Ochocinco stops joking long enough to praise Tillman

Chad Ochocinco has been tweeting up a storm this week but he put the kidding aside Wednesday morning in an entertaining conference call with reporters. He’s seen Charles Tillman do a pretty good job the last games on Atlanta’s Roddy White and Detroit’s Calvin Johnson.

The Bears were burned by Johnson in the first half of the Lions’ game, and coach Lovie Smith made a halftime adjustment having Tillman shadow him on the field where he went. Johnson had three catches for 14 yards, and Tillman followed it up Sunday night in the Georgia Dome against White, who had four catches for 56 yards. White scored on a bubble screen that went 40 yards, and Tillman was wiped out by tight end Tony Gonzalez on the play.

“Beautiful. Beautiful,” Ochocinco said when asked about Tillman. “I’ve been studying film on Peanut since training camp actually. I got some of the film that I could from when he played before and watched some of the things he does. He’s really, really good, man. I know I’ve been playing around on Twitter and going back and forth with the nonsense–it’s the way I play the game–but he looks really good and he’s put up some shut-downs on some pretty good top receivers, so it’s going to be a fun, interesting matchup come Sunday.”

Ochocinco, who called out the secondary in a playful way on Twitter, said the Bears will be kissing the baby from the moment the whistle blows. He’s got an end zone celebration planned for the game, too. When he was known as Chad Johnson, he scored two touchdowns vs. the Bears at Soldier Field in 2005, doing his take on Michael Flatley’s Riverdance. That was at a time when Brian Urlacher was embroiled in a dispute with Tyna Robertson, the mother of his son. Robertson had falsely accused Flatley of rape, and he won a successful lawsuit against her. He said he’s not going to repeat a dance he’s already done.

“A very good friend of mine, Ronaldinho, I’m thinking about doing the Samba this week,” Ochocinco said. “Courtesy of my friend Ronaldinho.”

Ochocinco also extended a Saturday lunch invitation to the Score’s Zach Zaidman, also the WBBM sideline reporter.

“If he tweets me once he gets here, we’ll go to McDonalds,” Ochocinco said. “Tell Johnny Knox I’m looking forward to meeting him. I like his game most definitely.”

We’ll deliver the message to Knox when we see him. Zaidman should hold out for a trip to Skyline chili.