Chad Johnson’s time as a pro football player might not be finished after all. The legendary former NFL receiver will tryout as a kicker with the XFL on Monday, he announced on Twitter. The tryout in Houston is indeed legit, Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com confirmed with a source. Johnson is 42 now, and hasn’t appeared in a game since the 2011 season. He’s a huge soccer fan, and has often expressed an interest in kicking. Back during the 2009 preseason when he was still with the Bengals, he converted an extra point and handled a kickoff. Johnson became a six-time Pro Bowler with Cincinnati and was a first-team All-Pro selection three times. One of the best receivers in the league for a long stretch, he finished with 11,059 yards and 67 touchdowns. He also briefly played in the CFL a handful of years ago. It still seems like more of a publicity stunt than anything else, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Here’s more from around the football world:
- The Browns settled on a new head coach in Kevin Stefanski, but they’re still searching for a new general manager. One potential candidate is Vikings assistant GM George Paton, but he’s apparently hard to pin down. Paton has been very picky with interviews in recent years, and the Browns still haven’t gotten a firm commitment from him on whether or not he’ll interview, according to Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). It was initially reported that Paton had agreed to interview, but that turned out not to be true. Eagles executive Andrew Berry and Patriots exec Monti Ossenfort are also candidates.
- Whoever Cleveland selects to be their next GM, Stefanski will have a lot of input in the front office. The rookie head coach “will have a large say in roster decisions,” writes Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. Kay Cabot thinks they wouldn’t want his help hiring the new general manager if he wasn’t going to have a lot of power once they’re hired. Stefanski is still only 37 and last season was his first full one as a coordinator, but the Haslam family clearly has a lot of trust in him.
- Stefanski still has some staffing decisions to make, even after it appears he settled on Joe Woods to be his new defensive coordinator. He won’t be hiring a new special teams coordinator, as sources told Kay Cabot that he’s going to keep Mike Priefer as a rare holdover from Freddie Kitchens’ staff. Priefer was Minnesota’s special teams coordinator for eight seasons while Stefanski was with the Vikings, so they have a lot of familiarity with one another. Priefer had previously been STC for the Chiefs and Broncos.
Chad Johnson “legendary” hilarious
He was great. Overshadowed by the Pats and Colts teams, the Bengals had a solid offense while he was there. Him and Carson were a hell of a duo. Seems so far away but you also had guys like Andre Johnson doing huge things with the Texans. Those were good times for offenses.
I think that would actually be pretty cool. Having him kick in the NFL if this XFL gig works out would be fun.
Well you never know when winning a Super Bowl might come down to executing an onside kick.
How come Ocho Cinco never generates any HOF buzz? Or T.O. For that matter
TO generated quite a bit of HoF buzz when he was inducted 2 years ago.
Yeah but why did it stop when he got inducted??
Because he got into the HOF… lol
Because his induction wasn’t celebrated because he chose not show up. IMO you don’t show up, you don’t get celebrated, plain and simple.
Before his CTE, AB was Chad Johnson.
After his CTE, Mr. Big Chest is a few days/weeks/months away from being Chris Henry.
With his agent gone and his enablers enabling, it’s unclear who or what will or can stop it.
Does anyone really care about this overrated hype machine. Hasn’t he been out of football like 2 decades already.