[Chip R]

Boomer's point may not be technically correct but I believe what he means is that Ward doesn't complain publicly when the ball isn't thrown to him. He may have complained about being underpaid or that his wife didn't make pancakes for him the other morning but that stuff is irrelevant to how a player acts on the field. I'm sure Ward isn't happy if he doesn't get the ball as often as he likes. The same goes for Marvin Harrison and I'm sure Jerry Rice felt the same way. It's an ego thing which is not necessarily bad. Everyone has an ego. Everyone takes pride in things they do well and wants to succeed. But some people have bigger egos than others.

You're going to have to take the bad with the good if you are a Chad Johnson/Bengals fan. He has a delightful personality. He likes to make the game fun and he does a lot of other good things as well. He works hard at what he does and while he does enjoy the attention he receives he doesn't seem to be the kind of player (T.O.) who is Me Me Me. He doesn't cause problems off the field. But I believe his number one priority is getting the ball thrown to him often. Perhaps he really believes that ther more often the ball is thrown to him the better chance the Bengals have winning the game. Even if he's double or triple-covered he still feels he should get the ball. That's a lot of hubris there. Of course if the ball is intercepted when he's covered by more than one person it isn't his fault. He didn't throw the ball. If the Bengals lose and he gets two TDs he's not happy the Bengals lost but he got his scores and got to do his dances so everything is right with the world. I get to listen to a bit of the show he does with Furman on Thursday nights. I think this TD dance thing is getting a bit out of control. People call in and mostly what they want to talk about is what kind of a dance is Chad going to do on Sunday. Naturally, Chad is happy to accomodate them. Sure you get the occassional fuddy-duddy who just wants him to hand the ball to the official. But the focus is more on the dance after the score and not necessarily about what the Bengals need to do in order to win that week or even how Chad prepares for a game.

I would wager that if Chad played for PIT or CLE or any other team, most of you wouldn't find his actions so amusing. Like I said, you're going to have to take the good with the bad with him if you are really a fan of his. If he holds out for more money you don't necessarily have to support him but a real fan of his won't throw him under the bus either. If he makes a fuss about not getting enough balls thrown to him, that's just Chad being Chad.