Erick All Jr. found the confidence boost of his life in the middle of a crosswalk in Athens.
The Cincinnati Bengals tight end was on vacation in Greece in June when a three-wheeled truck, swerving to avoid another pedestrian, plowed into him. The impact threw him and left scrapes on his face. Most people would have walked away from that incident shaken. All got up and immediately felt something else. Relief.
“I got up and was like, I’m good,” All told reporters, per Bengals reporter Kelsey Conway. “It didn’t hurt me at all. It just kind of gave me the confidence like, oh, I’m back.”
He described the collision as the first time he had ever been pancaked, noting he is usually the one delivering the hit. “That’s as big of a hit that anybody could give,” All said. “If I can take that, I’m good.”
The story reads like something out of a movie, but the subtext for Bengals fans is what really matters. All has been through two ACL tears. He originally hurt his knee in college. Then he re-tore it midway through his 2024 rookie season, which cost him the rest of that year and all of 2025. Two full years of football basically wiped out. That is a lot for anyone to come back from mentally, let alone physically.
All is now fully cleared and participating in training camp. The doctors have signed off. The knee holds up in drills. What was missing was the mental piece, the belief that his body could take a hit without folding. Getting run over on a foreign sidewalk did more for that than any rehab drill could.
Bengals coaches have reportedly urged him to temper his intensity as he reintegrates. That is the right call. All is a physical player who wants to lower his shoulder on every rep, and he has not played a real football game in nearly two years. Ramping him up slowly makes sense.
Cincinnati desperately needs him healthy. The Bengals were one of the more disappointing teams last year, and their tight end position has been an ongoing weakness. Mike Gesicki has come and gone. Tanner Hudson was serviceable but never a real weapon. If All is back to being the physical, athletic mismatch he was in college at Iowa, this offense suddenly gets more dynamic.
Joe Burrow needs targets he can trust. Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are going to command double coverage. Chase Brown will get his touches. Everyone else has to earn defensive attention through play. All has the size and speed to do that if he can stay on the field.
The truck incident is going to follow him around the locker room forever. That is fine. All laughs about it. He should. It is the kind of near-miss that most people file away as trauma. He filed it as proof.
Bengals fans are just glad he is walking around. And playing football. And getting hit again, but this time by defenders, not delivery trucks.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
