Football paid for this house. It is a fine house, nothing ostentatious, set back from the highway in the suburbs northeast of Austin. The front door opens onto 2,890 square feet of living space, centrally air conditioned and spread over two stories with an attached two-car garage, two-and-a-half bathrooms, an open porch and a fireplace. On the living room wall, prominent as you walk through the front door, Elizabeth Brown has framed a photograph of her younger son, Michael Johnson, an action shot capturing the height of his promise.