The Houston Texans released C.J. Gardner-Johnson this week in a move not many people saw coming. Unfortunately for the Texans, they realized what the Saints realized about Gardner-Johnson: the talent doesn't outweigh everything that comes with it.
The Texans learned that lesson much quicker than New Orleans did. It took the Saints three years to come to this conclusion. Houston, on the other hand, only took three games. They abruptly decided to cut Gardner-Johnson after just trading for the safety earlier this year. Alarms have to ring after moving on from an acquisition that quickly.
The safety will be moving teams yet again. The carousel all began when the Saints traded Gardner-Johnson to the Philadelphia Eagles during the 2022 training camp. Since then, Gardner-Johnson has changed teams in each of the last four seasons. It's not a process he is unfamiliar with, but this is the first time he's had to go through this during the season.
C.J. Gardner-Johnson's attitude is a gift and a curse
Fans love Gardner-Johnson's trash talk. It's great when he agitates an opponent enough to punch him in the face and draw a flag. Everyone laughed when the safety's trash talk was apparently the remedy to Baker Mayfield's injury. These are funny moments, but the other side of that is Gardner-Johnson doesn't stop chirping when he steps off the field.
We saw that in New Orleans where Gardner-Johnson pushed his way out of New Orleans going into a contract year. He never got that contract, but he was able to become a safety like he wanted. Issues with his usage was just one of the things that popped up on his way out of Houston.
Reports say the safety wanted to be used as a blitzer more. That's normal frustrations, but here is where it begins to cross the line. Gardner-Johnson made comments on how much one of his teammates was making. That's just something you don't do.
Combine that with complaints about usage and team culture. It no longer looks like a player who just wants the team to get better. It was time for Gardner-Johnson to go. He'll get picked up, but you have to wonder what the market will look like this time for the safety.