When it comes to Bob Trumpy, Paul Brown's ground-breaking tight end who had a way with words, Bengals Season Ticket Members have voiced their approval.

Trumpy's name now joins Brown's as an original Bengal in the Ring of Honor. Trumpy will be the first player from the 1968 Baby Bengals to go in during the Nov. 1 halftime ceremony at Paycor Stadium when the Bengals host the Titans.

After going to four Pro Bowls in the first six seasons of his decade-long career in stripes, Trumpy heeded the legendary words of Brown and followed his "life's work."

Showing the same versatility he had on the field, his broadcasting of four Super Bowls to go with three Olympics and three Ryder Cups put him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But to the generation that watched Trumpy play, he'll always be that exciting new kind of pass catcher that paved the way for such 21st-century Hall of Fame tight ends as Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates.

Dave Lapham, the Bengals radio analyst who went into the Ring of Honor last year and was in the huddle during the last four seasons of Trumpy's career, once called him "a matchup nightmare."

"He was too quick for linebackers. Too big for safeties," Lapham said. "Tough. Reliable. And he was an underrated blocker. He was a good one."

Trumpy said once he felt like he had to play both tight end and wide receiver in that first training camp.

"I was sitting in the back of the meeting room counting numbers," Trumpy told Bengals.com in 2018. "There were 23 guys vying for the receiver and tight end position. I figured I'd double my chances to make it if I played both."

Bengals President Mike Brown was in that first draft room at the start of the 12th-round bunkered on the 18th floor of downtown Cincinnati's Carew Tower in the team's temporary headquarters while Riverfront Stadium was being built.

With the round's first pick and that interminable draft's 301st, the Bengals took the 6-6 Trumpy, all arms and legs at 215 pounds jangling out of the University of Utah.

That pick would turn into what Brown called the best receiving tight end of his time. The numbers from Pro Football Reference back him.

Only Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Jackie Smith had more catches among NFL tight ends in Trumpy's first six seasons. Only Smith and Milt Morin had more yards than Trumpy. Maybe even more impressive is only Jerry Smith's 26 touchdown catches were more than his 24 as Trumpy worked with a stable of quarterbacks ranging from journeymen John Stofa and Virgil Carter to NFL passing champion Ken Anderson.

But when Brown thinks of the undersized Trumpy, he not only thinks of those long plays but those hard-won blocks.

"He knew he couldn't stand in front of those guys," Brown says of Trumpy's size. "But he worked with the coaches. He learned techniques. He knew it was part of his job, and he cared about it."

And it was Trumpy's blocking that stood out to such teammates as fellow rookie Bob Johnson, the center. Years later, when Johnson recalled that first training camp, he talked about the staple running play Paul Brown installed to take advantage of running back Paul Robinson's outside speed with sweeps he named 28 and 29.

"The block that should not be able to be made is the tight end because the halfback is running from the back side and going all the way across the backfield," Johnson told Bengals.com in 2016. "There's no deception other than the fullback filling. You've got to stay on that outside linebacker. Trumpy did. You couldn't run that play today because you don't have the tight ends to stay with people like that."

Trumpy blocked it well enough that Robinson led the AFL in rushing that season.

That first training camp became a go-to for Trumpy as one of the Bengals' all-time great raconteurs, amplified by his recognizable rich baritone.

That was the camp at Wilmington College where Trumpy had six roommates in nine weeks. And where equipment manager Tom Gray befriended Trumpy and gave him shoelaces to help hide a weight that made him 225 pounds at the first weigh-ins.

Another Trumpy story from that camp?

How about the one about the guy on the hallway phone telling his family he's milking a hamstring injury for a few more weeks and an assistant coach hears him passing by and the guy is cut in the morning?

It was also the camp where one night fellow rookie Warren McVea pronounced during a bull session that Trumpy would make the team.

When Trumpy asked why, McVea said, "Because you've caught it, done everything. They're moving you around."

Indeed, Bill Walsh, Paul Brown's top offensive assistant, found that Trumpy was a key man in their cutting-edge new offense that would soon take over the NFL. Walsh discovered he could enhance the "West Coast," scheme by splitting out Trumpy and putting him in motion rather than keeping him in the traditional tight end spot on the line.

They made history in one game against Oakland, according to many pro football chroniclers, when several Raiders collided as Trumpy corrected a mistake and motioned to the right spot. They say from that play, Walsh would go on to foreshadow the pre-snap movements of today's game.

"I give all the credit in the world to Bill Walsh for recognizing and realizing that I shouldn't just line up next to a tackle on every down," Trumpy told a writer. "I followed his orders; he moved me all over the place and it blew up defenses all over the American Football League."

When Trumpy passed away last year, Mike Brown recalled just how quickly Trumpy took the AFL by storm in his rookie season two years before the league merged with the NFL. After playing the Baby Bengals, Kansas City, a perennial power a year away from winning the Super Bowl, contacted the Bengals about trading for him and were shut down.

"They saw what we saw," Brown said.

Since Trumpy was the first, the Bengals have seen many a talented tight end. Including now with Mike Gesicki, whose 65 catches two years ago are the second most ever by a Bengals tight end.

Since '68, they've drafted tight ends in the first round (Pete Koch, Jermaine Gresham, Tyler Eifert), had a tight end hold their season receptions record for 15 years (Dan Ross), and saw another go to three Pro Bowls in Rodney Holman.

But nearly 60 years later, Trumpy still has more touchdowns than any Bengals tight end with 35, plus a longer yards per catch (15.4) than any who have played regularly.

And Trumpy kept making those downfield plays right up until the end. The last touchdown catch of Trumpy's career on Nov. 20, 1977 in a driving Riverfront Stadium rainstorm against the Dolphins turned out to be a microcosm of his career.

A little ingenuity. A big pass. A sure catch. The last word.

The quarterback, Ken Anderson, handed the ball to running back Archie Griffin. Griffin pitched it to wide receiver John McDaniel going the opposite direction. McDaniel handed it back to Anderson. Anderson then drilled the winning touchdown pass to Trumpy from 29 yards.

Down through the years, Trumpy seemed to take great pleasure in a play that ended up knocking Dolphins head coach Don Shula out of the playoffs.

"For 10 to 15 years after that, whenever Shula would see me, he would swear and shake his head and say, 'Trumpy, the rain and that (bleep) double pass,'" Trumpy once recalled for Bengals.com.

His Riverfront retirement news conference after that '77 season was vintage Robert Theodore Trumpy Jr.

Candid. Funny.

"In 1969, I was proud of averaging 22.6 yards per catch. I think that started the trend toward getting tight ends down field to catch the ball," Trumpy said of the season he finished second to Raiders wide receiver Warren Wells' 26.8 in the AFL.

His departure left one original Bengal from '68. Bob Johnson, his long-time road roommate.

"This is officially my divorce from Bob Johnson," Trumpy said. "I get the color TV, and he gets the air conditioner."

But Trumpy showed where his heart was that day when he poured it all into a farewell typewritten letter to Bengals fans:

"Dear Cincinnati, I leave the game with great memories, memories of my association with Paul Brown, with my teammates, and with you the fans who supported us so enthusiastically. So many of you had a kind word for Number 84 through the years and I'll always be grateful."

Yet the words that ended up fitting Trumpy best and follow him into the Ring of Honor forever came from his head coach that day.

"It's nice to have people around you who are on your side, and I always felt like Bob Trumpy was on my side," Tiger Johnson said.