Bengals Bag Tank Johnson

In hindsight, we aren’t really surprised. The Bengals have shown a soft spot for players with troubled pasts. They added another one on Tuesday, signing free-agent defensive tackle Tank Johnson. In 2007, Johnson was suspended eight games by Commissioner Roger Goodell due to multiple violations of the personal conduct policy. Johnson also served two months in prision that year for violating the terms of probation. Cut by the Bears, Johnson signed with the Cowboys, and spent the balance of the 2007 season and all of 2008 in Dallas. He joins a roster that includes receiver Chris Henry, who also was suspended eight games in 2007, and running back Cedric Benson, who was cut by the Bears last year after two DUI arrests (one by land, the other by sea) in roughly a month. The roster includes various other players with legal entanglements, including Mike Doss (firing a gun in the air), Kyries Hebert (assault), Johnathan Joseph (marijuana), Frostee Rucker (battery and vandalism), and Jason Shirley (DUI). So maybe Johnson can persuade the team to give his good friend (and Chris Henry’s former college teammate) Pacman Jones another shot. And then maybe Mike Vick can be the appropriately-named Wildcat quarterback in Cincinnati.