Ted Karras had a lot more on his plate than dinner when he sat down with Mike Gesicki recently.
The Bengals’ starting center told a wild story on the Fitz & Whit Podcast, saying Gesicki began choking while the two veterans were eating steaks together. Karras reacted fast, using the Heimlich maneuver on his teammate and later joking that they were close to a serious emergency.
“Mike gets his steak well done, so here's a lesson in that. And all of a sudden, Mike is sick.
He looks at me, fear and tears in his eyes, and I immediately recognize it as choking,” Karras told Andrew Whitworth and Ryan Fitzpatrick. “I kind of went into action.
I've never had a harrowing moment like that in my life. Bent him over the sink and performed the Heimlich.
We were about 30 seconds away from an actual, like, this is gonna be a serious thing here. But then it comes out later in the night.
That's the third time he's been Heimliched. He's a three-time Heimlich.
You're getting medium rare if you're eating steak around me from now on.”
Karras’ quick thinking left Gesicki with another unusual entry in his personal history: this was the third time he has been Heimliched.
The tight end’s night still ended on a much brighter note for Cincinnati. In the Bengals’ 33-27 Week 1 win, Gesicki was the team’s top pass-catcher, finishing with five receptions for 78 yards and a touchdown.
Head coach Zac Taylor also made it clear how much the Bengals lean on Gesicki’s feel for the offense, especially when the game gets tight.
“That’s the thing about Mike G. It can come up at any time," Zac Taylor said about his top tight end on Sunday.
"I always count on Mike. He has great awareness to break off routes, and he and Joe (Burrow) just have a good feel for each other, especially during that two-minute drill.
There were some things where he ad-libs a bit. We give him that green light because he and Joe have that chemistry together.
The coverage has to be perfect to take him away.
"Then, to get into the red zone - I know it wasn’t super sexy that he caught it and rolled into the end zone, but we’ll take it any way we can get it. Mike is a guy we can always count on.
Joe has a lot of confidence in him. They have really good chemistry.
So, it doesn’t surprise me when he comes up big.”
For one night, Karras saved the day off the field, and Gesicki delivered again on it.
In Other News...
Bengals Win Hid A Surprising Early Grade Split
Pro Football Focus Week 1 grades offered a revealing snapshot of Cincinnatis win over Tampa Bay, and the offensive and defensive takeaways did not line up neatly. Mike Gesicki paced the offense with a 90.1 overall grade, giving the Bengals a clear bright spot in the passing game, while Joe Burrows 66.1 grade was a more middling note for a quarterback whose team still found a way to leave with a win.
On the other side of the ball, Barrett Carter and Boye Mafe both landed above 77, with Carter posting a career-high 80.5, and Dexter Lawrence added a strong 77.6 grade along with three pressures. The overall picture was less tidy for Cincinnatis defense, though, because some familiar names came in much lower, including Myles Murphy and Jonathan Allen, leaving the Bengals with a useful early reminder that a victory can still come with a split verdict underneath it. [Read more 🡒]
Russell Wilson Just Pushed Bengals Fans Into A Joe Burrow Debate
Russell Wilsons first turn as an NFL Today analyst on CBS stirred things up in Cincinnati almost immediately, and not because of anything he said about his own future. Wilson floated the idea that if the Bengals dont perform well this year, Joe Burrow could be gone, a comment that landed loudly with a fan base that already treats every Burrow development like a franchise referendum.
Burrow is under contract through 2029 and has publicly said he is committed to the Bengals, which is why Wilsons speculation set off so much pushback on social media. For Bengals fans, the debate is less about what Burrow has said and more about how much outside noise it takes before a star quarterback becomes the subject of one more round of anxious what-ifs. [Read more 🡒]
Bengals Finally Looked Complete But One Week 1 Debate Isnt Going Away
For one Sunday, the Bengals looked a lot closer to the finished product they spent the summer trying to build. Cincinnati handled Tampa Bay 33-27 behind four defensive takeaways and an offense that was steady enough to complement the pressure the defense created, with Joe Burrow moving better and the new faces on that side of the ball showing up right away.
Still, even after a win that checked a lot of boxes, one Week 1 discussion did not go away. The performance was encouraging enough to give the Bengals a real early-season foundation, but it also left just enough room for the kind of debate that tends to follow this team when the opener is over and the league starts picking apart what worked, what didn't, and what comes next. [Read more 🡒]