Did Tank Johnson Just Tank His Career?

WORK IN PROGRESS -- FINISHED

Tank Johnson is the latest poster boy for professional athletes behaving badly, followed immediately by Carmelo Anthony, et al, and, of course, saliva challenged T.O.

Tank plays defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears. Until last week.

He's been arrested three times in the last eighteen months for a variety of reasons, ranging from dangerous dogs to shooting guns, to a fight outside a bar. 

Currently, he's on probation. Which makes his arrrest last week for not having a gun permit to go with the cache of unregistered weapons [and ammo] found in a raid on his home fairly problematic. 

Not to mention that his longtime friend, Willie Posey, a convicted felon who is not supposed to have weapons, kept a felony stash of marijuana in Tank's freezer. For which he was arrested.

Posey has known Tank for ten years according to reporters. They met in college, where both lacked a major in accountability. Tank gave his friend a place to stay in his home while he was trying to get on his feet again. Posey described himself as Tank's bodyguard.

Along with all those weapons, there are small children in the household. Between them, like so many pro athletes [Brian Urlacher for instance] and their friends, the two men have six kids by various females they never bother to marry. Luckily, only two of the children live on the premises.

After their arrest last Thursday, the two buddies posted bond and went home.

There were the usual apologies by Tank to his team and the fans via the broadcast media. Blah, blah, sorry, blah, blah.

The coaches de-activated him for last Sunday's game, the most they could do for immediate punishment.

After all the trouble, any normal person would have taken his medicine, gone home, kept a low profile, and waited things out with his family in privacy.

Too bad Tank couldn't havebeen grounded. His friend would still be alive.

No, instead Tank and Posey went clubbing in downtown Chicago the very next night. At around two in the morning, there was an altercation on the dance floor, and Posey was shot and killed.

Unfortunately, yet another one of Tank's stupid decisions backfired. This time, permanently.

Part of it may not be his fault. There is a phenomenon I have observed when I was the wife of someone who had several professional football player friends. 

I watched as civilians, both men AND women, tried to pick fights with these guys for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Often while we were all sitting down eating dinner. Sometimes when we were in a bar. Always these people were drunk. They would come up and start to insult these huge men who were twice their size and strong enough to kill them. 

It was, to say the least, bizarre.  And not once, did any of the players we were with lose their tempers. Despite many attempts by these crazy people to get them to take a punch.

In defense of Tank and Posey, as weak as this may seem, because they shouldn't have been there in the first place, apparently some jerk kept bumping into Tank repeatedly on the dance floor -- on purpose, hoping to egg him into an assault and battery charge no doubt, and sue for some spending money.

Posey, playing amateur bodyguard, tried to intervene and someone shot him in the back. They still don't have anybody in custody for that. Even though "security" was not only supposed to be checking for weapons at the front door, the killer apparently walked down a bunch of stairs and out the door unchallenged.

So far Tank hasn't learned any lessons from his multiple arrests. Maybe the death of his friend will be the wake up call he needs.

UPDATE from the local NBC affiliate:  Apparently Tank Johnson's weapons are registered in Arizona where he has a year round home. On Friday, the day after the arrest, he was helping Posey move into a new place, at the insistence of the Bears' front office. Afterward, they stopped into the bar where Posey ended up getting murdered.  Also, for what it's worth, Tank has such a bad driving record he can't get a driver's license in Illinois.