Cry not for Tank Johnson.
When the NFL assesses the six- or eight-game suspension that is expected Monday, Johnson will get what he deserves in accordance with the league’s new tough-on-crime policy, and Commissioner Roger Goodell should receive credit for reaching a reasonable compromise. It’s fair.
A suspension of more than eight games would be too severe for a player who already has spent 60 days in jail. Fewer than six would have been caving in rather than cracking down by the commish. Now Goodell can call the penalty stiff without robbing Johnson of the chance to still contribute to the Bears’ season.
Not only can Johnson play a significant role for the defense after returning, but his absence could increase his perceived value to the team and enhance his career as well.
Forget the lost wages approaching $200,000 in the game checks Johnson will forfeit. He stands to make up that and more when it comes time to negotiate his next Bears contract, which could come shortly after next season ends.
Johnson’s modest contract paying him $548,000 runs out in 2008. But he can put himself near the front of the line for an extension next off-season if he simply shows flashes in the second half that prove his play on the field is worth the high maintenance off of it.
In theory, the layoff only will make Johnson more durable for the stretch run and more marketable heading into an incentive-laden, contract-drive season of 2008. Even if the Bears have locked up Tommie Harris by then, which is likely, they might decide before the ’08 season that it makes sense to re-up Johnson, too, to retain a defensive tackle tandem that could be one of the NFC’s best for years.
Nobody really is thinking about Johnson’s long-term future now, but consider how this enforced vacation could be one of the best things that ever happened to Johnson as an NFL breadwinner. The suspension generally will cut in half his chance of getting injured next season, and he won’t lose his spot in the rotation because no NFL team ever has enough disruptive defensive tackles. Cynically, it also reduces his opportunities to have flaws exposed.
In a half-season in 2007, Johnson can make a half-dozen big plays that make the Bears deem him worth keeping rather than risk losing him to free agency after ’08. In the odd equation that is the NFL salary calculator, teams often award contracts based on potential more than production. If you don’t believe that, you never have heard of the NFL draft or free agency.
Look at how Johnson already has grown in stature since his arrest Dec. 14 set off a tragic chain of events that will culminate with the suspension. Just three nights before police raided his Gurnee home, Johnson completed his best game of the season, against the St. Louis Rams. Johnson smiled afterward as he called occupying two Rams blockers because of Harris’ absence something that showed he was “finally getting respect.” In the eyes of the league, he had arrived.
That respect was harder to detect when Johnson returned to the lineup, especially when Colts running backs frolicked through the Bears’ defensive line in the Super Bowl in Miami like partyers on South Beach. The Johnson who played in the postseason didn’t threaten to dominate stretches of a game as he had before his arrest.
But with closure complete on all legal matters, seeing a focused, recharged Johnson sounds like a reasonable expectation given what he now has to gain and lose. The Bears have based more than a couple of front-office reputations on Johnson staying out of trouble. If a shot at redemption doesn’t provide enough motivation for him to play well, the chance to cash in should.
Teams overpay for defensive tackles if they need them badly enough. Denver signed free agent Alvin McKinley to a four-year, $8 million deal last spring. He’s 29 with nine sacks in seven NFL seasons. Miami paid $10 million in bonuses to keep Vonnie Holliday, who has been productive but will turn 32 next season. Those are just two examples. Johnson is 25 and the NFL just made it a little easier for him to stay young next season, his fourth.
His absence also gives the Bears an opportunity to develop Dusty Dvoracek on the job against three of the NFL’s best running teams to start the season, reality that bothers nobody at Halas Hall. Part of the team’s willingness to let veteran Ian Scott go for a pittance to the Philadelphia Eagles — which looks like a mistake from this seat — centered on the belief in backups Dvoracek and Antonio Garay.
Learn how to spell their names, Bears fans; you either will read about them a lot if they are as good as the team says or type them into your favorite message board on a list of ’07 busts. If newcomer Anthony Adams, signed as insurance for Johnson and Harris’ hamstring, wants to avoid being on that list he might have to get in better shape than he looked at the most recent mini-camp.
Johnson has a ways to go, too, but at least he has the excuse of living off the Cook County Jail menu and assorted goodies for two months. We won’t go into the details of his diet because unless he was eating fried cicadas, it hardly seems newsworthy.
The bigger point is that Johnson now has until October to get into shape, hardly anything to complain about if he views the extra time off as a career opportunity rather than punishment.
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dhaugh@tribune.com
