Jermaine Johnson gives surprising response on Last Chance U, path to the NFL

Jermaine Johnson didn’t have a straight path to the NFL. Before hearing his name called last Thursday, Johnson went through three football programs, a Netflix series and multiple challenges on the way to becoming the newest member of the New York Jets.

First, the pass rusher began his collegiate career at Independence Community College in Independence, Kansas. While Johnson suited up for the program, the team became the subject of the Netflix series Last Chance U, but the young star brimming with potential had no interest in being a character.

“I didn’t know it was actually going to be at Independence when I had chose to go there,” stated Johnson. “My head coach, Jason Brown, he kind of surprised us with it, or what not. A lot of people don’t know, I was supposed to have a bigger role on that show. The director, he kept asking me to be a featured guy. I wasn’t really interested in it.

“You know, I keep the main thing the main thing, and that’s playing football. My goals are very clear to me. I wasn’t really super interested in being an actor or anything like that. I was interested in being the best teammate I could be, and everything like that. I’m a family man, and my family’s the most important thing to me. You know, Jets are now apart of that family, and I’m a part of their family. These guys are the most important thing to me now. It just kind of built who I am, I’m thankful for that.”

Evidently, Johnson’s main focus remained on the field, even among all the pomp and circumstance. Continuing, the No. 26 overall selection added that he hasn’t even took the time to watch the season.

“Yeah, I don’t need none of that. That kind of stuff, I don’t need it,” Johnson stated. “I put the work in. What matters to me is when we’re winning those games with my brothers that we won. We did make some history there my first year, that’s what I’ll remember. I still haven’t even watched the show, to be quite honest.”

Jermaine Johnson: ‘It wasn’t a clean-cut, cookie-cutter way to get here.’

After Independence, Johnson took his talents to Georgia. This was the big break, Johnson was supposed to become a star with the Bulldogs, but it didn’t work out that way. Afterwards, Johnson transferred to Florida State, where he would finish his collegiate career.

His journey wasn’t an easy one, but the pass rusher wouldn’t want things to have gone any other way.

“You see the transfers and everything, it wasn’t a clean-cut, cookie-cutter way to get here,” stated Johnson. “But I wouldn’t want it any other way, because it truly created the guy, the man sitting in-front of you. So, I embrace it all. That is the real blessing. People talk about blessings being materialistic things, but the real blessing is the journey for me, and who I ended up becoming out of that. So, I couldn’t be more excited, going on the path that I went on.”

The journey is what helped create the player — and the man — Johnson is today. That’s why he has no ill-will towards the Bulldogs.

“That point at Georgia, when it wasn’t kinda going how I expected it to, but then again, if I didn’t go through that adversity and tribulations like that, I wouldn’t be the man sitting in-front of you today, or the player,” explained Johnson.

Moreover, Johnson was never discouraged — the NFL was always the goal. Now, he just wants to keep blazing his own trail.

“100%,” Johnson responded, when asked if the NFL was always the goal. “Nobody in my family has really made it to this point, I’m a first generation college grad. So, I’m kind of trailblazing. I was aiming as high as I could from as young as I could, so to be able to sit here and do that, that’s just a testament to my family and what they sacrificed for me to be here. I’m just trying to do this all for them.”

Jermaine Johnson is thankful for the opportunity, and he’s going to make the most of it. If the past is any indication, nobody should have a shadow of a doubt in the ability and drive of the former Independence, Georgia and Florida State star.