THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

If there’s one person who’s keeping the Reds off the hot burner today, it’s you know who. Corey Patterson, Adam Dunn, and Scott Hatteberg should drop down on the Mendoza Line they stand on and give thanks today for Ocho Cinco. Without him, they’d have you speed dialing this morning.

Chad Johnson has gone from being the most loveable player on the Bengals roster to just another modern day athlete, spoiled rotten by money, attention and a media willing to lap up whatever drips out of his mouth. He has followed the gospel according to “TO” like it was written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Only it wasn’t. It was written by one Drew Rosenhaus, agent for both.

I did the check list, the other night on channel 5. Step one, insult team management, the same people who made you one of the highest paid people on the planet. Step two, diss your coach. In TO’s case, it was Andy Reid, an old school indifferent sort, but a very good football coach. In Johnson’s case, it was one of the few people in that Bengals locker room who claims to understand him. A lot of people in the media, a lot of fans, are calling Marvin Lewis Johnson’s enablier, patting him on the back when Johnson really needed a swift kick to butt. If so, imagine how he feels today.

Step three, the most heinous of all, throw your quarterback under the bus. Last I checked, Donovan McNabb and Carson Palmer are pretty good quarterbacks. Last I checked, there hasn’t been a wide receiver in professional,,,,or any other kind of football… who’s managed to throw AND catch a forward pass. Like “TO” before him, Johnson this week attacked the sacred cow. Eventually, the Eagles had enough of Terrell Owens, suspended him, benched him and then eventually let his ‘walk’. Owens, if you’re scoring at home, is now in Dallas with a better team and still pulling in millions.

So it didn’t take a genius to figure out, this is exactly Chad Johnson’s end game: follow the TO blue print, insult enough people, get the Bengals to tire of your act and release you….or trade you.

There have been fans, talk show host, journalists, good people this week, who have said…enough…let him go, he’s a distraction and will be an even bigger one if this is allowed to continue. There have been people who believe it will be best for the Bengals to simply trade Johnson and be done with the head ache. But I know one person who isn’t saying this and it will be a long time before he will: Mike Brown.

I don’t know Brown as well as I did back in the ‘90’s, when I called Bengals games on radio and spent just about every practice day with him on the sidelines. But a leopard doesn’t change his spots and Mike Brown doesn’t do anything unless it benefits his team.

Brown has been skewered, on this radio station among other places, more than shish-ka-bob in the summertime. He’s cheap, doesn’t know how to draft players, hates to play the free agent game, wouldn’t know how fast a player was, even the player stepped on Mike’s neck enroute to a 4.4 40. You can believe all of that to be true….and incidentally, I don’t…but even if you do, you must give him this: the man can conduct business.

Remember, this is the guy who beat the IRS in tax court….twice. That’s like the Washington Generals beating the Harlem Globetrotters. This is the guy who twisted Hamilton County’s government so tightly, back in the 90’s, he made it look like it was their idea to fund a 500-million dollar stadium

So do you believe for a moment, some agent in a three piece suit and Chad Johnson are going to back Mike Brown into a corner and win? Really?

Here’s what I saw, when I watched Rosenhaus interviewed on ESPN Friday: a guy with a loose cannon for a client, up against an owner whose answer to him on everything is ‘no’. Rosenhaus didn’t say it, I wouldn’t have either if I were him, but that sounds exactly what Brown is telling him. Rosenhaus wants a trade, Brown says, no. Rosenhaus wants a new deal for Johnson, more money, more than the money they gave Johnson less than two years ago, Brown says no.

I think, down deep with a tinge of disgust, Brown is probably amused a little by all of this. The more Johnson opens his mouth, the more he embarrasses himself…and makes Rosenhaus squirm. See, Brown knows, he’s got Johnson locked down through 2010, with an option Brown holds through 2011. If Chad elects to sit out this season, he not only can be fined for every day he misses, starting with training camp, the deal automatically renews for 2011,

If Chad holds out, Brown actually MAKES money. Does this sound like somebody in a bad spot?

We heard this week, well, if this continues and Chad eventually reports, he could become a distraction. Could. But the Bengals are supposed to be running the football more often this year. Marvin said so a couple of weeks ago. They just signed a tight end, who supposedly will have passes thrown to him…a novelty, I know for the Bengals. What happens if Chad comes back and this team is winning? What happens if its 4-0, 5-0, 6-0, when he decides to report.

I’ll tell you what it will be: a story for one day and then every one of us in the local media will be back to reporting on a team that might be on a championship run.

So no, Chad Johnson won’t be traded on draft day, unless it benefits the Bengals. Mike Brown won’t take the cap hit and he won’t let a player back him into a corner and win. And he’s smart enough to realize, the kind of talent Johnson brings to a football team doesn’t come rolling down the street often.

But if I were advising Mike Brown, and since I’m doing a radio talk show, I guess I am.,I’d tell him to pack a bag, pick up Marvin and drive to the airport. They should fly to Miami for a ‘sit down’ with Ocho Cinco and Drew Rosenhaus. And Brown should lay it all on the table. He should ask Johnson specifically, who did what to him and when. What’s the basis for his behavior the past three months.

I’d remind Chad that he gushed over the contact he signed back in 2006, the money, the front office, his desire to make the team a winner.

I’d remind him of the number of place he could be traded to that could nuke any shot he may have winning a championship, let alone having a decent pass thrown to him. Oakland, Tampa Bay, Kansas City come to mind.

I don’t think Brown will do any of that, but he should. I don’t think Johnson would take the meeting, but he should.

The real losers in this are you….who bleed orange and me, who has to talk about this stuff and not the NFL draft.

Check out my latest podcast at www.kenbroo.com. And check me out weeknights at 6 & 11pm on WLWT in Cincinnati.