Johnson scores three times as Bengals roll

Lithonia Team of the Week:

Chad Johnson hasn’t had much cause to break out the creative celebrations this season. Heading into Sunday’s game with the Tennessee Titans, Ocho Cinco had only found the end zone three times this season, and not at all since Week 2, when he scored two touchdowns against Cleveland. Johnson’s struggles mirrored those of the Bengals, who at 3–7 were teetering on the brink of NFL oblivion.

It’s no surprise, then, that when Johnson caught his first touchdown pass from Carson Palmer in 70 days, he wanted to record the occasion for posterity. Johnson commandeered a television camera and surveyed the field where he has so often dominated, and where he finally had his 2007 breakout game that could propel the Bengals into a late-season run.

Only a week after Palmer had thrown a career-worst four interceptions, he completed 32-of-38 passes for 283 yards and three touchdowns  — all of them to Johnson — as the Bengals’ up-tempo, spread-the-field attack consistently gashed the Titans’ suddenly porous defense in the 35–6 rout. With stalwart defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth still sidelined, the Bengals had room to run, racking up 148 yards on the ground and opening up play-action opportunities in the passing game. As a result, Johnson was consistently open, catching a career-high 12 passes for 103 yards and those three scores. The 12 grabs gave Johnson the franchise record for receptions, surpassing Carl Pickens’ mark.

“He deserves the credit,” Palmer said of Johnson. “He’s that good. We did a good job around him, too.”

Did they ever. The Bengals clearly outplayed the Titans in all three phases, setting up an impenetrable wall at the goal line against a sputtering Tennessee offense. The Titans reached the Cincinnati 10-yard line three times in the first half alone, but twice had to settle for field goals and lost a fumble on their other Red Zone possession. In the fourth quarter, the Cincy defense mounted one final goal-line stand, denying Young and the Titans the end zone when the fleet-footed quarterback stumbled and then threw incomplete on fourth down from the 1-yard line.

Afterwards, Young sat forlornly on the bench with his head down, pondering how a season that held such promise only three weeks ago could suddenly seem to be on life-support.

“Thoughts, man, just thoughts, trying to see what’s going on, what’s the problem, what we need to do to get back to where we need to be at,” said Young, who was hampered by a bruised thigh and a strained ankle, of his postgame ruminations. “Why is this all of a sudden happening to us, going back to that bad feeling that we had last year with getting our butt whooped?”

Over in the victors’ locker room, the normally loquacious Johnson wasn’t talking, allowing running mate T.J. Houshmandzadeh to speak for him. “He doesn’t care about (the team receiving record),” Houshmandzadeh said. “He’ll probably reflect on it later on.”

Houshmandzadeh also offered this bit of consolation to Young even as the Madden curse seems to be taking hold of the QB and his franchise. “I told him it could be worse, they could be 4–7 like us,” he said.

It’s not that bad — not yet, anyway. But it can’t be very comforting to the Titans knowing that the Bengals now sit only two games behind them in the Wild Card race, and that if this game were any indication, the two teams are speeding in opposite directions.