OCHO UPDATE: As far as his mentor can tell, wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is in his best shape since '05.
Exhibit A is his 195 pounds and not the 178 he brought into camp last year "because he didn't do a damn thing," says Charles Collins.
Exhibit B is the series of four "paced" 40-yard dashes of under 4.5 seconds in two-minute intervals.
Collins, his junior college position coach who worked with the Bengals receivers last season, took a call from Ochocinco on Friday and when he came back on the line he said, "That's a perfect example of what I mean."
He said The Ocho had just finished lifting in an 8:30 a.m. session and was checking to make sure the 11:30 a.m. run up Sand Hill was still on.
"This is the Bear Day. This is a bear. We run up the hill a couple of times. It's hard to do without stopping. Yeah, it's on the beach but it's 120 meters straight up with a 60-degree grade," Collins said.
But The Ocho apparently still isn't taking calls from the 513 area code. Or at least from Paul Brown Stadium. Collins said he expects Ochocinco to stay in Los Angeles working out with him for the next two weeks before reporting to PBS for the June 18-20 mandatory minicamp.
As good as he reportedly looks, The Ocho is still under the radar in these parts while players and coaches go about their business as if he's not in their plans.
"He's at the point where he thinks he has to be here to get his mojo back," Collins said. "If he was in Cincinnati practicing, it would be good, of course. But he feels like in order to get back to where he was, he's got to focus on those things. When he gets to the minicamp, he wants to show people that he's ready to play."
And Collins insists Ochocinco understands that he's playing for the Bengals and says he's excited about the moves that have been made.
"He hasn't been talking to anybody, but he's fired up about it," Collins said. "I just think he's past the talking. We've said when we go in there, we're not going to talk, we're going to play."
Collins also insists Ochocinco still has the passion to play and understands that at age 31 he can't do what he did to his body last offseason and let it go.
"To go from one of the top five receivers in the league to 65 in the league hurt him," Collins said. "He felt that, and he wants to get back. I told him he had to get back and do the things he was doing before Ochocinco and all that other crap."
But that still doesn't solve the timing issues with his quarterback and a playbook that underwent a lot of fine tuning during the offseason. But Collins says he's "80-90 percent back" to his peak form. The ankle that bothered him all last offseason and the one waited to have scoped just before training camp looks to be fully healed.
"He's able to stick his foot in the ground and go. From what I can see he's got that great first step back," Collins said. "I think what he needs to do is get back to some of the techniques and work on the fundaments that he got away from. A lot of it is the mental part of it. But I think he's getting ready to have a really good year. He's getting in and out his breaks and he's working on catching the long ball. His times in the 40 show he's strong and has got endurance."
