Whenever the possibility of trading Chad Johnson comes up, Mark Curnutte of the Cincinnati Enquirer crows about the supposedly crippling cap hit that the Bengals would take if they were to trade or release Johnson.

Again on Wednesday, Curnutte asserts that “the club can simply not afford to trade the wide receiver or terminate his contract.”

Curnutte continues to point to an $8 million cap hit that the Bengals would take.  But Curnutte also continues to minimize and/or overlook a couple of key facts.

First, the June 1 rule permits the cap charge to be spread over two seasons.  If Johnson is traded or released after June 1, the dead money in 2008 will be considerably smaller, apparently in the neighborhood of $3 million.  He also can be cut now, with the move designated as a post-June 1 transaction. 

Second, since the Bengals would avoid Johnson’s $3 million base salary for 2008 (and his $250,000 workout bonus, which they’ve presumably already been relieved from paying due to his failure to report for voluntary offseason workouts), it’s a wash in 2008 dollars.

Third, any cap hit in 2009 would be offset by $4.75 million in salary and workout bonus that the Bengals wouldn’t have to pay to Johnson next year.

Third, Curnutte makes his claims without setting forth any facts regarding the team’s projected cap situation in 2009, when the maximum per-team spending limit is virtually certain to increase by another $7 million or more, exceeding $120 million for the first time.  So what’s $5 million or so in dead money, especially when $4.75 million or so in new money wouldn’t be paid to a guy with a stick in his butt?

Remember this — we’re talking about the Bengals.  Mike Brown is one of those owners who would be happy to operate without a salary cap because there likewise would be no salary floor.  Cutting or trading Johnson means in essence that the Bengals get extra credit toward the salary floor without spending any more money.

Our guess in this regard is that the Bengals are privately using the cap hit to help sell their decision to the fan base to dig in their heels and not trade Johnson, even if at some point it’s in the team’s best short-term and long-term interests to do so. 

Sooner or later, the fans are going to demand that something be done; we think the Bengals are trying to head that off by floating a specious argument based on financial realities that in reality inure to the benefit of the chronically frugal franchise.