Medina grad Mason Schreck won't play, but he's relishing trip with Bengals to Super Bowl

Cincinnati Bengals tight end Mason Schreck is relishing the moment as his team is getting ready to play in the Super Bowl for the first time in 33 years. The fact that Schreck is in a walking boot after having surgery to repair an ankle injury five weeks ago has not dampened his spirits as the Bengals are focused on winning the big game for the first time. "It's a dream come true," Schreck said in a phone interview. "I'm sure we're going to enjoy the experience, all the festivities and that, but our main goal is to get the win and we'll celebrate after that and have all the fun next Wednesday at the victory parade." Schreck is progressing through his rehabilitation from the surgery and is excited to go with the team to Los Angeles for Super Bowl LVI. "I'm finally able to move around a little bit," Schreck said. "I'm glad to be on the tail end of this injury." Before getting injured, Schreck appeared in one game this season. He played five snaps on special teams in a 32-13 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 11 and spent the rest of the year on the practice squad. Since being drafted out of the University of Buffalo by the Bengals in the 2017 seventh round, Schreck has played in 23 games, including 14 in 2020, but has yet to register an offensive statistic. This is the first time in his career that the Bengals have reached the postseason. After Cincinnati topped the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 in overtime in the AFC Championship on a Evan McPherson 31-yard field goal, Schreck has heard from plenty of people congratulating him on his team's success and showing excitement for the accomplishment. "Quite a few people have reached out," Schreck said. "Some people from Medina, college people. It's been pretty special to see who all has been impacted, especially family and friends. You feel like everybody is rooting for you." Along with those that have reached out to him, Schreck is also excited for the Bengals' supporters that have stuck by the team despite a losing record in each of the prior five seasons. Cincinnati also had only nine winning records in the past 31 seasons. "It's especially special for the people of Cincinnati," Schreck said. "We haven't been very good for a while, and we've earned the right to be here. Not many people thought we'd do it, but it's cool that it's finally coming true." Schreck acknowledged that the past history has made the Bengals an underdog story, but he always had faith the team was capable of reaching this point, even as it struggled during the early stages of his career. "I've talked about it in previous seasons that we've got a lot of good guys in the locker room and we brought in even more good guys to complement the guys that we've had since (coach) Zac (Taylor) has been here," Schreck said. "It's not really a shock to us that we're here, but it might seem like a shock to the outside world. It's just kind of coming to fruition and we deserve to be here." That faith was tested in the AFC Championship, where Cincinnati fell behind 21-3 to the heavily favored Chiefs, who looking to make their third straight trip to the Super Bowl behind quarterback Patrick Mahomes, but neither Schreck nor his teammates wavored. "I went into it thinking it was going to be hard to beat the Kansas City Chiefs twice (after a 34-31 win in Week 17 of the regular season that clinched the AFC North title), but no matter how much we get down, we believe in each other," Schreck said. "There's no margin we can't come back from and even down 21-3, nobody blinked. We just started to score points, defense made some stops, turnovers and that's how we got back into it and ultimately won it." Schreck said that two things stood out as different about this year that made it possible for the Bengals to reach their potential. The first was, outside of his own injury, the team stayed relatively healthy. The second was summed up in two words. "Joe Burrow," Schreck said with a chuckle. "He's a big reason why we signed a lot of free agents when you look at our quarterback and how special he is, that's why we got a lot of the guys that we did. We have a lot of good players, but he's definitely the reason why we're here." Contact John Urchek at jurchek@medina-gazette.com.