This week news broke that one of the modern NFL’s greatest players was diagnosed with ALS. Chris Johnson was my favorite non-Philadelphia Eagles as a child. For me, Chris Johnson filled a Mike Vick sized hole in my childhood heart that valued one thing and one thing only, speed. Vick was the video game cheat code, Vick was unimaginably fast, then Vick went to prison for dog-fighting, one year later Chris Johnson ran a 4.24 second 40-yard dash and captivated millions of children around the United States, like myself.
Johnson’s accomplishments always seemed understated to me. The running back class that Johnson was lumped into was stacked; Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, and LaDainian Tomlinson are at the top of the public’s consciousness and the front runners for Hall of Fame bids. Although Johnson’s NFL peak was earlier and shorter than most, he deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest running backs to ever play the game. His three-year peak goes toe to toe with any other player to ever play the position with 5,606 yards from scrimmage and 38 touchdowns in his first 3 seasons. That’s 1,868 yard per season and almost 13 touchdowns a season from 2008-2010.
2009 Chris Johnson may be one of the greatest football players to ever live. His historic “CJ2K” season where he totalled 2,509 yards from scrimmage in a sixteen game season is a Herculean feat for anyone let alone a 5 foot 11 kid from Orlando.
The NFL always seemed to prefer other stars to Johnson. Johnson was never the most polished, nor was he media trained by 2026 standards. His only off the field controversy was a 2015 drive-by shooting that Johnson was the victim of. Johnson was never on Dancing with the Stars, he’s not on ESPN, he was never on podcasts, his only non-sports related iMDB credit is a 2013 appearance on InkMaster.
Johnson was not an NFL player because he wanted fame or the spotlight. He was an NFL player because he was the fastest goddamn track runner in Florida and he realized he could change his and his families lives forever with the two legs he stood on.
Chris Johnson is not just one of the best NFL players I’ve ever seen, he’s also one of the few NFL stars that were humble enough to enjoy their money and their privacy away from public life after retirement.
Johnson is now 40 years old and communicates with a device using his eyes. He said about the process “I don’t know if you ever fully process this, at first you’re in shock but then you realize you have two choices, give up or fight. I chose to fight,” on Good Morning America in reference to his ALS diagnosis. He went on to talk about how his wife and kids keep him motivated to keep going.
Chris Johnson will always be one of my favorite athletes, he always was a stand-up guy trying his hardest in the face of massive expectations. According to Neurology Live, “The rate of ALS diagnosis was 3.6 times higher among NFL players than age- and race-matched men in the general population, and the risk of death from ALS was nearly four times higher.”
Football may have led to Johnson’s health-issues, it’s only right that the NFL puts him in the Hall of Fame while he’s still on two feet. Johnson’s not the poster-boy that the NFL ever wanted, but a generation of NFL fans will always remember the greatest season by an NFL running back they’ve ever witnessed and the moments playing with the sorry-ass Tennessee Titans in Madden just to use CJ2K. Put Chris Johnson in the Hall of Fame immediately.
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