The Cincinnati Bengals are reporting that former Warren football standout Ross Browner has died of complications from COVID.

Browner, a graduate of Western Reserve High School, passed away at the age of 67 after battling the illness for a month.

Fifth on the Bengals all-time sack list with 59, Browner had a game-high 10 tackles and the Bengals' only sack of college teammate Joe Montana in Cincinnati's 26-21 loss to the 49ers in Super Bowl XVI.

Ross Dean Browner was born on March 22, 1954, in Warren, the oldest of football's legendary first family.

Browner was the eighth pick in the 1978 NFL Draft, an all-everything out of Notre Dame. In South Bend he was named the winner of the Outland Trophy as the nation's best lineman and the Maxwell Trophy as the nation's best player, the only lineman to win it in the 1970s.

When Browner played in the Ohio all-star game after his senior season at Western Reserve High School, he remembers Bengal’s founder Paul Brown coming into the locker room. Brown, still the Bengals head coach, asked Browner where he was headed to college and assured him, he'd keep an eye on him.

Browner started 121 games in his nine seasons with the Bengals and retired after playing 11 games with the 1987 Packers. His career-high nine sacks helped fuel the AFC champion Bengals' 12th-ranked defense in 1981 and was a big part of "The Web," defense that also got 11 sacks from linebacker Reggie Williams and ten from the other end, Eddie Edwards.