Chad Johnson Has Bad Interview With ESPN

Fantasy Football Blog I caught the Chad Johnson interview on ESPN by the annoying guy with the Greek salad haircut. It doesn’t look good for ‘08. Not that it looked great otherwise before.

Let me preface my words by saying I personally think Chad Johnson is a cool football player because he’s entertaining and has a fun personality. However, fantasy football wise I’m not a fan and I think he’s overhyped.

I’m not exactly sure what let ff scouts to rank him #1 so frequently last year, but the guy is largely inconsistent. Looking at the numbers from last year you see 8 TDs and 1440 yards and you think pretty good until you break down the game logs. The guy is super explosive but disappears most of the time. All his touchdowns came in 4 games. That translates to only 1/4 the time he’s going to produce like a superstar WR. Same story in ‘06. 1369 yards and 7 TDs but only 4 scoring games. Basically, he torches bad secondaries and gets shut down by good ones. Meanwhile his teammate TJ Houshandzadeh is usually taken a round later and provides more fantasy points with more consistency.

I didn’t even realize it until I looked up the stats, but CJ is getting up there. I gauged him as 26-27 but he’s a ripe 30 years old. That’s a little old for all the BS drama and games he pulls. It’s entertaining if you’re a fan that, but I got to imagine teammates get agitated after awhile. I mean this guy creates such a sideshow and he really hasn’t been producing all that often. The numbers are there, but the consistency isn’t.

A little commentary on the interview now. He doesn’t seem like he’s coming back or that he wants to which doesn’t bode well for his 2008 prospects. He also seemed disingenuous about whether he’ll be back saying he’s focusing on acting (another big question mark). He sounded like Bill Belichick avoiding the issue at hand. I don’t know why these guys just don’t answer the question. In this instance, you not answering the question already means there’s trouble. Why not just say hey yeah I’ve had some differences them but if we can work them out, then I’m good to go? But back to this acting thing, CJ’s into making these weak little “Internet films” where he’s Agent Cinco. Now I don’t think having outside activities in the offseason is a big deal, but watching the interview I’d say he’s way too out of focus on football and way too into being an actor and being an entertainer on the field.

He’s getting a little too old for the kid stuff on the field. He needs to grow up and start trying to win football games and not trying to entertain the games. With some deference as I am an outsider, I think Chad is more the problem with the Bengals offense than the other way around. I may have it wrong and if I am please tell me otherwise, but it certainly looks that way.

Assuming he ends up on Cincinnati, I got 85 for 1,250 and 8. I wouldn’t draft him earlier than very late third round.