The legion of Paycor Stadium clocks is blinking 5:29 a.m. as we step into the office of Al Golden, home of the Bengals' biggest addition of the offseason and most famous wake-up call since Chad Johnson roamed the halls.
And he's already been in here for an hour.
5:29 a.m.
ESPN is barely heard droning already forgettable highlights. A large cup of Starbucks' Cold Brew stands sentry over computers that have been lasered into September all spring and summer. Not training camp walkthroughs or a preseason series. The Bengals' new defensive coordinator is where white noise goes to a blank slate.
"I don't listen to anything on the internet. I don't listen to anything on a walk," says Golden of daily hikes approaching 16,000 steps as he gestures to his TV.
"I am like, white noise. You probably don't even know that's on right now. I don't even know that's on. It's just white noise to me. If my parents gave me any gifts, it's the ability to do that and not be afraid of silence, and not be afraid to just be by myself."
No music. He saves the O'Jays and Spinners for the beach house in Sea Girt in his native New Jersey. If there's ever music in the background of the office, it's country like Luke Combs and Zach Bryan.
But on those walks through Ault Park on the eastern fringe of Cincinnati where he lives? Or across the bridges spilling through downtown where he works? He'll carry only pen, paper and ideas.
That's what he did a few weeks ago. The Bengals were in Philadelphia, and Golden, 56, trekked to Independence Hall on one of the routes he walked 15 years ago during his run at Temple, where he delivered a Liberty Bell coaching job to free the Owls with their first bowl appearance since the Carter Administration.
During this Philly walk, he pulled out the pen and jotted two plays for the Sept. 7 regular-season opener in Cleveland. Not long after, he texted one of his mentors, Al Groh, and, as they are prone to do, they not only talked about the new calls but also talked about the plays' lineage.
"One of the things that you have to do on defense, which is never going to change, make the quarterback have a bad day," says Groh, the old Virginia coach who hired Golden as his defensive coordinator at the turn of the century.
"If you need more people than four to cause a quarterback to have a bad game, then use more than four. How many times do you ever lose to a team where the other team's quarterback had a bad game?"
It may be 5:29 a.m., but you can't wake up early enough to lure Golden into any specifics about his new defense.
The Jersey boys at Notre Dame nicknamed him, 'The Godfather." There wasn't a defense you couldn't refuse. Bengals rookie linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. compares his rugged intensity to James Bond. Bengals rookie defensive tackle Howard Cross III, one of his players at Notre Dame, goes military and calls him "a tactician."
"I remember one walkthrough he came in with something like 13 different pressures," Cross recalls. "With him, nobody is perfect. But you can be damn close."
The man with a thousand faces sounds like he has as many defenses.
"If I'm being honest with you," Golden says, "everybody's trying to get a grasp of it. Everybody's trying to understand it, and I'm trying to prevent that.
"I appreciate the (players') effort and all that went into it. But when you're watching us in practice and then watch us in the preseason game, two different animals."
He has been sent straight out of the box from Notre Dame's national championship game appearance to put Joe Burrow over the top. But whatever unfolds, the lineage of next Sunday's calls and the 2025 Bengals defense can most likely be traced to those Bill Parcells-Bill Belichick Giants of the 1980s who wrecked enough quarterbacks to seed a coaching tree.
"Coach Parcells was talking about situational football before anybody. Obviously, Bill Belichick perfected it," says Golden, whose coaching career began when the hard-boiled Hall-of-Famer Parcells gently cut him from the Patriots.
"When you think of ball disruption, effort, situational masters and tackling. That's the big four for us because that's the only thing that endures. The concepts."
There are Parcells guys and not Parcells guys.
"Bill would say to a new coach there are two groups of people in the world," says Groh, Parcells' defensive coordinator in college and pros. "There's OOTs, of which there are millions, and there are OOUs, of which there are very few. And, invariably, the new person would say, 'Coach, what do you mean by OOTs and OOUs?' And Bill would say, OOTs are one of them, and OOUs are one of us. I would say that both Al Golden and Al Groh are OOUs."
Golden, a Penn State tight end, got into the club after Parcells, in his first Patriots training camp, told him he would not be on the practice squad like Golden was the year before as a rookie:
"We don't have a roster spot here. I've seen guys like you in this league make it, but I also know there's a lot of things that you could do at a really high level. And he said, if you ever need anything …"
The league lost a tight end but gained a coach when Golden went to get his master's at Virginia under the sports psychology icon Bob Rotella as a grad assistant.
"I think Al has a gift for believing in people. When you believe in people, they play better," Rotella says. "When he was a student, he asked the best questions. Participated in the best discussions. I told him when he left, he was on his way to becoming one of the great coaches in the country, and I've really enjoyed following his career."
By the time Parcells got to the Jets in the late '90s, Golden took him up on his offer when he was the linebackers coach at Boston College. Groh was in New York, too, and he was already well aware of Golden.
Mike Groh, his son, had been a quarterback at Virginia when Golden was breaking in on the other side of the ball. He once turned to his dad and said, "You know, Al Golden is the best coach on our staff."
So Golden would pull in off the recruiting trail at the Hempstead, N.Y. facility, and pick the playbooks of that all-star staff of Parcells, Belichick and Groh.
Tom O'Brien, the offensive coordinator at Virginia back then, also knew something was up with Golden. O'Brien remembers how he became the Boston College head coach on a Friday the 13th, walked down the hall, and felt lucky when he called to make Golden his first hire.
Linebackers.
"I always wanted to hire coaches smarter than me," O'Brien says. "He's a great teacher. You can say that. You win games with what your players know, not what your coaches know. He has the ability to teach and then figure out what they absorbed."
O'Brien also knew Golden was in a hurry. It was as if he wanted to be a defensive coordinator by the time he was 30. He made it at 32 when Groh, now the head man at Virginia in 2001, called Golden and put his office next to his.
Groh knew he had the right guy one day during summer vacation. He went into the office, heard something next door, and saw Golden at his desk writing recruiting letters. Sitting on the floor addressing envelopes was his future wife Kelly.
Now it is 5:29 a.m. in the office of the pros, and Golden is addressing his own football lineage. There is Parcells. There is Groh. There is O'Brien, the Cincinnati native, Navy-trained defensive end and Marine major he says showed him day-to-day consistency.
"A stoic," Golden says. "Same guy every day. And really, that's what I've been trying to do since I've been back here."
O'Brien passed it on. Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson, a rookie under Golden in his run as Bengals linebackers coach a few years ago, says he can't ever remember Golden flustered during a game.
That comes with the Golden DNA. Only the Eastern football junkies of another era can tell you that the last time Penn State beat a No. 1 team, Golden caught the tying touchdown pass late in the last Notre Dame game ESPN televised in 1990.
"During the week, he wants you to be on your Ps and Qs. Very intense," Wilson says. "But during the game, he's almost laid-back. Really good with adjustments. Doesn't get excited. During a game, calm and collected."
There's also a little of the sports psychologist in there, too. Before Rotella became a world-wide figure in golf, Golden says of his graduate school days, "I got to talk to the premier person in the field every day. I didn't have to go to a conference somewhere."
Rotella, whose positive thoughts are attributed to Rory McIlroy winning the last Masters: "(Golden) wanted to learn everything he could about how does a mind affect the body and help players become the best they can be … We're chasing greatness, remembering they are people who are human beings no matter how well you prepare them. No matter how talented they are, they are still going to make mistakes … Can you be there for them?"
When it comes to handling players, there's also a little Parcells mixed in because he gave him both hope and candor when he cut him.
"I always remember that moment just the way Bill was with his players," Golden says, "and the way he treated me at that moment."
There was also a moment last month at training camp when Golden received the Frank Broyles Award for being named the best assistant coach in college football last season. Broyles' daughter sensed in him a trait her dad had.
"Kindness," she said that day she gave him the trophy in front of the Bengals. As the cameras closed in, Golden called up three guys who worked with him at Notre Dame to get in the photos. Cross, the rookie D-Tackle, and two Bengals defensive assistant coaches, Ronnie Regula and Mike Moon.
"It meant a lot," says Regula, a walk-on tight end/long snapper for Golden when he was the head man at the University of Miami. "He made it about everyone else and not individual success. He knew it included everyone."
Regula has watched Golden in virtually all phases. "He treated me like I was a scholarship player as a walk-on," he says. When Regula got his scholarship in his senior year, he watched Golden add special teams to his head coaching duties. After Golden brought Regula to Notre Dame a few years ago, he gave Regula all of his tight ends info when Regula briefly became a position coach at another school before he landed with the Bengals last season.
"He does a great job balancing being hard on players and knowing he has to have faith in them," Regula says. "His door is always open and it's a genuine relationship."
It is 5:29 a.m., and Golden makes sure to point out the other guys who are already in here in the hallway closest to his office. Defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery. Linebackers coach Mike Hodges. He knows Bengals president Mike Brown is upstairs, too. Forget the traffic. Golden says he gets in at 4:30 so he can beat the pressure.
"There's so much stress in this job. Because, I mean, let's face it, it's a job where people are attacking us, right?" Golden asks. "That's what offenses do. they attack us. So you have offenses attacking you. You have the stress level of the job itself. We don't need internal stress.
"So I come in early. I try to delegate. To make sure things are smooth for the guys, to iron out any issues, and to make sure that everybody feels like they're being the most efficient. I say it all the time. If we're efficient and we're not B.S. in that work and we're not on the internet doing all that, then get in and still see our family, see our kids, and be really productive."
Relationships, he says. In the early-morning white noise, Golden can still see the dinnertime catch against the Fighting Irish from 35 years ago. There's a photo somewhere. Kelly had it painted, and it hangs in the house on the Jersey Shore.
Folklore now, more than anything, he says with a laugh. They'll tell you it was a snow game, but it wasn't. Cold. But no snow.
"Sprint Right 80 Throwback," Golden recalls the play called by quarterback Tony Sacca.
No folklore here. Just a relationship. A moment.
"Recruited his son to Notre Dame," he says triumphantly of linebacker Anthony Sacca.
The clock blinks 5:29 a.m.
"Players don't want to get yelled at when they give up a touchdown," says Golden, turning to his blank slate. "They want solutions."
