Chris Johnson Is Now Almost 41, How He Lives Is Sad
Back on Get Up with a developing story. You may remember Chris Johnson, star running back who once ran for 2,000 yards in a single season. >> Chris Johnson was one of the most explosive running backs the NFL had ever seen. >> Into the secondary and [cheering] goodbye. Touchdown Tennessee. >> Known to fans everywhere [music] as CJ2K.
The numbers, the records, the speed, the legend. >> Chris Johnson has revealed he’s been living with ALS. But right now in the summer of 2026, the football [music] world is not talking about touchdowns. It is talking about something far more devastating >> a football and you know his career that it had to be something with that. >> In June 2026 at the age of [music] 40, Johnson revealed he was diagnosed with amotrophic lateral sclerosis, better [music] known as ALS, a progressive neurological disease that has already robbed him of his ability [music] to
speak. First, I want people to know that I’m still me. ALS has changed what my body can do. >> This is the full story of who CJ 2K was, what he built, [music] and the heartbreaking reality of where he is today. Let’s get into it. The making of a legend, [music] the combine, and the draft. To understand why this story hits so hard, you have to go back to where it all [music] started.
February 24th, 2008, Indianapolis. the NFL scouting combine. Prior to that event, [music] Johnson was projected as nothing more than a second or third round draft pick in the 2008 NFL draft. He was a kid from Orlando, Florida, who went to East Carolina, not [music] exactly the pipeline school that turns heads at the combine.
NFL scouts were not falling over themselves to watch this one, but [music] then he stepped onto the track. Johnson ran a then record-breaking 4.24 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. The room went [music] absolutely silent. That time did not just lead all players at the combine. It tied [music] the all-time electronically measured record.
Teams that had not even been looking at Chris Johnson [music] were suddenly scrambling to revisit their draft boards. Coming from a smaller school in East Carolina, that combined day was Johnson’s opportunity to compete with guys who went to all the great schools and all the five-star recruits. >> They have over 2500 yards and breaking all these records.
He had a chance to show he belonged with [music] them the whole time and he showed everybody loudly. Johnson was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the first round, 24th overall of the 2008 NFL draft. And the moment he got to Nashville, the Titans knew they had something special on their hands. He shared the backfield early on with Lendale White.
The two of [music] them forming what fans called Smash and Dash. White was the smash. Johnson was the dash. But it would not take long for CJ2K to make that backfield entirely his own. Johnson rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of [music] his six seasons with the Titans. Six consecutive thousandy seasons to open a career.
Talk about elite consistency. The season that defined a generation. 2009. Here is where things get truly extraordinary. The year 2009. Chris Johnson was just in his second NFL season and he decided to put on one of the greatest individual performances in the entire history of professional football. >> Back on Get Up with a developing story.
You may remember Chris Johnson, star running back who once ran for 2,000 yards in a single season. >> Johnson won the NFL rushing title with 2006 yards, becoming the sixth of only nine players ever to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season. and he broke Marshall Faulk’s record of total yards from scrimmage with 25 under nine 2006 rushing yards.
The nickname CJ2K was born, a reference to the fact that he had broken the 2,000yard barrier. And that scrimmage yards record, that single season record of 259 yards from scrimmage still stands today. In 2026, still untouched. The statistical dominance that season was almost incomprehensible. He averaged 5.6 6 yards per carry and 125.
4 yards per game to lead the league. He had 11 consecutive games with at least 100 rushing yards. He became the only player in NFL history with a touchdown of 50 yards, 60 yards, and 90 yards in one game. When defenders thought they had an angle on him, he was already gone. Pure electricity. He was named the NFL’s offensive player of the year in 2009.
Three straight Pro Bowls. The fastest man in the building every single Sunday. Ryan Fitzpatrick, who played alongside Johnson for one season in Tennessee, recently reflected on just how special that connection was. Fitzpatrick recalled that the 100th touchdown pass he threw in the NFL was to CJ 2K and Johnson signed the football for him.
It says, “To my cool white boy. Congrats on number 100.” That was CJ 2K. A guy who made football fun. A guy who made every single person in that locker room feel like they were part of something special. the money, the hold out, and the transition. Of course, after back-to-back monster seasons, Chris Johnson knew his worth, and he was not shy about letting the Titans know it either.
As the leading rusher since 2008, accumulating 4,598 yards, he was set to make just $1.065 million in 2011 under his existing contract terms, approximately 10% of the money paid to the second place rusher for the same period. That math was not going to work. Johnson held out from training camp. Chris Johnson and the Tennessee Titans agreed to a 4-year, $53.
5 million contract extension with $30 million guaranteed, ending the three-time Pro Bowl running back’s holdout. Overnight, he became the highest paid running back in the NFL. Johnson would take home $13 million in 2011, a massive jump from the $800,000 base salary he had been scheduled to earn that season. The man earned every penny.
The results on the field would have their ups and downs after that, but nobody could ever take away what he had already accomplished. Johnson played 10 seasons in the NFL with the Titans from 2008 to 2013, then the New York Jets in 2014, and finally the Arizona Cardinals from 2015 to 2017. He retired. He walked away from the game with his head held high.
In 10 NFL seasons, Johnson rushed for 9,651 yards and 55 touchdowns while adding another 2,255 receiving yards and nine more touchdowns. More than 11,000 total offensive yards from a man who was almost a second round pick from East Carolina. Nobody believed in him before that combine run. The game made him believe in himself. Life after football.
What CJ2K built retirement did not mean disappearing. not [music] for Chris Johnson. After his remarkable 10 season football career, Johnson transitioned into hospitality and real estate, creating vacation properties that offered unforgettable experiences for travelers, reflecting on the life lessons he carried into his post football ventures.
[music] The man who once made his living sprinting through NFL defenses was now building something entirely different, a life, [music] a business, a legacy off the field. He also hosted a podcast called Smash and Dash with his friend and former teammate Lendale White back together again, reconnecting with the fans who had watched them terrorized defenses in Nashville a decade earlier.
In recent years, Johnson had also expressed an interest in a career [music] in scouting, attending NFL scout school at the Senior Bowl to expand his knowledge. He was carving out a second act, staying connected to the game that had defined him. In 2024, Johnson was inducted into the Tennessee [music] Sports Hall of Fame.
Jason, from your humble beginnings in Elizabeth and Tennessee, you’ve gone on to shape so many lives through this award. >> What an honor. He had long expressed his love for the state, saying, “I love Tennessee. [music] I come back all the time. The city embraced me. The fans loved me. Everyone around the city and the whole state embraced me.
Nashville and Tennessee will always be my second home.” He was happy. He was [music] active. He was working out every single day. He was raising four children. And then something changed. The first sign something was wrong. This is the part of the story that stops you in your tracks. Started with something so small, so easy to dismiss that almost anyone would have done exactly what Chris Johnson did, brush it off.
Johnson said he was in the prime of his life, working out daily and spending time with his wife and four children when he noticed the first symptom. He said, “I first noticed weakness in my right hand. At first, it was little things like my grip didn’t feel right and I wasn’t as strong as I’ve always been. That was it.
A weak grip. For a man who had spent over a decade training at the highest level of professional athletics, it seemed like nothing. Maybe age, maybe soreness. His wife Britney thought the hand weakness was the result of his years spent on the football field. >> A football and you know his career that it had to be something with that.
Maybe a pinched nerve or >> a pinched nerve. Maybe an old injury flaring up something manageable. Never in a million years would either of them have guessed ALS. But the weakness did not go away. It got worse. Doctors ran test after test and the results kept pointing to the same terrifying conclusion.
His condition continued to worsen and doctors ultimately gave him the diagnosis. The diagnosis ALS amotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Garriig’s disease, one of the most brutal terminal illnesses in existence. Dr. Dr. Jinsy Andrews, director of the ALS clinic at NYU Langoni Health, did not mince words about how brutal it is, saying, “It’s a tough disease.
Some say it’s even worse than cancer.” And as if the diagnosis itself was not devastating enough, what the doctor said next was even harder to hear. Johnson revealed in his own words that the doctors told him, “Get your affairs in order.” The diagnosis, the announcement that stunned the NFL.
On Monday, June 29th, 2026, in an interview on Good Morning America, former Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson, known as CJ2K, told the world he was diagnosed in 2025 with amiotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Garri’s disease. The football world stopped. Former teammates, coaches, fans across the country, everyone who had watched this man sprint untouched down the sidelines for a decade sat with their mouths open.
The disease had spread so rapidly that Johnson now uses a speech generating machine triggered by his eyes to speak. Let that sink in for a moment. A man who once ran a 4.24 in the 40-yard dash now communicates by moving his eyes. Soon after receiving the diagnosis, his family made an important decision. [music] They recorded his voice.
So the speech generating device mirrors his own voice. Exactly. So when you hear him speak in that interview, you are hearing Chris Johnson’s actual voice, his real voice. having doctors who are willing to collaborate and explore every reasonable option. >> Playing back through a machine because his body can no longer produce it on its own.
Sitting across from Michael Strawn on national television, Johnson delivered a message that hit harder than any 80-yard touchdown run ever could. He said, “First, I want people to know I’m still me. ALS has changed what my body can do, but it hasn’t changed who I am.” The man has not lost a single ounce of his spirit. Not one ounce. Johnson confirmed there is no history of ALS in his family, saying, “My doctors believe my case is what’s called sporadic ALS, which is actually how the vast majority of ALS cases happen.
That’s one of the reasons this disease can be so shocking. It can happen to someone who never expected it. How fast it progressed and the family’s reality. The speed of the progression has been devastating, and Chris Johnson has been painfully honest about it.” He said it himself in words that are almost impossible to read without feeling it in your chest.
It’s continued to progress much faster than I ever imagined. I want people to understand just how quickly ALS can attack your body. Just over a year ago, I was picking up my 7-year-old daughter so she’d make a wish with her birthday cake. Today, I couldn’t do that. One year, that is what ALS took from him in one single year.
The man who once carried an entire NFL franchise on his back cannot pick up his daughter. That contrast is almost unbearable. Throughout this devastating journey, Johnson has been open about the source of his strength, his wife Brittany, and their four children. His wife Brittany has not left [music] his side, not for a single moment.
Johnson spoke about her and their kids with a depth of love that went far beyond football and fame. He said, “She hasn’t left my side through any of this. My kids are also a huge part of why I keep going. Every day I wake up wanting more time with them to make more memories and just be their dad. They give me a reason to keep fighting.
And Britney in her own words described the weight of the new reality. She talked about how their life has shifted, how there are good days and bad days, and how the life they previously had is now a thing of the past. But she also said something about hope, about believing that a breakthrough is coming, that God will provide a miracle.
A wife and mother who carries so much, still refusing to stop believing. Most patients with ALS survive 2 to 5 years following diagnosis, [music] though a small percentage live a decade or longer. Johnson knows the numbers, and he still chooses to fight every single morning he wakes up. The NFL link, a dark pattern nobody wants to talk about.
Here is where this story becomes bigger than one man, as sad as it already is, because Chris Johnson is not the first NFL player to face this disease. Not even close. And the connection between professional football and ALS is something the league has been forced to confront directly. >> Chris Johnson has revealed he’s been living with ALS.
>> Research funded by the ALS Association found that NFL players are four times more likely to be diagnosed with ALS and die from the disease than people who never played in the league. The study led by researchers at Harvard University and Boston University’s CTE Center looked at 19,223 athletes who played in the NFL between 1960 and 2019. Four times more likely.
That number is staggering. And it’s not just a coincidence. 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. Notably, risk increased with career length.
Players who developed ALS averaged 7.0 seasons in the NFL, compared with 4.5 seasons for matched players without ALS. The NFL’s concussion settlement explicitly includes ALS as a compensible condition with significant financial awards, meaning even the league itself acknowledges, at least in part, that ALS is connected to football trauma.
And Chris Johnson is not even the only Titan to face this fight. Tim Shaw, who had a six-year career as a linebacker in the NFL and was a teammate of Johnson’s with the Titans from 2010 to 2012, was also diagnosed with ALS back in 2014 at age 30 and is still alive today. Two Titans, one disease.
The conversation about what the NFL costs its players physically cannot just be about broken bones and concussions anymore. The fight back ice bucket challenge reborn. Here is what separates Chris Johnson from someone who just quietly suffers. He chose to fight back loudly, publicly, [music] fearlessly. After making his diagnosis public, Johnson released a message on social media calling for action.
Let’s bring back the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. [music] Grab a bucket, challenge three people, and if you can, donate to help fund ALS research. And the response from the football world was immediate and overwhelming. Johnson vowed to raise awareness for ALS, bringing back the viral ice bucket challenge with Marshawn Lynch and Lendell White already taking part.
Beast Mode showed his support, saying, “First off, that stuff was hella cold. But for CJ2K, I’m in. I’m with you, and I support you.” Former teammates, current players, NFL legends, all of them soaking themselves with buckets of ice water to stand with their brother. I am so happy and excited about what’s going on in regards to Chris Johnson.
>> Dion Sanders and Adrien Peterson were also among the latest to support Johnson in the Ice Bucket Challenge. Former Titans quarterback Vince Young also performed the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in support of his former Tennessee teammate. The Ice Bucket Challenge originally took over social media in 2014, raising $220 million globally for ALS research.
And in 2026, with CJ2K’s name and story attached to it, the challenge is officially back. And this time, NFL fans are driving it. Since [music] Johnson revealed his diagnosis and called for a revival of the challenge, the ALS association has already seen giving triple triple in a matter of days. The spirit [music] that refuses to break.
The most remarkable thing about watching Chris Johnson’s interview on Good Morning America is not the tragedy of the situation. [music] It is the man sitting inside it. >> First, I want people to know that I’m still me. ALS has changed what my body can do. >> The rapid deterioration, all happening within a year, physically [music] sapped the former star running back, but it has not weakened his determination to continue battling.
When Michael Stron asked him how he processes a diagnosis like this, Johnson delivered one of the most powerful answers you will ever hear from any human being. He said, “Honestly, I don’t know if you ever fully process it. [music] At first, you’re in shock. Then you realize you have two choices. You can give up or you can fight. I chose to fight.
That same man who cannot lift his daughter, who communicates through machines, [music] who was told by doctors to get his affairs in order, is spending what energy he has raising money, raising awareness, and giving hope to other people who got hit with [music] this diagnosis and do not know where to turn.” He said he reached out to Dr.
from Meritt Sikovich, a leading ALS neurologist at Mass General Bighgam. After seeing her discuss experimental treatments on television, [music] Johnson is now participating in a clinical trial targeting inflammation while receiving standard ALS treatment. He said, “Right now, there isn’t a cure, but we are seeing more research, more clinical trials, and more promising ideas than ever before.
Seeing how hard these doctors and researchers are working gives me hope.” >> [music] >> And on the question of what he wishes people understood about living with ALS, Johnson said something that should make everyone stop and [music] think. He said that people look at the physical disability and assume the person has changed. But he has not changed at all.
His exact words, I still think the same. I still [music] dream. I still love my family. My body just doesn’t cooperate. His mind is still sharp. His love for his family is still burning. The disease took his legs. It took his [music] voice. It did not take who he was. Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk released a statement saying, “Some people leave a mark on an organization that you just can’t put into words.
Chris Johnson is [music] one of those people for us. His leadership on the field, in addition to his impact in the locker room and Nashville community, have written him permanently into the story of this franchise. Learning [music] this news is extremely difficult and we will support Chris every step of the way throughout his journey.
[music] We are holding him and his family close and join our fans around the world in expressing our love for Chris. [music] Ryan Fitzpatrick, who caught that 100th touchdown pass from Johnson, put it simply when he spoke to Fox News digital recently. He said, “He was a great teammate when I got to play with him for the one year and obviously a super talented guy on the football field.
” And Fitzpatrick added that as you get older, more of these brutal realities start to surface, [music] saying, “One of my best friends from high school was also diagnosed with ALS. Seeing that firsthand and the difficulties that come with it, not just for him, but everybody that is around him, it’s really hard. The football world loved CJ2K for what he did between the lines.
But right [music] now, in the summer of 2026, he is inspiring people for something that has nothing to do with yards or touchdowns or records. He is showing the world how to face the unthinkable with grace and courage and an undying refusal to stop fighting. [music] And honestly, that is a greater legacy than any 2,000yard season could ever be.
Chris Johnson turns 41 this September. He is fighting a disease that most people could not imagine facing alone. And yet, he is using every ounce of strength he has left to help others. What do you think about the story of CJ2K and his battle with ALS? Let us [music] know your thoughts in the comment section. And before you leave, don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to NFL Rivals so you don’t miss the next ones.
