If Chiefs are smart, they'll dump Johnson and move on

If I'm the Kansas City Chiefs, I'd sit down running back Larry Johnson again this week and start making plans to discard him once the season is over.

It's not a tough decision.

Larry Johnson has become a trouble magnet in Kansas City. (Getty Images)

Look, the Chiefs are trying to rebuild their club, doing it with young, impressionable guys they can depend on -- and that's why I don't want Johnson around. He not only could have an impact on inexperienced teammates looking to him for direction; he's not someone the club -- or anyone for that matter -- can trust anymore.

If he were, he wouldn't show up on police reports or late for team meetings.

Enough is enough, and I'll bet the Chiefs are as sick of dealing with Johnson and his erratic behavior as you are reading about it. So make it stop. Missing a game may not mean much to Johnson, but missing two or more should. After all, he is a professional athlete, and you'd think somewhere deep down inside he would want to play football again.

So let him ... but only when he understands the consequences of his actions.

Maybe that never happens, I don't know. What I do know is that the league office might have something to say on the subject, which means Johnson is staring at a possible suspension down the road. But until then sit him down, not so much for his sake as for the sake of the rest of the team.

I don't care what impact it has on the Chiefs' winning and losing. But I do care about what impact it has on their players, especially their young players, and you risk losing some of them if you allow undisciplined behavior to go unchecked or unpunished.

Critics might charge that sitting him is an acknowledgement you've given up on the season, but I say the intention is just the opposite. What happens this season is critical to what happens to the Chiefs in the future, and letting Johnson off easily now could have repercussions for next year and beyond.

That's why the Chiefs were right to bench Johnson a week ago. But they should go farther and start thinking of life without the guy. I never believed much good comes out of keeping talent over character, which is why I never believed in keeping misfits like Chris Henry and Pacman Jones on your rosters.

Johnson hasn't sunk to their levels. Not yet anyway. But give him time, and he might.

The Chiefs can't afford to take that chance. I remember people in Cincinnati telling me how Henry was valuable to the club because he was the one receiver who could stretch the field. Then I watched him give up on a deep pass that was intercepted and get his head chewed off by an irate Carson Palmer.

But that's the problem with recalcitrants: They can't be trusted on or off the field.