Key Points
- Former NFL running back Chris Johnson revealed an ALS diagnosis at 39 on Good Morning America
- Johnson said he was diagnosed in 2025 after noticing weakness in his right hand
- Doctors classified it as sporadic ALS, the most common form, and it has progressed quickly
- He now speaks through an eye-tracked device that uses a recording of his own voice
Chris Johnson built a career on being the fastest man on the field. On Monday, the former NFL running back told Good Morning America that ALS has begun taking that body away from him at 39, revealing a diagnosis he received in 2025.
Johnson told GMA co-anchor Michael Strahan that the first signs were small: weakness in his right hand, a grip that no longer felt right. Doctors classified his case as sporadic ALS — the form that accounts for the large majority of diagnoses and has no known cause — and the disease has progressed rapidly since. Johnson now uses an eye-tracking device to speak, triggering a speech generator that, because his voice was recorded soon after the diagnosis, still sounds like him.
FULL INTERVIEW: Former NFL running back Chris Johnson reveals his ALS diagnosis at 39. pic.twitter.com/5Pb8YAQ5x0
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 29, 2026
Nicknamed "CJ2K," Johnson rushed for 2,006 yards in 2009 — still the seventh-highest single-season total in NFL history — and spent 10 seasons in the league across the Tennessee Titans (2008–13), New York Jets (2014) and Arizona Cardinals (2015–17). He spent his prime with the Titans, the franchise now built around defenders like Jeffery Simmons; controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk said Johnson left "a mark on an organization that you just can't put into words," citing his leadership on the field and his impact in the Nashville community.
The diagnosis lands with a grim echo. Johnson is the second player from that Titans era to face ALS, after linebacker Tim Shaw, his former teammate, revealed his own diagnosis in 2014 — two cases from one locker room, a rarity stark enough to keep the unresolved questions about football and neurodegenerative disease in view. It also arrives as the league heads into its 2026 training camps, a reminder of the bodies that carried the sport before the next season starts. Johnson, for his part, framed the news as a fight rather than a farewell.
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