C.J. Gardner Johnson Texans Media Availability | Full July 30 Q&A

C.J. Gardner Johnson Texans Media Availability | Full July 30 Q&A

Can y’all hear me? Can you hear me in the back? All right. Bet. And action. How you liking it so far? Hot. Yeah. Besides, what you guys are doing as a group in the secondary? Um, you do see a lot of young guys getting better. A lot of young guys actually getting to the ball. In camp, that’s the hardest thing is running to the ball, putting your hands on the football. So for Jay Reed, JRock, uh, all the young guys we brought in to buy in, even me, I feel like I’m a new guy, rookie, learning the playbook all over again. Um, just encouraging them, learning to know that we out here with you. We out here with camp with you. So whatever mistake you do, go full speed. But know that it’s always corrections and learning points to get better. The hardest thing in camp is to get your hands on the football, but tonight you guys hit by my count at least three or seven. There you go. So, how are you guys doing? Encouraging each other and not caring who really touched the ball. A lot of groups fight for I don’t speak for everybody, but some groups you can tell like they fight for interceptions or they always worry about who got the next pick. But in reality, you play good football, the ball will find the right person in the defense. I think with a group a group of guys we got, we just want to line up go play. And I think me coming here has made me realize that just playing football and the ball will find you is something that I liked. What’s your comfort level now? I know you were upset, you know, with, you know, you got the trade and you thought you was situated with your family and everything. How are you now with your comfort level and getting your family situated here? Um, football started with Houston. So, I’m here with a new chapter of my life. Uh, like I said, I closed a chapter of my life with Philly when I went to ring ceremony. Everything we could do. Um, now I’m here ready to play football with Houston Texans. Focus on my new teammates. I can’t. That’s the past. the more I sit and think about what happened, what happened, will happen. I will never be the best version of myself for this team here. So, I’m happy. My family’s happy. Uh we’re all good and uh ready to continue to go out here and have fun. When you got the ring, you talked before about this, how you want to win it this year, you want to win the next three, you want to win it every year. How much did getting the ring tangibly just even amped it up a little more? It didn’t cuz I don’t play for them no more. I ain’t I ain’t defending nothing. I’m actually chasing it now. Hungry. I’m hungry. Like you said, they’re prey. Like I got to go hunt them. Like they’re champions. When you’re a champion of something, you become the prey to a lot of predators. So there’s no shot at them. It’s just you got to understand like when you switch sides of the ball, switch roles. I got to go hunt again. What kind of predator are you? I don’t sleep. I don’t sleep. I feel like coming here, uh, I got to get better as a man, as a teammate, father, and whatever the scene called me to do. Uh, I’m here to put my best foot forward. They said sharks. You may never know that. You don’t know. But I’m Yeah, you’re right. Different here. Is it different here than other places? No, cuz football is football. Only time camp is different when you when you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do and you’re messing up. You got to do the extra come in extra to fix the corrections. But when you’re actually doing what you’re supposed to do, making the right calls, coming in early on your own time to sharpen up on tools and knives that you already have, camp doesn’t change. Ball is ball. You’re here for a whole month. Season start next week. Oh, next next week. Next month. Got understand we got 14 15 practices left. So the clock is ticking. So it doesn’t change. You got to understand the sense of urgency is high at all camp. team before. What do you feel like those teams possess? What do they have better than others? Um, I’ve been on a lot of good Super Bowl contending teams. I’ve been on a lot of I’ve been on one Super Bowl winning team. I think let’s talk about the the contending teams. They all have one thing in common. They’re hungry. They’re ready to continue to work. And I don’t want to uh lay our bed or say anything to put anything out there, but this is a Super Bowl team right here. Super Bowl caliber team. you guys just go out there and show it week in week out and it start from practice and start from meetings. Um, everybody is a Super Bowl contending team because we all we all high caliber players in the NFL. So, we go out there and compete. We got to understand who’s next of us, who’s across the ball, and we got to understand that this is a job for us. We got to get it done. CJ, what stands out about this defense? What you like most about? We get to actually we get to attack. Uh, he got the swarm mentality. I think for me uh playing the attack mentality actually been good cuz past couple years I actually been in the half and post protecting the defense but being a close up to the lineup center and doing interchangeable jobs with the with the guys in the back end I’m loving it. You got chippy there at the end and talked about being the third game patch and kind of start to see that. How have you seen like the intensity and competitiveness? It’s nothing personal. It get chippy but nothing can get personal. thing when things get personal that’s when you don’t get better. I think the best thing you saw from that there was nothing after it. No extra curriculum but like you said extra in the past you will see the extracurricular but here we all have understanding we’re brothers and we’re not we got to be the best coworker to each other and the best teammate on the field because if not I can’t I can’t sleep well at night. I know I’m not doing my job for my teammate to help this team get better. The uh belt celebration has has traveled from Philly to the belt celebration. BJ, yeah, can you explain what that is and what that mentality is? That’s self-explanatory. What is what is the philosophy? In the PG terms, out competing, out hustling, and doing your job better than your opponent. Can you talk? You said you get better in all ways because of me as a father with at this point in your career like what does that entail? Being honest, looking yourself in the mirror and waking up and saying, “Am I actually getting better? Am I actually taking the steps forward to become a leader, not just for your teammates, yourself, you got to be able to lead yourself in the right direction because if not, you’re going to fall off.” Like a lot of guys in the league, they get lost and understand that you got to make all the money, all the accolades, but you got to know how to control it. And the best way to control look yourself in the mirror and be honest. Are you doing what you need to do to get the job done every day? Are you feeding your family like you’re supposed to? And are you legally staying out of trouble? Last season, what’s it been like going against this receiver group so far? And what have you seen out of like the Daytona 500? We running fast every play. Everybody fast. All the cars competing for first place. We got a fast receiver. I’m just gonna be honest. This is probably one of the fastest scores I didn’t seen. But they they they’re a dynamic group with different skill sets. They’re diverse and they understand that CJ CJ needs him. Well, they need CJ and CJ needs them. And they work very well in practice and we have our days. They win some, we win some. But today got the best of the NASCAR group. Thank you. Thank y’all. Is it good?

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