ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reports that Bengals receiver Chad Johnson might sit out for the entire 2008 season if he is not traded by the team.

Per Mort, Johnson is upset by, among other things, the fact that coach Marvin Lewis hasn’t spoken to him for several months. 

And while some believe that Johnson was only kidding as he went from radio station to radio station last week to muse about playing in the city that each station serves, we think that the notion that it all was a joke is a lame effort to try to cram a fat-assed genie back into one of those mini-bar bottles of booze.

As a league source has explained it to us, Johnson definitely wants out of Cincinnati.  But the plan is (was) to not go public with the matter, and to try to finesse a trade behind the scenes.  Johnson, in our view, erred badly by wearing his emotions on his shirt more visibly than a heavy white dose of that Degree antiperspirant he was pimping all week in Phoenix.

Also, we’ve been told that the Bengals won’t budge and that, if Johnson wants to sit, they’ll let him.

So even though the plan might be to avoid another T.O. spectacle, we think that Johnson won’t be able to stop himself from creating a spectacle that could in the end be even bigger than the Owens mess.