BATTLE OF OHIO Bengals' receiver confident his team will win

Chad Johnson's guaranteed win is on the bulletin boards in the Cleveland Browns locker room.
BEREA (AP) -- First, coach Dick LeBeau. Now, wide receiver Chad Johnson.
Give the lowly Cincinnati Bengals credit for one thing: Nobody in the NFL is as proficient at guaranteeing victories.
Johnson, the club's biggest and brashest talker, followed LeBeau's lead from earlier this season by saying the Bengals (1-8) will beat the Cleveland Browns this Sunday.
Guaranteed.
"It has nothing to do with Cleveland at all," Johnson said. "They just happen to be the team we're playing. We're going to win. I'm guaranteeing it."
Not surprisingly, Johnson's bold remarks were highlighted and circled with an orange marker and posted on a bulletin board in the Browns' locker room on Wednesday.
Comedic adventures
"It's funny," safety Devin Bush said. "What's he got to lose? If they win, it'll be that he guaranteed it. If they lose, it'll be big deal they lost. It's comedy."
Johnson is 1-0 so far as a prognosticator. After the Bengals' 30-24 loss to Tennessee on Oct. 27, LeBeau immediately predicted that his team -- then 0-7 -- would win the following week against the expansion Houston Texans.
Johnson not only backed up his coach, he took it a step farther with a guarantee that fired the Texans up so much that they went out and played their worst game of the season.
Cincinnati's 38-3 win was its most lopsided victory since 1989.
The Browns (4-5) are one of 14 AFC teams fighting for six playoff spots and can't afford a letdown against the Bengals.
Johnson's prediction won't make Cleveland's players any more inspired than they are already. And the Browns don't plan to counter Johnson's guarantee with one of their own.
Expected from Floridian
"It's nonsense talk," said cornerback Corey Fuller, the Browns' answer to Johnson in verbosity. "You shouldn't need motivation to do your job anyway. We need to win because we're trying to get to the playoffs.
"What sense does it make for me to take shots at a team that's 1-8."
Johnson's confidence is sky-high following his first 100-yard receiving game last week against Baltimore, and Fuller guessed that may be why the Miami native is sounding off.
"He's been playing good the past three weeks," Fuller said. "He didn't say it before the first [Browns-Bengals] game. He didn't say it when he wasn't starting. He's a good player. Plus, he's from Florida so you expect it from a lot of us."
The Browns have been through this prediction stuff before.
Before playing unbeaten St. Louis in 1999, Cleveland wide receiver Kevin Johnson -- then a rookie -- predicted the Browns would get their first win as an expansion team by beating the Rams.
Final score: St. Louis 34, Cleveland 3.