In his heyday, Larry Johnson was the NFL tailback you’d least want to line up against, the steamroller in pads who had defensive players and coaches questioning their life choices on every down.
asserted
players → want → down
But since Johnson walked away from pro football in 2011, after seven seasons in the league and an All-Pro run with the Kansas City Chiefs, he’s the one doing the soul-searching, grappling with the toll all that gridiron glory has taken on his brain.
asserted
glory → walk → brain
Johnson, who still cuts a fit and formidable figure at age 46, can scarcely recall his glittering career, much less its highlights.
asserted
who → cut → career
“I go up to maybe 2006, 2007,” he tells me.
asserted
he → go → me
“Anything before or three years after, I really don’t remember.”
asserted
I → remember → ?
When Johnson was thriving as a pro in the mid 2000s, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head impacts, was not yet widely recognized as a risk of playing football.
asserted
encephalopathy → thrive → football
The NFL, however, had evidence that head injuries could cause lasting neurological damage, yet spent much of the decade publicly disputing the link as former players sought disability benefits for neurological problems – and were largely denied.
uncertain
players → have → problems
It wasn’t until Will Smith starred in the movie Concussion as Bennett Omalu – the forensic pathologist who sounded the alarm on CTE in American football players after examining the brain of Mike Webster, the Hall of Fame center who died in 2002 after years of cognitive decline and a range of behavioral problems – that Johnson began joining the dots between football and his own personality swings.
asserted
Johnson → star → football
Johnson has long suspected he suffers from CTE, even though the disease can only be diagnosed after death.
asserted
disease → suspect → death
A study published on Wednesday of former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 found that 74.5% had CTE.
asserted
% → publish → CTE
Of the nearly 400 players whose brains were donated for postmortem examination, 93.5% showed evidence of the disease.
asserted
% → donate → disease
Johnson’s NFL career was defined by physical punishment, and he was a violent runner who welcomed the blows.
asserted
who → define → blows
Ahead of the 2003 draft, Johnson seemed like everything a team could want in a franchise running back.
uncertain
team → seem → back
He had size (6ft 1in, 230 lbs) and speed (4.45s 40-yard dash).
asserted
He → have → size
He capped a four-year career at Penn State by sweeping the Doak Walker Award for the nation’s best running back and the Maxwell and Walter Camp awards for the nation’s best player after rushing for more than 2,000 yards on fewer carries than anyone in history.
asserted
He → cap → history
He had backing from Joe Paterno, when that still meant something, and more hands-on guidance from his father, Larry Johnson Sr – the former Nittany Lions defensive assistant who’s now Ohio State’s associate head coach.
asserted
who → have → father
But when the Chiefs selected Johnson 27th overall as insurance for franchise running back Priest Holmes, they did so over the objections of head coach Dick Vermeil, who had watched a parade of Penn State runners disappoint in the pros and figured Johnson would be no different.
asserted
Johnson → select → pros
Vermeil singled out Johnson’s preparation habits and maturity, joking that he needed to “take the diapers off”.
asserted
he → single → diapers
But Vermeil had to eat his words after Holmes went down with a season-ending neck injury midway through the 2005 season and Johnson stepped in to rack up 1,750 yards and 20 touchdowns in nine weeks.
asserted
Johnson → have → weeks
(“Well, he’s a talent,” the coach conceded later.)
asserted
coach → ’ → ?
The following season Vermeil retired and Herm Edwards took over, and the bombastic defensive guru made Johnson the centerpiece of the Chiefs offense.
asserted
Johnson → retire → offense
He ran for 1,789 yards on a whopping 416 carries – an NFL record that isn’t likely to be threatened in the current era of pass-happy offense and running by committee.
asserted
that → run → committee
Whenever Johnson publicly shares his CTE fears, fans often find themselves looking back at the season for answers.
asserted
themselves → share → answers
“People forget: I didn’t get hurt during those 416 carries,” he says.
asserted
he → forget → carries
“I didn’t really start until 2006.
asserted
I → start → 2006
I was in the league for three years – maybe the only first-round pick battling just to dress.
asserted
I → battle → years
If Herm had told me straight up, ‘I’m gonna run you 416 times.’
asserted
I → tell → you
I would’ve been like, Why can’t we do 500?”
asserted
we → do → 500
Johnson reveled in his star status, famously signing on as an ambassador for Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella record label as it was growing into a lifestyle brand.
asserted
it → revel → brand
The Chiefs workhorse was frequently spotted partying with LeBron James and other members of Jay-Z’s inner circle at the rapper mogul’s bygone 40/40 Club in New York, helping get Jay-Z in the door with the NFL and paving the way for his later relationship with the league office and commissioner Roger Goodell.
asserted
workhorse → spot → office
Johnson celebrated touchdowns by tenting his hands into a diamond, a gesture popularized by Jay-Z and his associates known as “throwing up the Roc”.
asserted
Johnson → celebrate → Roc
But the southern Maryland native never quite cottoned to the scrutiny that came with the spotlight.
asserted
that → cotton → spotlight
He was slammed in the press for demanding a trade and threatening to sit out as leverage for a new contract.
asserted
He → slam → contract
He clashed with Chiefs coach Todd Haley – questioning his credentials to succeed Edwards – and disparaged fans and media with homophobic slurs, prompting suspensions before he was eventually released by the team.
asserted
he → clash → team
Johnson drew more troubling headlines for his alleged assaults on women: a Kansas City nightclub patron accused him of spitting a drink in her face, and an ex-girlfriend accused him of beating and strangling her at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
asserted
girlfriend → draw → Vegas
Between 2003 and 2012, he was arrested five times in cases involving allegations of violence against women – resulting in convictions for disturbing the peace, domestic battery and assault, with penalties that stopped short of jail time.
asserted
that → arrest → time
Johnson shies from blaming football for those incidents, but it’s hard not to wonder what the game left behind in a man so handsomely rewarded for violence – or how much the game messed with his head.
asserted
game → shy → head
Johnson began playing tackle football at age nine, taking helmet-to-helmet hits long before he reached the NFL.
asserted
he → play → NFL
“I couldn’t find anything that really will test your manhood and also test your character like football,” he says.
asserted
he → find → football
“I enjoyed lining up eight in a box and then trying to get five or 10 yards – and then I’m getting 50.
asserted
I → line → 50
…and 58 more, not listed.
The Aporia
