Chiefs Fans Join Activism Trend: Demand Season-Long Deactivation of Larry Johnson

Who knows what will come it, but Browns and Chiefs fans are fed up, pissed off, not taking it anymore, and letting the management of their beloved teams know about it.

Two Browns fans recently announced their plans to lead a protest during the 1st quarter of next week’s Monday nighter between the Browns and Ravens in Cleveland. The plan has received plenty of national pub and even merited a meeting with Browns owner Randy Lerner yesterday.

In Kansas City, fans are petitioning Chiefs GM Scott Pioli to not allow Larry Johnson back on the field.

Their reasoning?

He is close to becoming the franchise’s all-time rushing leader, needing 80 yards to pass Priest Holmes, and they do not believe that Johnson is worthy of sitting atop that esteemed list.

Here is an excerpt from the petition sent by Chiefs fans:

While we are thankful for his service, we feel that Larry has been a black eye on the organization and has no business being mentioned with some of the above names.

During his first few years in Kansas City, Larry Johnson ran through holes created by one of the greatest offensive lines ever put together. He was handed the ball and was asked to follow Tony Richardson, the best fullback to ever don a Chiefs helmet. Because of those early successes, Larry Johnson now sits on the cusp of becoming the all-time leading rusher in Kansas City Chiefs history. Not to discredit anything he has accomplished, but we believe it would be a travesty if Larry were to surpass the great Priest Holmes as the Chiefs all-time leading rusher.

It’s not a hidden fact that Larry hates being in Kansas City. He doesn’t like the organization, he doesn’t like the fans, he doesn’t like the city. He has been more than vocal about how he feels about being a Chief. We’ve waited for years for him to be traded and we don’t believe that there is an offensive line that can open a hole big enough for Larry and the chip on his shoulder to run through.

I don’t often cite what I hear on Mike & Mike in the Morning, frankly because I don’t listen that often and rarely find much of the discussion overly insightful, but I do think that Mike Greenberg made a great point this morning.

He said that while sports leagues are a business, the teams too often treat their fans like sheep rather than consumers, mainly because fans allow it to happen. If more fans viewed themselves as consumers, and voiced their displeasure through both words and actions, teams and leagues would be forced to listen more carefully and act with the fans’ interests and desires more in mind.

At the end of the day, the money that fans spend on tickets, parking, concessions, merchandise, etc., is the lifeblood of professional athletics. Without the constant flow of money from fans, as well as the money that comes from TV contracts (the amount of which is a function of how many fans are watching), sports leagues would not be able to operate as they do now.

I hope that we see more fan bases follow the lead of Browns and Chiefs this year (similar to what Bengals fans did last year with movements like the Who Dey Revolution) and act more like consumers than sheep.

We give our hearts, souls, time, and money supporting these teams. Fans don’t always know what’s right, and team management has to be wise enough not to let the tail wag the dog, but the voice of the fan is important and needs to be heard.

Kudos to Randy Lerner for listening, and hopefully Scott Pioli does the same. They ultimately have to make the decisions, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with them being extra cognizant of how those decisions affect the fans.

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* – Larry Johnson photo credit: SpyonVegas.com via The Pitch

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