Johnson one constant in tumultuous game
Maybe Larry Johnson did not hear the question. It did come from the back of the reporter scrum that surrounded him at his locker. Then, maybe he heard the question and chose to ignore it. You could not blame him for that. Then again, maybe he heard the question and simply could not think of anything to say.
The question was this: “Are you tired, Larry?”
Are … you … tired … Larry?
The football game had just ended, a game in which Larry Johnson had carried the football 39 times. In all the years of the Kansas City Chiefs — a history spanning Abner Haynes, Mike Garrett, Ed Podolak, Woody Green, Ted McKnight, Joe Delaney, Christian Okoye, Barry Word, Marcus Allen and Priest Holmes — no Chiefs player had ever carried the football 39 times in a single game.
“Thirty-nine?” Chiefs coach Herm Edwards asked, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “That’s a lot of carries, man.”
Yeah. A lot of carries. On a wicked and wild Sunday when the Chiefs won and lost, lost and won, won and saw it denied by officials, won and fumbled, and then finally won 35-28, the constant was Larry Johnson. He battered into the Seattle defense time after time after time after time. After time.
The Seahawks defenders responded to Johnson’s charge in numerous ways. They hammered him, tripped him, stepped on him, dragged him down, knocked him out of bounds, took out his legs, crashed into his ribs and pulled him down by his shoulder pads. They held him up, took him down, punched at the ball and jumped on him until the whistle blew clearly.
Nobody who has not done it can fully understand what an NFL running back has to endure on a football field. Every week, you run into more or less three layers of defense — gigantic defensive linemen who eat cars for snacks, heat-seeking linebackers who move so fast they blur, and assassins who play safety.
Is there a more ironic title in sports than “safety”? I don’t believe safety is their mission, really — these guys hit for the sheer joy of it. They are the stars of those “Greatest Hits” videos. One used to say he dreamed of that scene in the movie “Ghost” where a ghost jumped into Whoopi Goldberg’s body. That’s what he wanted to do on a football field: hit a guy so hard he actually went inside him. That’s a safety.
Running the football into this kind of Tommy gun defense week after week takes an awful toll — running backs don’t last long. And that’s with a normal workload. Running into this kind defense 39 times in a single game is a kind of Bataan march only a few people in NFL history can understand. Put it this way: No player has had that many carries in a game since 2003.
Five running backs since 1995 have carried the ball more than 39 times. They are:
•Adrian Murrell (36 years old and out of football).
•Terrell Davis (34 and out of football).
•Ricky Williams (29 and out of football, at least for now).
•Curtis Martin (33 and trying to get back into football).
•Rudi Johnson (27 and there’s talk in Cincinnati that he’s “wearing down”).
Then again, this is what Larry Johnson wanted, right? You know those parents who, to teach their child not to smoke, will lock them in a closet with a pack of cigarettes? Well, Johnson had complained for a long time that he didn’t get the ball enough. Sunday, he got the ball 11 times in the first quarter. Edwards found him on the sideline.
“You OK?” Edwards asked.
Johnson’s response depends on whom you ask.
Johnson’s version: “I’m OK. Keep giving me the ball. I’ll do whatever it takes to win this game.”
Edwards’ version: “Yeah, I guess I’m OK.” (“Would you have told him if you were hurting?” someone asked Johnson. “No,” he responded.)
The Chiefs kept giving Johnson the ball. He had 17 carries at the half. He had eight carries on one drive in the third quarter, and he capped that with a touchdown. The Chiefs did put backup runner Michael Bennett into the game for a spell, but that was when it looked as if the Chiefs had the game well in hand. They were kicking for a 30-14 lead.
Then, Chiefs punter Dustin Colquitt pulled off his impressive Garo Yepremian impersonation and fumbled away a touchdown. As an aside, I’ve seen the replay of Colquitt’s fumble 200 times, and I’m convinced he was trying to throw the ball. His effort was so goofy, you could not blame the referee for calling it a fumble to discourage him from ever trying anything like that again.
Then, Chiefs corner Ty Law fell down. That led to another Seattle touchdown.
And Larry Johnson had to go back in. He had to run the ball some more.
“After the 30th carry, you’re just running on heart,” Johnson would say. “You don’t even think about how your body feels.”
Seattle led by one, and the Chiefs moved the ball to the Seattle 7. That’s when Chiefs quarterback Damon Huard gave the ball to Johnson for the 37th time. Johnson ran up the middle and fought and clawed for 2 yards. On second down, they gave it to him again, the 38th carry, and Johnson got 2 more yards. On third down from the Seattle 3, they gave it to Johnson one more time. He ran right, got hit, got hit again, pushed forward, leaned in and crossed the goal line.
Superman stuff.
“I feel like I left 200 yards out there,” Johnson would say, as he remembered the many times Seattle players brought him down by an ankle or tripped him up just as he was about to hit the open field. He did not seem impressed by his record-setting 39 carries. He also did not seem all that eager to do it again. He dressed very slowly.
“I think it was just what we needed today,” he said. “We had to win today.”
“You hurting?” someone asked. It was an awful lot like the “Are you tired?” question, but this time he answered.
“It’s just 20 minutes after the game; I don’t know what I’m feeling,” he said. “I might be sore tomorrow.”
