Paul Dehner Jr.

pdehnerjr@enquirer.com

The Bengals lost offensive coordinator Hue Jackson to the Browns and now Jackson took a portion of the Bengals' scouting staff with him.

Jackson hired Bengals area scout Greg Seamon to be the tight ends coach on his new staff in Cleveland.

Seamon spent the last 12 years serving as an area scout on the staff of player personnel director Duke Tobin. He's one of four scouts on the player personnel side. Prior to his time as a scout, he served the role of associate on the coaching staff as an advance scout. He moves over from the personnel side, but this won't be Seamon's first foray into coaching a position. He also served as a tight ends/offensive quality control coach for the Dallas Cowboys. He coached collegiately for 12 seasons, most notably offensive coordinator for 12 seasons at Miami (OH), Cincinnati, Akron and Pacific.

The connection between Jackson and Seamon runs back to Jackson's days as a quarterback at Pacific.

“Although he spent a number of years most recently on the personnel side, Greg has always been a coach in my eyes,” Jackson said. “He was my college coach. He has been in Cincinnati with me in two stints. He did a lot of other off-the-field things for us. Last year in training camp, he became more and more involved in the offense. I know what kind of coach he is. He is very bright. He is very smart. Very meticulous. Very detailed. Again, the label of all these guys, they are really, really good teachers, great motivators, great men of character and that is the kind of staff you want to build on offense.”

Cincinnati believes in a scouting philosophy where they seek the right voices and not more voices in the room for evaluations. Often criticized for the size of their scouting department, the setup created one of the deepest rosters in football over this run of five consecutive playoff berths. Much credit belongs to consistency of those scouts. Without doubt, Seamon was one of the right voices.

Less is more in Bengals' scouting department

The Bengals only hope Seamon is the only member of the Bengals to bolt up I-71 this offseason. Jackson takes over in Cleveland ranking in the top 10 in available cap space and eight Bengals players who took at least 60 percent of the snaps enter free agency.

The new league year and official start of free agency begins March 9. Prior to that time the Bengals are expected to attempt to lock down as many of their own free agents as possible.