C.J. Gardner-Johnson torches Philadelphia Eagles for trade, directs barb at Vic Fangio
The Texans safety sounds off about his trade situation
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3 min read
Former Philadelphia Eagles safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson has a very different interpretation of the offseason trade that sent him and a draft pick to the Houston Texans in exchange offensive guard Kenyon Green and a 2026 fifth-rounder. After Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio attributed the deal involving Gardner-Johnson was a "salary cap-type thing," the defensive back revealed his thoughts on the move.
Fangio said he was "fine with it" before taking the next question.
"Just don't do them young guys like y'all did me," Gardner-Johnson wroteon Instagram, attaching a graphic with Fangio's quote and a '100' and flexed bicep emoji.
Gardner-Johnson, who signed a three-year, $27 million deal with the Eagles, wasn't finished shedding light on the trade.
"I was a test dummy for them," Gardner-Johnson wrote in an expired Instagram Story. "So now they can be like my 'scheme' work, or did my skill set make it work. I had 0 issues. (People) had issues with me. So yeah let the salary cap be the 'excuse.'"
Gardner-Johnson recorded 57 tackles, six interceptions and 12 pass breakups. At the time of this year's trade, Gardner-Johnson said he thought the Eagles were calling him with a "April Fools" joke.
"It was a great phone call, it was an amazing phone call to be all the way thorough," Gardner-Johnson said during a livestream. "The situation is, them young guys got to get paid in Philly, Jalen Carter, Reed [Blankenship] and Zack (Baun). Them guys got to get their money, they deserve it. Me getting older, I understand. There was no bad blood.
"All I asked them was like, between me and y'all, I told them, I just want to go somewhere where I can go play winning football. I didn't ask for a specific place. This honesty. I want to play winning football. Other than that, I woke up the next day and and boom there it is, we in Houston."
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman addressed his reasoning for the trade in March during the NFL's annual meetings and said it was resourceful for team-building purposes, albeit a difficult move.
"Well, I think if you're just taking the C.J. move in a vacuum, obviously, it's kind of not giving the whole perspective of where we're at," Roseman said. "Chauncey did a great job for us in both the years that he was with us, obviously making the Super Bowl twice in two years with him as our starting safety. When you look at our team and you look at the amount of highly paid players who have earned their contracts — we've got eight guys who are making $15 million or more.
"We have, from 2022 to 2024 drafts, we have eight starters who are on the Super Bowl team. None of those guys have long-term contracts. In those drafts, we probably have five or six players that will be competing for starting jobs. So you have a lot of players coming through that aren't under long-term contracts plus a lot of guys who are on long-term contracts and we never want to be in a situation where we have one year where we're getting rid of 20 guys.
"And we've been very fortunate to be aggressive in keeping our guys and signing guys in free agency. And it's also gotta align with (the) draft and having young players. Certainly, that's the important thing to do is draft well and then keep your players. We've got to make sure that going forward we have an opportunity to do that as well. A lot of those players that we're talking about are good young players that we're excited about."
The Eagles addressed their secondary in the 2025 NFL Draft, taking former Texas safety Andrew Mukuba in the second round and UCF cornerback Mac Williams in the fifth.
