One thing stands out. One thing only. Tank Johnson does not want to be a Chicago Bear.
Whether or not the team should keep the police-magnet defensive tackle is moot. The vote from the only precinct that matters, the one in Arizona, is in. By being cited for speeding at 3:30 a.m. Friday in Gilbert, Ariz., with the possibility of impaired driving also involved, Johnson has offered the definitive word on what it means to him to be a Bear.
He thinks it’s an absolute joke.
If he wanted to be a Bear, he wouldn’t have laughed at the team and scoffed at its rules so often. He wouldn’t have been out at a time of night when trouble is about the only thing open for business.
Let’s be clear: Johnson wants to be a pro football player, or at least the cartoon-character definition of what passes for one these days: a gun-collecting, pit bull-owning, gangster-wannabe pro football player.
But a Bear? No. If he cared about his standing with the team, all he had to do was use common sense Friday.
After serving a 60-day jail sentence for probation violations and being suspended by the NFL for eight games in 2007, Johnson should have heard a voice in his head telling him it might be wise to chain himself to his couch until training camp begins.
If he did have to go out, common sense would have told him that whatever needed doing could have been done between, oh, 10 a.m. and noon.
That’s if you’re someone who is concerned about your football career.
If you’re not, then you do what Johnson has done the last three seasons. You have at least four run-ins with the law. After police raid your Gurnee home, you defy the Bears’ edict to stay out of trouble by going to a Chicago nightspot, where your best friend gets shot to death before your very eyes.
And after promising to stay on the straight and narrow after the NFL suspends you, you somehow end up speeding in your car in the dead of night while giving officers indications you might be impaired. Your blood is sent to the lab to see if it’s pickled.
What’s next on Tank’s tour of trouble, selling bootlegged DVDs on Michigan Avenue?
What a monumental waste of time he has been. All that effort the Bears put in to try to turn this guy around. All the time he spent trying to convince everyone from the fans to the NFL commissioner that he would change.
The Bears were so sure. Johnson was so sincere.
They knew him better than anyone. He was ready to be a man. They were going to work with him. He came up with a list of changes he’d make in his life.
They said they believed him. He said he wouldn’t let them down.
And now this.
Tank, again.
Come now. Are we to understand that the Bears really thought Johnson was going to live right?
They have been very convincing in their concern for him as a human being. But their fondness for him always was rooted in his ability as a football player. They’ve taken their fair share of heat for Johnson in the last several years, and deservedly so.
But now it’s all on Tank. A person would have to be spectacularly callous to do what he did the other night. The Bears have stuck their collective neck out for him more than a few times. He stepped on that neck and, for good measure, ground his heel.
We’ve spent a lot of time debating all things Tank. Some of us didn’t think he was worth the trouble. Others thought he hadn’t done enough wrong to deserve all the abuse he had taken. A few minor gun violations, some of you said.
This time, it’s not even close. He has made it easy for the league and the Bears. It’s not just that he keeps embarrassing the franchise. It’s not just that he is a major distraction.
It’s that his contempt for the team couldn’t be more obvious.
Trying to get inside Johnson’s head without coming away with irreparable damage is hard. It’s very difficult to understand his mind-set. He’s a smart guy. Anyone who has been around him knows it. And yet he appears intent on throwing it all away.
Is he having a hard time letting go of friends who don’t have his best interests in mind? Or is he simply a guy who can’t stay out of trouble if his life depended on it? You hope his life doesn’t depend on it.
But whatever happens, he had a choice. Looks like he chose being Tank Johnson over being a Bear. You just shake your head and walk away. Fast.
———-
rmorrissey@tribune.com
