BY JAY MARIOTTI Sun-Times Columnist
Clear all highways. Evacuate all seedy bars. Hide all children and pit bulls.
Tank Johnson is coming to Texas, y’all, where gun laws are almost nonexistent and rifles are easier to obtain than water pistols. Which makes it a creepy landing spot for a troubled soul known to leave assault-style weapons and rounds of ammunition lying around the house, sometimes while his kids played.
Though he really deserves to sit for a long time and think about life, Tank has been signed by the Dallas Cowboys, who surely will pump him for information about the Bears as Sunday’s game approaches. I doubt whether Johnson can reveal much more than the obvious — Rex Grossman is a mental midget — but I have deeper doubts about how long he can avoid big trouble off the field. Remember, the Bears gave him second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth chances before finally dumping him in June, when he went drinking and driving and speeding in Arizona and came very close to exceeding the state’s legal limit for DUI.
Not enough time has passed to declare him a changed man. Nor is there any assurance that NFL top cop Roger Goodell, who must review Johnson’s case when his eight-game suspension expires in November, immediately will allow him to play. Knowing Goodell, he’ll responsibly inquire why Tank would drink and drive only weeks after leaving Cook County Jail. In Goodell’s world of law and order, that could spell a longer suspension.
So much for the vow of owner Jerry Jones to employ players of good character, recalling the sordid years when the Cowboys were known as ‘‘South America’s Team.’’ Though the Bears have injury issues on the defensive front, please realize that Halas Hall’s gain is Valley Ranch’s loss. I can’t wait until Tank gives the media down yonder his ‘‘I want to be the NFL Man of the Year’’ speech.
In his next life, maybe.
