We’re pretty sure C.J. Gardner-Johnson won’t be playing for Jonathan Gannon and the Arizona Cardinals anytime soon.
In just a couple of weeks, barring any last minute efforts from his team to offer up a new contract, C.J. Gardner-Johnson will officially become a free agent safety instead of a Philadelphia Eagles safety. But instead of looking at the entire landscape of the NFL for his new potential home, he can go ahead and cross the Arizona Cardinals off of that list.
The problem, you see, is that Gardner-Johnson played for the Eagles defense last year, a unit led by Philly defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. The Cards hired Gannon as their new head coach this year (which has already led to some awkward moments) and, judging by his Twitter account, Gardner-Johnson has little use for Gannon as a leader.
Gardner-Johnson is likely still smarting from a close loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 57. Who can blame him? A loss at that level will sting for anyone and the Eagles got closer than most on the losing end. In particular, the defense has to be especially sour after watching the Chiefs completely mow through their best efforts for the entire fourth quarter.
It’s one thing to be disappointed, however, and another to pass the buck.
Gannon spoke to reporters as the Cardinals new head coach from the 2023 NFL Combine in Indianapolis this week and was asked about the Super Bowl loss.
Jonathan Gannon on what went wrong in the 2nd half in the Super Bowl #Eagles pic.twitter.com/81pXBa7Q24
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) February 28, 2023
“They made a lot of good plays in that second half,” said Gannon, via the embedded video above. “We weren’t able to get some stops when we needed to. I obviously could have done a better job of coaching a couple of things that I want out of the call. It’s tough to swallow when you look back at that, because it’s such a big stage and we didn’t get it done for the city, for Mr. Lurie, for Howie and the head coach . But I learned a lot from it and, y’know, you’ve got to give credit to Kansas City but obviously I could have done a lot better job with what we were doing.”
Somehow that explanation didn’t sit well with Gardner-Johnson, who retweeted the post with his own commentary. (Note: he deleted it shortly thereafter but here’s the original screenshot.)
C.J. Gardner-Johnson tweeted this, then deleted it shortly after. @KYWNewsradio #Eagles pic.twitter.com/mUOGLGqBmB
— Dave Uram (@MrUram) March 1, 2023
Gardner-Johnson clearly has some emotions to work through but he’s also smart enough to know better, which is why he ended up deleting it and concluding his morning online with this.
https://twitter.com/CGJXXIII/status/1630916604706930689
We’re pretty sure that’s what he was doing in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl as well.