http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...T02/801130366/
Like players on a receiving team scrambling to get away from a punt rolling to the end zone, Bengals players on Saturday wanted nothing to do with Chad Johnson's comments made Friday on a national radio show.
"The only thing for me to do or say now is: If you guys, as a team and organization, want to further yourself in the playoffs, I think you need to get rid of what the problem was during the season," Johnson said on ESPN's "Mike & Mike in the Morning."
Johnson said fingers were pointed at him and he was labeled a cancer, a distraction and the reason the Bengals slumped to a 7-9 record.
ADVERTISEMENT
"No, no, I don't at all," right tackle Willie Anderson, the Bengals' senior player, said Saturday when reached on his cell phone and asked if he wanted to talk about the effect of Johnson's comments on the team. "I don't know, man. I don't have anything to say."
Anderson said he received a call Friday night from a Bengals teammate who asked if Anderson had heard Johnson's comments.
Neither of the team's captains - quarterback Carson Palmer and tackle John Thornton - returned messages seeking reaction Saturday.
But Palmer spoke a few days earlier on "Mike & Mike" about Johnson's apparent unhappiness and brewing frustration.
"The main thing, though, is he backs it up," Palmer told Sean Salisbury. "If he has a contract dispute - like he said, he is one of the top three or four guys in the NFL at his position - so you can see why he wants more money and that."
The Bengals, including head coach Marvin Lewis, have declined comment on Johnson's allegation.
Johnson is under contract through 2011 with the Bengals. He signed a $35.5 million extension in April 2006.