Lawrence Phillips found guilty of assaulting girlfriend
A former professional football player accused of attacking and choking his girlfriend on two occasions in 2005 was convicted yesterday of assault and other felony charges.
A jury found Lawrence Phillips, 34, guilty of seven counts, including assault with great bodily injury, corporal injury on a spouse or roommate, false imprisonment, making a criminal threat and auto theft.
He faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison at a San Diego Superior Court hearing scheduled for Sept. 8.
Phillips, a former NFL and University of Nebraska running back, was accused of choking his girlfriend until she lost consciousness Aug. 2, 2005, and again Aug. 13, 2005.
Deputy District Attorney Nicole Cooper said in an interview that the girlfriend testified she and Phillips were having problems before the first choking incident.
She woke up at their Mission Valley apartment and started piling Phillips’ clothes on the bedroom floor. Phillips became angry and choked the woman several times that evening, the prosecutor said.
A week and a half later, the woman and Phillips went to an apartment on Aero Drive, where he accused her of infidelity. Phillips struck the woman, causing her to fall backward into a bathtub.
They then drove to Rancho Bernardo, where Phillips apparently intended to confront the man with whom he believed his girlfriend was having an affair, according to prosecutors.
The woman ran and eventually was allowed into a nearby apartment. Police found her hiding in a bathroom, the prosecutor said.
Two of Phillips’ former girlfriends testified that he had choked them to unconsciousness on separate occasions, Cooper said. Phillips has a 2000 conviction for domestic violence from Los Angeles stemming from one of those incidents.
In October 2008, Phillips was sentenced in Los Angeles to a 10-year prison term for driving onto a field near the Los Angeles Coliseum in August 2005 and striking three boys and a 19-year-old man with his girlfriend’s car.
He had been convicted in 2006 of seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon stemming from that incident, but the sentencing was repeatedly delayed, according to previous reports.
During his football career, Phillips played for the St. Louis Rams, Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers.
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Derrick Thomas’ Death Left a Void
The natural assumption for a generation of Chiefs fans growing up in the Derrick Thomas era was that their team would never have trouble sacking the quarterback.
Thomas made it look that easy. Seemingly without effort, he could glide past an opposing tackle and quickly make his way to the quarterback, who often had little chance to react.
That the Chiefs set an NFL record last year for pass-rush futility — 10 sacks — speaks loudly to one of the franchise’s single biggest failures since his death: the inability to adequately replace him.
“He was an impact player, and those people don’t come around that often,” said former Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, a Hall of Fame member himself. “He’s somebody that could change the outcome of a game, and there’s just not that many of those guys. He had that kind of ability. If you didn’t control Derrick Thomas, he was going to control you.
“You just don’t find them that often. That’s the problem.”
After Thomas’ death in 2000, the Chiefs made some efforts to find a top-flight pass rusher. They signed Duane Clemons shortly after Thomas’ death and Vonnie Holliday three years later.
They even stumbled on a suitable successor in 2004 when they spent a fourth-round draft pick on small-college star Jared Allen of Idaho State. Allen developed into one of the league’s best pass rushers and led the NFL in sacks with 15½ in 2007.
Eventually, Allen became disgruntled with Chiefs management over his contract and forced a trade to Minnesota.
“I don’t know if that trade is something we regret,” Chiefs president Denny Thum said. “Without question, Jared Allen is a fine football player. … He was a different type of player than what Derrick Thomas was, but he was a good football player who’s done well with the Minnesota Vikings.
“You can look through our drafts. We tried to help ourselves on the defensive side of the ball. Without question, you win football games by playing defense first. That sets the tone for the football team. During the time after Derrick’s passing, we tried to go ahead and help ourselves on the defensive side of the ball. It’s impossible to say you can replace someone as great as Derrick Thomas was on our football team with someone you can draft.”
The fortunes of a proud franchise sagged after Thomas’ death. The presence of one of the game’s all-time great pass rushers had made his teammates better players.
But the Chiefs haven’t been dominant defensively since. Not counting Thomas, the Chiefs had at least one other Pro Bowl defensive player for the first nine seasons of Thomas’ career.
Only Allen in 2007 and safety Jerome Woods in 2003 played in the Pro Bowl after Thomas’ death. While many factors figured into that decline, Thomas’ death was certainly one of them.
“It was a tremendous blow,” Dawson said. “You have to consider how many years he’d already been playing and how many years he had left to perform at that high level. But to take that weapon away like that and not being able to replace it, that can set back a franchise for years.”
What Thomas brought, day in and day out, was so important to the Chiefs, Thum said.
“As a player, there probably has been no other like him in that the opposing team had to scheme and know where Derrick Thomas was on the field each and every time, each and every snap,” Thum said.
“There’s no question he was a leader for our defense. We haven’t been able to replace those leadership qualities on the defensive side of the ball. That’s so important in our game today. We’ve tried.”
While the Chiefs played with a defensive purpose in the Thomas years, they’ve rarely had someone to rally them in the last several years. Allen took a brief turn, but mostly the Chiefs have tried to convert players into leaders, much as former coordinator Gunther Cunningham tried to do with former linebacker Kawika Mitchell.
Those efforts failed. This year, finally, the Chiefs imported veterans like Mike Vrabel and Zach Thomas to help them with the job.
“With Derrick Thomas, it was always more than just his ability,” Dawson said. “He had plenty of that, but he really had the tremendous desire. Once he tasted a sack, he wanted more and more. Only the great ones are that way.”
The Chiefs are still looking for another great one. Perhaps this year’s first-round draft pick, Tyson Jackson, will develop into that.
If not, the search will go on.
“I know (general manager Scott Pioli) would love to have the opportunity to find another Derrick Thomas,” Thum said. “That kind of player is few and far between.”
Taken from: KansasCity.Com
Jim Johnson Died because of Cancer
I shouldn’t be the one doing this post. A.J.’s the Eagles fan. I’m a Giants fan. But I’ve got absolutely no problems being the one to eulogize one of the most respected figures in the 21st century NFL.
Jim Johnson‘s only head coaching gigs were in small college programs, but he never seems to have had aspirations to do it at the NFL level. He was content being one of the most accomplished defensive coordinators in the business.
It was a shock when the team announced in January he was taking a leave of absence to fight melanoma. And we knew things were bad when the Eagles named a new coordinator this past weekend — with Johnson’s blessing, of course. But the football world wasn’t yet ready for today’s news: Jim Johnson, dead at 68.
For ten years, Jim Johnson was an exceptional coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, but more importantly, he was an outstanding human being,” Eagles Chairman Jeffrey Lurie said in a statement released by the team. “As an integral part of the Eagles family, Jim epitomized the traits of what a great coach should be – a teacher, a leader, and a winner. He positively touched the lives of so many people in and out of the Eagles organization. It was easy to feel close to him. Our hearts go out to his wife, Vicky and his wonderful family. We will miss him greatly.”
As I said, I’m a Giants fan. So my memories of Johnson are limited to his unparalleled blitz packages terrorizing Kent Graham, Kerry Collins, Kurt Warner and Eli Manning twice a year, every year. It was always nerve-wracking seeing our QB lined up against the Eagles’ D; Jim Johnson was one of the best.
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