Watching Chris Johnson run for 69 yards and a touchdown in Week 16 of the 2008 NFL season must have been difficult for Pittsburgh Steelers fans. After all, the Tennessee Titans won in convincing fashion, by the score of 31-14, while Willie Parker mustered up just 31 yards on 19 carries and rookie Rashard Mendenhall continued to nurse a fractured shoulder that had kept him out since Week 4. And we won't even get into how tough it must have been to see Johnson run for over 2,000 yards the next season, despite some impressive work from Mendenhall in the following years as well.
It must have been even more difficult to watch, however, for executives in the Steelers front office, knowing very well that they could have drafted Johnson ahead of Mendenhall. Not only could they have drafted CJ2K, but as the running back shared with Bryant McFadden on the "All Things Covered" podcast, available on Audacy, they were going to draft him. That is, they were going to select him until one of Johnson's fears got in the way.
"I was supposed to be a Steeler. A situation happened — you know how you do the visits after the combine? You have the visits, so, mind you, I'm claustrophobic," Johnson recalled. "You go to the combine, they make you do all this stuff, all the doctors, all the MRIs and all that. For some reason, I had no choice — they stuck me into that goddamn machine. I'm in there, oh my gosh. You know how they say push the button if you gotta come out? I keep pushing the button, and I finally get done, right?"
Johnson thought that would be that, so his next step was to visit Pittsburgh. He did, and he remembers all of the coaches, including Mike Tomlin, liking him. Unfortunately, then-running backs coach Kirby Wilson delivered the unfortunate news that team doctors were requesting Johnson go back to the hospital for additional MRIs, and Johnson couldn't bring himself to get back in that machine.
"I'm like, man, I can't do that... man, I'm claustrophobic. I just toughed it out at the combine," Johnson said. "So he leaves, Tomlin come in. Tomlin is like, 'Man, listen, you know we got plenty of guys way bigger than you, like linemen. They have to go in there and take the MRI.'"
Despite Tomlin's attempt to reason with Johnson, the claustrophobia was too much for Johnson to overcome. The running back called his agent, who advised that he talk to the Steelers and be straight up, telling them he simply can't bring himself to get back into the machine. It was at that point that the Steelers begrudgingly had to tell Johnson to go home.
"...Now that I go back and think about it, I think they [probably were] gonna take me," Johnson said. "They took Mendenhall instead, but I think they [were] gonna take me, but they didn't because I wouldn't take the MRI on the visit."
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