Ocho Uno + Ocho Cinco

[Poncho]

TO signs with the Bengals.

I'm not a TO fan, but this is impressive.  It says to me "Mike Brown finally wants to do EVERYTHING possible to bring the Lombardi home."  Instead of taking the year off after a playoff season... he actually went after talent.  TO is a pain in the butt, but he's a HoF pain in the butt.  We won't have double or triple coverage on The Ocho this year.  You simply can't do it with TO on the field.  It's an automatic 6 if you do that.  So teams have to honestly stop the WR instead of playing The Ocho and letting everyone else play zone.

How many times do you think The Ratbirds, Squeelers or Patriots will jam 8 in the block against TO, The Ocho & Bryant?  Single coverage on those 3 with ZERO safety help?

[Dan]

My two thoughts

1) TO is overrated. Overrated in the way that Braylon Edwards is overrated. He has tremendous skills and a physical presence, sure. He drops a TON of catchable balls, though. I think you'll get frustrated with him very quickly.

2) If Bill Simmons' theory is right, then this will be amusing. He says that you can get away with having one loose cannon on a team, but having two just means it'll be exponentially more crazy and troublesome. Eventually the locker room will get tired of their crap.

[rva]

I don't think you go after TO unless you are sure you can get him the requisite passes, both because of the salary and the ego.  Which means that the Bengals have little confidence in Bryant's health.

I actually think TO will be okay. He's fairly mediocre now and hardly an "automatic six."  But it's really more about Ochocinco's health and age than his.  If Ochocinco can still play at an elite level, teams will still double team him and take their chances with TO.  And I think he still has enough left in the tank to take advantage of it.  He won't be elite, but if the Bengals' offense is firing, he won't need to be.  The Bengals were awfully impressive on offense last year when Henry was healthy.

I think Simmons' theory is outdated.  Neither T.O. nor Ochocinco want to risk their TV shows.  Which means they can play well and be jerks.  Or they can play badly and be nice.  But you can't play bad and be a jerk and still have people want to watch your reality show.  The other thing is, I think if you have enough loose cannons you achieve a sort of backwards team unity.  Two loose cannons might clash.  Five loose cannons give your team a unified personality.  And TO at least always plays hard and trains hard.  The risk is more with Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson, and Cedric Benson.  Benson should be playing for a contract, but I don't know if stuff like that enters his head.

[Butter]

Yeah, the signing of TO says to me that the organization is thinking: "Oh shit, this Bryant signing was turrible."

[Poncho]

He's fairly mediocre now and hardly an "automatic six."  But it's really more about Ochocinco's health and age than his.  If Ochocinco can still play at an elite level, teams will still double team him and take their chances with TO.

Just to be 100% clear.  I don't think TO is an automatic six just by being on the field.  HOWEVER, I do think you are drastically overstating his level of play.


1. He was catching balls from Ryan Fitzpatrick & Trent Edwards last year.  Two QB's who had stats that were WAY WAY WAY closer to JaMarcus Russell than Peyton Manning.

2. He still avg 15.1 yards a catch for 800+ yards on a team with the #30 ranked offense in the league.

3. He's 1 year removed from being in the top 10 receiving yards, 2 years removed from top 5.  That's called trading down from Romo to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitz-Edwards.


Do I think this is ELITE TO?  No.
Do I think this is a reasonable target that is a huge upgrade over the current roster?  Yes.



ETA:
I got lost in that and forgot to readdress the "auto 6" comment.  My comment is that TO will take your butt to the house if you ignore him.  If teams focus on The Ocho as they did in 2009... they will get burned for more TO yards than they could dream of.  There were games where The Ocho was TRIPLE covered and there were 2 guys covering the TE and 2 WR in a zone.  That is why Benson had some great games.  They were more scared of Carson to Chad than they were of Benson + anyone else.

ETA2:
Ignore his history... this is LAST YEAR ONLY

http://www.youtube.com/v/Qn70TDYUo0Q

[rva]

It's not that I think T.O. will suck, or that his signing was a bad move. 

It's just that the Bengals signed Matt Jones to be the complement to Ochocinco that you were talking about.  Then they signed Antonio Bryant to be the complement to Ochocinco.  Jones might have been a little desperate, but I still doubt either of those two guys would have signed on to be a slot/#4 receiver.  And neither would T.O.  Now they have signed T.O. as "the complement to Ochocinco" (though they are careful not to say it so bluntly).

I'm just saying don't expect a T.O./Bryant/Ochocinco triple threat.  T.O. was signed because the Bengals are concerned Bryant is finished.

[c-lando]

Yeah, the signing of TO says to me that the organization is thinking: "Oh shit, this Bryant signing was turrible."

GSPoTD!!! (And not just because I missed your birthday!!!)

[Poncho]

T.O. was signed because the Bengals are concerned Bryant is finished.

Time will tell, but I think this is 100% wrong.

[cuddlyevil]

T.O.'s stock is falling, but I think he and Chad will work well together (they're best friends off the field). They're both competitive almost to a fault, so if they can keep it out of the "he's getting more passes than me!" whinefest they should produce for the team. Now, will it be enough to get them all the way through the playoffs and into the super bowl? I doubt it, but I've been wrong before.

[rva]

I think T.O., Ochocinco, and Palmer all have enough in the tank to combine for a fairly impressive aerial attack for at least this year.  Barely.  Bryant if healthy is overkill.  But at worst they're just overpaying a slot receiver a few million a year.  I think T.O. would actually rather NOT bear the load and just catch the big passes at this point in his career.

I think I'd be most worried about creating a run-oriented offense built around Cedric Benson.  That just seems like kind of a sketchy idea.  Not only might he be suspended, but that guy could just decide to start sucking at any minute, for any reason or no reason.  Plus teammates seem to despise him, or at least all the Bears did. 

They will play a tougher schedule this year, but I don't know if it makes that much of a difference since their division is already plenty tough.  IF Benson can play like he did the last two seasons, the Bengals would have to be considered legit. Super Bowl contenders, though not favorites.

[Dan]

I'm not as up-to-date as you guys on Antonio Bryant, but what exactly is the deal with him? He used to be Brown, so all this conversation I'm feeling like I know who the guy is, but you guys are all talking about how he's a bust. Is he hurt? Is he in prison? What's the background story with him? He's a decent receiver - his whole career he's been a solid if unspectacular player and would be a great third receiver to complement the 85 and 81 combo that the Bungles have going now.

It sounds like he's hurt.... but what's the injury? Is it serious and long term? Plus, who else is on the roster from a receiving standpoint? (i.e. Tight End, SE, WR, etc)

[Kwyjibo]

Shockingly Ocho-Uno sounds even more retarded than Ocho-Cinco.

[Dan]

Well, I did some research and Bryant had knee surgery a while back and his knee is still healing. Whatev. He's around for 4 years - let him heal if need be. Better to have him healthy long term then get hurt in the 2nd game.

[Poncho]

Bryant is one of those guys that has never QUITE lived up to his potential.  

My thoughts on Bryant come down to this... he's been injured, he's been out games with league issues, but he's still in the top 25 WR in yards since 2002.

The great QB's that Antonio Bryant has had throwing to him since 2002:

Dallas Cowboys 2002-2004
1. Chad Hutchinson - who? yeah exactly
2. Quincy Carter - DUI & drug possession arrests, got cut from TWO afl2 teams
3. Vinny Testaverde - not the young one... Vinny the 16th season version
4. Drew Henson - WHAT? Wasn't he going to be the best QB the game had ever seen?

Cleveland Browns 2004-2005
1. Jeff Garcia - He's the anomaly on this list... Garcia is VERY up and down. He's a Super Bowl QB and he's horrible. Garcia has been cut by 8 teams in 12 seasons... some 2 or 3 times. He's no where near "a good QB" but he's the best on this entire list.
2. Kelly Holcomb - hahahahahahahahahahahah
3. Luke McCown - If you can't be a 3rd string qb... you aren't NFL material
4. Trent Dilfer - AKA the worst QB with a Super Bowl ring in history ("we won the super bowl IN SPITE of having Trent Dilfer at QB!")
5. Charlie Frye - see Luke McCown

SF 49ers 2006
1. Alex Smith - Since his first start in 2005 until today, Alex has been benched for EIGHT different QB... EIGHT. Oddly he played all 16 games in 2006

Did not play in 2007

TB Bucs 2008-2009
1. Jeff Garcia - AGAIN
2. Brian Griese - He tried to change his name to BOB, failed
3. Josh Freeman - He might be good, he was a sheep thrown to the wolves in 2009
4. Byron Leftwich - So much potential, so little actual talent
5. Josh Johnson - I have to be honest... I have no idea who this is. None.

[Juliana]

ALL the freaking local news was talking about this morning was how TO missed the plane and was going to be late to the first day of training or whatever.  Like they had a TO watch.  Ugh.