In an open letter addressed to his four children, former NFL star Chris Johnson emotionally discussed his journey to being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, as he reflected on his football career. Published in The Players’ Tribune, the note explained to readers how he and his wife Brittany decided to relay the news to the kids, sharing that they consulted therapists to properly reveal his condition.
“In my head I was so scared, but at the same time I still had to be your dad,” wrote the one-time Tennessee Titans running back.
“How can a man just be perfectly healthy one day, running around with his kids in the yard, and then the next, your hand starts getting weak, and it just travels throughout your whole body until you can’t talk anymore?” he later added. “Man, I’ve asked myself that question like a million times, and I still don’t have an answer.”
The honest memo also detailed how Johnson made the decision to share the status of his physical health publicly. Ultimately, he and his spouse appeared on “Good Morning America” with Michael Strahan to make the announcement in June. The disease had progressed so quickly since his 2025 diagnosis that during the segment, he was unable to speak and used a speech-generating device controlled by his eyes to communicate.
“Telling the world was a whole other story,” he began.
I kept this to myself for a long time. Just being real, I carried a lot of shame behind it. When your whole life has been based off what your body could do, and then your body fails you, you know? It’s just..…. hard,” wrote the 40-year-old. “It’s hard putting yourself out there like that. Even leading up to going on ‘Good Morning America’, I was kind of going back and forth like, Am I going to do it, am I not going to do it? I didn’t know if I was ready to present myself like this.”
He continued, “After seeing the response, having folks reaching out to me, and seeing my friends and old teammates bringing back the Ice Bucket Challenge, it made me kinda regret that I didn’t let everyone know sooner. But I don’t know if it would have had the same impact. People wouldn’t have fully seen what this disease can do, and how quickly it can do it.”
According to research funded by the ALS Association, NFL players are four times more likely to be diagnosed with ALS and die from the disease than people who never played in the league. The study was conducted by researchers from Harvard University and Boston University’s CTE Center and examined 19,423 athletes who played in the NFL between 1960 and 2019.
“ALS has forced me to realize that who I am is so much bigger than what my body can do,” declared the 2009 AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year. “My value is in the man that I am, the person I wake up and choose to be every day.”
