When Chris Johnson was with the Titans, there was no question about who was getting the lion’s share of the carries in the running game.
Things are less clear now that Johnson is coming off of knee surgery and part of a Jets backfield that also includes Chris Ivory, Bilal Powell and Daryl Richardson, but the team’s running backs coach says that Johnson will have an opportunity to take the driver’s seat in any time share. Anthony Lynn said that Johnson “can have as many yards as he wants” if he shows that he’s up to the task.
“He wants every single rep,” Lynn said, via the New York Daily News. “That’s the type of attitude most running backs have. They want every single rep. I think that’s good. I think that’s healthy. It just means that he’s competitive. But how we split those up remains to be seen. By the time we go through the process, the cream will rise to the top like it always does. We’ll go ahead with a couple guys. And then they’ll do it by committee anyway. We’ve always played the hot guy. It doesn’t matter who it is. If you go in there and produce, you usually stay in.”
Johnson isn’t expected to do much during this week’s minicamp, so training camp and the preseason will provide the best chance to assess how much of the workload he might take this season. If he’s healthy, it might be quite a bit because Johnson’s best has been better than that of any of the other competitors for playing time with the Jets.