Snark Sharks

Eight Five gives teammate crazy juice

By now you all know that the receiver formerly known as Chad Johnson has legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco, which literally translates into Chad Eight Five. Had Chad wanted to reflect his uniform #85 in Spanish he should have chosen Ochenta y Cinco but whatever. Senor Loco doesn’t have time for petty details. See, Chad Eight Five speaks of a renewed commitment to the Cincinnati Bengals (no, really) and credits former murder suspect Ray Lewis, linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, as his mentor in finding focus.

Mr. Eight Five is an odd bird. Talented (last year a then Chad Johnson had 93 catches for 1,440 yards), disgruntled (he has consistently nagged the Bengal front office for a trade, his latest coming not more than a month ago) and flamboyant (Eight Five’s every stretch, catch, breath and thought is accompanied by a choreographed song and dance) the mercurial and moody receiver even topped the Snark pre-season Diva-Ceiver poll (shameless plug) for his lifetime achievement in driving teammates, head coaches and opponents delirious.

But now Eight Five is convinced he has found his calling. It just happened to come via the live wire that is Ray Lewis who was once under investigation for two murders that took place in Atlanta after Super Bowl XXXIV in which Lewis is reported to have been involved in the melee that resulted in the deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis accepted a plea bargain and served a one-year probation and a fine of $250,000 from the NFL for his “innocence”.

Ray the Redeemer

Lewis claims to have found god (he won’t say where) and now before games he anoints certain players with the sign of the cross on their foreheads though FBI agents believe this is an indication that the marked player should watch his back. Bengal coach Marv Lewis, ring leader of the parole circus that is the Cincinnati pro football team (10 arrests in a 14-month span), asked the Reverend Ray to perform an intervention with Eight Five to see if he couldn’t get the bag of nuts with the Dennis Rodman hair cuts and personality disorders, back on track. And voila, after a brief chat probably reminiscent of the Godfather Eight Five is a happy camper and ready to focus all his insanity on the snake-bit Bengals.

Why Lewis would help Eight Five is a mystery. Eight Five’s Bengals are a division opponent of Lewis’ Ravens so this could all be a ruse to eventually have Eight Five demand a trade to Baltimore where he can repay the Lewis favor, should that day ever come, by performing live Karaoke at Lewis’ Full Moon Bar-B-Que located in the Canton section of Baltimore.

But for now Lewis’ saving grace has reunited the tandem of Eight Five and the 5-time arrested problem child WR Chris Henry who was released by the Bengals due to their new zero-tolerance policy and was then brought back under the even more new zero-integrity policy that just happened to coincide with injuries to Eight Five and fellow Bengal receiver T. J. Houshmandzadeh.

Perhaps Eight Five is really happy now and everything in the Queen City will be guns n’ roses. But rumor has it Eight Five is already filing the necessary paperwork to have his last name changed again to either “Owens-Moss”, “Yo La Tengo”, “Chadly”, “Taco B Amigo” or “Eight Six”.