As the tug-o-war between the Cincinnati Bengals and receiver Chad Johnson continues with the piece of the rope with the strip of an old T-shirt tied around it not moving from the midpoint between the two sides, the Bengals have scored a major victory among the other players on the team.

Per a league source, coach Marvin Lewis won back the locker room with his Tuesday verbal bitch-slapping of Johnson.

“He’s stated without an opportunity to go to a different team and a new contract, he wasn’t going to play,” Lewis said to the media two days ago.  “I think he’s a man of his word.  He says he’s not going to play, so don’t play.”

It’s a significant development for Lewis, who had gradually squandered the support of the other players by coddling Chad.  The low point came in January 2006, when Lewis did nothing in response to Johnson’s halftime meltdown in the locker room.

Regardless of whether Johnson punched Lewis or receivers coach Hue Jackson or Johnson had Jackson in a headlock or Jackson had Johnson in a headlock or the Iron Sheik had Hacksaw Jim Duggan in a sleeper hold, the incident marred the twelve-minute intermission of a playoff game that the Bengals were leading at the end of the second quarter, preventing the team from maximizing the available time to make adjustments aimed at also leading the game at the end of the fourth.

Per the source, one player’s reaction was that Lewis should have gone even farther.  “He should have told Chad that he’d pack up his stuff and send it to him,” the player said, “or that he’d just go ahead and send it all to Canton.”