The Jets were under different management when they signed running back Chris Johnson before the 2014 season and the new people in charge have opted not to pick up the team’s option on Johnson for the 2015 season.
According to Johnson, the reason why he won’t be back with the team is because he “was told one thing and it was another” when it came to what his role with the team would be. During an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show, Johnson said that he signed with the Jets because former coach Rex Ryan told him he’d have a significant role on offense, but that he believes things wound up being out of Ryan’s hands because General Manager John Idzik dictated that things go in another direction.
“I think a lot of it was out of Rex’s hands because when I sat down and talked to Rex before I signed with the Jets, my role and my situation were explained to me totally different to what actually happened,” Johnson said. “That’s just what it was. It was never a type of thing where I was just being outplayed or anything like that. It was never a situation where I got the opportunity to show my talents and be used the way that I was supposed to be used.”
When Johnson signed, Ryan said that there were no predetermined roles for anyone in the backfield and Johnson said he was OK with sharing carries even though his $4 million salary suggested he’d be ahead of Chris Ivory in the pecking order. Ivory ran well early in the season while Johnson started slowly, though, and wound up as the lead horse in a backfield that was the rare strong point on a bad Jets team.
There may have been meddling from above Ryan, but nothing about how things played out on the field suggested Ivory was being given playing time for reasons other than his production. Given that fact, it’s not surprising the Jets opted to spend the $3.5 million they saved by cutting Johnson in different ways in 2015.
