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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > October > 26
Monday, October 26, 2009
Chad: ‘We’re a lot more talented’ than 2005 playoff team
CINCINNATI — Before he’d let the post-game TV cameras roll, he said he wanted to put on a shirt.
“My momma’s out there,” Chad Ochocinco said in reference to a TV audience that may well include the grandmother who raised him.
He turned to his locker, grabbed a tight-fitted black pull-over, looped it over his head, but then got stuck when he tried to push one of his hands — hands that had just caught 10 passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns, one which he celebrated with a tightly-calibrated end zone samba dance — through an arm hole.
“It doesn’t fit,” Ochocinco said starring at his shoulder and biceps. “Look how big I done got. When I came in it was dangling.”
Nothing the Bengals receiver would say in the next 15 minutes — in the kind of oft-comedic monologue that would make him a late-night TV star, as well — was more true.
He and the rest of the Cincinnati Bengals had come out of their stunning 45-10 thrashing of the Chicago Bears Sunday night at Paul Brown Stadium sporting more muscles than anyone had ever dreamed they had:
— Quarterback Carson Palmer completed 20 of 24 passes for 233 yards and five touchdowns.
— Running back Cedric Benson — cut and, he says, disparaged by the Bears a year earlier — made his old team pay, running for a career-high 189 yards and a touchdown on 37 carries. His herculean day now makes him the the NFL’s leading rusher with 720 yards.
— The defense — depleted by injury and flu — sent the Bears to sick bay, picking off three Jay Cutler passes and recovering a fumble.
“This was a statement game for us,” Ochocinco said.
Part of that statement, he said, was that this team is better than the 2005 Bengals, who went 11-5 and made the playoffs:
“We are a lot more talented — talented defensively. Offensively we’re about the same, except that we (now) have a back who can go the distance at any point in time. No disrespect to Rudi (Johnson), but Ced is different and BScott ( back-up tailback Bernard Scott) is different. It’s kinda scary with these two backs.”
Palmer didn’t go quite that far, but he did say his team — which scored on its first seven possessions Sunday — “proved to ourselves that when we have the right mind set and get off early, we’re a tough team to contend with and slow down.”
And on this day, no one was tougher to contend with than Benson and Ochocinco.
When Benson scored his touchdown on a one-yard run in the fourth quarter, Ochocinco quickly embraced him.
“He said, ‘See ya’ in Miami,’” a smiling Benson said of the reference to this year’s Pro Bowl, which will be played in South Florida.
Ochocinco — a five-time Pro Bowler — looks as if he’s about to make it a half-dozen. Injured and disenchanted at times in 2008, he finished the season with an uncharacteristic 53 catches for 540 yards and and four touchdowns.
Now, as the 5-2 Bengals head to their bye week, he already has 573 receiving yards on 39 catches and five touchdowns.
“Before the season, you guys heard me say that by the time we got to the bye week I would have surpassed last year,” he grinned. “Man, I’m good. …I’m not Ali, but I’m good.”
From the dressing stall next to him — where rookie Quan Cosby was eavesdropping with delight — came a giggle.
Ochocinco heard it and with a grin called out, “Hey, I’m serious over here.”
Cosby laughed some more and down a couple dressing stalls further, second year receiver Andre Caldwell stood on his chair so he could watch and listen, as well.
More than teammates, these guys become part of Ochocinco’s post-game audience and sometimes they end up playing the Ed McMahon straight man to his Johnny Carson.
As Ochocinco was wrapping up his locker room chatfest, you heard wave after wave of loud cheers coming from the communal shower room where Benson was being toasted by his teammates.
“We knew what this meant for him today,” center Kyle Cook said. “We all have a chip on our shoulder. We’ve all been cut by some some other team and told we’re not good enough.”
With Ochocinco you didn’t notice the shoulder chip, just the diamond chips.
“I gotta accessorize,” he said as he reached in his locker and pulled out a fancy necklace.
He called out to a passing teammate: “I gotta a table for 20…see you there.”
As headed to the dressing room door, Ochocinco let you know before he’d eat, he’d tweet:
“Gotta go. Got to get to my Twitter.”
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