“It’s a heck of a move by the Lions to continue to invest in their secondary, their biggest weakness last season. They had the league’s fourth-most efficient offense … and the 31st-most efficient defense. They’ve now added Cam Sutton, Emmanuel Moseley and Gardner-Johnson in free agency,” Walder wrote.
Gardner-Johnson is coming off a strong season in Philadelphia, where he finished tied for the most interceptions in the league with six despite missing five games after suffering a lacerated kidney.
The Lions appeared high on Gardner-Johnson as well, with head coach Dan Campbell sharing praise for his energy during the team’s minicamp in June.
“Look, he’s got contagious energy,” Campbell said, via USA Today’s Lions Wire. “As long as it’s not affecting your job and you stay focused on the job at hand — one of the reasons C.J. is that way is because that’s how he gets his engine going. In turn, that just spills out into the offense or your teammates. You can’t help — the level of intensity, it raises. I think that makes everybody around you better. And more competitive.”
Lions Could Have Big Hole to Fill
If Gardner-Johnson’s injury should force him to miss significant time, it could be a major blow for a rebuilding defense. The Athletic’s Colton Pouncy noted that he was expected to serve as a veteran leader for the unit, noting that his “impact on this Lions will team will be felt on and off the field.”
Gardner-Johnson seemed to embrace the role, telling Pouncy he was ready to take responsibility for the performance of the unit.
“Everything that goes wrong on the backend, put it on me,” he said. “Don’t put it on Cam. Don’t put it on Kerb. Put it on me. I’ll take all the bullets for us on the backend.”
Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, who has worked with Gardner-Johnson as a coach and mentor since the defensive back was a teenager, shared some praise for the energy he brought to the team.
“Man, just the personality,” Glenn said. “You watch him on tape, you see the fire, the passion, the love for the game, that intrigues me about anybody. The technical stuff, I can help you with. I can teach that. But some of the stuff, that’s just self-ingrained, it’s just in you, that’s just who you are. I always say you want a dog to bite when he come out the womb. You don’t want to teach him to bite. He bit when he came out the womb.”
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