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A new Chad in '06
He’s riding in the limo with seven models, but it’s the Liberty City passion that has him talking about the upcoming season. He’s not only talking about 20 touchdowns and beating triple coverage, he’s talking about being different, period.
Think back to how this tumultuous offseason began. It began in the hours after the Wild Card loss to Pittsburgh in the reports that Johnson had melted down at halftime because of his inability to get the ball. The Internet said the combustible implosion included Johnson putting wide receivers coach Hue Jackson in a headlock and taking a swing at head coach Marvin Lewis.
No doubt it was Chad-ian drama, heightened by the blood spurting out of his IV and splattering the training room windows in the excitement.
But Johnson and the coaches have denied he attacked them, and Johnson still insists it was nothing out of the ordinary in an NFL locker room. Still, the incident got legs of its own.
Whatever happened, the Bengals and Johnson are perceived as losing that game because of their immaturity.
Whatever happened, it certainly has had an effect on him. Enough that he has been doing some thinking.
“I’ve turned over a new leaf,” Johnson says. “I realized that I have to change after talking to the coaches. I realize that I have to be straighter, more consistent.
“I think my teammates feed off me, like Ray Lewis in Baltimore, although I think it’s kind of different to have an offensive player like that. I can’t let emotions carry me away all the time. It’s a matter of maturing. I think I’ve done that.”
Jackson loves to hear it. He’s the street tough kid from South Central Los Angeles who grew up to be an African-American college quarterback back when you could count them on both hands and then called plays for Steve Spurrier. And you can only count one of them.
Jackson is the guy who would have vaporized Johnson if he got him in a headlock. He figures the fact that Johnson showed up for the second half is proof that the incident wasn’t as bad as reported because Jackson let him live.
“Sure it affected us because we heard so much about it,” Jackson says. “But that was so long ago, we’ve moved beyond that. I love this guy’s passion. It makes him who he is. You have to realize, we go against the very best in the world every week, and if you don’t have that driving you, we’re not going to be very good. You have to have that fire in your belly.”
It has been smoldering since he was a baby. Mommy threw him in the pool and the newspaper soon reported, “Nine-month-old gets swimming badge.”
“We’d come back from a game and he’d say, ‘Oh Mommy, if that happened, we would have won that game,’ ” Mommy says of the youth days. “And I’d tell him, ‘But you didn’t, and there’s nothing you can do about it now.’ ”
Mommy admits that when she watches some of the games, she wonders about him. She says Marvin Lewis seems rather “laid back,” and wonders how he puts up with her Chad at times.
He says, ‘Mommy, me and the coach are straight. I know how far to go with the coach,’ ” Mommy says.
She says she’s glad to know that.
“I’m sitting there and watching him on TV and I can tell he’s annoyed because he’s doing what I tell him not to do,” Mommy says. “I tell him, ‘Chad, not every ball can come to you. Whether you’re in the clear or not. The quarterback sees you and he sees the other fella, too. He sees three or four people guarding you, so quite naturally he’s going to throw it to the guy who is free.’ He should understand that. I tell him, ‘Don’t make those ugly faces and don’t let them see you cry, please.’ He says, ‘I don’t cry.’ I say, ‘Yes you do.’ He listens, but he pretends he’s not listening.”
Leading by example
He seems to be listening now. Oh, he still says he’s trying to convince the coaches he can do what nobody else can do to beat the double teams. But remember Draft Day, and how Johnson picked up first-rounder Johnathan Joseph at the hotel that first night and drove him around town?
And you could see Johnson talking with after some of those spring practices, letting the rookie cornerback in on some secrets.
“I’ll tell you, Johnathan just loves the guy; loves him,” says a friend of Joseph.
Jackson says Johnson has matured every year. It sounds like he’s doing it again. Johnson thinks if it hadn’t been for the events of halftime, maybe he wouldn’t have been waiting for Joseph at the hotel.
“After the incident in the Pittsburgh game, I realized how much of an impact my ups and downs have on the team,” Johnson says. “It’s something the coaches have been talking about, and now I think I see what they’re talking about.”
It’s a subject Johnson warms to.
“You know I’m not selfish. You see me every day,” he says. “I believe if I can get my hands on the ball, we’re going to win. That’s all.”
Mommy is convinced.
“He’s not selfish,” Mommy says. “He just believes he can take it all the way in there.”
Mommy is back on the porch and now we are in the limo headed to the federal pen in Kendall, Fla., just a few miles south of Miami. But it’s raining in hurricane season and there’s no way they can play basketball on the outdoor court, never mind see the net through the sheets of water, so Johnson takes his friend and girls into the lockup and plays ping-pong and pool with the guys for about 30 minutes.
“They loved it,” Johnson says. “They kept thanking me.”
Classic Chad. He usually does his good works behind closed doors, although he’s thinking about having a Ray Lewis-type event in Cincinnati with Stanley’s help.
But Johnson prefers to put $5 dollar bills into the hands of baggage handlers, which he does at the Delta gate at the airport curb even though he’s just dropping someone off who's not checking bags.
“He thinks everybody loves him,” Mommy says. “I worry that he’s naïve. I tell him, ‘Not everybody loves you, Chad,’ but he pretends he’s not listening.”
Johnson may also be beginning to get that one, too. He hears people calling him selfish. He hears the Bengals getting ripped for their recent problems with the law.
“No matter how I walk the straight line, it always seems like there is always somebody finding something negative. They can’t wait for a fall because it’s been so positive,” Johnson says. “But I’ve worked so hard to get here.”
The man driving the limo knows. Samuel Neal, 42, grew up not far from Johnson in Liberty City. He has lived and seen all the glitz and grit the two Miamis have to offer. He played football at Northwestern High School with legendary running back George "Buster" Rhymes, the one-time Viking whose name was taken by the rapper and actor. Neal says the corridor running through 62nd and 15th generates billions of dollars annually in the drug trade. He remembers the riots and looting that tore apart nearby Overtown the week the Bengals played here in the Super Bowl 17 years ago.
“They’ve cleaned up a lot of the drugs and crime since then, but it’s still the same city with the politics,” Neal says.
Indeed, the tale of two Miamis continues even this week with a scandal revolving around earmarked dollars not reaching the poorer neighborhoods.
Neal, driving Johnson the first time, has already seen his impact on the city.
“For the last couple of Fourth of Julys, he has a nice party for everyone,” Neal says of the bash Johnson throws to coincide with his daughter’s birthday. “A real nice, family event in one of the parks. There’s pony rides, food, drinks, fireworks. It’s great for the community.”
A half-hour after working with the Liberty City Warriors, Sam Brown is sitting outside The Pelican and watching South Beach’s 24-hour party pass by.
“That’s why everybody loves Chad,” Brown says. “He always goes back there.”
Johnson was supposed to be the bad guy, right? Yes, he did have a domestic violence charge against him back in college and admits, “It was stupid. I was young,” but he also knows it was a reason the Bengals were able to get him in the second round. He’s one of the reasons not every team salutes every red flag.
“I think the biggest reason is because I jumped around from school to school,” he says. “That was the big thing ... sometimes I still think people are still trying to find fault with me.”
Not Jackson.
“God love him,” Jackson says. “His heart is in the right place. His mind is in the right place. He just has to put them together.”
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http://www.bengals.com/news/news.asp?story_id=5353
Meet Chad's Momma!
Meet Chad's Momma!
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