TJ Houshmandzadeh | Larry Brown Sports

Housh Wants Bengals, Bengals Don’t Want Housh: Sound Familiar?

Hmm. A wide receiver that wants to join the Cincinnati Bengals even though the Bengals don’t seem to want him. Doesn’t that sound like another story we heard this past off-season? Oh, yeah. It was that Terrell Owens guy, and Chad Ochoncinco eventually got what he wanted when the Bengals brought him on board.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who left the Bengals last off-season after playing G.M. and trying to call his own shots, seems to be interested in teaming up with Batman and Robin. Would that make him Catwoman? I can’t think of any other significant characters from the Batman series, so I guess that’s the role he’d be accepting. In any event, it’s obvious Housh wants to go back to Cincinnati when the Seahawks inevitably trade or release the wide receiver.

I miss it,” Houshmandzadeh told Carlos “Big C” Holmes of the Dayton Daily News in December 2009. “The grass ain’t always greener. Let me tell you that.”

I’ve always thought it was funny when players take matters into their own hands and try to drive where they’ll go as a free agent. We had Jake Peavy tell the Braves he didn’t want to go there if they gave up too much in exchange for him, we had Matt Stafford say he’d love to go to the Lions, and Brian Fuentes kept telling the Angels how much he wanted to go there until they finally signed him, just to name a few. Well lately it has been Bengals WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh playing GM and directing traffic. Witness what he said recently:

“I’ll just throw out the teams that I told (my agent) that I would be interested in. I have no idea if these teams are interested in me yet. I told him I’d be interested in going to Philly, I told him I’d be interested in going to New York, Seattle, Minnesota.

“If I could play with Adrian Peterson? Can you imagine what I would do, beating 1-on-1 coverage playing with Adrian Peterson?”

That wasn’t all, either. Housh also supposedly sent this text message to ESPN Radio in Philly, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but if they want me, I will be an Eagle tomorrow.” You think some of those team execs are groaning now or what? Just what GMs need, to hear a talented player express his fondness for a team, making the fans put pressure on the organization to make a move. As far as Housh goes, he’s not the type of receiver to whom I’d pay number one receiver money. He’s the possession guy who’s really benefitted from playing with less defensive attention because Chad Johnson gets double-teamed, and from having Carson Palmer throw to him. I think T.J. would be hard-pressed to find a better situation for him than Cincy’s been, and anyone who brings him in to be a number one will probably be overpaying.