Patriots Shouldn't Bother With Ochocinco, Should Just Move On
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Patriots are reportedly trying to rework the contract of wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. Unless they're proposing he sign up to be the team's water boy, they ought to just save their time.
As anyone who watched the Patriots last season can attest, Ochocinco contributed next to nothing in Tom Brady's offense. He was given every chance to succeed, but he never could. He made just 15 catches, which ranked 219th in the NFL. He amassed just 276 yards, which ranked 154th in the NFL. He had one touchdown, which tied him for 143rd in the NFL. On his own team, he ranked sixth, fifth and fifth in those categories, respectively. He defined "non-factor," and he made $3 million in base salary and $4.5 million in signing bonus money along the way.
And beyond the stats and the money, there is the simple fact that Ochocinco just never "got it" when it came to the Patriots' offense. Brady, Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Danny Woodhead and Deion Branch were at their absolute best last season when they were operating the no-huddle. Ochocinco could never be a part of it, because he never knew what to do. Even when he made a catch, he'd leave the ensuing huddle and run to the wrong side of the field, or he would need Brady to jog out from the backfield to the slot position to tell him what to do. It was a comedy of errors, and it led to Ochcocinco making just six catches in his final 10 games of the year.
The only excuse given was that the receiver struggled to pick up the Patriots' playbook, that his offensive system in Cincinnati used numbers while the Patriots used words, and that with the lockout, he was never able to fully grasp New England's offense.
Please.
You listen to enough people throw this excuse around, and you start to believe that Chad Ochocinco is the first player in the history of the NFL to ever switch teams. What about Brandon Marshall? He transitioned from Denver to Miami in 2010, and he caught 86 passes for 1,014 yards. And Anquan Boldin -- he left Kurt Warner's Cardinals to join Joe Flacco's Ravens in 2010, and though his stats dipped a bit, he still caught 64 passes for 837 yards and seven touchdowns. Steve Breaston left the Cardinals and joined the Chiefs in 2011, catching 61 passes for 785 yards. Rookie A.J. Green had to adjust from the offensive playbook of the Georgia Bulldogs to the NFL playbook of the Cincinnati Bengals, and he was able to haul in 65 passes for 1,057 yards and seven touchdowns.
And none of those guys had Tom Brady as their quarterback.
It was an excuse that Ochocinco himself strongly denied.
"No," Ochocinco said when asked by WBZ-TV's Steve Burton if the Patriots' system was hard to understand. "It's no system. I'm extremely intelligent. Extremely intelligent. ... Football sense, just life, the way I carry myself, the things I do, we can all see I have sense. I'm smart. It just didn't play out the way it was supposed to play out."
The "no time to learn the offense" excuse holds no weight for an NFL player with a decade in the league. He's just not the right fit.
All that being said, it's important to note that Ochocinco never harmed the Patriots or hurt the offense. He remained quiet all year, until the Super Bowl, when he was essentially required to talk to the media. He wasn't a loudmouth. He never yelled at Brady to get him the ball. He was deferential to Bill Belichick, and to Brady as well. He was, at least through the lens of his Twitter encounters, a good teammate.
But a lot of guys make good teammates in the NFL. That doesn't make them viable NFL players.
Maybe Ochocinco is washed up, all done at the age of 34. Based on his physical appearance and the way he can still run the occasional 12-yard comeback route, though, it doesn't look that way. Yet in New England, those successful routes were sprinkled among ones where he ran straight out of bounds, or plays where he didn't even run a route because he didn't know where to go. With Ochocinco, any tiny measure of success was usually followed with the former star receiver jogging to the sidelines to watch the next eight plays. It wasn't a recipe for success.
When asked prior to the Super Bowl if it was his hope to return to the Patriots for the 2012 season, Ochocinco answered honestly.
"(Expletive) right," he said.
It's the right attitude, and it's nice, but if you ask the Patriots the same question, their answer should be just as simple: (expletive) no.
