Post by MizzouTiger on Jan 31, 2008 11:37:54 GMT -5
www.kansascity.com/sports/chiefs/story/468610.html
Larry Johnson frustrated by way his 2007 season played out
By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star
PHOENIX | Chiefs running back Larry Johnson tried clearing up the mystery of the cracked bone in his right foot that caused him to miss the last eight games of the 2007 season.
“I can’t even tell you the medical term,” Johnson said on Wednesday while attending Super Bowl activities. “The bone in my fourth toe by the joint had a slight crack in it, and it shifted a little bit.”
But why the secrecy? Johnson never disclosed the nature of the injury on the record, and the Chiefs even cited HIPAA privacy laws, something the NFL does not do when it comes to on-field injuries.
“No one knew what I had,” Johnson said. “You can’t diagnose something and not know what it is. My foot was so swollen, no one knew what was going on. They thought it was a Lisfranc, they thought it was my heel, they thought it was my ankle.
“Until you get the CT scans and really rotate my foot with high technology … it’s very, very small, but you’re not going to be able to see it. It looked worse than it was, but at the end of the day, we didn’t know what was wrong.”
The Chiefs elected not to place Johnson on injured reserve until the last week of the season, holding out hope he could play.
“Anytime you get a cracked bone or a bone is misplaced, it just takes a while for it to heal,” said Johnson, who said he’s 100 percent now.
“Of course you can run on it, but you’re going to feel an extreme amount of pain if you don’t let it rest for a long amount of time. When I kept trying to come back, I was pushing it too hard where I was always going to have pain.
“I think letting it rest a little bit is going to get back to 100 percent like it is.”
Johnson, who was at a function on behalf of Campbell’s Chunky Soup, has kept abreast of the changes in the Chiefs’ coaching staff. He is looking forward to working with new offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, who plans to implement a power running attack.
“I like it,” Johnson said. “If he can do what he did with Jerome Bettis when he was at Pittsburgh, then why not do the same thing with me, or even better? I’m excited to see what Chan comes up with. I’m pretty sure he’s going to look at us like the Steelers of old with those big, beefy guys on the offensive line.”
Johnson, who missed all of training camp while negotiating a new contract that made him the Chiefs’ highest-paid player, never got on track last season. He began the season with a slight hamstring injury and rushed for just 559 yards in 158 carries before suffering the cracked bone in his foot on Nov. 4 against Green Bay.
“I hated it had to go to that route,” Johnson said of his holdout after he had rushed an NFL-record 416 times in 2006. “We could have gotten it done (in 2006) when we asked for it, but they wanted to see me go through a full season, and when that happened, they still wanted to wait on it.
“In the long run, it kind of hurt the team, because being a big part of the team and being out of training camp was kind of hard.”
Johnson said he is spending most of the offseason in the Miami area, where he’s working out with fellow NFL backs Edgerrin James and Willis McGahee, but he plans to attend the Chiefs’ offseason program.
“I don’t ever miss an offseason program,” Johnson said. “I haven’t missed one since I’ve been here, so no sense in missing one now.”
Larry Johnson frustrated by way his 2007 season played out
By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star
PHOENIX | Chiefs running back Larry Johnson tried clearing up the mystery of the cracked bone in his right foot that caused him to miss the last eight games of the 2007 season.
“I can’t even tell you the medical term,” Johnson said on Wednesday while attending Super Bowl activities. “The bone in my fourth toe by the joint had a slight crack in it, and it shifted a little bit.”
But why the secrecy? Johnson never disclosed the nature of the injury on the record, and the Chiefs even cited HIPAA privacy laws, something the NFL does not do when it comes to on-field injuries.
“No one knew what I had,” Johnson said. “You can’t diagnose something and not know what it is. My foot was so swollen, no one knew what was going on. They thought it was a Lisfranc, they thought it was my heel, they thought it was my ankle.
“Until you get the CT scans and really rotate my foot with high technology … it’s very, very small, but you’re not going to be able to see it. It looked worse than it was, but at the end of the day, we didn’t know what was wrong.”
The Chiefs elected not to place Johnson on injured reserve until the last week of the season, holding out hope he could play.
“Anytime you get a cracked bone or a bone is misplaced, it just takes a while for it to heal,” said Johnson, who said he’s 100 percent now.
“Of course you can run on it, but you’re going to feel an extreme amount of pain if you don’t let it rest for a long amount of time. When I kept trying to come back, I was pushing it too hard where I was always going to have pain.
“I think letting it rest a little bit is going to get back to 100 percent like it is.”
Johnson, who was at a function on behalf of Campbell’s Chunky Soup, has kept abreast of the changes in the Chiefs’ coaching staff. He is looking forward to working with new offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, who plans to implement a power running attack.
“I like it,” Johnson said. “If he can do what he did with Jerome Bettis when he was at Pittsburgh, then why not do the same thing with me, or even better? I’m excited to see what Chan comes up with. I’m pretty sure he’s going to look at us like the Steelers of old with those big, beefy guys on the offensive line.”
Johnson, who missed all of training camp while negotiating a new contract that made him the Chiefs’ highest-paid player, never got on track last season. He began the season with a slight hamstring injury and rushed for just 559 yards in 158 carries before suffering the cracked bone in his foot on Nov. 4 against Green Bay.
“I hated it had to go to that route,” Johnson said of his holdout after he had rushed an NFL-record 416 times in 2006. “We could have gotten it done (in 2006) when we asked for it, but they wanted to see me go through a full season, and when that happened, they still wanted to wait on it.
“In the long run, it kind of hurt the team, because being a big part of the team and being out of training camp was kind of hard.”
Johnson said he is spending most of the offseason in the Miami area, where he’s working out with fellow NFL backs Edgerrin James and Willis McGahee, but he plans to attend the Chiefs’ offseason program.
“I don’t ever miss an offseason program,” Johnson said. “I haven’t missed one since I’ve been here, so no sense in missing one now.”