I’ve got bad news for those who were looking forward to seeing Chad Johnson play tonight on NFL Network when his Bengals face the Steelers - Chad will not be participating in this game, because Chad went and got himself benched.  I know - devastating.  Like waking up Christmas morning and finding cuff-links and old-person candy in your stocking.  Werther’s?  Eat me, Santa.

So what the hell happened to Chad anyway?  He was behaving so well this year (I guess).  It was nothing that bad, actually - on the Chad-scale, the infraction was positively benign.  All he did, according to some outfit called Bloggin’ With Brad (not affiliated with Pitt or Dourif), was miss a team meeting because he was too busy sleeping.  And Marvin Lewis sat him down for tonight’s game - because it was about time someone taught him a lesson.

I guess Chad needed to come with some better excuses.  Forgot to set his alarm clock?  That stuff don’t fly with Marvin.  He told Chad that if he missed one more meeting he was toast.  Chad thought he was bluffing - he never got benched any of the 312 other times, so why should this be any different?  It’s a new day in Cincinnati I guess.  The team’s on a roll - it’s won one of its last two and that other one wasn’t a loss either (Donovan’s confused).  This is no time for discipline to be breaking down.  Never mind the fact that the Bengals are facing the Steelers, a team you would generally want all hands to be on-deck for.  They’ll just have to go out and get another non-loss without Chad.  He can watch it from the bench.  Or he can catch it on NFL Network - if he can find a place that has it.

I sort of feel sorry for Chad actually - it’s been a bad year for him.  First his whole Ocho Cinco scheme didn’t work out, and then there’s that whole still playing for the Bengals thing.  Wasn’t he supposed to be somewhere else this season?  Dallas?  Washington?  Anywherebutcincinnati?  Apparently Ocho isn’t the crafty manipulator he thinks he is.  He couldn’t hoodwink the Bengals into trading him, cutting him or freezing him and launching him to the Andromeda galaxy.  Maybe if the Bengals had an actual front office he could’ve worked some of his magic on it.  His brain is so superior, you know.  It comes up with all those clever touchdown celebrations - or used to, back when he scored touchdowns.