Josh Johnson is 33 years old. He’s 1-7 as a starter with a 55.2 career completion percentage. He’s thrown for a total of 1,632 yards, eight touchdowns and 14 interceptions. In spite of that, he’s just signed on with his 13th team in the NFL.
If you needed an example as to why maybe Colin Kaepernick deserves an NFL job, Johnson would be “exhibit A.”
The #Lions are signing QB Josh Johnson after the workout this morning, source says. That makes a baker’s dozen of teams for Johnson in his NFL career. He has a shot to cement the backup job behind Matt Stafford following Tom Savage’s injury the other night.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) August 10, 2019
With Tom Savage going down in Thursday’s preseason game, the Detroit Lions are the latest team to ask Johnson to carry a Microsoft Surface tablet on the sidelines. Johnson, since being selected in the fifth round of the 2008 NFL draft out of San Diego by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has appeared in 33 NFL games. Last year, he started three games for the QB depleted Washington Redskins, completed 57.2 percent of his passes for 590 yards, three touchdowns and four picks.
According to the excuse that Lions head coach Matt Patricia is tossing out on signing Johnson, it was his quarterback coach, Sean Ryan, who helped it happen. Ryan coached Johnson for all of two months with the Houston Texans back in 2017.
“It’s always difficult to bring in a quarterback mid-training camp,” Patricia said. “One of the things that we try and look for is any sort of familiarity with players that we bring in, quarterbacks, linebackers, could be anything that’s a communication piece. He spent time with our quarterbacks coach down in Houston so they have a great working relationship down there and just knowing Josh as a person and competing in that world, it was just kind of an easy sort-of, brought him in, brought a couple guys in and was someone that we thought could step in mid-stride here and go.”
The Lions weren’t the only team in hot pursuit of Johnson’s NFL talent. He actually turned down an offer from the Baltimore Ravens. Yes. You read that right.
Imagine being turned down by Josh Johnson. https://t.co/QcGZYP0LO6
— Sam Monson (@PFF_Sam) July 29, 2019
In other Lions news, the team activated defensive end Trey Flowers from the physically unable to perform list and put Darius Kilgo and Jermaine Kearse on injured reserve. They signed running back Justin Stockton and cut cornerback Tarvarus McFadden.
