Dick Vermeil recalls a running back who ran with a vengeance. A young man who wanted his coaches and teammates to do more than just notice. Larry Johnson wanted them to remember.
Johnson would take the ball, run toward the opening at the line and target a defensive player. They wouldn’t forget this.
“He knocked the hell out of them,” Vermeil, a former Chiefs coach, said Monday.
But Vermeil also remembers a player who wasn’t always in control of his emotions, who occasionally practiced poor judgment, whose unfiltered words and deeds made those outstanding things he did on a football field seem secondary.
Johnson’s time in Kansas City came to an end Monday morning when the Chiefs released him after his latest brush with trouble. Johnson had been a distraction, and it wasn’t the first time.
Johnson was a man concerned with his legacy. He wanted to break records. He wanted to leave his mark. He studied the game and identified the great ones, hoping someday to do what they did and be as unforgettable as they were. Instead, he’ll be remembered not as a great running back, but rather as a troubled one whose terrific skills and immeasurable talent never caught up with his bad decisions and overflowing emotions.
“He is what he is,” Vermeil said. “A complex guy to work with.”
It started when the Chiefs drafted Johnson in 2003. Carl Peterson wanted Johnson. Vermeil wanted a defensive player. Peterson was the team president then, and his voice carried loudest on draft day. Kansas City and Johnson were tied together — an arranged marriage that never developed the love it takes to make such a union last.
“He wasn’t wanted in Kansas City,” said former Chiefs wide receiver Eddie Kennison, who played five seasons with Johnson. “He was wanted in Kansas City by one guy, and that was Carl Peterson. Ever since he has been here, he hasn’t been wanted.”
Vermeil tried to make it work with Johnson, and the old coach says now that he came to respect Johnson, his work ethic and the way he ran the football as if his next day depended on it. They grew to respect each other, and Vermeil said he saw Johnson a few weeks ago. Said he looked good. Said he sounded content in a way he rarely was in those early years.
“It took him a little while,” Vermeil said. “He was not real happy initially.”
Vermeil’s successor, Herm Edwards, was supposed to be a mentor. He was supposed to emphasize Johnson and help the running back feel needed as he apparently never did when he was Priest Holmes’ backup his first two seasons.
For a while, the marriage seemed to be thriving. Johnson rushed for more than 1,700 yards in consecutive seasons. Then he broke his foot, returned as a far less effective runner and was arrested twice in 2008. Edwards benched Johnson for three games, and the NFL suspended him for one more. The Chiefs phased Johnson out of their offense. He said he wanted out of Kansas City. It wasn’t working after all.
“Everything that happened in his life while he was here,” Kennison said, “people just kept getting those bad tastes in their mouths.”
Then Todd Haley succeeded Edwards this season. He agreed to mentally erase Johnson’s history of misbehavior and mood swings. Johnson smiled and talked about the future. He said during training camp that he was excited to break Holmes’ team rushing record. People would remember him then.
To reach Kent Babb, call 816-234-4386, send e-mail to kbabb@kcstar.com or follow him at twitter.com/kb_kcstar
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