NFL Rumors: Chris Johnson to be primary back for New York Jets
By Jack Crosby
Wednesday afternoon, the New York Jets made another huge splash in the free agent pool when they were able to lock up running back Chris Johnson, following his release last week from the Tennessee Titans.
In 2014, Johnson will make $4 million, as was expected when he first hit the market, that he would garner about half of what he was due with the Titans, which was $8 million. Still, $4 million is a good bit of money, and as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk points out, because of the dollar figure, if anyone had any ideas about Johnson and Chris Ivory splitting time evenly in the Jets’ backfield, you can forget that.
Johnson will be the man:
"Johnson will earn $4 million in 2014. Ivory will earn $1 million. While that doesn’t mean Johnson will have four times the touches as Ivory, it indicates that Johnson has greater value — and in turn that he’ll have the greater role."
Naturally, when you pay someone all that money–especially someone like Johnson whose skills and work ethic have been called into question recently–you’re going to expect them to be the workhorse, and this should be fun to watch play out.
If Johnson does have what it takes to be an elite back once again, he’d better show it, because that’s what he’s getting paid to do.