Grief-Stricken Bengals Fall in San Diego

SAN DIEGO -- Much of Chad Ochocinco's media-savvy life is carefully crafted for maximum exposure. Sunday was not. Sunday, the actions and emotions were spontaneous. The Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver did not wear his friend Chris Henry's jersey onto the field at Qualcomm Stadium, but he took a piece of his late teammate's soul with him.

He hung the No. 15 jersey in a locker stall next to his. A "15" nameplate appeared above the empty locker.

"Surreal," Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer called the past few days.

There is no script for how NFL teammates should act and react after a teammate suddenly dies. Henry, 26 and still finding his way in life after years of wrong turns, fell out of the bed of a moving pickup truck driven by his fianceé last Wednesday. Police described the incident in Charlotte, N.C., as a domestic dispute. He sustained catastrophic injuries.

Henry, on life support, died early Thursday, leaving behind three children, a shattered family and teammates, and an NFL fraternity shaken to its core.

On a team wracked by grief, Ochocinco was the most visibly crushed. He wept at his locker last Thursday, then poured out his heart on emotional UStream videos. And Ochocinco made certain that Henry would be remembered on Sunday.

It was a heavy burden, and uplifting at the same time, acting in memoriam while trying to win an important game. So it was no wonder that when Ochocinco slipped past the Chargers' man coverage and caught a 49-yard touchdown pass from Palmer in the second quarter of what would be a taut 27-24 San Diego victory, the NFL's most charismatic player reacted in the end zone.

He dropped to his knee and put his hands to the sky. He seemed to be speaking. Was he calling out to Henry, the troubled young receiver Ochocinco tried to mentor the past five years, all for naught?

" 'Slim.' That's it," Ochocinco said with a smile, recalling his favorite nickname for Henry. "Eighty-five (Ochocinco's number) plus 15 will always be 100 ways to be great. I just kept saying it over and over. It's a little thing we had, and we just used to say it all the time. So I said it over and over and over."

There was no agenda. "You don't plan that. You can't plan that," Ochocinco said softly.

On the sideline a minute later, the grief overwhelmed the surviving member of what was a caring receiver and brotherhood tandem. Ultimately, No. 85 was all alone in his celebration. Henry lies many miles away, awaiting his burial on Tuesday at a funeral service near downtown New Orleans.

So Ochocinco buried his face in a towel and sobbed.

In what was a magnificent back-and-forth game between playoff contenders on a day filled with great finishes, the AFC North-leading Bengals (9-5) trailed 14-13 at the half, only to see the AFC West-champion Chargers (11-3) -- winners of nine in row -- score 10 unanswered points in the third quarter.

But Cincinnati, on track for only its second playoff appearance in the last 19 years, played inspired football in the fourth quarter. Palmer threw the ball 40 times in the game for 314 yards -- the first 300-yard passing game for the Bengals in their last 30 contests. He tossed a 2-yard scoring pass to Laveranues Coles with 12:37 remaining, and Palmer ran in the conversion to cut San Diego's lead to 24-21.

A 34-yard Shayne Graham field goal made it 24-24 with 54 seconds left.

But Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, who passed for 308 yards and three touchdowns and has engineered three fourth-quarter comebacks this season, expertly moved his team to within Nate Kaeding's range. A 52-yard field goal with three seconds remaining won it for a San Diego team within a fingertip's reach of the AFC's No. 2 seed.

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, whose team has now lost to the AFC West's Chargers, Broncos and Raiders this season, was clearly upset afterward. Asked if he was proud of his team's performance considering the emotions of the past few days, Lewis scowled.

"Well, they played football and we didn't win," he said curtly. "We're not taking satisfaction in not winning."

Ochocinco, who caught three passes for 79 yards and the touchdown and also had a 26-yard run, wanted desperately to salute Henry by wearing his teammate's No. 15 jersey onto the field at San Diego, as he had done in practice on Thursday and Friday. But the NFL, which already has fined him six figures for various stunts this season, said it would penalize Ochocinco with another fine if he violated league policy again by wearing the Henry uniform on game day.

"You had certain media types that had the nerve to say I was making the situation about me," Ochocinco said of his decision to forgo the jersey tribute in a game with enormous playoff implications. "And when I hear something like that, to hear the NFL say they would still fine me for a situation like this ... are you serious?

"So now it's not becoming me doing everything I can for people to remember [Henry]. Everybody grieves in a different way. My way would have been out there wearing that jersey. Because I know if I was gone, 'Slim' would have had on that '85' today. Regardless. Trust me.

"But when it turned into a negative -- and it could have been a negative, and if I would have worn it today it would have been spun into a negative -- that's why I had to backtrack. Slim wouldn't have wanted that. He wanted me to play. So I went out and played, with an extra set of hands, an extra set of legs and an extra heart."

Early Sunday, the social media maven was up at 4:30 a.m. PT, on Twitter, tweeting raw emotion.

"I was nervous. Really, really, really nervous today. I usually have butterflies before a game but today, it felt ... different. It felt different," said Ochocinco, describing how he felt on the field. "That's about it. It's sort of like a little empty feeling.

"And I don't think a lot of people understand -- as I talked about wearing the jersey and things that people on the outside didn't understand, it was bigger than football. It was bigger than football with me and him. That relationship like (former Bengals receiver) T.J. [Houshmandzadeh] and I had, it was ... I can't even explain it. It's hard.

"When you have somebody like [Henry] that you take under your wing for five years, and you see them hit that turn and turn the right way ... you all already know the story. It's just hard. Like a brother."

Ochocinco is not the only Bengals player feeling that sense of loss and sorrow.

"I almost don't believe it (Henry's death) until I see him on Tuesday," said Palmer, who will be among a contingent of Bengals who will pay respects at the funeral at the Alario Center, the practice center for the NBA's Hornets near downtown New Orleans. "I think it will really hit home for myself and a number of the other guys.

"Because you're so far away from it, your mind doesn't really grasp the situation. Until Tuesday, when we go to New Orleans and pay our respects to his family and Chris and the life he lived, I think that's when it will hit home, at least for me."