The Draw Play

Some really depressing news came in this week. Chris Johnson, aka CJ2k, the star Titans running back of the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, has ALS. ALS is one of the cruelest degenerative diseases we have, taking your body while leaving your mind intact. In less than a year, Johnson went from mostly himself to needing a computer to speak for him. The average life span after diagnosis is 2-5 years. It feels like an especially cruel fate for one of the most electrifying athletes of his era. He’s only 40. He’s got 4 young kids.

CJ2k still holds the record for scrimmage yards in a season, at 2,509, set in 2009. It is an astounding record, even more so because the 2009 Titans were mediocre as hell and didn’t have anything else. He fought for every single one of those yards just to end up 8-8. The Jeff Fisher Special. Johnson was one of the best running backs because he’s one of those rare guys where his speed actually translated to his game. Johnson had, as Gus Johnson once so unelegantly put it: “Getting away from the cops speed“. If Johnson had space, the dude was just gone. He wasn’t even just a scat back. He was shifty, he could dodge, and he was patient to set himself up. He was a fantastic running back, one of the best of that last great era of franchise running backs. He came out of a draft with five RBs in the first round (Darren McFadden, Johnathan Stewart, Felix Jones, Rashad Mendenhall, and himself). Matt Forte, Ray Rice, & Jamaal Charles would follow in later rounds. One hell of an RB draft.

Johnson’s career was sadly one of those that fed into the RB cliff argument. Johnson became the highest-paid running back ever in 2011, and 3 years later the Titans had released him. He wasted a year on the Jets, then had a brief comeback in Arizona before the young David Johnson took his spot. He retired a Titan in 2019. The poor guy only ever managed to experience two playoff games, one in his rookie year when the #1 seed Titans got upset by Baltimore immediately, and once in 2015 with the Cardinals when he couldn’t even play due to injury. He’s one of those sad cases of a real talent getting wasted by a bad organization. But for now, and probably still a while, he still gets to lay claim to the scrimmage record. Also a really cool nickname.

I wish him and his family nothing but the best for the remainder of his journey. He’s trying to bring back the viral Ice Bucket Challenge, which raised a massive amount for research when it went around last time in the mid-2010’s. If you want to donate, please do. Sports stars in particular seem to be susceptible to the disease for whatever reason, and whatever we can do to minimize that harm is worth it.

Sorry to send everyone into the weekend with a bummer, so here’s a big highlight reel of our boy kicking some ass.