Johnson’s long journey
Many stops in career for 49ers practice squad QB
I asked Josh Johnson if I could read him the Transactions section from his page on pro-football-reference.com. I wanted tomake sure it was accurate, that a data in putter hadn’ t overlooked something on the resumeof the 49ers’ practice squad quarterback.
“If youwant, I can just tell it to you,” Johnson said.
You know how Draymond Green can list, in order, the 34 players who were selected ahead of him in the 2012 NBA draft? How LeBron James can recount the final sequences of a big game, in minute detail, or how Kyle Shanahan can run through the play calls and outcomes of a long possession, weeks after the fact? I wish Ihad videotaped Josh Johnson reciting his travel odyssey, because he would instantly join them as a recall legend.
True, these were the major moves of Johnson’s professional life. It isn’t surprising that he can recollect them. It’s the casual and thorough way he summons the memories, complete with the occasional editorial comment, that grabs you.
“I left Tampa Bay to come here and play for Coach (Jim) Harbaugh, got released that year when they decided to keep Alex Smith and Scott Tolzien. And Kap,” Johnson said midstream. “So I went to the Mountain Lions. Then the Cleveland Browns called, so I went there. But they cleaned house, so I went to the Bengals and made the roster as a backup. They released me next offseason for an older quarterback. So I rejoined Coach Harbaugh out here. Should have been the backup, but that’s a whole different story ...”
And on and on. Professional athletes are more nomadic than most of us, and backup NFL quarterbacks are more nomadic than most of them, and Josh Johnson has been among the most itinerant of all. His official biography shows parts of seven NFL seasons with five different teams, anda total of eight career starts among his 33 games.
But hiding in the empty spaces of those statistics is a vast and never-ending football road trip, one that has brought Johnson back to work in the Bay Area for the fourth time since he graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 2004.
A trip home, into the waiting arms of his partner and child, is always a welcome stop.
“Hell yeah,” Johnson said. “Hell yeah. Get to commute to work. No hotel. That’s golden.”
All in all, Johnson has worn the uniform of 14 NFL franchises, plus the Sacramento Mountain Lion soft he United Football League (2012) and the Los Angeles Wildcats of the XFL (last February). The San Diego Fleet made Johnson the first overall pick of the Alliance of American Football draft in 2018, but he bypassed that offer and signed with the Washington NFL team eight days later.
Even this crammed employment history doesn’t fully represent the fits ands tarts of Johnson’s career, because peripheral athletes in professional sports are often on the move even when they aren’t changing teams. In baseball, they yo-yo up and down between MLB and the minor leagues. In the NBA, it’s back and forth to the G League. In the NFL, they simply get signed and cut as needed, as if they’re commodities being traded on the floor of the stock exchange.
Consider 2014, when Johnson rejoined Jim Harbaugh, the coach who helped make him great (and vice versa) at the University of San Diego, for the 49ers’ first season in Levi’s Stadium. The Niners signed the quarterback May 15, then released him Sept. 20. Then signed him Sept. 23. Then cut him Oct. 10. Then signed him four days later. Then cut him threedays after that. Then signed him once again four days after that. Johnson stuck around for the rest of that season, but the team did not renew his one-year contract.
By my count, Johnson has been cut, waived or otherwise cast adrift by an NFL team 20 times since he joined the Buccaneers as a fifth-round draft choice in 2008 — selected, appropriately, with a pick thatwas traded twice on draft day before the Bucs used it.
A remarkable thing about Johnson’s career is how little game action he has seen. He has spent a good portion of the past 12 ½ years on an NFL roster, but has attempted only 268 passes, the large majority of those coming with the Buccaneers in 2009 and Washington in 2018. Nick Mullens has attempted 243 in 2020 alone. Johnson once went seven years and 12 days between starts, and he didn’t attempt an official NFL pass from 2012 to 2017, though he did get sacked once.
Exasperating? Unfair? Johnson says he wouldn’t do it any differently.
“Nope. Because every moment was a defining moment,” he said. “It defined my character. You are defined by hard times. You have to remember that 90% of theworld don’t believe in you. I remember it like yesterday, and I wear it proudly.”
Surveying Johnson’s snaking path and the absence of employer loyalty it implies, I expected him to be a bit jaded on the NFL. Not bitter, because he has made a good living from football. Overthecap.com puts his career earnings at just under $5 million. But I figured he would take a cold, business like approach to the game by now, embracing his role as a career backup because of the paychecks.
Johnson doesn’t come across like that. He sounds as competitive and as confident as the guy who thought he’d become the Bucs’ starter after a brilliant small-school college career.
Johnson is happy to give the 49ers defense good looks on the scout team, and to mentor the team’s young QBs. But that’s not why he’s here. He’s here because he believes he is a better QB nowthan ever before, and he can win NFL games if given the opportunity.