1-on-1 with Jakob Johnson: Expecting nothing, taking advantage of opportunities

Jakob Johnson has had a unique, interesting NFL journey. The New York Giants discussed that journey, as well as his brief time with the Giants in a wide-ranging 1-on-1 chat this week in the Giants’ locker room.

Here is the result of that chat, in Q&A form.

Ed: How has being a Giant been so far?

Johnson: Oh man, it’s been super rewarding to be here. It was a long free agency for me this year, long offseason. So I’m just super excited to be here.

Ed: So, one day you are on the roster. The next day you’re off. What’s going on with all the shuffling?

Johnson: Yeah, listen, if there’s something for me to do, bring me up, I’ll be here. If not, then not. I’m going to kind of leave it up to the coaches to determine what’s going on with that. But whether I’m on the practice squad, active roster, it really doesn’t matter to me. I’m just excited to be here, get an opportunity to play this game and wear the Giants uniform. That’s a blessing.

Ed: Do you expect to be elevated on Sunday, or do you expect to maybe be waived and cut and re-signed three times between now and then?

Johnson: I’m expecting nothing. If you follow me a little bit, I’m a big yoga guy, big philosophy guy, and that’s kind of telling you to not focus on the results of your actions, but just choose the right actions. So I try to approach it like I’m part of the team, I’m getting ready to play, I put everything into preparation like I am playing. And if I’m up on Sunday, I’m up. If not, I’m not.

Ed: The season starts, guys go through OTAs, and they go through mini-camp, and training camp starts, and you want to play, you want to continue your career, and you’re still out there looking for work. How hard is that to sit and wait?

Johnson: Honestly, that’s super challenging mentally. I’m super blessed that I have a good support system around me, and I put myself in a good location where I had trainers that kind of held me accountable, that kept pushing me. The weeks that it was kind of tough mentally to keep the faith, they were there to kind of stay on me, keep pushing me. And then you just kind of focus on the work.

It’s not that I expected a call. I was just like, hey, if the opportunity does come, then you better be ready. That’s kind of how this league works. All you can hope for is opportunity, but what you do with that opportunity is up to you.

Ed: All these guys that have been here for a while, they get a ramp-up. You get to play eight snaps the day after you get signed. I mean, how difficult is that, mentally and physically?

Johnson: It’s definitely a challenge, right? You kind of build your confidence through your preparation in the sport. You have your routine all throughout OTAs, all throughout training camp.

You kind of get to perfect your routine to be ready on game days, and I kind of skipped that this year. So what helped me is my experience. This is year six for me, so I’ve been through a bunch of game days.

And then just focusing on gratitude, like, man, look, I get to play this game. I get to play against, at that time, it was the Houston Texans wearing the New York Giants uniform when a week before that, it looked like my career might be over. So I was just focusing on that, getting out there, playing football, playing the game that I’ve been playing since I was little and having fun with the guys.

Ed: You were at that point where you thought you might not get a call?

Johnson: Yeah, just looking at how the situation is for fullbacks around the league. It’s not a lot of jobs available. So I knew there was going to be kind of like a long waiting period, and we were coming up on kind of the end of training camp.

So it was definitely getting a little, the percentages were starting to look a little down.

Ed: What does a fullback add to an offense? To a running game? Passing attack?

Johnson: Honestly, it’s just obviously toughness, grit. It’s kind of like a reminder of what football is all about. It’s the ultimate team sport, and that’s kind of what fullbacks bring to the game, kind of like a level of selfishness, a level of fire for the guys, kind of leading by example, setting that physical edge, but also just creating some challenges for the defense.

A lot of defenses don’t see a lot of fullbacks anymore, so some of the looks you can create, some of the runs you can create with a fullback are a little different for linebackers. And there are some mismatches. Linebackers are a lot smaller these days, at least in many systems, so there’s a physical mismatch.

And if you have a fullback that can also catch the ball and everything, then you’re able to just create difficult situations for the defense.

Ed says: You’re an energy guy, I can tell.

Johnson: I am, I am, man. I mean, listen, I love playing. I grew up playing football in Germany where it was like making money with this was never even an idea. It was just getting out there playing football and then hopefully playing for the adult team one day where after the game the guys would get together and drink a case of beer and just have a good time.

Ed says: When did this whole thing become reality for you?

Johnson: It was a weird journey for me. I grew up in Germany, found football out there after kind of not fitting into all the German sports. I was a soccer guy, but I ran out of uniforms in my size at some point.

So my mom put me into a football practice. I came home and I was just tired and happy and stuck with it ever since. And then kind of towards the end of my junior career out there, I kind of had this dream of, hey, I want to play college football.

So after I graduated in Germany, went over to Florida, did six months at a high school, got recruited to go to Tennessee, played there for four years, didn’t really pan out. I had a terrible senior year. After that, I went back to Germany, played for my old club team out in Germany for a season and then got picked up by the International Pathway, which brought me to the Patriots, where I ended up making the team.

Ed: You guys have kind of brought Raiders East here to New Jersey. What’s that like, coming here and having Carm Bracillo here, he’s not coaching your position group, but he’s here and you’ve got Jermaine [Eleumunor] and you’ve got GVR [Greg Van Roten] here?

Johnson: Honestly, the beautiful thing about the league, I feel like, is meeting guys again that you’ve played with before and kind of watching how people grow. That’s what I always like to see. met Jermaine in, I think, 2019. We kind of had a rough time out there in New England and now seeing him become a dad and kind of really stepping into his role is really cool.

Played with [linebacker Curtis] Bolton on special teams the last two years. So seeing him is cool.

I remember when Coach Bracillo was the assistant O-line guy in New England. Seeing how he’s progressed, how he’s advanced this playbook and stuff cool.

Ed: It took Jermaine and Van Roten a number of years to become starters. Is there a lesson in that for a lot of guys?

Johnson: Yeah, I mean, honestly, that’s kind of the same takeaway that I’m taking away from my long free agency this year. You’ve got to keep working towards your goal even when the chips are down, even when it’s not looking likely that you can get there, right? If you have a goal, work like you’re about to achieve it so you’re ready when it comes to you.