Johnson Gets Cut From Kansas City Chiefs'

NFL News - November 9th, 2009 - Written by John

Larry Johnson will not be the Kansas City Chiefs' all-time leading rusher after all.

Johnson is only 75 yards away from passing Priest Holmes' team-record of 6,070 yards, but it appears that he will stay that way. ProFootballTalk reported that he will be cut from the team as of Monday. Johnson was formally released from the Chiefs on the 9th of November, 2009.

It is the sad end to a messy marriage that started in 2003 and essentially ended this October, when Johnson vented his frustrations with the team on Twitter.

He used degrading comments about head coach Todd Haley and responded to critical fans with homophobic slurs, and was suspended without pay for a game by the Chiefs last week. He claimed his father, who is a renowned amateur coach, has more credentials than Haley, who played golf in college and only recently got into coaching. Ever since, Kansas City fans and civil rights groups have revolted and passed petitions, begging team officials to either suspend him for the year or simple wash their hands of him.

It was either suspend him with pay, which the team was obviously not willing to do, or cut him. Either way, it was clear that no one wanted him to be ahead of beloved Holmes, who's career was cut short earlier in the decade by neck injuries. Johnson has only rushed for 2.7 yards per carry this year, among the worst in the league by any starter, and has been a big problem for an offense that doesn't have any power until the fourth quarter.

Without him last Sunday, the Chiefs averaged 4.3 yards against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Jamaal Charles, who had six carries for 36 yards in that game, is his likely successor.

It's not the first time Johnson clashed with one of his head coaches. In 2004, he bickered with then-coach Dick Vermeil, who said publicly that Johnson needed to "take the diapers off".

Johnson was a first-round pick out of Penn State in 2003, after a terrific senior year that netted him the Doak Walker Award (nation's top running back), Maxwell Award (nation's top player), and Walter Camp Award (top college player). He gained 2,087 yards his senior.

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