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Bengals Ring of Honor podcast series: Chad Johnson with guest Mo Egger

Paul Dehner Jr.
pdehnerjr@enquirer.com
Chad Johnson is our fourth inductee into a mythical Bengals Ring of Honor,

Over these last four weeks, the Enquirer unveiled each former player of what would be our mythical four-member Bengals Ring of Honor Class. The club doesn't currently have a Ring of Honor or Hall of Fame, but if they did decide to institute one, these were our picks. With each selection, we sat down for a podcast conversation with each of the Bengals' legends about their careers, life after football, the state of the game and, of course, the current Bengals. Hope you enjoyed the series. 

July 5: Left tackle Anthony Munoz

July 11: Quarterback Ken Anderson

July 18:Quarterback Boomer Esiason

July 25: Receiver Chad Johnson

Pick your choices for a Mythical Bengals Ring of Honor. For mobile, here's a direct link to the poll.

In this final conversation, rather than sit down with our inductee, as I did last year for our podcast series looking back at the 2005 season, I dove into the debate over a fourth selection that could have gone dozens of different directions.

For the discussion I brought in Mo Egger, longtime Cincinnati sports talk show host at 700 WLW and ESPN1530. We break down the four choices, the toughest decisions, the other candidates and Egger's off-the-radar choice for who would be his fourth member of a potential four-person Ring of Honor class.

Also, hear portions of past conversations with Johnson and Carson Palmer talking about the role Johnson played in the success or the mid-2000s Bengals' resurgence.

Here are a few of the highlights from the conversation with Mo Egger with links to listen to the full conversation below.

Egger on what put Chad Johnson over the top as a selection for him: 

“There are a lot of people who get hung up on how it ended. There are a lot of people who don’t want to give him his due for what he was as a player. First of all, as a player from 2003-08, he was marvelous. Forget all the other stuff. He was fantastic. Was he ever the best WR in the game? Maybe not. But for about a five-year stretch there weren’t many better. So there is what he means statically. There is a period of time from 03-06, that was a really fun, enjoyable revival of the franchise and the face of that was Chad Johnson. He made the Bengals cool again. He owned this city. In the last 25 years you can throw at me any Cincinnati Red, coach, Bengal you want, I haven’t seen anybody own a city the way Chad Johnson did in 2003, 04, 05."

Carson Palmer on Chad Johnson fueling the organization’s belief in itself: 

"The beginning of training camp Chad had guaranteed we’d make the playoffs. I remember everybody was so taken back by it. There was so much talk of him saying that. I remember at the time thinking all he’s talking about is making the playoffs. There’s a bunch of teams that make the playoffs. That’s not that big of a statement, but then and there it was such a big deal he had made that statement and guarantee. From the outside it was so shocking, but I think everybody on the team was saying yeah, as long as we go win 10,11,12 games we’ll be in. From an outsiders perspective, everybody was so taken back by him saying that but within the team people thought we probably should.

"Those expectations and that kind of talk at the time only came from the players and was only expected by the players. I don’t think the organization or anybody else there had that kind of feeling. If we didn’t feel like that as players nobody else did. It was good for Chad to come out and say that because the players felt that but the only place you felt it was from the actual players."

WAYS TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST: