Tank Johnson spoke with passion and Jerry Angelo spoke with compassion and both of them know their actions will speak louder than words.
The action the Bears’ defensive tackle took Friday night admittedly didn’t make any sense and cost his best friend his life. The action the Bears took Tuesday in sticking by Johnson won’t make sense either unless it saves Johnson’s life.
“If he doesn’t get it, then we missed the boat on him and it’s unfortunate for him too,” Angelo said.
“To squander opportunity would be a tragedy, and that’s not going to happen,” Johnson said.
Angelo stressed the decision to keep Johnson was about life, not football. At the moment, they are the same thing. Without football, Tank Johnson would have no life.
If you think the Bears would have no playoff life without Tank Johnson, you insult coach Lovie Smith and his staff and 52 other players who already are playing without their injured Pro Bowl defensive tackle, Tommie Harris, and have been playing and winning most of the season without their outstanding safety, Mike Brown.
To be sure, Johnson should be able to help the Bears win, which is a much bigger reason for the team’s existence than rehabilitating wayward youth. But Johnson’s presence in the lineup also may turn out to be a bigger distraction than his absence from the roster, so you could argue the Bears did not take the simple way out and cut all ties.
Their timing in announcing the one-game suspension was made on the players’ day off, calculated to minimize media coverage. It was an effort to shift focus back to football when the players report to work Wednesday. Smith attended but did not speak at Johnson’s news conference (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
Johnson appeared sincere in front of cameras. Angelo said Johnson’s sincerity in private with Chairman Michael McCaskey and President Ted Phillips, to the extent of writing down a list of behaviorial changes and suggesting counseling, played a “huge” role in the decision. Whether he was more sincere than he was when he apologized Friday and then defied Angelo is a question only the team can answer, or rationalize.
“We’re not only talking about the character of the player, we’re talking about the character of the Chicago Bears and that means a lot to us,” Angelo said.
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For now, the character of the Bears includes more compassion than they are legally obligated to provide. Angelo admitted it makes the club “vulnerable.”
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m 100 percent on board and trust all the things we’ve talked to Tank about,” Angelo said. “I do know his heart’s in the right place.”
So is the heart of the Bears, they would like everyone to believe. Whatever else is true about this case and whatever motives of the Bears are pure, Johnson’s heart is heavy after losing the person he called his “best friend in the world.” This is a life and death situation beyond football, and parents like Angelo and wife Bernie who know what it’s like to lose a child can relate too well.
“The decision was based on doing the right thing,” said Angelo, who also met with Johnson’s parents Tuesday.
Johnson said going out Friday night was a bad decision he will have to live with the rest of his life. Changing after-hours destinations will be easier, however, than changing friends. Imposing new rules on old friends is hard enough. Telling some of them they no longer can be friends at all will be among Johnson’s toughest challenges.
Angelo said this was the first time he has had to deal with a “conduct detrimental” issue this serious. The Bears have been more fortunate recently than teams like the Vikings or Bengals when it comes to differentiating between starting lineups and police lineups.
But this is not the first time or the worst time this kind of tragic incident has involved the Bears.
Two days after their 1963 championship victory, players were partying on New Year’s Eve at a bowling alley in Willowbrook owned in part by then-tight end Mike Ditka.
Tony Parrilli, a former University of Illinois guard whose NFL career never got off the ground because of injury, was shot to death by an off-duty policeman in the washroom during a fight that broke out between Parrilli and a Wisconsin man and later involved Bears fullback Joe Marconi.
Ditka and defensive end Ed O’Bradovich also were among the players and players’ wives in the bowling alley.
The events were not unlike the stabbing murders of two Akron men on the night of the Jan. 31, 2000, Super Bowl in Atlanta, when Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and his entourage got involved in a fight and Lewis later pleaded guilty to a charge of obstructing justice.
Yet the 1963 killing got surprisingly little newspaper coverage or follow-up investigation. When the shooter, Robert G. Winthers, was sentenced to probation, Parrilli’s mother yelled in the courtroom, “I knew this case was fixed.”
Neither the NFL nor the Bears got involved in disciplining anybody and the case never produced anything close to the media attention of the Ray Lewis episode or the Tank Johnson story.
For what it’s worth now and whatever the eventual outcome, at least the Bears can’t be accused of pretending nothing has happened to Tank Johnson or to the team’s desired image in the community.
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Johnson timeline
The strange journey of Tank Johnson since being picked in the second round of the 2004 draft by the Bears.
JUNE 11, 2005
Charged with unlawful possession of a handgun after police find fully loaded 9-mm Ruger in his parked car outside a downtown nightclub.
NOVEMBER 2005
Pleads guilty to a misdemeanor unlawful gun-possession charge in Cook County. Gets 18 months’ probation.
FEBRUARY 2006
Charged with battery and resisting arrest after scuffling with a police officer outside a Rush Street nightclub. Charged with violating probation.
MARCH 2006
February charges, including probation violation, dropped when police officer refuses to proceed with case.
THURSDAY
Police raid Johnson’s Gurnee home, seize six guns, arrest and charge Johnson’s friend and bodyguard William B. Posey with possession of marijuana. Johnson, who is at Halas Hall during the raid, turns himself in and is charged with six gun misdemeanors.
FRIDAY
Johnson declared inactive for Sunday’s game. GM Jerry Angelo publicly and privately warns Johnson: “He has had a history of doing things, and that history has to stop.”
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SATURDAY, 1:30 A.M.
About 12 hours after the team’s warning, Johnson and Posey go to a River North bar. Posey is shot to death.
SUNDAY
Bears beat Bucs 34-31 in OT.
MONDAY
Bears talk to NFL about discipline options, but cutting the troubled defensive lineman is ruled out.
TUESDAY
Bears announce a one-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team.
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