Time For A Quickie Divorce?

Ochocinco, It was nice knowing you. Now here's a version of the 'home game'. It's time. You need to move on and the team needs to move on without you. What you both want in life don't intersect anymore. You've grown apart. You're not the same people who 'married' all those years ago.

It's time.

Look, the artist formerly known as Chad Johnson will forever be remembered here. And some day down the road, maybe sooner than later, he'll be remembered fondly. Ochocinco is not only the Bengals all time leader in receptions and receiving yards. He's also a player who never once did anything to bring harm to the franchise. Ever. In the winter of 2006 and 2007, when Bengals were being arrested on a nightly basis, Ochocinco was a model Bengal-citizen. He could infuriate us with his bizarre and narcissistic behavior. Who could forget his insipid ramblings along radio row at the Super Bowl a few years back, demanding a trade. He could confound us with what seemed to be warped priorities, Dancing With The Stars while the rest of his teammates were busy preparing for a football season. But he could also disarm us with his crazy comments, silly stunts that he pulled on the opposing team, with his end zone celebrations.

Ochocinco is a character, with strong character. He'll always be a Bengal. But it's time for him to go.

The Bengals, by all account, have sufficient talent to continue without Chad and his off field priorities. Jordan Shipley, Andrew Caldwell, Jerome Simpson and Jermaine Gresham form an adequate receiving corp. Maybe Quan Cosby needs to finally get a chance. Maybe there's a wide receiver in this next draft that can give the Bengals that deep, down field threat they've been missing. Remember, the Steelers found Mike Wallace in the third round of the 2009 draft.

The last thing the Bengals need, as they try to rebuild this mess of an offense that is of their own creation, is a wide receiver whose interests have moved onto the internet, cable TV shows and tweeting. It's just going to get in the way, like signing another narcissist, Terrell Owens got in the way this season.

Ochocinco is due $6 million this season. That's a lot of money to pay someone who might be, at best, the third best wide receiver on the team. $6 million will probably buy you an impact player on the free agent market, or at least provide a pretty good down payment on one. Face it: Ochocinco isn't an impact player anymore. It's been awhile since he has been.

Does that mean he's finished in the NFL? Hardly. In the right circumstance, with the right team poised to contend for a Super Bowl title, Ochocinco could be the right fit. In a big market, with lots of media, Ochocinco could be a big hit. Maybe he's outgrown Cincinnati. Maybe the Bengals are at a point where to grow, they need to do it without him.

For all of that, it's probably time to say goodbye. Divorces are never easy. But sometime, it's the right thing to do. Often times, both parties move onto better lives.

It's time for the Bengals and Ochocinco to declare irreconcilable differences. It was fun while it lasted. But it's time to move on.

This blog may not be reproduced, retransmitted or repurposed in any manner, in whole or in part without the written consent of Ken Broo.

Losing your compass, then finding your soul

The best thing about the Bengals win Sunday over the Brown was also the worst. The Bengals showed us why they've been so awful, so unwatchable, or terrible this season on offense, while playing so well Sunday. They ran the football. A lot. And Cedric Benson looked like the 'horse' that the Bengals rode in 2009 to the AFC North championship. Benson carried the ball 31 times for 150 yards. His total pushed him over 1,000 yards with two games to play. The fact that he's gone over 1,000 yards this season has been no small trick. The Bengals, in particular offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski and Marvin Lewis, seemed to have forgotten about Benson this season. And in doing so, they forgot what had them running away from the pack last season.

Think back to 2009. The Bengals swept the AFC North, going 6-0 in their division games, behind Benson's power running. 120 yards at Baltimore, the first running back to rush for over 100 yards against a Ravens team in 40 games. Then, 117 more against the Ravens in Cincinnati. He rushed for 1,251 yards last season. He rushed for 100 or more yards six times. And all of that, while missing three games with injuries. You'd think a team would fall in love with that kind of production, particularly when it led to a 10-6 record. But not the Bengals.

The Bengals decided to fall in love with diva wide receivers in the off season. It led to a lot of broken hearts among Bengals fans.

While signing Terrell Owens and pairing him with the ultimate 'look at me' Ochocinco (whom we truly do like because of his infectous personality), the Bengals went high on the glitz meter. But the wins didn't come. Largely, that was because they have an offensive line that was built for run blocking and not so much pass protection. TO wasn't around in the off season to pick up the Bengals offense quickly. Ochocinco was away so much, he seemed to have forgotten the Bengals offense. Palmer, for all of those reason and the fact that he was not good himself, has had an horrendous season.

In two weeks, it will be over. Most probably, the Bengals will part ways with Lewis and a new staff (as new as Mike Brown will allow it to be considering assistant coaches are pass on to each incoming new head coach) will be charged with fixing this mess. Owens will command much more than the $2 million contract he had this season. The Bengals will probably let him find that money elsewhere. Ochocinco has a $6 million dollar option for 2011, Palmer a whopping $11.5 million. Most teams would let both of those players 'walk'. Maybe the Bengals will too.

Benson is a free agent as well. His NFL modest $3.5 million salary figures to get a sizeable bump. Maybe the Bengals will choose to let him go as well. But they should think long hard about that. They should consider what he offers more than Palmer, TO and Ochocinco. Benson was 'found money' when he washed up on the Bengals' shore in 2008. Sunday, he gave us a refresher course in what that meant to this team in 2009. 2011 will look a lot better, if the Bengals decide to keep Benson around.

This blog may not be reproduced, re-transmitted or repurposed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of Ken Broo

Random thoughts for a random Thursday....

As the Reds keep on winning (now a full game up on the Cardinals after Wednesday night) the two pressing questions outside of the bullpen are: How much longer can they afford to play Drew Stubbs and should Chris Heisey get at bats at Stubbs' expense? The answers are simple: you play Stubbs for as long as it takes for him to his major league 'act' together and, no. Stubbs is a young gifted player who has struck out far too much so far this season. But he has speed, plays good defense and has tremendous upside. So long as the team wins with Stubbs struggling, he should stay in the line-up. Heisey presents a different kind of dilemna. Like Stubbs, he's gifted and young. And Heisey was generally considered to be the second best prospect in the organization, right behind Todd Frazier. The problem for Dusty Baker is that the team is winning, and his platoon in left field of Jonny Gomes and Laynce Nix is working well. With Jay Bruce emerging as a more patient and effective hitter (and with his cannon of an arm) Heisey is caught up in the proverbial numbers game. Getting him enough at bats (he homered again Wednesday night, his third home run in just 25 big league at bats) will be tricky for the Reds manager.....

All of a sudden, these NBA playoff series are competitive again. I'd be more worried if I'm the Celtics, rather than the Lakers. Remember, as bad as Orlando played in the first three games of this semi final series, the Magic was that good in every series before.......

I'm still betting on Lebron being anywhere but Cleveland next year....

The Chicago Blackhawks Duncan Keith takes a puck to the mouth and loses seven teeth and still keeps playing? And he won't have oral surgery until after the finals? As the Hanson Brothers would say "old school hockey,eh? Toe Blake...".........

Despite the Supreme Court ruling this week that prevented the NFL from gaining anti-trust law exemption status, I still think the NFL owners will try to lock the players out before the 2011 season. This ruling this week will embolden the players union. And that could be trouble....

Got a pretty good topic already for my Sunday Morning Sportstalk show, 9am-Noon EDT on 700 WLW. BetUS.com has odds out for the upcoming World Cup on which match should offer the most fights. You can listen on line at 700wlw.com....

Having spent 18 years of my life in the state, I'm happy for New Jersey that the 2014 Super Bowl will be played there. And I don't think anyone who gets a ticket to the game will complain about the cold weather. You know it'll be cold, you'll dress accordingly. But I hope the NFL doesn't try to make a cold weather climate a part of its Super Bowl rotation. You want optimum conditions to play the biggest game of the year. Players should have the ability to excel in the best climate. Putting the game in the New York City area is great, because the city isn't fully recovered from 9/11 and because there's a lot to do in the Tri-State area. But dome teams and warm weather teams will be at a decided disadvantage. 13 NFL teams play in either warm-moderate climates or a domed stadium....

Chad Ochocinco is the smartest athlete working in Cincinnati. He's preparing himself for life after football with shrew marketing maneuvering. But you have to wonder if his head is in the game for this 2010 season. He hurt himself Tuesday lifting weights, trying to squat 420 pounds without warming up. He missed the finale of Dancing With The Stars because of that. Now, he's about to embark on his latest venture, hosting a reality TV show about his dating exploits. Don't be surprised if Chad shows up for mini-camp in the middle of June unable to participate because of his weight lifting injury. Don't be surprised if all of these television appearances will force Ochocinco to play catch up to his team mates who've been working up a sweat while he's been out dancing. Don't be surprised if this season is his last season in Cincinnati....

On the other hand, two ballroom dance instructors have taken the time to email me to let me know that the training Ochocinco had for DWTS will make him a better athlete. Apparently the muscles Ochocinco had to develope to dance this Spring are different muscles than what he uses as a wide receiver BUT will enhance his quckness on the field.....

I dunno. I don't even play a dancer on TV....

See you tonight at 6 & 11pm on Cincinnati's channel 5

A reminder this blog may not be reproduced or retransmitted, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of Ken Broo Check out Ken's web site: www.kenbroo.com.

To me, football has always been the ultimate team game. Rarely do you see one player carry a team for an entire game, let alone a season. In baseball, you can ride behind a hot hitter. In basketball, does anyone doubt that the Lakers are where they are today because of Kobe Bryant. In Cleveland, take away Lebron, and you’ve got a team that would struggle to win 25-games a season.

But in football, you can often extract one player from a championship team and chances are, it would continue to compete at that level. Oh, yeah, there are exceptions. Take Tom Brady away from the Patriots, Peyton Manning from the Colts, you’ve got problems. But by and large, football is a game that’s won or lost on how well eleven players execute a game plan.

You can run 50 plays in an NFL game and if only one player messes up on each play, the team has 50-botched plays. But if all eleven players execute all 50 plays perfectly, you’re probably winning, and big.

Football is a game where coaches, more than any other sport, want control. It’s why you see these OTA’s and mini camps. It’s a game where authority matters above all else. You don’t see it in the NBA, that’s anything but a coach’s league. And in baseball, the high school kid drafted in round one may make more in bonus money than a manager will make in ten years. Money always trumps authority.

The Bengals have had trouble embracing the team concept. They haven’t been a collection of renegades. But they’ve had a few too many go off the reservation. Carl Pickens was a trailblazer. Corey Dillon perfected that act. And when you mix in the garden variety of arrests, we have what we’ve had around here for far too long.

I raise that today, because Ochocinco is back in town. He didn’t come riding down Vine Street like John Wayne, or even like Mongo in Blazing Saddles. Ochocinco slipped into Cincinnati Monday night and by nueve o’clock on Tuesday was at Paul Brown Stadium. Forget that he missed all of the voluntary workouts up until now, Ochocino was in town and open for business. He arrived after an appearance on the NFL Network where he said, he was in tip top shape, something he wasn’t in this time a year ago because, well, he really wanted out of here. Now, he doesn’t. He ran, caught passes, went to the gym and boxed on his own this winter and proclaimed himself ready for the upcoming NFL season. And while some of us, who’ve heard things like this from the artist formerly known as Chad Johnson before, a lot of us said OK, finally. It’s 2005 all over again. Except…

By early Wednesday night, Chad was twittering. And he was claiming to have gone quasi-Tyson. He had pictures of tattoos that were put on his face by somebody who had just left his house. A map of Florida on one cheek. Couple of crosses on the other and the initials OC on the bridge of his nose.

We had to investigate. I sent a crew from channel 5 to track Chad down at a restaurant in Kenwood. He also twittered that he’d be eating there. We found him. He didn’t want to talk on camera. And we were cool with that. But the pictures we took clearly showed the artwork on his face. A big deal, considering that this is a guy who reportedly fancies himself as a television or movie star when his playing days are over.

But by Thursday morning, that tatts were gone. Or almost. Some of the magic marker, or whatever it was, was still on his face. It all played out, in front of the cameras and reporters gathered around his locker, our first chance to talk with Ochocinco since the end of last season. The rest of the Bengals had been working up a sweat for most of the spring. But on his first day back, it was all about Chad. He said that he had punked his twitter followers and the media. The media gets punked all the time. The eight thousand or so people who were following Chad, well, welcome to our world.

And I wonder. Did we simply feed the beast? Or does the beast demand feeding. And in the ultimate team sport, how did the guy who always likes to break from the team (this is the same guy who said on Thursday that of course the HBO show Hard Knocks will feature him big this summer. What other story lines are on the team)….I wondered, how did this guy come off to the rest of his team mates? We don’t know. They gave us a half an hour in the locker room to collect interviews. Chad consumed 25 minutes.

In the small but vocal world of “look at me” athletes, Ochocinco is right up there. But it’s all harmless, to you and to me. We never get hurt. I like the guy. I don’t know him well. But I know that when he’s serious about playing football, there is no tougher wide receiver to cover. He is the provider of great fodder for radio, television stations and newspapers. In this business, in these days, you can’t get enough of that.

But I wonder if Marvin Lewis didn’t cringe, or do something worse, when he got wind of the tattoo tale this week. He’d never say it, would probably deny it, but my guess is his reaction was something along the line of , here we go again. He better get used to it. There were only four cameras in the Bengals locker room Thursday. HBO is bringing ten to Georgetown next month.

So the Ochocinco photos are 'fake'. Chad twittered the world Wednesday night with photos of tattooes on his face. He posted them and wrote all about it. He has, at last count, over 5,400 followers on his twitter account.

Then, he tweets that he's having dinner at Red Lobster in Kenwood. So we sent our producer there to see if Ochocinco would talk. Our crew waited until Chad left the restaurant and approached him. He declined to talk, but our video clearly shows that he had indeed three 'tattooes' on his face. Today, those 'tatts' were gone, apparently just some ink or magic marker he had someone place on his face. Again, he was out in public with this on his kisser last night.

Today, he tweeted to his legion of followers that he "punked the twitter world and the media". I'll bet his fans like that. The media? Who weeps for us?

But ask youself this: might there be something wrong with an adult (he's 31) walking around with ink on his face, removable tattooes? Might there be a problem with attention compulsion?

I like the guy. I think he's a lot better football player than some of the fans around here give him credit for. But I also think the dude has a problem.

It's not like Mike Tyson, but it's on the same road. Ochocinco, the artist formerly known at Chad Johnson, has 'tatted up' his face. He shied away from the News 5 cameras tonight. But, in Chad unique style, posted pictures of himself on the internet with his 'new look'.

On his right cheek are two crosses. Here's a shot (left) of his left cheek, where he's got the map of Florida tattooed. On the bridge of his nose are the letters "OC", interlocked.

News 5 producer, Nicky Lewis tried to get Chad to talk about his latest image adjustment. But Johnson refused to comment, telling Lewis to 'show up tomorrow', when the Bengals will have an open locker room and he would talk about it then. Lewis also gave the intrepid Lewis a kiss on her cheek, before leaving a suburban Cincinnati restaurant.

So what should we make of this? Chad being Chad (or Ocho being Cinco?) Nothing. But if the guy was so adamant about being focused on football this season (as we heard in his NFL Network appearance last week) why then this?

Just posted on my web site www.kenbroo.com is the latest Broo View Podcast. In this current episode is an in depth interview with sports psychologist, Dr. Barbara Walker, about the influence stress has on elite athletes. Timely, I think, given the Joey Votto situation. Also on the front page of www.kenbroo.com is an interview with former NFL safety, Matt Bowen (Redskins, Bills, Packers and Rams) who lists his impact players in the NFL this coming season. Wait 'til you hear his pick for your Cincinnati Bengals.

The perils of a night off. The Reds fell out of first place tonight, simply because they weren't scheduled to play. St. Louis and Milwaukee both won. The Reds are now a half game behind both, tied with the Cubs, who won today as well.

It should be a big weekend in San Diego for the men in red. The Padres aren't very good.

So the Bengals are the latest team to be profiled on the HBO series "Hard Knocks". You wonder why Marvin Lewis OK'd the project. I did too, until I figured out this is a good way for Marvin to clean up the national image of his team and maybe snare a bit of the spotlight himself. Think about it. If you're Lewis and you've been saddled with a bunch of players who've done the 'blinking lights dance' and bumbled like clowns on the field, would you not relish the chance to show the world that you have something on the ball? If indeed Lewis' best career move is the one he makes leaving Cincinnati, what better vehicle to repair his image than a show the entire NFL world (among others) will watch.

Of course, if Chris Henry does something stupid or Ochocinco decides this show is really his audition for elsewhere, well that's when the trouble will begin.

And you just know, one of these guys is going to do something idiotic. a 24-person crew with five cameras rolling at all times may be too tempting for some in Bengal-dom.

Speaking of the artist formerly known as Chad Johnson, if you were going to legally change your name, wouldn't you fill out the form with the exact name you wanted to change it to? Apparently, Chad didn't do so well in spelling during his school days. For instead of filing for the name Ocho Cinco (which is what he believes '85' means in Spanish. It doesn't. Ocho Cinco means 'Eight Five". But we digress) Chad filled out the paperwork requesting "Ochocinco". And according to the NFL tonight, that's exactly how his name will appear on the back of his jersey and in all licensing products. Maybe he doesn't care. I don't.

To get you going into your Friday, how about a little vintage 80's. Nothing cheesier than the Italian disco classic (sung incidentally by a man from Northern Ireland) 'Tarzan Boy". The artist? Baltimora.

I think Alka Seltzer used this song for a commercial back in the '90's.

ESPN's John Clayton likes the Bengals in 2009, or so he says in this story.

I'm talking sports Saturday & Sunday on 700 WLW in Cincinnati. Saturday, I'm on from 3p-6p and my guests include former Bengal Stanford Jennings, he of the long KO return for a touchdown in the Bengals Super Bowl loss to the 49ers in 1989. Current Bengal, guard Andrew Whitworth, will join me as well. Sunday's line-up coming up shortly.