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It wasn’t supposed to end this way . . .
But that doesn’t mean it comes as a surprise.
Talking about Manish Mehta’s announcement that the Jets have told Trumaine Johnson that they’re going to release him.
Like him or not, Mehta made the announcement, so he deserves the credit. You see these “confirmation” stories all over the place.. Those aren’t scoops. That’s just calling a PR guy.
Johnson’s agent, Joel Segal, has long been very media-friendly.
But this news is the end of a two-year fiasco with this player. Johnson pocketed $34 million in two seasons with the Jets and played like a league-minimum journeyman. I’m not trying to be flippant or disrespectful. That was just the reality of the situation.
What were Mike Maccagnan and Brian Heimerdinger thinking with this signing?
He is a cornerback who runs like a safety, and not even a fast safety like Marcus Maye or Jamal Adams.
How can you give a cornerback, lacking ideal recovery speed, $34 million guaranteed? Oh my goodness. What were Maccagnan and Heimerdinger (who had too much power with his limited experience) thinking?
There are plenty of things you can criticize Johnson for, but his speed isn’t one of them. That’s out of his control. He ran 4.61 when he came out of Montana, and that’s one of the reasons he slipped to the third-round. And when he arrived in Florham Park in 2018, he was already 28, after six years in the league, with a lot of wear-and-tear, so he probably wasn’t even a 4.61 guy.
With the Jets, he was exposed in space, and just didn’t have the speed to hold up on an island with speedy receivers on go-routes and on crossing routes.
With the Rams, he had some good seasons, and one reason for that is because that team had a good pass rush with Aaron Donald and company. From a technique and ball-skill standpoint, Johnson isn’t a bad cornerback, as long as the pass rush gets there. But you ask him to hold up for six-seven seconds, you are asking for trouble, and that often was the problem with the Jets, a team that had one of the worst pass rushes during Johnson’s two seasons in green.
Want to hear something interesting – I was going back to some old articles I had on Johnson, and one that popped up was something from the 2012 combine, and in my headline, I described the player as “a cornerback/safety prospect.” So there was even talk when he was coming out of college that his speed would lead to a move to safety.
The speed stuff is not his fault.
The attitude stuff was all his fault.
He was benched in Week 17 of 2018 because he was late to practice. Can you imagine getting $34 million dollars guaranteed and you can’t be bothered to show up to work on time? Wow.
“Why was I late – I woke up late,” Johnson said after the game in New England where he was benched.
And then he was benched early in 2019 for attitude and performance.
Then, in early November, he was put on injured reserve reportedly with injuries to both ankles.
He probably could have back late in the season from these injuries (not season-enders), but clearly Joe Douglas and Adam Gase were tired of act, and just pulled the plug on his season. Once Douglas/Gase did that, you knew that Johnson was a goner this off-season.
March 10, 2020
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