Yesterday, ESPN’s John Clayton seemed to kinda-sorta suggest that maybe the Saints would explore the possibility of thinking about maybe holding a meeting to decide whether they should contemplate the idea of attempting to sign recently-kicked-out-on-his-ass Bears defensive tackle, Terry “Tank” Johnson.

Way to go out on a limb there, Mr. Clayton. M’kay?

The message board response was predictable. Isn’t it always?

After scrolling past the requisite cracks about Clayton’s appearance, his perceived lack of sufficient testosterone to merit holding the job the message board guys wish they had, the reminders that occasionally Clayton says something that eventually doesn’t pan out, and therefore everything he says is worthless, we finally get to the root of the issue: Tank Johnson is a thug. A 46-time loser. A recidivist knucklehead.

Yay! Righteous indignation! The National Pastime of internet sports fans. What fun! And not only that, we’re also treated to a healthy dose of internet Saints fans’ second favorite pastime: regurgitation of the “Payton Player” cliche, which is a woefully (but predictably) simplistic, black-and-white truism referring to Payton’s very real, but often misunderstood, stance on the importance of a player’s character.

Righteous indignation and simplistic interpretations of complex issues? It’s fuckin’ party time now!

The bottom line is that Tank Johnson is very, very unlikely to sign with the Saints. It’s unlikely that the Saints are even interested in the first place, and it’s likely that we’ll never really know just how interested or disinterested the Saints actually are about the possibility. Which is great, because everyone will get to hold onto their own preferred reasons for Tank not becoming a Saint, and cherish yet another instance of being RIGHT!!!!!!1!!1

But it’s not like there’s no legitimate reason for the Saints to consider it. There are plenty of legitimate reasons, not the least of which being a prime opportunity to shove it right up the Bears’ assholes.

The reasons not to pursue it are the easy ones. Here’s a guy who may or may not be a thug. More on that later, but for now let’s just go with the concept of “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” Even if he’s not a thug, he’s inarguably a knucklehead. He clearly has poor judgment. He came away from four months in the pen visibly fatter. How does that even happen? You’re in jail! The food sucks, and all there is to do for fun is lift weights. He’s suspended for anywhere from six games to forever.

And then there’s the reason that most people don’t seem to be talking about: he’s not really all that great in the first place. Tank Johnson is overrated. He has been the beneficiary of being part of one of the NFL’s best defenses, playing between Tommie Harris and Alex Brown for the majority of his three years, and in front of Brian Urlacher. It could be argued that Tank was actually the weakest link on a very strong Bears d-line. He’s not a bad player, not by a long shot. But he certainly isn’t an all-pro.

Which, of course, is the reason that he’s no longer a Bear in the first place. If Tank were as good as most fans of teams other than the Bears seem to think he is, he wouldn’t be looking for work right now.

There are two parts to the phrase “…more trouble than he’s worth.” There’s the trouble, and most fans don’t bother to go beyond that. But there’s also the worth. Everybody seems to think that it’s the trouble that got Tank, but it wasn’t. It was the worth.

Super Bowl contenders don’t release players that they can’t do without. Hell, Atlanta will be lucky to win six games this year, and you don’t see them releasing Ron Mexico (yet.) If Tank were Kevin Williams or Pat Williams or Tommie Harris, you can bet that the Bears would still be babysitting him. But he’s not. The Bears released Tank because they believe that Anthony Adams and Dusty Dvoracek are good enough. And in that defense, they’re probably right.

All that being said, the Saints could use him, even if only for eight games this fall. So let’s talk about the reasons that the Saints should pursue it.

The most glaring reason is that Tank would immediately become the Saints’ best defensive tackle. And that’s reason enough right there. Assuming that Tank can manage to keep himself in check until November, and if he can’t then all of this is a moot point anyway, I can’t think of a single thing that would benefit the Saints more for the home stretch than a fresh, young, experienced, semi-studly starting DT to plug into the rotation for the final eight games plus the playoffs.

The second reason is that this would be a textbook case of “buying low.” Tank might not be an all-pro DT, but you can just about bank that he’ll be cheap relative to his production. Having been recently told to fuck off by a Super Bowl contender tends to reduce a guy’s negotiating leverage. The market for his services could very well be thin. It appears that Buffalo has already bowed out. Dallas is being reported as another potential suitor, but they run a 3-4.

The first thing most spurned athletes look for is a team within the old team’s division, with the hope of sticking it right up the old team’s ass twice a year. But of Minnesota, Detroit and Green Bay, none really have much of a need for a DT. Furthermore, each will have probably had one game against the Bears by the time Tank’s suspension is lifted.

Oddly enough, if Tank wants to stick it to the Bears twice this season, the team where he’s most likely to get that opportunity is….. the Saints (week 17 and the NFL Champeenship Game.)

But, for the Saints and their supposedly character-obsessed redass of a coach, does Tank’s rap sheet automatically disqualify him? According to most observers, yes. But most observers are usually full of shit.

Proof? The Saints have already brought in two defensive tackles this very offseason, who, depending on who you talk to, are both huge assholes. First there was Huge Backflip Guy, the 10 foot tall, 800 pound manchild who lasted all of twelve minutes until Sean Payton told him to go fuck himself. Currently on the roster is former Tempe Cardinal Kendrick Clancy, who, according to Everybody’s Favorite Self-Absorbed Petulant Prick over at WWL, is some kind of creepy half-Jonathan-Sullivan/half-Hitler type of creature. If I weren’t so sure that Kenny is full of shit, I’d be concerned.

But the point is that the perception that Sean Payton immediately and inevitably declines to even give a second thought to any player with the slightest of blemishes on his permanent record is overly-simplistic, thoughtless bullshit. Fortunately, the reality seems to be that Sean Payton is kind of guy who doesn’t think in such black-and-white terms. Payton grades on a curve. That’s what smart guys do.

Let’s set aside the “if it looks like a duck” concept for a second and take another look at Tank’s rap sheet. Pardon me if I’m a little fast and loose with the actual facts here, I’m going by memory….

1) A loaded 9mm handgun was found in his parked car. Pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unlawful gun-possession.

2) Scuffled with a cop outside a nightclub. The charges were later dropped after the cop decided it wasn’t worth his time to proceed.

3) Six unregistered guns were found in Johnson’s house. What most people fail to recognize is that while the guns weren’t registered in Illinois, they were fully registered in Johnson’s home state of Arizona. The fact that he had them in Illinois and hadn’t bothered to register them makes him a knucklehead, but given the fact that they were registered in Arizona, it sure does look like nothing more than a stupid mistake.

Here’s why Tank went to jail: He got probation for having the 9 in his car. Not having filed the proper paperwork in Illinois for the Arizona-registered guns in his house violated his probation. That’s it. Four months in the tank. And eventually, he only served half that. Why? Good behavior.

 4) Speeding. And it’s not like he was doing 190 on the interstate while dodging other cars like Mario Williams. He was driving 40 MPH. That’s right, forty. At 3:30am. I’m sorry, but that’s just not too big a deal. The reason roads have 25MPH speed limits in the first place is because they have high pedestrian traffic and people getting in and out of parked cars. But at 3:30am, none of that applies. Now if he were going 60, or even 50, maybe I’d be a little shocked and horrified. But 40? Come on.

It remains to be seen what “impaired to the slightest degree” means. Does that mean he had a beer with dinner 5 or 6 hours earlier? Maybe. If he were DUI, I’d be in line with everyone else to beat him about the head and face with a baseball bat. But if he were DUI, we’d already know about it by now. “Impaired to the slightest degree” just screams “bullshit” to me.

Look, I’m not trying to be a Tank apologist here. There’s nothing in it for me to defend the guy in the face of mountains of damning evidence. For all I know, Tank is a thug piece of shit. And he is, without doubt, a knucklehead at best.

But overreaction and simple-minded moral grandstanding do not do justice to the complexities of Tank Johnson’s situation. And to dismiss out of hand the possibility of adding what could be an impact player to your position of greatest need, at midseason, during what should be a strong Super Bowl run, based on superficial conclusions about a guy’s character and an overinflated sense of the impact it can have on the overrated concept of team chemistry is, quite simply, retarded.