C.J. Gardner-Johnson has tone-deaf response to Tyler Higbee injury
Football is an amazing game, but it's a violent one. A player can suffer one bad injury on an given play and literally see his career come to a close.It's a scary element, but it's also a key part of the backbone that is NFL brotherhood. The players know how risky their jobs are, which […]
Football is an amazing game, but it's a violent one. A player can suffer one bad injury on an given play and literally see his career come to a close.
It's a scary element, but it's also a key part of the backbone that is NFL brotherhood. The players know how risky their jobs are, which creates commonality and therefore, leads to bonding. Even though they're competing against one another, they're still in it together and are looking out for each other, to an extent.
That's why Detroit Lions safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson's response to Matthew Stafford's issue with Kerby Jospeh going low on tight end Tyler Higbee is so tone-deaf.
"If anybody on the Rams feels like it was dirty, well tell the quarterback don't put the ball in the place where he can get his player hurt," Gardner-Johnson told reporters when asked about the situation, as a whole. "You hear [Tom] Brady say it all the time. Kerby's a ball player, he's been doing it before I got here. And like I said, if your quarterback don't want any players to get hurt or messed up [then] don't put it where our safeties are going to make a play."
It would've been a low hit on Higbee, even if it were an accurate throw
Gardner-Johnson's comments were already out-of-place and we'll get to why, shortly. But another layer is added when watching the play: It's clear Kerby Joseph was already going low as he angled his tackle toward Higbee.
An accurate throw would've led to a low hit, regardless. If you pause the below video at 0:09 and 0:15, you'll see Joseph is already going low as the ball arrives to Higbee. An accurate throw would've likely led to a catch and Higbee wouldn't have had enough time to avoid Joseph – the hit still would've happened the way it did.
Stafford has seen this from Joseph before, too
When teams/players watch film, they typically watch the previous four games. Mostly because they won't retain much information watching 18 games -or whatever number greater than four- throughout the week. And, teams are completely different in Week 2 compared to Week 16. The previous four games not only give an "updated" look at each team, they show recent tendencies, wrinkles, etc. that older film may not provide.
Stafford definitely watched the Lions' Week 16 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings while he prepared for the Wild Card matchup. Therefore, he saw what Joseph did to star tight end, T.J. Hockenson:
That play came after a catch, as Hockenson was running down the field. It was a lot worse of a situation than what we saw on Sunday.
If I had to put money on it, I'd bet that's why Stafford was so irate and you can't blame him. Joseph is starting to build a rep and it's certainly not one a player wants to have.
Gardner-Johnson is a fiery personality and loves drama and conflict and while he's simply standing up for his teammate, saying something like, It's very unfortunate what happened, but this is a violent game and it's hard playing defense, these days, with all the new tackling rules, is such a better route to take.
Throw it back on the NFL. That's what The Shield is there for. Blame them. They'll be fine.
Don't throw it back at another player, though, that you may be playing alongside, one day (and Gardner-Johnson should definitely realize that, as he's on his third team in as many years). It's simply classless and he looks pretty foolish, at the end of the day.
