An Unscripted Conversations with Retired NFL Player Chris Johnson about life after the game

Just tell us about your journey to start playing football?

Well, my journey started when I was younger. Whenever I was playing, I was always smiling. My mom never wanted me to play but she allowed my older brother to. So just kept bugging her to let me play. She eventually gave in and I started in my first game around the seventh grade. People now a days might not understand that back then that was considered a late start. You had kids starting at the age of five. 

I always felt like I had to prove myself. In high school I started out as a freshman and made it to varsity. This was the same for when I went to college. But I started to have a chip on my shoulder earlier after I graduated from high school because I wasn’t really sought after by recruiters. Even after graduating college and getting drafted first round I was still the fifth running back. We have this tendency to want to be first round draft picks and starters all in one. So even when I made the team, I was happy to be there but it was like I’m not the superstar on the team. 

My dream was to be the best running back in the league. I wanted people to mention my name after I retire when they talk about some of the best running backs in history. Like you couldn’t bring up the best without mentioning me.  

What kind of peaks did you experience in Tennessee?

You know I always wanted to be number and having that chip on my shoulder was the motivation for me to be the best. I wanted to be the best on the field like I was back in college. I felt like I had the best rookie season in my entire career. Within my first years I had won three Pro Bowls back-to-back from 2008 to 2010. I won NFL rushing yards leader in 2009. That chip on my shoulder never left even after receiving all these achievements. Like I became the sixth of only eight players to rush for over 2,000 years in a season. My dream was coming true to make it in the NFL and I felt very blessed, but I still wanted to do more. I didn’t just want to make it there. I wanted to leave a legacy.  

Do you feel like you’ve left a legacy not just in the NFL. But even where you grew up with your family, with your friends. And even when people you know, the younger generation who looked up to you?

I for sure know that I have left legacy. It’s crazy because being back home I just want to live a regular life and people stop me all the time to take pictures. I really do forget sometimes who I am to people especially in my hometown. When the media and people give you a nickname and it sticks, you know you have left a legacy. Like people call you by it even after the game is done and you are well retired from it.  

When did you decide to walk away from the game, was it hard? or were you ready?

Yeah, it was definitely hard. But I feel like this is something a lot of players go through. You think about it these people go from being some of the best athletes then they transition out of the sport they only knew. It’s like what’s next man?  

It’s hard because you have to realize for an athlete their whole life is structured from high school, college, and then to the pros. We have this structure that provides a foundation for what we do in season and off season. I knew what my Monday through Friday would look like. Like I would have my morning workout routine and my routine in studying plays and watching film.  

So, when you retire now you wake up like damn what am I going to do today. Then you realize you don’t have nothing going on really so you have nothing to do.  

Now you have to find who you are and what are the things that now suit your life after the game. Like for me I opened up a coffee shop down here in Orlando and just launched my podcast. For me I’m just giving myself different things to do so that I can stay busy.  

So now you have a coffee shop, and I think this is an interesting transition after playing. What sparked that idea?

It was all part of the process for me with transitioning off the field and finding different things to do. I actually went back to college to get my degree after I retired.  

The coffee shop came from me realizing how easily bored I was getting at home. Like waking up and doing the same thing over and over. I didn’t want to keep sitting at my computer at the house so I started going to coffee shops to get work done. I eventually fell in love with the coffee shop concept and thought it would be great to do one with my own spin.  

I had this idea after going to Nashville for a meeting. I went to one of these stores and saw that they offered coffee, tea, and all different types of plates of food. It was stuff like that that made me realize Orlando didn’t have something like it and I could bring it to the city.  

So now you have a podcast with Landale White, both of ya’ll were great in college and the NFL, how did this podcast get started?

He and I would spend so much time together going back and forth on different topics especially sports. But we would go back and forth on just about any topic. You know now a days everyone loves the trend of starting a podcast. I’m like well man we are already doing it we just don’t have the cameras and aren’t recording our conversations.  

It was easy for us because it’s like hey we go back and forth all the time so let’s just start one and see where it goes.  

The name Smash & Dash came to life because it just stuck with everyone. I wanted to go away from it because I wanted the podcast to be about more than just football. We needed to talk about all types of topics and the name must reflect that.  

We never could come up with a name and when we asked everyone on social media to help us by giving suggestions for some reason it kept coming back to smashing and dashing because of our football background. So, we were like forget it and we are going to stick with it. I’m glad we did because everybody actually loves it.