Munoz, Esiason reflect on Super Bowl XXIII

On Jan. 23, 1989, the Bengals under Sam Wyche were famously 34 seconds away from the lone championship in franchise history. Instead, Joe Montana hit John Taylor for the game-winning touchdown and the rest is history.

Quarterback Boomer Esiason won league MVP that year, and Anthony Munoz goes down as one of the greatest left tackles in history and was also a part of the Bengals' team that also lost to the 49ers in Super Bowl XVI. Both were on site at Super Bowl 50 this week and took time to discuss their memories of Super Bowls past and how they look back on it decades later. Here are the best comments from the question and answer.

Esiason joking about the fact that the feeling of losing the Super Bowl never goes away: 

"No. It’s fine. I do appearances with Joe Montana. He gets 500 grand and I get five grand. I have to take the slings and arrows to sitting and listing to them and how great he was and the John Candy story and everything else."

Luke Kuechly thrives in Super Bowl spotlight

Esiason on what he remembers of that season:  

"I think back to that particular year for our particular team. Because the prior year we were on strike, I was the rep, they booed me out of the stadium, they wanted me out of Cincinnati. The next year I was the MVP of the league and we were going to the Super Bowl. I lived the life of what it’s like to be right in the thick of the crosshairs of both the negative and positive all within 12 months. So I saw it. I saw the psychology and I lived it."

Esiason on memories of that particular game: 

"I think about that Super Bowl I think about our team and the way our team responded. Whether it be Tim Krumrie breaking a leg, David Grant coming in and playing a whale of a game for him. Stanley Wilson the night before and our coach suspending him for drug use. There was a lot of stuff going on around our Super Bowl. Up until that point and for many years after that people looked at it as a real Super Bowl, as a great game. That’s what you want."

Munoz on what to him are the defining moments: 

"Two defining moments. Montana to Taylor and out of the four 1-yard line plays, the Dan Bunz tackle. How many plays did he make in his career? How do you stop a 225, 230-pound running back dead in his tracks? I know those were tough, but the neat thing about it is having played in two. How many guys play out of the close to 30,000 guys who played in this league, guys that are in the Hall that never played. To play in two Super Bowls with the guys I played with. In my career those are the defining moments."

Munoz continues to push Ken Anderson for HOF

Munoz on how he looks back on it now: 

"Oh yeah, it has to be fond memories. You know my personality, I’m not going to let it eat me up. I’m as competitive as anybody. I’m not going to let them win those games. There are times I say, man, if we would have just won one game but it’s one of those that I’m thankful I played in those games."

Munoz on if players realize how much of their legacy is tied up in the one game: 

"I never thought about that. It was more about winning or losing a game. The thing that kind of gets me, too, for lineman who cares? For a quarterback, for his legacy to be based on rings. I laugh. I just said it’s like Brady against Manning. As a player I’d be pretty ticked off. OK guys, I’ll just stay out of it and let those two guys play against each other. Example I use is (John) Elway, great career and wasn’t until late when he got a few pieces of the puzzle. To me, one of the great quarterbacks of all time was Dan Marino. He’s one guy I would say is in my top five as far as if I started a franchise, but he never got a ring."