{"id":644342,"date":"2026-01-01T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T01:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/644342\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T01:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T01:00:16","slug":"former-panthers-olb-dj-johnson-signs-with-commanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/644342\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Panthers OLB DJ Johnson signs with Commanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Carolina Panthers<\/a> draft pick has finally found a second NFL home.<\/p>\n

As announced on Wednesday, outside linebacker DJ Johnson has signed to the Washington Commanders<\/a>‘ practice squad. Johnson, Carolina’s third-round pick from two years ago, had been a free agent since early October.<\/p>\n

The Panthers traded up<\/a> to select Johnson with the 80th overall pick of the 2023 draft. Their jump saw them send their third-rounder (93rd overall) and a fourth-rounder (132nd overall) to the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n

Johnson went on to struggle in Carolina, totaling just five starts and half a sack over three seasons. Before being waived<\/a> on Sept. 30, following their Week 4 loss to the New England Patriots, he recorded two tackles over four games in 2025.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old now rejoins the man who drafted him, former Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer. Fitterer currently serves as a personnel executive for the Commanders.<\/p>\n

Only two of the Panthers’ five draftees from their 2023 class (quarterback Bryce Young and guard Chandler Zavala) remain with the team.<\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0@ThePanthersWire<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter\/X for more Panthers content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Carolina Panthers draft pick has finally found a second NFL home. As announced on Wednesday, outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[247,265,1603,3789,1476,235,260,30912,22658,427,2435,22667,7,20842,1283,248,267,246,88,6,35196,245,264,236,1602,1610,9,266,811,855,111,1604,5952,58953],"class_list":["post-644342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-american","tag-american-football","tag-breaking","tag-bryce","tag-bryce-young","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-chandler","tag-chandler-zavala","tag-commanders","tag-dj","tag-dj-johnson","tag-football","tag-hub","tag-johnson","tag-national","tag-national-sports","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-hub","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-panthers","tag-smg","tag-smg-breaking-wire","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-twitter","tag-washington","tag-washington-commanders","tag-wire","tag-young","tag-zavala"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115817140966264820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644342","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=644342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}