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Are The Bengals Doing Us A Favor?
Authored by Andrew Perna - 28th April, 2008 - 6:24 pm
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Between 2002 and 2006, each school that came into the season ranked No. 1 in the nation ran the table in the regular season, but we've seen huge turnover in 07 and 08.
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He’s harmless. Let me rephrase that, he was harmless.
Terrell Owens used to be considered a team cancer while Chad Johnson was just in need of a little attention every now-and-then.
Over the last few months that belief has become a huge misconception.
Wide receivers have been considered the ‘prima donna’ position in the NFL for at least the last decade, thanks in part to the antics of Owens at the beginning of his career in San Francisco. That’s certainly not how Raymond Berry saw receivers evolving when he reinvented the position as the favorite target of Johnny Unitas in Baltimore.
As much attention as Johnson has received in recent years for his end zone celebrations, he has put up numbers worthy of being mentioned among the game’s best pass-catchers. Having T.J. Houshmandzadeh lining up to the right or left helps, but there is no denying the talent and athleticism ‘Ocho Cinco’ possesses.
He’s fast, has good hands, and even plays through pain and injury. In the past, he even performed up to snuff when getting railed by the league and pundits for his endless showboating on the gridiron.
Some even rushed to his defense labeling the NFL as the ‘No Fun League’ each and every time the powers that be decided Chad needed a slight slap on the wrist for his showmanship.
It’s unfortunate that all of those happy-go-lucky thoughts are a thing of the past as Johnson has spent the last few months burning up his reputation as a fun-loving, albeit a tad immature, wide receiver.
Earlier in the offseason he danced around trade demands, making sure he was quoted by national radio stations and newspapers as requesting a deal out of Cincinnati without actually uttering those four franchise-changing words – ‘I want a trade’.
He then claimed that he wasn’t going to show up in camp, while Bengals' Head Coach Marvin Lewis seemed to simply roll his eyes. I’ll admit that even I fluffed off Chad’s comments at the very beginning of his tirade, expecting him to pipe down and produce in orange-and-black this fall.
That was before Houshmandzadeh broke his silence and recommended that Cincinnati ship Johnson out of town. He’ll be a disruption, T.J. claimed just a few weeks ago. Heading into last weekend’s NFL Draft, Chad was just that.
Like a stunned father who refuses to admit that his child has become a full-fledged punk, Lewis simply will not cave to Johnson’s demands. If half of one of the league’s best wide receiver tandems doesn’t want to play for the Bengals, then he’ll have to sit out the season.
Marvin is prepared to give Chad a very public ‘timeout’.
With the chances of Johnson putting on his tiger-striped ‘85’ this summer looking nearly impossible, I fully expected Lewis to cash in his chips – after a stare down that lasted a few months – and trade Chad to the highest bidder on the first day of the draft.
As the draft drew closer, the likelihood of a deal going down seemed less and less as Cincinnati rejected a decent offer from the Washington Redskins, just one of the teams in need of a receiver and rumored to be interested in Ocho Cinco’s services.
At first it seemed almost idiotic to keep such a disgruntled cog in the Bengals’ machine especially in one of the toughest divisions in football. Without Johnson on the field, and devoid of anything in return, how is Cincinnati going to compete with the tough Steelers, surging Browns, and even the Brian Billick-less Ravens?
The answer?
It’s possible that Lewis is taking a look at the big picture.
Trading Johnson, even if it’s the best move for the team right now, will simply further feed the stereotype of the self-involved receiver, who at the roll of his tongue can tear apart a franchise (see Owens in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and soon-to-be Dallas).
After advancing to the NFC Championship Game for what seemed like seven or eight straight years, the Eagles have yet to move past the divisional round (missing the playoffs twice) since T.O. ‘flipped out’ in the City of Brotherly Love nearly three years ago.
While these Bengals never enjoyed the same amount of success as the Eagles, they’ll undoubtedly be worse off with him simply sitting out or should they opt to eventually set him free as the Eagles did with Owens.
Philadelphia tried to play hardball with Terrell, but a combination of their expected success (nearly winning a Super Bowl) and tough surrounding media forced the team to finally rid themselves of the one-man show with the ‘81’ on his back.
Cincinnati is a much different case. Football is important, but it’s in no way Philly. That has allowed Lewis to continue playing hardball with Johnson, something many expected him to give up on long ago. Since they’ve held out this long, the Bengals might as well stay the course because they can no longer get good value for Johnson with the 2008 Draft now a thing of the past.
He has even more issues than Johnson, but the Titans only got a fourth-rounder (and a conditional sixth-rounder next year) for Pacman Jones, one of the best cornerbacks in the game today. Rumor has it that the offer Washington presented to Cincinnati was considerably better than that of the one Dallas gave Tennessee, but as you know, Lewis passed.
It may be hard for Cincinnati fans to swallow, but it’s possible that Marvin is stubborn enough to let Chad have his year-long tantrum on the sideline. Sure, the likelihood of the Bengals enjoying a successful season might be low with the distraction of Chad’s infamous sound bytes and his absence on the field, but who knows – it could keep some goofball from pulling the same stunt in the future.
Unfortunately, the way these million-dollar babies think, it’s doubtful that anything is going to keep them from demanding something they feel as though they deserve.
Just don’t tell Marvin Lewis that.
Andrew Perna is a Senior Writer for RealGM and always welcomes comments via e-mail (Andrew.Perna@RealGM). He writes daily in the ‘Scoop Du Jour’ and is currently working with RealGM’s NBA Forums on a series of Pre-Draft Summits.
