T.J. Watch, Day 2

It’s all T.J. Houshmandzadeh all the time right now as fans around the league wait to see if the Cincinnati Bengals slap the franchise tag on the player most view as the potential top wideout in free agency this year. Said Housh, “I can’t speak for them but I haven’t heard from them which would lead me to assume that I’m out of there,” but he also noted yesterday that, if the Bengals do use the tag, he doesn’t expect that they would do it before the Feb. 19 deadline.

If the Bengals do let T.J. walk, it will undoubtedly go down in the books as yet another bungled personnel move by the Cincinnati front office. If Houshmandzadeh didn’t figure in their plans for 2009 — and spending second- and third-round picks on wide receivers last April certainly suggested a changing of the guard was on the horizon — then T.J. should have been moved last year. San Francisco was rumored to be interested in him, and had the Bengals indicated any willingness to listen to trade offers, there almost certainly would have been more. Instead the Bengals get nothing, except perhaps a comp pick in 2010.

Likewise, it doesn’t appear that there’s much of a trade market for Chad Johnson this time around, even though the scuttlebutt has been that Cincinnati is willing to give him up for a “friendlier price” than last year, when the front office turned down an offer of one first round pick and a conditional third that could escalate to a first. Yet another opportunity squandered.

And they pulled a Housh back in 2006, when it was clear G Eric Steinbach wasn’t in their plans beyond the season. Instead of inserting ’06 second-round pick Andrew Whitworth and getting some value for Steinbach in a trade, they hung on to Eric for the season and let him walk — to division rival Cleveland, no less — the following March.

Look, I understand that the NFL isn’t fantasy football and trades are a lot more rare in the real league compared to the fake ones. But they do happen. And the Bengals have had (at least) these three opportunities since 2006 to get something for players who are obviously checking out (physically or mentally). They have to do better.

Tags: Cincinnati Bengals, TJ Houshmandzadeh