MORE DRAFT NEWS: Bengals Draft Central 2006 * * *
Posted: 12:10 p.m.
 Joseph |
"He called me and I didn't recognize the number so he called again, I didn't recognize it again so I called him back," said Joseph, who asked who it was.
"It's 85," Johnson said, and the Pro Bowl wide receiver was on his way to meet Joseph at the Millennium Hotel to give him a tour of his new city.
"When I got the phone call, it just kind of lit me up," Joseph said during the first-rounder's introductory news conference at Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday. "I enjoyed the conversation and the time I spent with him."
Johnson, who told Joseph he has already watched tape of him, wanted Joseph to put on the cleats right then and there and "go at it a little bit."
"Absolutely, I'm looking forward to it," said Joseph of the daily trash talking Johnson heaps on the cornerbacks. "I know he can make me a better player. Him. T.J (Houshmandzadeh), Chris Henry as well. Chad's a guy that's going to come at you all the time and give you his best shot."
In between the Chad Tour, Joseph also spoke to Houshmandzadeh on the phone as the Bengals wideouts rolled out the Welcome Wagon in their next victim in the war on words.
Joseph sounds like the complete opposite. A soft-spoken, small-town guy from Rock Hill, S.C. How small town?
"It's a big city, I didn't think it was that big," he said of Cincinnati. "My coach said it's a little bigger than Charlotte, and Charlotte is good-sized."
Joseph also toured the Bengals draft room during the third round Saturday night and, yes, Bengals president Mike Brown asked for a scouting report on teammate Ko Simpson, a safety. Joseph gave him the thumbs-up ("Great guy. Like a brother to me," he said.), but Simpson went early in the fourth round.
