saintswhodi

I think the agendas in this thread are pretty clear. Sign a multi-time run in with the police guy and forget the image the team has strived to create, or don't sign him. Seems the only agenda is sweeping his multiple run ins with the law under the rug. I am with smitty, has Payton or Loomis said anything about signing him? No? Then the rest is BS. Pass.

Nemesis

Have they said anything about not signing Tank? NO? Well, then it isn't BS. Call him in for a chat...
Gotta jet. Happy 4th.

saintswhodi

Um, when teams AREN'T gonna sign a FA, they don't announce they AREN'T gonna sign a FA. Lame. No one in the Saints org has mentioned Tank, and that says enough, and should to everyone else. Pass on the BS.

blacksaint

Bears told Johnson they'd have zero tolerance.

In the wake of Monday evening's revelation that Tank Johnson wasn't legally intoxicated when police in Gilbert, Ariz., arrested him June 22, it had been suggested in some quarters that Chicago Bears officials acted hastily in waiving the veteran defensive tackle just three days after the incident.

The sense from some who weighed in late Monday regarding the treatment of Johnson was that Bears management should have delayed any resolution of his future with the franchise until the results of a blood-alcohol test were completed. The knee-jerk reaction from some of the apologists was that the Bears, in waiving Johnson, assumed he was guilty and opted to simply sever their ties with a problem man-child.

Not so, according to team officials, who adopted a no-comment public stance on Monday, but who privately made it clear that presumption of guilt had nothing to do with the decision to jettison Johnson.

Remember, team officials reminded, this important element: When Johnson was released from the Cook County (Ill.) Jail, where he served two months this spring for violating his probation on an earlier gun charge, he was put on notice by general manager Jerry Angelo and coach Lovie Smith.

Zero tolerance. No more legal entanglements. No more off-field indiscretions. No more screwups permitted, team officials said, acknowledging they were "upset and embarrassed" by Johnson's arrest in Arizona. Walk the straight and narrow and you get to run onto the field again wearing a Bears uniform. Diverge from the very narrow path Chicago management had laid out, and pay the consequences.

So when Johnson was pulled over at 3:30 a.m.. reportedly driving 40 mph in a 25 mph zone, and operating his vehicle in a manner erratic enough to have drawn notice from the police, he had, in the estimation of Bears officials, veered into a margin off-limits to him. A no-margin zone he agreed that he understood when Angelo and Smith apprised him of what he had to do to maintain a spot on the roster.

Yet even though he understood the rules, Johnson was out late, drinking somewhere, and climbed behind the wheel of a car while at least slightly impaired. You can parse degrees of poor judgment any way you want, but even a most accomplished and eloquent orator would have a tough time convincing anyone that Johnson wasn't out of line.

So the Bears contended Monday night that, within their organization, there was definitely no second-guessing about not granting Johnson a third chance to turn himself around. Johnson is history in Chicago and, while that is regrettable, the Bears are conceding no regrets.

Team officials apparently had some inkling of what the blood-alcohol tests would reveal, even before they were announced Monday evening. But in the estimation of the people who own and run the Bears, the results, which indicated that Johnson had a blood-alcohol reading of .072, really didn't matter (the legal limit in Arizona is .08).

That's because, under the NFL's new personal conduct policy, guilt doesn't matter as much anymore as does culpability. At least for players like Johnson who have been branded as repeat offenders.

And when Johnson was stopped by the police on June 22, he was culpable of not keeping his part of the bargain that he had forged with the team. The incident occurred only about 24 hours after the Bears had concluded their offseason conditioning program, when Smith's send-off entreaty to his players, admonishing them to stay out of trouble, should have held cautionary resonance.

If there is any good news for Johnson in Monday's announcement, it is that he now has one less black cloud hovering over him. He is less legally encumbered, so teams interested in signing him will have one less hurdle when assessing the 25-year-old who plays a premium position.

While it is doubtful the league will consider shortening his eight-game suspension to six games, which could have been accomplished if Johnson had avoided trouble, it's also unlikely that commissioner Roger Goodell will extend the banishment based on the June 22 incident. What occurred that night is, or more accurately, was, between Johnson and the Bears.

While a court of law might not convict Johnson, the Bears essentially judged him guilty of betraying their trust and unworthy of any more excuses. And apparently the court of public opinion, at least as it exists among readers of the Chicago Tribune, agreed with the approach. On Tuesday morning, a newspaper poll showed that 68.1 percent of the 5,494 respondents agreed the Bears should have cut Johnson, no matter the results of the blood-alcohol screen.

Almost as significant is the silence from the NFL Players Association, which has been deafening. Not just in the case of Johnson, but also after the releases of several other league players who were cut loose by teams this spring after encountering legal difficulties. In the past, the union would have blindly supported Johnson and the rest.

But no more.

There is an army of attorneys that has argued in the past couple of months that Goodell, and by extension the NFL, has overstepped authority in some of the sanctions imposed under the auspices of the more stringent player-conduct policy. The commissioner, they insist, is on a slippery slope.

But Bears officials said privately Monday that their footing was not made more treacherous by the public results of Johnson's sobriety test. They were just relieved that, no matter the outcome and despite the premature departure of a talented player, Johnson was no longer their problem.

saint4life
(504)

Nemesis

Um, that's false. Just last week, I saw posts linked to teams stating that they would pass on Culpepper, when he becomes available. I wasn't aware that Loomis ran his plans by you. However, I have some lovely parting gifts. Thanks for playing Pass on the BS.

ssmitty

actually boba might be able to shed some light on this.....
hear anything from the front office boba? rumor, fact, nothing?

Nemesis

True or not, my point was that teams do announce when they have no interest in a player. A recent example was the Lions' coach just claimed to pass on Culpepper. This could be a ploy, but he was quoted.

Teams declining to mention interest in a player means nothing. I'm sure everyone in here can name a player that the Saints signed in our history, without the FO making prior statements. The notion of no comment= no interest in every case was just plain silly.

saintswhodi

Actually, the Lions coach was ASKED if they had interest in C-Pep, and they said they didn't. Teams don't just issue blanket non-interest statements on a player, and it's silly to suggest they do. Again, pass on the BS. But I am sure when Payton or Loomis are ASKED about Tank, they will supply a response. I am also sure you are probably awaiting 30 other teams putting out statements of non-interest on Tank, without being asked about him. Like I said, silly but good luck with that.

ScottyRo

I don't think it matters whether the team is actually interested in Tank or not for this to be a relevant discussion. We could just as easily remove his name and be discussing a player in his situation. That's as valid as any other conversation fans can have about sports. If you try to draw a line that says there should be no discussion about a player unless the Saints actually say they are interested, then there are hundreds of threads that will be abolished by such a rule.

We are fans here discussing the mights, the maybe's and the shoulda, coulda, woulda's of the team as well as the actual happenings. In the end if you think it is a waste of time to discuss Tank, then don't read it or reply to it.

saintswhodi

Actually, my problem is more with the suggestion there is an agenda cause someone DOESN'T want to sign Tank than it is with Tank being discussed. I don't see where it says anyone should not discuss Tank. I do see where I said it's BS to me until the team says they are interested. This stemmed from one man, John Clayton, saying we should be interested in Tank cause it appears we have a need at DT, and Tank is a DT. That's it. No one from the Saints camp has mentioned Tank one time that I am aware of. But when the line was taking an agenda is why folks didn't want Tank to be signed, I said signing him was BS until the team says something. I don't see how that should stop anyone from discussing Tank though. Can you point out where I said I felt no one should discuss Tank?