C.J. Gardner-Johnson
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Chicago Bears safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.
In 2 brilliant seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022 and 2024 — sandwiched by one forgettable season with the Detroit Lions in 2023 — safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson racked up 12 interceptions and played in 2 Super Bowls, winning one of them.
At just 27 years old, that’s the kind of player teams fall over themselves to keep around.
Not Garder-Johnson, though. The Eagles got rid of him about as fast as humanly possible, trading him to the Houston Texans one month after a win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX on February 9.
In the case of Gardner-Johnson, the headache that came with having him on the roster just wasn’t worth it — even for a team desperate for help at safety like the Eagles.
They weren’t the only ones who were sick of Gardner-Johnson, and he’ll be on his fifth team in 3 seasons with the Chicago Bears when they visit the Eagles in Amazon Prime Video’s Black Friday Game in Week 14.
The Bears are actually Gardner-Johnson’s third team this season after getting the boot from both the Texans and the Baltimore Ravens previously, and he was asked about what happened in Philadelphia before facing his old team.
“I got shipped off, so it didn’t last too long … it’s a new season,” Gardner-Johnson said. “Time to move on.”
CJGJ Finally Seems Accountable For Actions
While the teams Gardner-Johnson has played on have been winners, it’s never seemed like a pleasant experience to have him as a teammate and he’s arguably the most hated player in the NFL.
Gardner-Johnson returned to the Eagles on a 3-year, $27 million contract in 2024 after playing for the Lions on a 1-year, $6.5 million contract in 2023, when he missed 15 games with a torn pectoral muscle.
In an anonymous poll of 110 NFL players by The Athletic in November 2024, Gardner-Johnson was the runaway winner in response to a question about who the most annoying player in the NFL was.
It was the second year in a row Gardner-Johnson topped a specific category in The Athletic’s anonymous poll, with the “Most Annoying” category changed from when he topped the list for “Biggest Trash Talker” in 2023.
From The Athletic: “Last season we asked players to name the biggest trash-talker. This year, we broadened the question to most annoying, leaving it to the players’ discretion to decide what qualified as annoying. Well, last year’s biggest trash-talker, Philadelphia Eagles defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson, took the crown again.”
Gardner-Johnson’s Long History of NFL Fines
The New Orleans Saints drafted Gardner-Johnson in the fourth round (No. 105 overall) of the 2019 NFL draft and he became a part-time starter as a rookie before becoming a full-time starter in his second season.
One thing Gardner-Johnson has done from the moment his NFL career began was start to rack up fines from the NFL. Since 2019, Gardner-Johnson has been fined 12 times for “agitator” type incidents, including twice for fighting and once for unsportsmanlike conduct.
In 2024 alone, Gardner-Johnson was fined 6 times — 5 times for taunting and once for a late hit against the Saints.
In 7 games in 2025, Gardner-Johnson has yet to incur a fine and seems to have undergone some serious self reflection.
“Me sitting at home, I had to really look myself in the mirror,” Gardner-Johnson told ESPN’s Courtney Cronin on November 27. “And it’s like, it’s really on me.”