Gregg Doyel

Remember when wide receivers used to be tough guys? They bitched, they moaned, they threatened to hold out. They made life miserable for everyone around them. They were complete and total jerks, but they had a hardness to them that had to be respected.

Now these guys are soft. Wusses. Embarrassing.

First you had Chad Johnson vowing never to play again for the Bengals, but he showed up for team activities earlier this summer and he is expected on the field for training camp as soon as his ankle heals.

Now we've got Chicago's Devin Hester getting headlines on Thursday for holding out in a huff over his relatively meager salary, and then reporting to camp one day later.

If Hester signed a contract -- if his muscle tactics worked on the Bears -- I take it back, and I devote this entire post to The Gelding Formerly Known As Chad Johnson.

But if Hester is back without a contract -- which means he caved even more quickly than Chad Johnson -- I hereby declare this a trend, and I hereby classify the NFL receiver as an invertebrate.

First of all, I'll be blogging more often. That's a threat promise. I'm motivated to get back into it, plus my boss is forcing me. That's a joke. Which part is the joke? You figure it out.

Second, Matt Jones is my new hero. He's my hero because he reminds me and all of us that the wide receiver position, known for its insufferable prima donnas, isn't as infected as we all want to believe. I mean, Chad Johnson is no treasure. Neither are Terrell Owens, Plaxico Burress and Jerry Porter.

But they're not criminals. They're just jerks.

Matt Jones reminds us that, in the grand scheme of things, a person can do worse than be a jerk. He can snort his underachieving career away. Allegedly.

After wasting his time in the offseason last year, Reggie Bush vows to come into camp a better player this time around. He also says he will try to match the city's other young sports star, Chris Paul. Maybe Bush should aim a little lower. Try to match, say, Bonzi Wells.

The worship of Brett Favre has become almost sickening.

Chad Johnson is crossing the line from flake to genuine bad guy. (Bad guy as in "Terrell Owens," not bad guy as in "homocidal criminal.") For kicks, check out the pompous "no comment" left by Drew Rosenhaus via text message.

Get on the bandwagon now: Dan Uggla for the Hall of Fame. The one in Cooperstown. No, really.

The Red Sox and A's get an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan to open the season, and as an added bonus they get $40,000 each? Good grief. There is such a disconnect between real life and the life of a big-leaguer. Not sure if I'm jealous, or just plain pissed off.

You know what? At the time it happened, I was thinking the same thing this angry columnist in Utah writes about Derek Fisher: He used his daughter's cancer to get out of Utah and re-join the Lakers.

That Ultimate Fighter knucklehead Jon Koppenhaver -- aka War Machine -- has himself a new fight. If it's half as entertaining as his fight against Jared Rollins, I can't wait to see it.