When C.J. Gardner-Johnson got traded, he said there was no bad blood between him and the Philadelphia Eagles. He’s had a personal vendetta against every team that’s either not re-signed him or traded him in the past, so for him to be cool with leaving the team that he just won the Super Bowl with seemed too good to be true. Which, of course, is because it was.
He went on The Pivot Podcast, and Ryan Clark asked him, “Why are you a Houston Texan and not a Philadelphia Eagle?” Gardner-Johnson. answered, “They’re scared of a competitor… Simple as that.” The problem is that it’s not really as simple as that.
The ebbs and flows of an offseason without C.J. Gardner-Johnson
No one wanted C.J. Gardner-Johnson gone; he’s awesome. The Eagles' defense was awesome when he was a safety in 2022, and then it stunk in 2023. The Eagles' defense was great for almost all of the 2024 season, but it struggled when he got booted from the game in Week 16 against the Washington Commanders. Other things went into both of those situations, like a certain defensive coach named Matt Patricia and a no-call on a ‘too many men on a field’ penalty, but Gardner-Johnson's absence was a common denominator.
Not only was it surprising when the Eagles traded him, but it was also confusing and kind of sad. He brought some stank to that defense, and he clearly liked being a dawg on a very physical defense. He’s the epitome of the player that you want playing for you and the player you don’t want to play against.
When he initially got traded, he said, “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…”
That’s cool. That’s great. Everything was chill… until OTAs, when Vic Fangio said that the trade was “a salary cap type thing. Howie made that decision, I was fine with it.”
That probably hurt, because after that, Gardner-Johnson started posting things on his Instagram about how the salary cap was an excuse, and that he was really traded because people had problems with him. That was a little more of the "Ceedy Duce" that we all know and love.
Fast forward to now, and he’s on Ryan Clark’s show, and he’s saying that the Eagles got rid of him because they’re “scared of a competitor.” The use of the word "competitor" is a little weird there, because if you just read a headline, it sounds like the Eagles traded him because they’re afraid of another team that’s competing with them, and that doesn’t make a lick of sense.
He went into a little more detail, and by ‘competitor,’ he meant that the Eagles were scared of the type of competitor that Gardner-Johnson is.
“You can’t program a dog… Look at the Washington Commanders game. I got kicked out. I was nowhere near the play… Everybody’s fed up with me… If you go back to that play, I celebrate with Reed Blankenship, and I’m getting cursed from head to toe on the sideline… That’s what sparked it…”
That was always a weird play. I remember watching the game: it went to commercial, and when it came back,Gardner-Johnson was getting escorted off the field with absolutely zero explanation. Later on, he kind of apologized for saying something and said that he needed to grow up. I imagine someone told him to do that instead of getting his back, and it soured on him a little.
"Then we had a little scrum at practice… It’s just the offense vs. the defense, but who’s the culprit of it? Me, I guess. Because I guess we’re competing? When you telling the period is live… you telling us not to compete during a live period, but it’s a live period. We competing to get ready for a playoff game. Alright, cool.”
You have to respect the whole. "They needed someone to blame for a fight, so they used me as a scapegoat. You wanted a real practice? I gave you a real practice. It’s not my fault everyone else was being soft, so yeah… I actually definitely started the fight." That’s awesome, top-notch pest behavior. I love it.
But that’s the way he does things, and it sounds like he doesn’t really want to change. I could see how a front office would not like that, especially if Gardner-Johnson was straightforward about not changing that part of himself.
That being said, he has changed, but in a different way. After he got traded, he also said that the Eagles wouldn’t win another ring without him. Old Ceedy Duce would burn a house down, walk away, and never look back.
A big part of his interview on The Pivot was how he’s changed as a human being, and he did apologize for saying that.
“I’ll retract them [the Super Bowl Ring]... I play with those guys and I know how they will feel. Like, ‘Chauncey, you tripping.’ It’s a disrespect to Jalen Carter, A.J. Brown… Lane Johnson, right? …Lane is my big vet, and Lane would tell me, ‘Hey Chaunce, I got your back, but when you do too much, I don’t got your back.’ And that’s one of those moments that’s too much.”
That’s nice to hear, because even if his teammates know him, know that’s how he acts, and know that he didn’t mean it, it probably still stung a little bit to hear a former teammate say that. That’s pretty cool.
Everyone’s said or done things they don’t mean when they’re mad. This seems like this was a case where he wanted to stay here, but tried to save face by walking out the door before the conversation was over.
I’m not a huge fan of Ryan Clark or The Pivot, but this was a good one to listen to. If you want to get into the head of C.J.G.J., this is a good way to spend an hour.