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In the days preceding Sunday's game versus the Bills, the Bengals' Chad Johnson promised (or is it threatened?) to incorporate a live deer into his touchdown celebration if he happened to score. Normally, if an average NFL player had said something along those things, it would be dismissed off-hand. In case you haven't noticed, Chad Johnson is not an average NFL player.
Johnson is more than just your typical brash, outspoken, attention-seeking wide receiver - he has more than enough talent to back it up the braggadocio (93 catches for 1,377 yards and 9 TDs going into Week 17). But for all the stats he puts up between the white lines, #85 is best known for what happens after the scoreboard changes.
Chad Johnson obviously didn't start the tradition of post-touchdown celebration, but in 2005, he has turned it into an art form. T.O.'s Sharpie antics and Joe Horn's cell phone shenanigans are far less creative than what Johnson has brought to the table this season. Most notably, there was the infamous "Riverdance", which may have been a subtle dig at Bears' LB Brian Urlacher, who fathered a child with a woman who is suing "Lord of the Dance" star Michael Flatley. He also used one of the end-zone pylons as a putter following a TD against the Ravens, giving a Tiger Woods' fist pump after "draining" the putt. And let's not forget the recent mock proposal to a Bengals' cheerleader who, according to the Bengals' website, lists #85 as her favorite player. It's to the point now where Johnson was actually booed by Lions' fans when CJ didn't provide them with a touchdown celebration after he scored on their own team.
Back to the deer: he claimed to have hit the animal on the highway and bandaged it up in hopes of using him as part of his end zone theatrics. Now it's one thing to stick a Sharpie in your sock or to hide a cell phone underneath the goalpost pad. It's a completely different thing to bring a live deer onto a football field. So we all knew that it wouldn't really happen, right? Right?
Johnson scored... but the deer never showed. Never before have tens of thousands of people been disappointed by the fact that they didn't get a chance to see a bloody animal. Perhaps the deer never existed in the first place. Maybe it did, but someone with a good deal of common sense put the kibosh on the planned celebration. In either case, Johnson - after a consulation with the referee, presumably about the fate of his animal friend - grabbed an oversized stocking which had been tucked behind the Bengals' bench and began throwing autographed merchandise into the stands. Which, in this season of giving, is probably better than seeing a grown man prance around with a live deer. But only slightly.
The point is, he got our attention. And that's what it's all about.
This is Chad Johnson's world. We're all just living in it.
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No Deer Were Harmed In The Writing Of This Piece
Sunday, December 25, 2005, 07:09 AM EST
[Chad Johnson]
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