Chicago – This time, Tank Johnson came to the rescue.
The Bears defensive tackle couldn’t save his bodyguard, Willie B. Posey, from a fatal gunshot wound last month at a Chicago nightclub. And Johnson could only cringe when hearing the news two weeks later that Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams had been slain by gunfire after a dispute outside a Denver nightclub.
“It sounded all too familiar,” Johnson said Sunday after his Bears defeated the Seattle Seahawks 27-24 in overtime. “This senseless violence has got to stop.”
Johnson did help save the Bears’ season. There were 24 seconds left in regulation, and Seattle had the ball at the Bears’ 45-yard line. Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck was a completion away from putting the ball within game-winning field- goal range of strong-legged kicker Josh Brown.
But Hasselbeck waited and waited for someone to get open. He waited too long. The 300-plus-pound Johnson came charging in and sacked Hasselbeck for a 9-yard loss, essentially forcing the game to overtime.
It was Johnson’s first big play since his well-publicized scrapes with the law. A police search of his home Dec. 14 discovered firearms, assault rifles and ammunition. Three days later, Johnson’s bodyguard was murdered by a suspect Johnson later identified out of a police lineup.
The Bears suspended Johnson for one game, and he played poorly upon his return, a season-ending loss to Green Bay. But unlike the Broncos’ Williams, Johnson got another chance to make a play.
“This world is too violent,” Johnson said. “It’s perpetuated too much on television. Take violence off television. Stop portraying what’s cool as killing and stealing. A lot of that stuff has got to stop.”
