[Cyropaedia]

You know despite the fact that he worked numerous HOF quarterbacks, Walsh said that the greatest talent that he ever encountered at the quarterback position was Greg Cook. Cook was the Bengals' rookie quarterback back in 1969. Cook suffered a tear in the rotator cuff of his throwing shoulder but it went undiagnosed until after the season. It wound up effectively ending his career.

Walsh maintained that if Cook hadn't suffered that injury that together they would have set records that would have never been broken. No NFL quarterback since '69 has been able to equal Cook's 17.5 yards a completion average. And, again, that was done with a rookie quarterback playing on a second year expansion team. A rookie who had missed training camp. A rookie who played the majority of his games with a tear in the rotator cuff of his throwing shoulder. Absolutely unreal.

Watching the Bengal offense from that '69 season you would never believe you were looking at what was in fact a Bill Walsh offense. It was the complete antithesis of what you saw in San Francisco.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Watching the Bengal offense from that '69 season you would never believe you were looking at what was in fact a Bill Walsh offense. It was the complete antithesis of what you saw in San Francisco.

He worked with what he had - coming into SF, neither Steve DeBerg nor Joe Montana had big arms, the 49ers had no running game to speak of, and their OL was athletic but undersized. So the short-to-midrange passing game that the Bill Walsh Offense became identified with.

[Badeye]

Yep, I just saw Walsh’s interview on NFL Networks ‘Top Ten One Hit wonders’ or somethign along those lines.

I knew a guy that played guard for Xaviers last football team. Guy simply hated Cook, claimed he was a wimp. I always privately thought he was just unhappy to find himself a 6’4” 350 pound fat man playing property manager for Fifth Third Bancorp....(chuckle).

I think it was Bob Trumpy that noted Cook basically lost his mind after his injury, and never really recovered. One of the biggest ‘what ifs’ in Bengals history.