He likes to go to the movies alone, listens to indie rock, and owns two pet turtles. So why are opposing teams so afraid of Geno Atkins, the Bengals $55 million man?
As the team breaks its huddle and begins to disperse—a tall cluster of helmets and shoulder pads separating into massive, chiseled individuals glistening with sweat—the first things you notice are his feet. Not his massive arms, a pair of tree trunks sprouting from either side of his black cutoff T-shirt. Not his shoulders, broad enough to haul a mid-sized sedan on his squat, wide frame. Not his barrel chest, currently emblazoned with bengals in orange block capital letters. No, the first things you notice about Geno Atkins are his feet.
“He walks like a duck,” says fellow Bengals defensive lineman Wallace Gilberry.
Atkins is lumbering across the grass, another training camp session completed, stopping every few seconds to sign an autograph or pose for a picture with the fans lined along the side of the practice field. As he walks, his feet splay outward, his gait slow and plodding.
In just his fourth year in the NFL, Atkins has developed into not only the anchor of a very young and talented Bengals defense but perhaps the league’s best interior defensive lineman. He’s also one of the key pieces of a franchise in the midst of a lengthy rebuilding process, securing back-to-back playoff berths last season for the first time in 30 years (though a playoff win has remained elusive since 1991).
His talent speaks loudly—booms across the field, in fact. But it’s the personality beneath that orange-and-black-striped helmet that’s something of a mystery. There is no shortage of praise from teammates, coaches, opponents, and analysts when it comes to his on-field production, yet Atkins himself has a reputation as a quiet guy, not one for bombastic quotes or flamboyant in-game celebrations. It’s why I’m waiting for him today and have been bugging him all week, even pestering his teammates for anything that will get Atkins to open up and talk about himself.
Atkins sees me waiting at the end of the autograph line and offers a nod. He finishes posing for one last picture and waddles over, giving me the chance to ask and him to evade more questions about his silent stardom. As we begin to chat, walking side-by-side, cornerback Leon Hall comes jogging past.
Atkins just smirks and continues walking. No reply.
Respect for Atkins spread rapidly across the league. In a second consecutive playoff season for the Bengals, the young defensive tackle led the charge for a unit that finished sixth in total defense, earning himself another Pro Bowl invite and making First Team All-Pro. This past offseason he was voted No. 36 on the NFL’s Top 100 by fellow players.
The time: a sunny but cool Sunday afternoon last November. The place: Paul Brown Stadium. The situation: First and 10 for the Oakland Raiders. Quarterback Carson Palmer, now wearing Raiders silver and black following his ignominious exit from Mike Brown’s clutches, is facing his old team for the first time and receiving nothing but scorn from the home crowd. With the ball at the 35 yard line, Palmer steps behind his center. To his right, opposite the offensive guard’s outside shoulder, lurks Atkins. He’s hunched over, his right arm firmly planted, left hand cocked in anticipation.
The ball is snapped. As Palmer turns to his right on a play-action ball fake, Atkins blasts off the line and shoots past Raiders right guard Mike Brisiel. A simple shove with his right arm is all that’s needed to neutralize a feeble last-ditch effort to slow him down. As Palmer fakes the handoff and turns his eyes up-field, Atkins is already in his face. Palmer leaps backwards out of sheer surprise, clutching the football to his stomach, and Atkins, a 300-pound blur, wraps the airborne QB in his arms, slamming him to the turf for a seven-yard loss.
The entire sequence takes less than two seconds.
Sixty thousand fans erupt in a vengeful cheer. Fellow defensive lineman Michael Johnson rushes over and offers his teammate a few congratulatory slaps to the helmet as Atkins hops to his feet and ambles back to the huddle.
Wallace Gilberry unleashes a juicy cackle, drowning out the muffled laughter of several defensive linemen seated around him. Gilberry has no shortage of quips at Atkins’s expense, though according to him, it’s purely payback. The narrative of Geno Atkins as the quiet, shy standout is not one that exists within the Bengals locker room.
This is not the Geno Atkins I’ve been hovering around the past few weeks. He’s always polite, always smiling, always willing to listen, but far from forthcoming. And that’s when I can find him; he is known to slip into the players’ lounge during interview sessions to catch a nap on one of the La-Z-Boy recliners. But maybe it’s just a media thing, a defense mechanism. Maybe he really is a wisecracking chatterbox until the cameras and notepads come out.
That duality shapes his off-field personality as well. There’s the typical 25-year-old—playing Call of Duty with Carlos Dunlap, going to concerts with Chris Pressley, grabbing a bite to eat at Mr. Sushi with Michael Johnson, catching a movie with the guys. (“He’s a movie buff,” says Johnson. “Doesn’t always pick the best ones, but if we wanna go see a movie, we ask him.”) And then there’s the other persona, the side he so often displays on the field and in public. Call it The Quiet Side of Geno Atkins.
“He’s the kind of guy that you’ll catch at Newport on the Levee, watching a movie by himself,” says Gilberry.
“Word is you’re a big movie guy,” I tell Atkins one day after practice.
Five seconds of excruciating silence.
“So I hear you have pet turtles.” He perks up a little.
Hard to tell but that might have been a joke.
One of the biggest factors in the Bengals transition from perennial NFL cellar dweller to annual playoff contender has been the organization’s improved ability to evaluate and select talent through the draft. For years the franchise botched top 10 picks like they were grade school science projects, with prospect after prospect crashing and burning as the team stacked one losing season on top of the next. Blame was generally directed at the notoriously frugal owner and general manager Mike Brown, skewered by fans and media for being too cheap to hire a competent coaching staff or employ a proper scouting department. Yet over the last couple of seasons the script has flipped. The generally accepted plot twist for this remarkable about-face? An increase in the number of scouts on the payroll. But it’s more subtle than that. While the structure of the scouting department has remained largely the same over the past decade, more weight and responsibility is being given to the scouts’ evaluations.
Each year the scouts whittle down a list of targeted draft prospects and present them to the coaching staff and front office for consideration, looking for commonalities between their assessments. As Brown has dialed back his tight control of the roster, the scouts and coaches have gotten better at drafting and seen a better return on their investments. Certainly, luck plays a part in the equation—sometimes a player falls to you at the right spot, sometimes he doesn’t—and the Bengals have been both wise and lucky in recent years, hitting on most of the team’s first-round picks while also successfully cherry-picking starters and major contributors in the second round and beyond. Geno Atkins is the premier example. He was a situational player who fell to the 120th overall selection in the 2010 draft. Overlooked and undervalued—except in the eyes of Bengals scouts. They saw an intelligent, motivated guy with a good work ethic and the potential to develop beyond his initial draft value.
Atkins’s ascension also corresponds with the scouting department’s long-term goal to develop players in-house and retain them beyond their initial contract. In early September, just before the start of the regular season and with one year still remaining on his rookie deal, the Bengals extended Atkins for another five years at $55 million, the second largest contract extension for a defensive tackle in NFL history. It was a deal that had been on the docket since the end of last season, a worthy reward for his body of work. But it also represents the challenge that accompanies performances like the one Atkins had in 2012, the on-field adjustments that come with All-Pro selections, double-digit sacks, and now, multi-million-dollar contracts. His success will necessitate extra attention from his opponents, forcing him to adapt, to continue looking for ways to gain an advantage.
Atkins, however, appears unfazed. He still trains and prepares in the same quiet, modest, methodical fashion that’s gotten him this far—in effect, projecting a vibe that says: Why change now?
“He’s the type of guy that you love to coach,” says Hayes.
As he exits the practice field and heads toward the stadium, Atkins asks me for the time and mentions that his mother, sister, and girlfriend are all coming in for a visit over the weekend. He still has a few things to get ready at his house.
“Any big plans?” I ask.
Atkins teeters along, another team official waiting to whisk him away for a radio interview. “Probably just do our ritual,” he says. “Clean my house and go grocery shopping.” It’s a somewhat prosaic response from a man who terrorizes quarterbacks and upsets the best laid plans of opposing coaches on a weekly basis. But what else would one expect a 25-year-old to do when his mom comes to town for a visit?
Originally published in the November 2013 issue.