Bengals Banter: Pressley Ready to Battle Through Hard Knocks Again
By Jason Marcum
The Cincinnati Bengals will once again be hosting this year’s edition of HBO’s popular series “Hard Knocks”, and the first time they were part of it, fullback Chris Pressley was one of the show’s main characters as he fought valiantly to go from being undrafted out of Wisconsin, to earning a spot on the team’s’ 53-man roster. He ultimately earned a spot on the practice squad, and eventually worked his was to becoming the team’s starting FB, and admits how the show actually can help players who don’t make the final roster get picked up by other teams:
"It’s something a lot of people can take advantage of. It can be a win-win. HBO will get some great stories, the audience is going to win and some of the players they feature, like me, I was a winner for that season. I feel like I was able to get noticed by a few more teams."
Pressley is still recovering from a knee injury that placed him on IR in Week 16, and will force him to once again prove himself to Bengals coaches, as well as millions of viewers that he has what it takes to make it in the NFL:
"It’s a little frustrating because I’m injured right now, trying to recover from that. That’s also to show I’m still fighting through, though. Nothing’s going to keep me down like that. I’m coming back strong. I just think it’s a cool full circle kind of thing (for me). I like it a lot."
Cornerback Adam Jones isn’t running from his recent arrest, nor is he blaming it on someone else.No, the newer, more mature Jones is admitting his mistakes and spoke about them at the NFL rookie symposium this past week. He talked about his many transgressions when he first entered the NFL, and how he’s reached a point in his life that he can say he’s not the person he used to be:
"I’m at a point in my life now where I know what kind of person I am. I know what I do, I’m not the person I used to be. I am not in the game of proving it to everybody in the world. As long as I can prove it to myself, my fiancee, my kids, my teammates, my coaches and the people in the neighborhood."
He also sat down for an interview with Sirius XM this week, and though he’s made tremendous strides in his maturation, he knows there are still issues he must work on:
FULL AUDIO INTERVIEW"I’m still growing as a person. But I’m trying to do everything I can do to make sure that I don’t have no regrets at night. I had the one hiccup and that’s an area I need to work on. Me being confronted or getting touched with a certain or particular object, that’s an area that Adam Jones has to work on. If it would have been anything else, I probably would have just walked away. But when I’m being physically touched, it’s an area I need to work on."
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