By Zac Jackson
FOX Sports Ohio
January 26, 2011
Lots of people yearn for attention.
Chad Ochocinco -- or whatever his name is today -- does jumping jacks and begs for it.
Oh, the Cincinnati Bengals are a total mess. And it's almost as if Chad, arguably their most recognizable player, is enjoying it.
The news this week should be about the Bengals moving forward; the coaching staff is in Mobile, Ala., working at the Senior Bowl in hopes of gaining a leg up on the field when it comes to truly knowing the 80 or so NFL Draft prospects participating this week. Instead, a week that started with a public trade demand by starting quarterback Carson Palmer now features Chad taking to national TV to announce he's changing his last name again and taking to Twitter to challenge his head coach to a steel cage match.
Is he joking? Probably. But he Twitter-challenged national radio host Jim Rome to a fight Wednesday. He knows how to stay in the headlines.
That game goes both ways. Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis was asked by the Boston Herald at the Senior Bowl Monday if he thought the Patriots would make a play for Chad if the Bengals made him available. Chad's admiration for Patriots coach Bill Belichick is both documented and reciprocated.
But...
"Belichick's smarter than that," Lewis said.
Though it's said Lewis laughed shortly thereafter, Chad has given his coach more gray hairs than laughs lately. It's an act that's clearly wearing thin.
"You want them to talk about you," Lewis said last week, "win football games."
Novel concept. The Bengals were 4-12 last year. Chad is under contract for next year, and depending on who he's talking to and when he's talking, he might be joining Palmer in asking his way out. You might remember he pulled the same stunt in 2008, demanding a trade.
Last spring, he did "Dancing With The Stars" and filmed his own reality dating show. He missed all of the Bengals' spring work except minicamp in June despite Palmer's pleas to report. With that lost time, Antonio Bryant's quick disappearance from the roster, Terrell Owens' joining the team and Chad ultimately getting hurt, #85 had one of the least-productive seasons of his 10-year career.
That's the rub. Even at age 32, Chad can play. At the end of an ESPN interview this week in which he announced he's changing his last name from Ochocinco back to Johnson, he even said he's excited to come back "in stripes" with the Bengals.
He says lots of things, obviously. Here's what he said in that interview about Palmer's threat to retire instead of coming back: "You always try to be the solution to the problem, but at some point there's a bigger problem than us as players. Whatever that problem is, it's not going to get solved and you know it's really bad when your franchise and your quarterback wants out. Whatever problem that is, it's not going to get solved. You know it's serious and really bad when a QB of that stature would rather retire than play football."
He kind of sounds like the thousands of Bengals fans who are fed up with bumbling owner Mike Brown.
Amid the Palmer reports and the trade denial from Brown came a quote from an unnamed source that said Palmer was tired of the "circus" atmosphere inside the Bengals' organization. To say the Bengals are a circus is like saying the Cleveland Cavaliers have had a tough couple months.
When Chad is wearing his uniform and not his clown suit, the Bengals have talent. But lots of guys got hurt last year - lots of them are getting older, too - and the offense went stagnant. Palmer kept throwing the ball to the other team. Lewis may or may not be in the market for a new offensive coordinator; something certainly needs to change.
Starting running back Cedric Benson and Owens are free agents. The receivers who played and played well at the end of the season with Chad and Owens out, Andre Caldwell and Jerome Simpson, join Chad in being signed for one more year. Lewis just got a new two-year contract and agreed to come back after asking for a beefed-up scouting department and an indoor practice facility.
The chances of those things happening? The same that Chad might sign off Twitter.
Palmer might actually get his trade wish -- the Bengals would love to get the almost $50 million they still owe him off the books -- but somebody has to play quarterback. The offense has to do something different, and the Bengals enter an offseason of uncertainty on the labor front and the roster front knowing they need significant upgrades in depth, pass-rush and team chemistry to be able to catch the Steelers and Ravens in their own division. It is supposed to be about winning, right?
Assuming the whole looming lockout thing gets solved, perhaps the best thing for Palmer is a trade. He stunk last year, and a fresh start might be he what he needs. Perhaps the best thing for Lewis and Chad is to call up Vince McMahon, get in the cage and slug it out.
Winner gets to leave town. Now that would bring out the best in both of them.
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