Former Patriots [team stats] linebacker Ted Johnson would have considered coming back to play this year had the team called.
“After (Junior) Seau went down I must have gotten 10 messages from my friends saying, ‘You’re going to get a call, you’re going to get a call.’ And I never did,” Johnson said yesterday on 890 ESPN radio. “But say he (Bill Belichick) did call, I could go out there right now and do goal-line, short-yardage stuff.”
Johnson, who shed about 10-15 pounds from his playing days, said the post-concussion syndrome that led him to retire two years ago never prevented him from playing. He just made a choice. And if he returned, he said, he wouldn’t accept minimum-level money.
“I had independent doctors tell me I shouldn’t play,” said Johnson. “But my team doctors did not tell me that. I was cleared to play. That was a personal choice I made when I sought out second and third opinions. It’d be a health risk (to come back) for sure, and I’d ask for a little bump up in salary, if I was going to go back out there and bash my head in there, too.”
When you read the Globe and Times articles, this above segment makes ZERO sense.
