Former Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson announced his ALS diagnosis and journey in late June on Good Morning America. Now, in an interview with People released on his 41st birthday on Sept. 23, Johnson answered the tough football questions.

Johnson and his wife Brittany were featured in a 10-plus minute video with People updating his ALS journey and taking the next step in using the platform that football gave him as a star NFL running back to push awareness, further research efforts, help find a cause, and help find a cure for the disease.

“I don’t think it would be right for me to say football caused my ALS because I don’t know that,” Chris told People. “But I also don’t think you can ignore the question. I think the possible connection between football, repeated trauma, and neurological diseases needs to continue to be studied, so players and their families can have better answers.” 

The images of Johnson now, almost three months from when we first saw CJ on the Good Morning America interview with Michael Strahan, are striking. The People feature shows him receiving breathing support through a CPAP machine, using an electric wheelchair and communicating through the same eye-controlled speech device viewers saw in June.

He talks, using an AI voice generation machine, about his daily life and what Brittany has had to completely give up to provide non-stop, round-the-clock care for her husband. She wouldn’t trade it for anything and calls it her calling.

Johnson still loves football, but doctors dance around the connection

Johnson, without any hesitation, said that he still loves football. In the story, he and Brittany both mention their experience in the way doctors danced around the diagnosis of ALS and its connection to players and people who have a football career.

“I walked into what I thought was going to be a routine nerve conduction study because I assumed something minor was causing the weakness in my hand,” Johnson shared. “Instead, the doctor handed me a packet of paper, said this could be something serious, and walked out of the room. There was no explanation. My mind went to my wife, my kids, and my family. I kept thinking, this has got to be wrong.”

“At the top (of the packet) it said possible anterior horn cell disease, and I had never heard of that before,” Brittany Johnson said. “As soon as I googled it, it said ALS. I immediately just panicked, you know, that they thought that it could be that.”

“As soon as you mention your career in football, they kind of just say, ‘Well, yeah, you know.’ So it’s kind of said without being said that maybe they think that it is associated with the diagnosis, but it’s not anything that they confirm,” Brittany said. 

While it’s fair that you can’t quite yet say for a fact that football has a direct connection to ALS, so much independent and overall research has been done where former NFL players are being diagnosed with ALS at rates as many as four times higher than the general population. That is especially true when it comes to these diagnoses happening at a much younger age than the typical life stage and age range in which they occur. Chris Johnson was diagnosed at age 39.

In the story with People, Johnson goes further into the timeline of his diagnosis than he did on Good Morning America. The ultimate moment of knowing something was serious was the weight of a Stanley drinking cup he had on their family spring break, likely in the spring of 2025, being too heavy to hold. He had to put it down. Another doctor mentioned that it sounded like Johnson was speaking with marbles in his mouth. Chris had been telling Brittany about cold-like symptoms he had been feeling.

A to Z Sports has talked to a top neurosurgeon whose focus is ALS research about the connection to football.

“Being physically active is really important for our overall health and even for our brain health,” Dr. Jinsy Andrews told A to Z Sports in July. “But when we identify risk factors like playing football, we have to really understand what it is about playing football that causes the nerves to degenerate and lead to ALS?”

CJ’s view on his kids and football’s risk

Johnson’s comment about how he feels about the game of football is noteworthy.

“I still love football. Football changed my life and gave me opportunities I could never have imagined growing up.”

“When I came into the league, I was a kid from Orlando, trying to prove myself, and Tennessee gave me some of the greatest moments of my career. Those memories are part of who I am.”

When it comes to his kids, Chris Johnson has four children. Johnson’s 14-year-old twin sons, CJ and Kaden, both play football competitively. He has documented over their young lives how talented they are as athletes. Johnson feels clear about how he views football as a whole and the risk of ALS and other neurological diseases, especially with his kids.

“I don’t look at what I’m going through and say my kids shouldn’t play because of it. But as a father, of course, I think about things differently now. I want them to understand the risks, take care of their bodies, and never feel like they have to sacrifice their health just to prove how tough they are. If football is what they love, and that’s the path they choose, I’m going to support them.”

Fighting ALS for his kids, wife, and other families

Johnson and his family are doing everything they can to fight, pursuing different tests and trials to find some type of forward progress in ALS research so that other families don’t have to live the life they’re living.

“Time matters. I want to see my kids grow up. I want to see the boys accomplish everything they’re working toward. I want to watch Honey grow up, graduate, and one day walk her down the aisle. I want more years with my wife, and I’m hopeful because we’re fighting. We’re not sitting around waiting for ALS to decide what happens next. We’re always talking to doctors and looking at research, treatments, trials. I don’t know which treatment or discovery is eventually going to change things, but I believe somebody is going to figure this disease out. Until then, I’m going to keep fighting to be here for my family. That’s what gives me hope.”

Chris Johnson became a superstar through the game of football. Now he has another platform because of football to raise awareness for something that football likely cost him. His goal is to not quit, just like he never quit on the football field.

“ALS is bigger than me. Once you get diagnosed, you realize how many families are dealing with this disease and how badly we need better treatments and more options. I have a platform because of football, and if sharing my story can bring more attention, help push research forward, or help another family going through this, then there’s a purpose in doing it.”

CJ2K didn’t just run for 2,000 yards in 2009 and put together one of the most prolific seasons a running back has ever had in NFL history, with his 2,509 yards from scrimmage carrying the Tennessee Titans into being a watchable product that season. Chris Johnson also has an opportunity to help change the future of this disease and reach many people beyond the game that made him famous. Many people in Nashville, Titans fans, and the football community constantly have CJ on their minds as this NFL regular season heads into another week.