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Cinco de Why-o

    by BOB FORD
    Published 

Is it a rule, is it written somewhere, that if you are an elite wide receiver in the NFL -- or at least one rumored to be possibly, potentially, maybe joining the Eagles -- you also have to be nuts?

Or does it just seem that way.

We have no sooner gotten past the Plaxico-to-Eagles rumors (as opposed to the Plaxico-to-Attica rumors), have barely finished scraping the Terrell Owens residue from the clubhouse walls, and now we're supposed to hop up and down because Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson might be interested in joining the Eagles?

I don't think so.

The Eagles have a bunch of things they will have to deal with before the 2009 season begins, from a front office point of view. They're going to have to finesse the whole Donovan contract thing, which may exhaust their Distractions-R-Us patience.

Adding the Cinco man -- who has skipped the Cincinnati voluntary workouts for the second straight year -- sounds like about as much fun as spending time in a Waco motel.

Chad is 31 years old and is coming off his least productive season as a professional. Not having Carson Palmer to throw him the ball most of the season didn't help, of course, but Ryan Fitzpatrick wasn't that bad.

The idea behind trading for Johnson/Cinco -- upgrading the Eagles receivers -- is fine. But is the team really going to add a potentially disruptive force for short-term gain? The Eagles have tried that before and didn't much like it. They know that sometimes good intentions can go awry.

As for giving up anything like one of the first-round picks to get Chad, that's out of the question. Maybe the Eagles are hearing that McNabb would like to have him on the team. Maybe they are hearing it directly from McNabb. Maybe they are hearing it in a typical passive-aggressive manner from the quarterback's media moles. Maybe they have to play along with the rumors to keep things from bubbling over so early in the going.

Whatever the case, this should be a story headed nowhere, at least until the next prima donna, underappreciated, over-egoed wide receiver comes along.