No one takes something more personally than C.J. Gardner-Johnson; it’s awesome. He hated the Saints for trading him to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022, then he hated the Eagles for not re-signing him in 2023 (his car was also stolen in Philadelphia); and then he felt slighted by the Lions for not re-signing him in 2024.
After the Eagles traded him to the Texans this offseason, he said he understood the move and that there were no hard feelings… but you knew it was only a matter of time until the Super Bowl-winning safety was going to pop off on how he actually felt. That happened after Vic Fangio had his first press conference of the offseason.
We all pretty much knew that Milton Williams, Josh Sweat, and Darius Slay were all going to leave in free agency, but it was pretty blindsiding when the Eagles sent C.J.G.J. to Houston. It made sense when you thought about it: it saved the Eagles money, which will eventually go to Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith. In order to afford a Lamborghini, you’re going to have to sell your Bentley (I assume. I drive a 2016 Malibu). Planning for the future is responsible and a good idea, but it’s not fun.
Initially, everyone seemed like they were on the same page. On a livestream, C.J.G.J. explained, “The situation is: them young guys got to get paid in Philly. Jalen Carter, Reed [Blankenship], Zack [Baun]. All them guys got to get their money, they deserve it. With me getting older, so I've got to understand, there was no bad blood. There was nothing…”
A clean break with the dude who hates every one of his exes? No way. That seemed too good to be true. Was winning a Super Bowl akin to the Grinch hearing the Whos down in Whoville? Did it make his heart grow? Did it dull his edge?
No. Of course, it didn’t, and that’s a good thing. It just took him a second to get his head out of the post-Super Bowl euphoria. You’re not allowed to both celebrate the Eagles winning the Super Bowl and be mad that C.J.G.J. takes everything as a personal affront; that’s what makes him awesome.
CJGJ took offense to Vic Fangio's latest comments
On Tuesday, Vic Fangio spoke to the media for the first time this offseason, and he was asked about his thoughts on trading C.J.G.J. Fangio said, “That was a salary cap type thing. Howie made that decision, I was fine with it.”
That’s just about as Fangio of an answer as you’ll get. Two sentences, straight and to the point. Unfortunately, because Fangio is so straightforward, that means he didn’t say anything about how much Gardner-Johnson meant to the team and the defense.
It turns out, C.J.G.J. heard that and didn’t like it. He shared his thoughts on his Instagram story.
CJ Gardner Johnson respond to Fangio that he was traded for “salary cap reasons” He was a “test dummy” and did not have “no issues” with no one pic.twitter.com/YEnCvynYGb
— YouTuber: Eagle AL (@kb_973) June 4, 2025
That’s a lot to take in and make sense of, so I’m going to do my best to translate and break it all down. On his first slide, he said, “Just don’t do them young guys like yall did me 💯💪🏿”
This could go a couple of ways: The most positive (and admittedly the most wishful) way, he could’ve meant that he knows how much the young guys like being on the team, and he doesn’t want the Eagles to trade them away just to save money. He also could’ve meant that he doesn’t want the young guys to have to test the open market like he did after 2022. Or, he could’ve meant that he felt like he was just thrown away after a good season. Whatever it meant, it was pretty sentimental.
On the second slide, he said, “I was a test dummy for them, so now they can be like my “scheme” work, or did my skill set make it work 💯. I had 0 issues, Ppl had issues with me, So Yeah let the salary cap be the “excuse”
He deleted this slide, so it’s probably not worth looking into a whole lot, but the glaring thing is the test dummy part. The question is what scheme he was talking about: Fangio’s defensive scheme or Howie Roseman’s grand scheme of roster management?
If he was talking about being a test dummy for Fangio’s defense, then it’s a hell of a reach. Fangio has been doing this for a long time, and he’s had some really good safeties who have played in his system. That being said, this was the first time Fangio had ever won a Super Bowl.
His defense relies heavily on dynamic safeties, and C.J.G.J. was one of the two safeties who won Fangio his Super Bowl… so maybe that’s what he was talking about. After all, the Eagles drafted Drew Mukuba, the safety from Texas, in the second round, and he gets compared to C.J.G.J. a lot. Maybe he has a point about Fangio using him as a test dummy so they could replace him with a younger player with the same play style.
If he was talking about Howie Roseman’s scheme of roster management, it could also hold some water. If that’s the case, then the skill set C.J.G.J. is talking about is his ability to change teams every season.
The Texans will be his fifth team in five years. It’s got to be tough to trade a player who has a track record of not sticking around for more than one year. Luckily, he’s been good in each of his last four stops, and that makes him very tradeable. If that’s what he’s talking about, then again, he has a good point.
His last slide on his Instagram story was, “You can’t program a dog 💯,” which is factually inaccurate. In the early 1900s, Ivan Pavlov famously programmed his dog to drool whenever he rang a bell. I have no idea what he’s talking about here.
All in all, this is just C.J.G.J. being C.J.G.J. and you can’t fault him for it. Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to smash beers together and pour them on his face, and Ceedy Duce is going to say things about the teams he used to play on. That’s just how it is, and it’s awesome.