Though some members of PFT Planet are questioning the legitimacy of receiver Chad Johnson’s ankle injury, which reportedly kept him from practicing at a Bengals’ mandatory minicamp on Thursday, the team is supporting the notion that Chad is injured.

Coach Marvin Lewis said on Thursday that Johnson didn’t practice because of an undisclosed ailment.

It hardly means that the atmosphere between Johnson and his teammates is positive.  Said quarterback Carson Palmer on Thursday, “I think everybody in here is probably sick of hearing about him.  Everybody out there sick about hearing about him.  I’m not going to talk about him, I’ll talk about other guys.”

Meanwhile, why was the question of whether Johnson was going to show up for mandatory minicamp even an issue, if he’s unable to participate in practice there?  As one reader suggested in a comment to a prior story, Johnson likely would be fully participating in any and all offseason workouts if he had been traded to a new team.