Chad Ostermann

Chris Johnson cannot speak anymore. He cannot walk on his own either. He talks through a device he controls with his eyes. His day starts with two hours of stretching. Seven bottles of medication. Physical therapy four or five times a week. A machine that bypasses his lungs and pumps every four seconds, all day, all night. His wife Brittany does almost all of it herself. "The hardest part is watching little pieces of him be torn away." He is 40 years old. In 2009 he ran for 2,006 yards, the sixth man in NFL history to do it. ALS was diagnosed in May 2025. He kept it private for more than a year. Then last Fourth of July weekend, about a week after he finally said it out loud on Good Morning America, he did something nobody expected a man in his condition to do. He started a challenge. He called it the CJ2K Ice Bucket Challenge, dumped the water on himself, and called out his old teammates. LenDale White went first. Then Pacman Jones. Then Marshawn Lynch. Then it got away from him in the best possible way. Vince Young. Adrian Peterson. Deion Sanders. Emmitt Smith. Thurman Thomas. LeSean McCoy. Pat McAfee. The entire Football Night in America crew did it live on NBC. Mike Tomlin wore a shirt for him on air during his broadcasting debut at the Hall of Fame Game. And his daughter challenged LeBron James. A man who can only move his eyes got the NFL to stand in a parking lot and pour ice water over its own head, and most of the people doing it had never played a down with him. Here is the part he will not soften. "Almost every neurologist brought up my football career." He has read the research showing former NFL players are roughly four times more likely to develop and die from ALS than other men. He knows what that probably means about where this came from. He has never once said he regrets playing. This month the Titans put him in their Ring of Honor. He was there with his family. He has 11,906 yards from scrimmage and he is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has twin 14 year old sons, an 8 year old daughter named Honey, and a stepson, Lee, who is a junior at Florida A&M. He used to coach their teams. He used to take them on five mile walks. Lee said the thing that will stay with you. "Nothing has changed from what he tries to do. It's just physical." The man is still in there. The body quit on him. Asked what he wants now, Johnson typed it out with his eyes. "I just want more time with the people I love." If you want to do something, the ice bucket challenge is still running, and it goes to ALS research. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap