He caught Andy Dalton's last touchdown pass as a Bengal and Joe Burrow's first NFL touchdown pass before he entered Who-Dey lore when he ripped off his knee brace and winged it back over his head to end the Paycor Stadium Super Bowl pep rally that night before they left for Los Angeles in 2022.
That turned out to be C.J. Uzomah's last game as the Bengals' voluble and valuable tight end. He came back to Paycor Stadium Monday with wife Yas and two-year-old daughter Blake to retire as a Bengal at age 33.
He played for the Jets, got a ring with the Eagles, 10 seasons in all, but he "bleeds black and orange," because of the people.
"Anywhere else you go, it pales in comparison to the people here," said Uzomah, calling out everyone by name, from the trainers who helped him play 49 snaps in that Super Bowl with a sprained MCL, to the one tight end who is left, Drew Sample. He even mentioned a forlorn scribe.
Now Uzomah is no longer a Bengals' trivia question. He's part of the fabric with the news that he'll begin retirement as a contributor to Bengals media this season. Uzomah is slated to be a guest host with Dan Hoard on Bengals Weekly in a rotating role with Tony Pike and Joe Danneman. He'll also be working on selected radio shows during the week. The Bengals put it out there, and Uzomah went for it even though he always thought no one wanted to hear his voice.
"It's not like, 'Go talk about the Dolphins.' I'd rather talk about the Bengals. I'm a Bengals fan, and I will be for life," said Uzomah, who lives in Nashville. "Not saying that I won't be able to do that later, but I think for me right now, it's like, all right, this is a place that's close to home, and why not?"
Why not? Always a favorite with the fans and his teammates, no one embraced "being around the boys," more than Uzomah, and that was a huge contribution to that championship chemistry head coach Zac Taylor stirred carefully and well.
So, naturally, he misses "being with the boys." But when they had a break in practice, they came over to the sidelines to say hello. Burrow, B.J. Hill. Ja'Marr Chase cracked him up with a unique salute. Even the guys who never met him came over, such as tight end Erick All Jr., who knows what Uzomah did for his hometown team.
And Uzomah feels like he knows All because he swears by tight ends coach James Casey. When Casey came over Monday, Uzomah told him he could see Casey in the way All plays.
"He's a tough ass," Uzomah said. "I just told James I love watching him just attack people in his blocking. He looks like a beast. I'm glad he's feeling better."
Highlights? Not a game, but moments.
"We were doing bag drills, and you were wearing flats. You put cleats on the next day," Uzomah reminded Casey. "I hit you, and we both went down, and you got back up said, 'Are you OK?' And I said, 'Yeah, how about you?" And you said, 'I don't matter. You matter. Are you OK?"
Uzomah has a lot more on his plate than the Bengals. He's finished writing a musical and is looking for some one to put it to music. He's involved in a TV show called The Links coming to a screen soon, but he's not in front of the camera. He's looking to buy a golf course and string it with lights for night golf.
Someone asked him if he was going to start coming around now that he's retired. He looked over at Paycor, where he's got a date as Ruler of the Jungle on Oct. 4 against the Jaguars, five years to the week he and Burrow beat at the Jags at the end against a zero blitz.
"This place," Uzomah said, "is the best."
Player of the Day
TE Mike Gesicki
If it hadn't been the day Uzomah returned to Paycor Stadium to retire as a Bengal, Player of the Day could have gone to rookie cornerback Tacario Davis and his stingy work against the NFL elite moves of wide receiver Tee Higgins during a series of red zone seven-on-seven, move-the-ball drills, and two-minute drills.
But you had to give it to a tight end Monday when Gesicki turned in some vintage work beating old Patriot teammate Kyle Dugger to the back left pylon in seven-on-seven, making the catch of the day on quarterback Joe Burrow's longest play of the day, and continually making himself available to Burrow to move the chains in the two-minute before Burrow found Chase on the back line of the end zone.
"Why don't you give it to C.J?" Gesicki asked. "I heard he was coming back to retire on a one-day contract, and I thought we could get him in the two-minute drill."
Uzomah and Gesicki never played together, but they're both graduates of Tight End University.
"We've talked a few times," Gesicki said. "He was obviously a great leader here, and he had an awesome career."
Gesicki has been making more catches in practice for the last week as the playbook expands,
"The move-the-ball stuff, the two-minute stuff, those are situations where I contribute," Gesicki said.
On a day of celebration for Burrow's first tight end target, quarterback Joe Flacco explained why his latest is so lethal.
"This is a unique offense. We allow him to experiment with how he gets open and the timing of how he gets open," Flacco said of Gesicki after Monday's workout. "I think we've developed enough trust that we know that he sees it right. Kind of feels the open areas. So we live with things that he does a little differently than other guys.
"A lot of times a lot of teams wouldn't allow him to do that. They kind of put handcuffs on a player … We developed the kind of ability to kind of let him go, and I think it's definitely helped us."
Play of the Day
TE Mike Gesicki
Flacco could have been talking about Gesicki's ridiculous catch despite being absolutely blanketed by cornerback DJ Ivey in the move-the-ball drill. The Burrow dart went for about 25 yards down the seam hand-fighting all the way while they both fell into the grass as Gesicki got his second hand on it.
"That was insane," Flacco said. "He basically caught a seam over the shoulder that you would look up the left side and he was on the right side. That was pretty wild."
The 6-6 Gesicki thought so, too. He had run a similar route earlier in their practice, where he was allowed to break leverage outside. Buit Ivey put him in no man's land.
"DJ's done a great job covering longer guys. He's been an interesting matchup for a lot of us," Gesicki said. "He's a good player. Long and savvy. He's gotten better in my three years here.
"I was really trying to break out. He stayed out. And Joe did great job on working the back shoulder. Just being on the same page and getting my hand on it."
With Ivey taking his leverage way and not allowing him to the outside, Gesicki, handcuffs off, kind of improvised and went New Jersey dunk champion on him.
"I just tried to stay above just using my body position and Joe would potentially back-shoulder me, which he did," Gesicki said. "A box out."
Slants and Screens
Captain and defensive tackle B.J Hill took his first ten team snaps of the year Monday as he gradually works his way back for the Sept. 13 opener. The relief was etched on his face after undergoing foot surgery following the season.
The same foot he decided to play on instead of getting surgery, and he figures it was this week last year he returned to camp.
"This is the week I'd been shooting for. I felt like I needed the time to get my feet under me," Hill said. "It feels better than it has. We'll see how it goes." …
Safety Bryan Cook, injured in the Aug. 7 Paycor practice, returned to work in pads Monday for the first time in 17 days and did individual drills …
Some robust moments from Ja'Marr Chase and DJ Turner II. So what else is new? When a ref called Turner for interfering with Chase in the end zone, Turner jawed. Next play? Turner stuck his hand in to knock away a touchdown and then kicked the ball as it lay on the ground ...
A lot of talking out there. Burrow threw an absolute pearl to Chase in the zone hole on the sideline, an 18-yard sizzler that barely soared over safety Jordan Battle's leap, and into Chase's belt. "Have to drop deeper, Jordan," a voice from the offense said ...
