At Tuesday’s OTA practice, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was asked about his thoughts on the team parting ways with veteran safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.
The Eagles surprisingly traded the ballhawk safety and a 2026 sixth-round pick to the Houston Texans in March in exchange for offensive lineman Kenyon Green and a 2026 fifth-round pick. Philly fans were shocked by the move, given that Gardner-Johnson returned to the team last offseason and played well in 2024.
However, Fangio was fine with the trade as he told reporters, mentioning that it was a salary cap thing, which aligns with what Howie Roseman said in April.
That said, Gardner-Johnson heard about Fangio’s comments and took the chance to respond on Instagram in his own words.
In one post, the veteran safety said, “Just don’t do them young guys like yall did me.” And he followed up with, “I was a test dummy for them, so now they can be like my “scheme” work, or did my skill set make it work. I had 0 issues, ppl had issues with me. So yeah let the salary cap be the “excuse.”
The veteran safety is clearly calling BS on the salary cap line, and instead is saying that people within the organization had issues with him.
When Eagles fans saw Gardner-Johnson’s response on social media, they were confused, as the veteran defender said something completely different after the trade went down in March.
Gardner-Johnson said on a livestream that there was “no bad blood” and asked them to trade him where he could play winning football. The Eagles followed through by sending him to the Texans, who have a good young core of players and have won back-to-back AFC South division titles.
It will be interesting to see if anything else comes from this, or if that was the final response. The Eagles have moved on and will try to fill Gardner-Johnson’s role this summer with an intriguing position battle.