Cris Collinsworth wins Best Game Analyst Sports Emmy

When the Bengals were featured on HBO's Hard Knocks, it was awesome. To get that inside access for five weeks was phenomena. And I'm not talking general NFL access. No. I'm talking about the Bengals, of course. On Monday, Hard Knocks won awards.

HBO’s Bengals reality series also won two of the nine Sports Emmys for HBO. “Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Cincinnati Bengals” was honored for best edited sports series/anthology, and best post produced audio/sound. NBC was top winner with 10 Emmys, including a lifetime achievement award for NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol, who had promised Collinsworth the Sunday Night Football job when Madden retired. (Madden also recommended Cris for the job too.)

Obviously the award was for the greatness of the Cincinnati Bengals. More impressive is that Cris Collinsworth won the Sports Emmy for Best Game Analysts; an award he didn't want because he didn't want to beat out John Madden's last chance for an award.

That wasn't too much of a homer post, was it?

Either way, you know one thing is true. Ranging from the former Bengals players in studio or in the booth to the fact that many of today's standards with the NFL came from Bengals founder Paul Brown, everywhere you look, you're reminded of the Cincinnati Bengals.