The Chiefs Owe HBO Big Time
Larry Johnson will be a Chief for the forseeable future. That much is certain. What’s uncertain is what exactly made him decide sign. According to to Johnson, it may have had something to do with the HBO crew filming “Hard Knocks.”
“The guys on the ‘Hard Knocks’ staff would tell me and show me interviews from guys on the team saying they missed me,” LJ told Star columnist Jason Whitlock. “That really got me.”
The implication is that “Hard Knocks” went beyond the boundaries of coverage and somehow influenced LJ’s decision to sign.
There are a number of reasons to sign a lucrative contract extension, and for most people 99% of them are money. Apparently that’s not the case for Johnson. He puts a lot weight on “production assistant input” and “feelings” when deciding whether or not to sign a contract. Frankly, the whole thing sounds like the end of a shitty romantic comedy where the broken up couple’s two best friends lie to them in order to get them to meet one last time and save their doomed love.
Of course HBO is denying they did anything out of the ordinary.
“Larry didn’t get any more access to footage than anyone else,” [HBO spokesman Kevin] Flaherty said. “If Larry saw guys talking about him, it came from the footage on the actual show.
I don’t know…that doesn’t sound so convincing. It’s also a little suspicious that Jeremy Piven repeatedly showed up at Johnson’s house, introduced himself as Ari Gold, and yelled at him to sign an extension.
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