Warm-hearted team axes cold truth
December 20, 2006
BY RICK TELANDER Sun-Times Columnist
Hey, don't we now know who the greatest, most forgiving, most caring, most huggy-buggy employer in the whole wide world is?
The CHICAGO BEARS!
Yay!
You thought Terry ''Trouble'' Johnson, the Bears dog-baiting, gun-loving, disco-hopping, pot-smoking, arrest-happy defensive tackle was going to get tossed out into the cold, cold world just as Christmas beckons?
Just because he has been arrested three times in the last year?
Just because he has shown the judgment, moral fiber and discipline of a gangsta rapper?
Just because his best friend/ thug/ex-con ''bodyguard'' Willie B. Posey was iced at Ice Bar early Saturday morning while Johnson shimmied on the dance floor?
Just because Johnson is an embarrassment to any parent anywhere who ever has told his or her kids that pro athletes are people to look up to?
No, no, no!
The Bears are not a bottom-line, cold-blooded, billion-dollar company with a monopoly franchise in the NFL.
They are the Salvation Army in hardhats! They are here to help.
''When you're talking about a person's life and their livelihood, you take that very seriously, and you take time,'' Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said at Halas Hall on Tuesday.
It's simple: Defense needs Tank
He was explaining why the Bears, who crow constantly about the ''character'' of their players, didn't dump Johnson immediately after he was arrested for possessing six unlicensed guns Thursday and then went carousing on fatal Friday.
He was explaining why the Bears were going to ''work with'' Johnson, and only suspend him for a single game (if you can call a contest against the Detroit Lions a game).
''Collectively, as an organization -- ownership, coaches, players, myself -- we all agreed the right thing to do was keep Tank and keep working with him,'' Angelo continued.
You may have yearned for the GM to have spoken, just once, the never-uttered truth: This is a crazy game, and we'll stock our team with serial killers if they can help us win.
Critics point to the way the Philadelphia Eagles suspended nutcase-star Terrell Owens in the 2005 season as an example of proper management discipline.
But Owens was a pain in the butt to his own team, to his own quarterback, Donovan McNabb.
''Trouble'' Johnson fills in too nicely for the injured-for-the-year Tommie Harris to be cut adrift.
Indeed, dump him now, and the Bears get nothing in return on their second draft pick of the 2004 draft.
And, by golly, didn't the miserable Tampa Bay Buccaneers move up and down the field Sunday at Soldier Field with no Tank in the trough?
Hmm, it could be the Bears really need this guy for a Super Bowl run.
And he'll do just fine at a position likened to a that of a human fire hydrant, to a man in de-evolution, where the basic instruction is, ''Stay in your gap and hurt somebody!''
It may lightly nauseate folks who watched coach Lovie Smith and Angelo become all stern and cautionary a couple days ago when they clucked mightily about miscreant Johnson and the moral low road.
''There comes a point where you draw the line and you say, no more,'' said Lovie ominously.
But Tank Johnson is nowhere close.
This is about reclamation and soul-saving, not crime and punishment.
This is about love and, as Angelo said, ''silver linings,'' not crime and waivers.
''The playoffs were never brought up,'' said Angelo of the Tank talks.
Apparently, only feelings and ''messages'' and big hugs came up.
It may be sadly cynical to point out, but Posey's untimely demise while ''protecting'' the 300-pound Johnson as the player boogied on the Ice Bar floor may have solved a major PR problem for the Bears.
It makes Johnson a sympathetic figure who is grieving for his ''best friend,'' and it nicely resolves the sticky felon-hanger-on issue.
Oh, did you know the Bears, like every team in the league, care mainly about perception, not reality?
You don't hear a lot of empathy from the Bears when they cut lesser players willy-nilly and end their careers and mess with their lives, do you?
Also, here's how long Tank Johnson's NFL career would have been over -- until one of the 31 remaining teams picked him up.
How nice -- it's all about family
But the point has been made -- and it's good that is has been -- for those of you who still believe Santa Claus slides down chimneys and coaches and GMs don't lie.
Tank Johnson himself stood at the rostrum Thursday and said he was consumed with self-help issues like ''the things I want to accomplish'' and ''decisions'' and ''actions'' and ''improvements'' and ''love'' and ''support.''
If Dr. Phil and Oprah and Bruno Bettelheim could have been there, a group fleshpile of forgiveness and joy might have spontaneously broken out.
''We're doing very good because we're a tight-knit family,'' Johnson said of the Bears and his own sincere self.
''We're not looking for perfection,'' said Angelo. ''We're looking for progress.''
You see, even five unregistered guns is an improvement on six.
Letters to our sports columnists appear Sunday. Send e-mail to
[email protected]. Include your full name, hometown and a daytime phone number.
