Larry Johnson, Jr. — Poor Little Rich Kid

Former Nittany Lion all-Everything Larry Johnson, now of the Kansas City Chiefs, will meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in New York tomorrow to discuss his NFL future, near term and otherwise. Larry is presently out on $500 bail on an assault charge after spitting his drink on a woman in a bar and threatening to kill her boyfriend. He has not played for the Chiefs for the past two weeks, a decision made by head coach Herman Edwards for violation of unrelated team policies. Inside sources suggest that Johnson’s violation was that he was habitually late for team meetings.

What’s the deal here? Johnson had a decent middle class upbringing in State College with a stable father, who by everybody’s account is a prince of a guy. Larry cannot claim to be a fatherless, abused ghetto child. He has raked in wheelbarrows full of Ben Franklins in the NFL. Yet, remarkably, his personal life remains a shambles and he whines and complains constantly. He feels that he can perpetrate whatever disruptive crap he wants, when he wants, with impunity. Our conjecture is that Larry is a sick, sick man.

Edwards took Johnson under his wing and tried to support him through all this nonsense, yet Johnson does not want to reward such loyalty with the same in return. This speaks to a spoiled, immature man-child with a screwed-up sense of entitlement. Productivity notwithstanding, who would want this kind of poison polluting their locker room?

Goodell might or might not issue a league mandated suspension tomorrow. It is doubtful that such negative punishment as suspension for suspension’s sake will fix Larry Johnson. He clearly needs psychiatric help, and I hope the Chiefs and the league can recognize that need and help him toward assuaging it.