented a versatile, efficient offense led by Anderson, who earned the league’s MVP award in his 11th season in Cincinnati after throwing for 3,754 yards and 29 TDs against 10 picks in guiding the team to a 12-4 season.

“We were really well-rounded,” Thompson said. “Kenny Anderson spearheaded it. He rose up. And as he rose, everyone around him rose in their level of play. We always had a helluva defense.”

The unit mostly consisted of players who’d been in Cincinnati for at least five years. It included NFL stars like cornerback Ken “The Rattler” Riley – a Bengal from 1969-83 who ranks fifth all time in NFL interceptions with 65 – and an exceptional linebacking corps featuring mainstay Bengals such as Reggie Williams and Jim LeClair, both of whom played in The Queen City for 12-plus years.

Anderson had options aplenty. A baby-faced Cris Collinsworth, who’ll be on the call for NBC on Sunday, surpassed the 1,000-yard receiving mark as a record-setting rookie and Isaac Curtis was always reliable in his ninth season in Cincinnati. Bruising running back Pete Johnson totaled over 1,000 yards. Anchoring the Bengals’ offensive line was Anthony Munoz, widely considered one of the best in NFL history.

“With Cincinnati being the market it is, we didn’t have a lot of talkers on our team. We just had good players and people who weren’t self promoters,” Thompson said. “(Riley) belongs in the Hall of Fame. Isaac Curtis belongs in the Hall of Fame. For five or six years, he was the best receiver in the league. Then of course Kenny Anderson – he’s one of the most proficient quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. Why he’s not in the Hall of Fame, it’s a travesty.

“I hope us going to the Super Bowl brings it to light, so we can get the voters’ attention on the Cincinnati Bengals and these great players of yesteryear. They need to be in there with Paul Brown and Anthony Munoz. These guys made their mark in the NFL and belong in there.”

If it weren’t for third-year QB Joe Montana and the Niners, perhaps things would have turned out differently.

The Bengals couldn’t get past the budding dynasty from San Francisco, which built a 20-0 halftime lead on Jan. 24, 1982, at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit, then held off Cincinnati’s furious second-half rally.

Thompson watched from the sideline as the Bengals settled in and outscored San Francisco by 15 points after halftime. But a goal-line stand from the 49ers’ defense in the third quarter proved to be too much to overcome. San Francisco made four consecutive stops at its 1-yard line to essentially clinch the Lombardi Trophy.

“I think Hacksaw Reynolds (a standout 49ers LB) read something in our alignment that told him which side we were going toward, and they stuffed it (a fourth-down run play),” Thompson said.

“It was just an intensely played game. On the other side was the beginning of the rise of Joe Montana. Kenny played like he had all season. Once he got in his groove, we knew we had a shot at it. If I understand it, that’s still one of the highest-rated televised Super Bowls.”

In fact, it’s the No. 1-rated Super Bowl.

Thompson, then second on the Bengals’ QB depth chart, didn’t take the field in the Super Bowl, but he saw action a couple of weeks earlier in one of the NFL’s most memorable games.

He entered the Bengals’ lineup for two plays during their “Freezer Bowl” home win over QB Dan Fouts and San Diego in the AFC title at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati – the coldest game in NFL history.

With temperatures plummeting below minus-50 (counting wind chill), Thompson completed his one and only playoff pass attempt: a 14-yarder to Johnson in the flat for a first down. Anderson, who’d been getting a check-up on the sideline, checked back in and steered the Bengals to a 27-7 triumph.

“It was horribly miserable,” Thompson laughed. “We had guys out there without shirts on and I remember thinking, ‘That’s not good.’ When I took my first breath, it felt like I swallowed a ball of needles. It hurt to breathe.”

Thompson’s Freezer Bowl completion doubled as his final pass attempt in a Bengals uniform.

He went 22 of 50 for 271 yards and a TD against one pick in 1981 after beginning the preseason in a competition with Anderson for the starting job.

Thompson had “made big strides” toward capturing starting duties a year earlier, when he showed flashes in four starts and sparkled in a relief effort Sept. 21, 1980. He tossed two fourth-quarter touchdowns to lead a 30-28 comeback win over Terry Bradshaw and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the eventual Super Bowl champions.

“That season, I knew I belonged, but the following season, I had my sights on getting the starting job,” Thompson said. “I was competing my butt off for the job and lost a shot at it in the last preseason game.”

Anderson, who’d started for the Bengals throughout the previous nine years, had struggled in the 1981 preseason and second-year Cincinnati coach Forrest Gregg opened up a position battle.

Thompson was right in the mix until sustaining a high-ankle sprain late in the preseason, an injury that kept him sidelined for the first three weeks of the regular season.

“Whoever finished the preseason playing the best between the two of us was going to be the starter, and I was told this by Forrest Gregg,” Thompson said. “Then I sprained my ankle badly, so Kenny was named the starter for the season.

“The funny thing is, when I was playing, Kenny and I didn’t get along. We were just very competitive and I was this young punk coming in. He didn’t have a good preseason, but he rebounded. And boy, did he rebound.”

Anderson was benched in Week 1 after a shaky first half and, with Thompson injured, third-stringer Turk Schonert took over and managed a comeback victory over Seattle. Going into Week 2, NFL media members were questioning the Bengals’ veteran QB.

“I was in a quarterback meeting talking to Kenny and I remember him looking at me and saying, ‘I need to be the starter,’ ” Thompson said. “He was resolved. I said, ‘Why don’t you go talk to Forrest and be done with it?’ He did, then went into that New York game and had a great game and we were off and running. I got to witness his ‘Phoenix’ moment. I have nothing but respect for that.”

Good company

Thompson is one of 33 former Cougars players to have been on a roster for either a Super Bowl or NFL/AFL championship game. Most recently, safety Deone Bucannon played for the title-winning Buccaneers last season.

Thompson is one of four quarterbacks on the list.

His WSU successor, QB Samoa Samoa, was drafted by the Bengals as a running back in the ninth round in 1981, but spent the entire Super Bowl season rehabbing an Achilles injury.

Collinsworth and Samoa became “quick friends,” Thompson said, adding that Collinsworth was “always outgoing, kind of goofy, but you just knew he was a smart dude.”

Five other former Cougars played at least one season with the Bengals: DB Bernard Jackson (1972-76), receiver Mike Levenseller (1979-80), defensive tackle Tony Savage (1992), running back Steve Broussard (1994) and safety Lamont Thompson (2002).

Bengal bonds

Asked about lasting friendships he formed with teammates in southwest Ohio, Thompson said he still keeps in contact with Jim Breech, the Bengals’ kicker from 1980-92. The two were roommates “for a good portion of my time there,” Thompson said.

He also became close with Munoz, a 13-year offensive tackle for the Bengals who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998. Munoz was drafted by Cincinnati one year after Thompson.

“We had a special bond,” Thompson said. “I remember when he first came to our summer camp, I went up to him and said, ‘Are you sure you’re not Samoan?’

“He said no, so I said, ‘Well I’m going to tell people you’re my cousin anyway.’ ”

Fouts on the Freezer Bowl

Thompson and Fouts talked recently and reminisced about the Freezer Bowl. Fouts said the Chargers had been “psyched out” before the game started.

“He told me, ‘We’re heading to our locker room, and we walk by two corpses, guys who were outside cheering without shirts and they were blue,’ ” Thompson remembered.

No deaths were reported from the game, but according to a Cincinnati ABC affiliate, two shirtless fans at the Freezer Bowl had been hospitalized due to the cold weather.

On Paul Brown

Thompson described the NFL icon as “stoic.”

“I used to like talking to coach Brown. He’d always be out there early before practice and he had that legendary hat and overcoat,” Thompson said.

Thompson thought back to a brief and humorous exchange he had with Brown at Spinney Field – the Bengals’ old practice field, located in an industrial part of Cincinnati not far from a zinc processing plant and a coal depository.

“It was in the worst part of the city,” Thompson said. “Air pollution, you name it.

“I remember standing next to coach Brown and I said, ‘Ah, coach, breathe in that fresh Cincinnati air,’ kinda playing with him. He looked at me and said, ‘Don’t you have anything to do?’

“Yessir.”

Brown helped establish the Bengals organization in 1968 after co-founding the Cleveland Browns in 1944. He coached the Bengals from 1968-75 and acted as owner/president of the franchise from its creation until his death in 1991.

His son, Mike, is the Bengals’ current owner/general manager. Granddaughter Katie Blackburn is Cincinnati’s executive vice president/co-owner. Thompson said it’s “heartwarming to see” the family in the Super Bowl.

“Kate runs the business from what I understand and there’s a significant culture change from when I was there,” Thompson said. “It’s warm and family friendly. Not that it was terrible, but you can tell Kate has her imprint on it.”

On the 2021-22 Bengals

Thompson is a firm believer in these young Bengals, third-year coach Zac Taylor and “Joe Burrow magic.”

“When I say ‘Burrow magic,’ I’m talking about the team. It filters through the team. The defense rises, too,” he said of Burrow, the unshakable second-year QB out of LSU. “He’s their point guy for all the right reasons. He’s dynamic, clutch under pressure, tough as nails.

“Burrow said it himself: ‘Cincinnati, get used to it,’ in terms of getting into the playoffs and hopefully more shots at the big one.”

Thompson’s Bengals were responsible for two of the franchise’s eight playoff wins all time, including its first postseason victory – a 28-21 defeat of Buffalo on Jan. 3, 1982. Burrow’s Bengals have three playoff triumphs this year, a run which started with a win over Las Vegas – Cincy’s first playoff win since 1991. The Bengals upset the top-seeded Titans in Tennessee and came back to stun Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium in the AFC Championship.

“It’s pretty incredible,” Thompson said of the 2021-22 Bengals.

Thompson was rooting for the 49ers to top Los Angeles in the NFC Championship so the Bengals would have an opportunity to “exorcise that 49ers jinx.” He’s a fan of Rams QB Matthew Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp – an Eastern Washington product from Yakima. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s rooting against Cincinnati.

Thompson laid out his quick keys to the game.

“I’m looking at the O-line. We need to give Joe time,” he said. “You know L.A.’s defensive line is going to have their ears pinned back. Cincinnati has challenges on the offensive line, but as soon as I say that, that kid (Burrow) has a way of rising above it and getting those around him to rise, especially No. 1 (star rookie receiver Ja’Marr Chase).”