Arizona Cardinals<\/a> defense. When they selected him in the second round this spring, it represented the value of the draft, a potential superstar whose perceived injury concerns made him available 40 picks later than his talent suggested.<\/p>\nAlready, he\u2019s made an impression far beyond his years.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Gannon, his head coach, said that Johnson has \u201cpicked up everything really quickly,\u201d ahead of the Cardinals’ joint practice with the Denver Broncos on Aug. 14.<\/p>\n
Defensive coordinator Nick Rallis described an \u201cintelligence to be thinking ahead\u201d of opposing wide receivers.<\/p>\n
Ryan Smith, the cornerbacks coach, doesn\u2019t believe the college-to-NFL transition fully applies to Johnson. That\u2019s how far ahead he is.<\/p>\n
It shows up on the field. In practice, Johnson often looks to be running wide receivers\u2019 routes for them. In college, his preternatural anticipation enabled him to intercept nine passes in 32 games \u2014 more than any other player in the sport\u2019s two major conferences.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s knows what the opponent’s gonna do,\u201d said LaMar Morgan, Johnson\u2019s position coach at Michigan.<\/p>\n
Watching film with Johnson, Morgan often felt like he was sitting with a member of the coaching staff. During position meetings, Johnson could predict receivers\u2019 routes ahead of time based on the tiniest details. Which foot is ahead of the other? How far is the receiver from the offensive line? What does the first step of his release look like?<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve always been able to pick up the game pretty well and be an instinctive player,\u201d Johnson told The Republic. \u201cI feel like that hasn’t been too hard for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will Johnson’s introduction to playing sports<\/p>\n
It all goes back to those early mornings and late afternoons on the fields of metro Detroit.<\/p>\n
When his only son was little, Deon didn\u2019t let Will play tackle football. A former Michigan defensive back himself, he knew the game\u2019s dangers.<\/p>\n
Instead, Will grew up on a medley of sports. The family spent weekends shuttling to soccer practices, baseball games and flag football scrimmages. But even then, his obsession was clear.<\/p>\n
In 2004, Deon founded a football program, Sound Mind Sound Body, with an old friend, Curtis Blackwell. It seemed like every free minute was occupied by the program. And wherever Deon went, so did Will and his sister, Kayli.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur extracurricular activity was being around Dad,\u201d said Kayli, who is now the director of on-campus recruiting at Michigan.<\/p>\n
That meant standing on the sidelines at practice, watching everything the high school players did and dreaming of becoming them one day. But it wasn\u2019t only about football.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Cardinals’ Jonathan Gannon, Kyler Murray reflect on win vs. Chiefs<\/p>\n
Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon and quarterback Kyler Murray spoke to the media about their preseason win over the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n
The creation of Sound Mind Sound Body stemmed from an observation. When Will was born, Deon Johnson and Curtis Blackwell were both coaches at Detroit\u2019s Martin Luther King Sr. High School, one of the state\u2019s premier talent factories. But no matter how many games they won, their best players weren\u2019t drawing the attention of college programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just us (realizing),\u201d Blackwell said, \u201cthe top kids from Detroit just don’t make it to college ’cause they get in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson and Blackwell saw that as an opportunity. They leveraged their connections with Michigan to bring Wolverines coaches to football camps in the city \u2014 a tantalizing prospect for any aspiring college football player.<\/p>\n
But in order to participate in those camps, players had to attend life skills sessions. The organization rented out classroom space, taking kids through SAT prep and tutoring for their high school classes. They broke down football film, too, just like a college team would. To keep playing in the football camps \u2014 a year-round afterschool endeavor \u2014 players had to bring weekly progress reports from their schools to prove that the new lessons were sticking.<\/p>\n
Two decades later, Sound Mind Sound Body has helped revolutionize the talent pipeline in southeast Michigan, building Detroit back into a football hotbed. Today, the program has its own dedicated classroom and field space thanks to grants from the state of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Education. This year, six of its alums were drafted into the NFL, and more than 60 earned college degrees. Blackwell smiles when thinking of the kids who otherwise might not have made it out, like Derrick Harmon, the Steelers’ first-round pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, he had little to nothing,\u201d Blackwell said. \u201c\u2026 We struggled like heck. We had to get him shoes, we had to help him get to college visits. \u2026 To see him turn into what he has is another proud, proud representation of who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learning perspective through football<\/p>\n
For Will Johnson, this created the ideal combination. He grew up with all the comforts of two caring parents in Grosse Pointe, a wealthy enclave east of Detroit. His parents met at Michigan, and his mom is a professor of library and information sciences at Wayne State University.<\/p>\n
At the same time, he was exposed to teammates with opposite upbringings. As a young kid, he learned the difference between those who made it and those who didn\u2019t. When a talented player didn\u2019t earn college offers, Will would pepper his dad with questions \u2014 and be met with the hard truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan,\u201d Deon would tell him, \u201cyou gotta make sure you go to school, get your grades and focus so you can pass your tests.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he grew older, Will began sitting in on tutoring sessions and film study himself. By the time he was in sixth grade, Deon let him participate in certain drills with the high schoolers.<\/p>\n
One summer, Will successfully lobbied his parents to go on the road with Sound Mind Sound Body\u2019s 7-on-7 team, just so he could serve as their ball boy. Here he was, still years from high school, sharing a hotel bedroom with future NFL players like Jourdan Lewis and Delano Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt impacted me a lot,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cJust being around a lot of high-level guys at a young age, just getting that experience, those reps that most kids don’t get. I definitely felt like it set me apart and gave me a confidence and savvy of when I play the game, just knowing how to move on the field and having that instinct.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one play, years later, that lives vividly in the minds of Johnson\u2019s high school coaches.<\/p>\n
It was the third game of his high school career, against Warren Mott. Johnson, in a rare occurrence, was beaten inside on a deep post route. But with his back to the quarterback, he stuck his right hand out like an outfielder attempting a leaping backhanded catch at the warning track.<\/p>\n
Somehow, even though the receiver had both hands on the ball, Johnson was able to reel it in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was literally the best interception I’ve ever seen in high school football,\u201d said Tony Cimmarrusti, an assistant coach.<\/p>\n
This was the product of Johnson\u2019s unique pathway. Long before he ever put the pads on in a game, he and Deon would go into the backyard and work on his skill development. At five years old, he did the same drills backpedaling and breaking on the football as Deon\u2019s high schoolers did. He learned to run the route tree shortly after he learned to walk.<\/p>\n
In flag football, he played with an under-nine team as a six-year-old. He started going to high school camps when he was in sixth grade. His recruitment began when he was in eighth grade, and a reporter mistook him for a junior in high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always playing up,\u201d Blackwell said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how a prodigy gets his start. By the time Johnson committed to Michigan, he was a consensus five-star, the 15th-ranked recruit in his class per 247Sports. He lived up to the billing, earning consecutive All-American selections and winning a national championship.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been no sign of slowing down, not since those early days in Detroit, when he laid the foundation for his career through osmosis. The career that is now, finally, where it was always destined to end. On the doorstep of his NFL debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breaking down the Arizona Cardinals’ preseason win over the Chiefs The Arizona Republic’s Theo Mackie breaks down the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2078],"tags":[247,265,375,390,2604,807,1327,146,7,20842,5264,248,267,88,6,35196,245,537,530,2352,3326,9,266],"class_list":{"0":"post-284289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-arizona-cardinals","12":"tag-arizonacardinals","13":"tag-az","14":"tag-cardinals","15":"tag-detroit","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-hub","18":"tag-mi","19":"tag-national","20":"tag-national-sports","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-nfl-hub","24":"tag-overall","25":"tag-overall-positive","26":"tag-positive","27":"tag-prospects","28":"tag-prospects-az","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115020410778402850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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