Is Chad "screwing it up"

[Dadraftnick]

For some reason Chad tweeted to the world that he was in his sox and underwear in a casino

When Ochocinco tweeted that he was "walking around MGM lobby in my gold toe socks and h&m briefs seeing who's winning on these slot machines, people looking at me crazy WTF," he wasn't joking. Ochocinco finally provided proof - a photo of himself sitting at a slot machine wearing blue briefs and gold toe socks - and nothing else.

National Football Post

story w/picture- you dont want to see it
/>http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/205970?xid=CBSsports

Greg Doyel at CBS sports says Chad is "screwing it up", I am not sure of that but, I do think he is a little too full of himself lately.

Runaway ego crashes Ochocinco off road to Canton

July 25, 2010

By Gregg Doyel

CBSSports.com National Columnist

Tell Gregg your opinion!

Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco isn't just a Bengals receiver. He's an app designer for the iPhone. He's an actor in an R&B video. He's a dancer on network television, and just this month he became a reality TV star on cable. NFL training camp starts later this week, but Ochocinco is more than an NFL player -- he's a Renaissance man, showing the youth of America that a person need not be pigeon-holed into one tight little category.

I hope the youth of America isn't watching.

Because Ochocinco is delivering a dangerous message.

Ochocinco certainly gets around, here at the 12th Annual Young Hollywood Awards in May. (Getty Images)

Versatility isn't for everybody. Specifically speaking, it isn't for Ochocinco, and there are plenty of other examples where he came from, names I'll get to in a minute. For now, though, understand this:

Some of us weren't put on this Earth to be Renaissance men. We were put here to do one thing, and only one thing. Me, I was put here to piss you off. Seems like I do a good job of it. Is it a sad little existence? Maybe. But it's my existence, it pays my bills and I'm happy doing it.

Ochocinco was put on this Earth to play football. Specifically, he was put here to play football at a higher level than most of us -- me included. The rest of us were put here to do whatever it is that we were put here to do. As for me, I'm like most of you: I was lucky enough to find my calling, and if I can avoid the temptation to screw it up, I'll keep getting a paycheck until I hit retirement age. For me, that would define success.

Ochocinco's in a different realm. He found his calling on the football field, and if he can avoid the temptation to screw it up, he'll be immortalized in the NFL Hall of Fame. For him, that would define success. The Hall of Fame is his purpose. That's his mission. Or should be.

But he's screwing it up.

He's spreading himself so thin in other areas that he's no longer the superstar he once was on the football field. At this rate, he's not going into the Hall of Fame. Mark my words there. He has been a great player, I'm not so stupid as to say he's not, but the Pro Football Hall of Fame is the most difficult Hall to get into. You could start a pretty decent Pro Football Hall of Fame with the list of great players who didn't make the final cut, including Ed "Too Tall" Jones of car-insurance commercial fame.

Before he was hawking Geico, Jones was one of the dominant ends of his day, part of the Doomsday Defense that led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl appearances from 1975-78. Too Tall Jones was put on this Earth to play defensive end, but in 1979 -- at age 28, his prime -- he got bored and took a year off to become a pro boxer. Was he a good pro boxer? Sure. He was decent. But he was a Hall of Fame football player, or should have been. He returned to the Cowboys in 1980, and he had some more good seasons, as did his team, but there were no more Super Bowls. And he's not in the Hall of Fame. Did he throw it away by boxing? No way to know, but I'm going with: Yes. He threw it away by boxing.

It's not only Ochocinco and Jones who have lost their way, and it's not only football players, either, though receiver Willie Gault was a rising star with the Chicago Bears before derailing his football career by moonlighting in bobsledding at age 27, and world-record track men Renaldo Nehemiah and Jimmy Hines went the opposite way when they left track to play a few years of bad football. Nehemiah returned to track but never again as a world champion. Hines, the 1968 gold medalist for 100 meters, never raced again. Washed up at age 23.

Boxer Roy Jones dabbled in basketball and managed to stay the best fighter in the world, but that dummy kept dabbling. He was 46-1 in February 2002 when he made his rap debut. In his next 14 fights, he went 8-6. Older fighters lose, yes. Even great older fighters. But six times in 14 fights? Rapping did that.

It's everywhere. A sport comes so easy to an athlete, he assumes anything is possible. He forgets his place on this Earth and tries to expand his kingdom. Shaquille O'Neal might be the worst rapper of all-time, and if it's not him it's Ron Artest or Deion Sanders. Bronson Arroyo strummed his acoustic guitar so much in Boston and Cincinnati that both the Red Sox and Reds told him to stop playing gigs, and still Arroyo came down with carpal tunnel syndrome -- not from pitching, but from picking. Arroyo has been at his best when he's not playing the guitar, but he can't stop. Why? Because it's not enough to make $10 million and pitch on national television. These guys want more.

MMA fighters are crossing over into acting, with disastrous results. Cung Le was undefeated when he gave up his Strikeforce middleweight title in 2008 to act, then returned to the cage in December and was knocked out in his first fight. UFC lightweight contender Roger Huerta was 20-1-1 when he started dabbling in modeling and acting in 2008, and he has lost three of his four fights since and has been relegated to a lesser promotion. UFC light-heavyweight Rampage Jackson had won eight of nine fights when he skipped a December date against Rashad Evans to appear in The A-Team -- then returned to the Octagon in May and lost to Evans.

It doesn't always have to be this way. Some athletes are so gifted, either in their sport or in their other pursuit, that it works out. Former NBA star Wayman Tisdale might have been better on the bass guitar than he was on the basketball court, and he's in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Ray Allen starred in He Got Game even as he was improving annually for the Milwaukee Bucks. And Deion Sanders was so good at cornerback that he could play baseball and rap and still shut down his side of the field into his 30s.

Ochocinco isn't any of those guys.

When he was all about the football, he was as good as any receiver in the game. From 2003-07 he was in the top three in receiving yardage all five seasons and made the All-Pro team twice. But then he started getting antsy. It started with contractual requests and trade demands, and when the Bengals put him in his place, Ochocinco moved on. He changed his name, raced a horse, skipped offseason workouts and then during the 2008 preseason got injured. He and the Bengals were historically bad that year -- Carson Palmer was hurt in the fourth game, and Ochocinco (53 catches, 540 yards) did nothing to help replacement Ryan Fitzpatrick -- and then in 2009 Ochocinco turned in what was, for him, a mediocre season.

Ochocinco made the Pro Bowl -- as an alternate, only because Wes Welker was injured -- but he was 26th in the league in catches, 20th in receiving yardage and 31st in yards per catch. Mediocre results for a player who dominated from 2003-07, but pretty good numbers for a guy who appeared on R&B artist Monica's video Everything To Me and released his own egocentric iPhone app and was negotiating not only for a spot on Dances With The Stars but also for his own reality show, where 85 lucky women compete for the right to date Chad.

What happens in 2010? Training camp starts Friday, so we'll see -- but Ochocinco is 32 years old, and the Bengals are looking ahead. This offseason they drafted two receivers and a receiving tight end, and they signed two more receivers in free agency, including Antonio Bryant. Where does that leave Ochocinco? He'll play, and he'll play pretty well. But he won't be the player he was.

And he'll never be the player he should have been.

What Ochocinco will be is a lesson for all you kids out there: Careful what you wish for, boys and girls. Sometimes you actually get it.

[volcom69]

He is what he is i dont really care anymore what he does, just so it dosnt hurt the team. After that other year i gave up on caring anymore. So he does what he wants to just so it dosnt hurt the team then who cares anymore

[Stripes]

I stopped reading when Doyel began ranting his nonsense about his and Chad's specific "purpose" in life, as if he'd have any damned clue. Why write an entire article about something so dependent on arbitrary philosophy which cannot be grounded in anything real?

Stupid.

[HairOnFire]

I stopped reading when Doyel began ranting his nonsense about his and Chad's specific "purpose" in life, as if he'd have any damned clue.

What if Chad was born to do ManWhore? That his being a football player was just a smaller step that needed to be taken on his journey to reality show D-List stardom. What if Chad really was meant to be a Kardashian?

Just saying....

[Stripes]

I stopped reading when Doyel began ranting his nonsense about his and Chad's specific "purpose" in life, as if he'd have any damned clue.

What if Chad was born to do ManWhore? That his being a football player was just a smaller step that needed to be taken on his journey to reality show D-List stardom. What if Chad really was meant to be a Kardashian?

Just saying....

His lunatic behavior is very likely caused by his inability to unleash the Kardashian within when imprisoned by football.

[membengal]

Gregg Doyle really can't be taken seriously by anyone at this point in his "career", can he?

[HoosierCat]

So...let me make sure I am clear on this: a multi-millionaire NFL football player is loose in Las Vegas and the scandal is...he's plunking quarters into a slot machine while wearing little more than shorts.

Jayzus Kay-rist the season CANNOT get here fast enough.

[Kazkal]

So...let me make sure I am clear on this: a multi-millionaire NFL football player is loose in Las Vegas and the scandal is...he's plunking quarters into a slot machine while wearing little more than shorts.

Jayzus Kay-rist the season CANNOT get here fast enough.

Ya godforbid he's not shooting people,Getting wasted or any of that other fun stuff...but he's tweeting well playing slots...OMG!

[BengalPimp]

I go to Vegas at least 3 or 4 times a year and have probably been there at least 50 times, so let me just say that pretty much anything goes........

That said, I think Chad got everybody again.....It's easy to believe that he would walk around and play slots in his underwear, but I believe the TRUTH IS, he was on his way to the pool and those are swimming trunks NOT Underwear, but thought if he did take a picture, it would be funny to twitter it.

I'm not buying it.....

[ArmyBengal]

I can't say as I would care about any d*mn thing he does, as long as it doesn't affect the team.

Is he crazy ?? Is his ego to big ?? Is he the biggest douche in the NFL ??

I don't care if he is or isn't.

Pointless story...

[HairOnFire]

So...let me make sure I am clear on this: a multi-millionaire NFL football player is loose in Las Vegas and the scandal is...he's plunking quarters into a slot machine while wearing little more than shorts.

Jayzus Kay-rist the season CANNOT get here fast enough.

Scandal? Last I checked nobody was claiming there was a scandal so IMHO there's no need for the Chad apologists to leap to his defense.

Relax, it's nothing more than people getting excited by the latest Chadashian sighting.