Former NFL running back Chris Johnson revealed Monday that he has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the progressive and currently incurable neurological disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, sharing the news in an emotional interview on “Good Morning America.”

Johnson, 40, told ABC’s Michael Strahan that he received the diagnosis last year, at age 39, after first noticing weakness in his right hand. At the time, he said, he was in the prime of his life, working out daily and spending time with his wife, Brittany, and their four children. Johnson appeared on the program using a speech-generating device controlled by his eyes, a sign of just how quickly the disease has progressed since his diagnosis.

“I want people to know that I’m still me,” Johnson said.

Johnson, nicknamed “CJ2K” during his playing career, became one of the NFL’s most explosive offensive weapons during his time with the Tennessee Titans. A first-round pick out of East Carolina in the 2008 NFL Draft, he rushed for 2,006 yards during the 2009 season, a total that still ranks among the handful of single-season totals in league history to surpass the 2,000-yard mark. That same year, he set the NFL’s single-season record for yards from scrimmage with 2,509 and was named the league’s Offensive Player of the Year and a first-team All-Pro. He earned three Pro Bowl selections and finished his career with 1,742 carries, 7,965 yards and 58 touchdowns across 95 games with the Titans alone, before later playing for the New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals and retiring in November 2018.

According to Johnson, the path to his diagnosis began with subtle changes that were easy to dismiss given his football background. His wife, Brittany, initially assumed the symptoms were tied to the physical toll of his playing career rather than anything more serious.

“I thought because of football and, you know, his career, that it had to be something with that,” Brittany said.

After multiple rounds of medical testing, doctors ultimately delivered the diagnosis the couple had feared. Johnson said his medical team told him about a medication that might extend his life by a few months before advising the family to get their affairs in order, a moment he described as difficult to process. According to his doctors, Johnson has sporadic ALS, the most common form of the disease, accounting for roughly 90% of all cases and occurring in people with no known family history or identifiable genetic cause.

ALS attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, gradually severing the connection between the brain and the body’s muscles. The disease progressively robs patients of their ability to move, speak, swallow and, eventually, breathe. According to the National Institutes of Health, most people with ALS die from respiratory failure within three to five years of symptoms first appearing, though roughly one in 10 patients live 10 years or longer. There is currently no cure, though some treatments can slow the disease’s progression and help maintain quality of life for those living with it.

Johnson is being treated by Dr. Merit Cudkowicz, a neurologist at the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute who also worked with actor Eric Dane before Dane’s death from ALS earlier this year. Johnson said he and his family reached out to Cudkowicz after watching her discuss Dane’s case in an earlier television interview. In addition to standard ALS medications, taken multiple times a month to help slow the illness’s progression, Johnson has participated in a clinical trial focused on reducing inflammation, a treatment he credits with helping manage his condition.

Despite that care, the disease has advanced faster than Johnson initially expected. He now communicates primarily through a speech-generating device that tracks his eye movements, with the device programmed to replicate the sound of his own voice based on recordings made before he lost the ability to speak naturally.

“It’s continued to progress much faster than I ever imagined,” Johnson said.

Johnson described in stark terms how quickly his physical capabilities have changed, noting that just over a year ago he was able to lift his 7-year-old daughter so she could blow out the candles on her birthday cake, something he can no longer do today. Even as his body has changed dramatically, he was emphatic that his sense of self has not.

Brittany Johnson, who appeared alongside her husband during the interview, described the emotional toll the diagnosis took on the family, particularly given the couple’s four young children. She said she initially struggled to process the news and held onto hope that doctors might be wrong, even as the family has tried to remain hopeful that a medical breakthrough could eventually emerge.

Johnson said he made the decision to share his diagnosis publicly in hopes that his story might help others. He said that if speaking out helps even one person receive a diagnosis sooner, inspires additional research into the disease, or offers hope to another family facing a similar situation, then going public was worth it.

Tennessee Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk released a statement following Johnson’s announcement, expressing the organization’s support for its former star.

“Some people leave a mark on an organization that you just can’t put into words,” Strunk said.

Beyond his football career, Johnson has remained closely connected to the Titans organization and the Nashville community in the years since his retirement, including hosting a podcast called “Smash & Dash” with former teammate LenDale White and pursuing an interest in NFL scouting, having attended the league’s Scout School at the Senior Bowl and mentored young running backs. Johnson signed a ceremonial one-day contract with the Titans in 2019 specifically so he could retire as a member of the organization where he spent the majority of his career.

As word of his diagnosis spread Monday, messages of support poured in from across the football world, including from the New York Jets organization and the NFL Players Association, underscoring the wide reach Johnson built during a decade-long NFL career defined by speed, explosiveness and a record-setting season that remains etched into league history nearly two decades later.

President Donald Trump on Monday declared an emergency aimed at protecting the U.S. food supply and temporarily suspended import duties on certain Moroccan fertilizer products.

Under the presidential emergency declaration, phosphate fertilizer imported from Morocco will no longer face tariffs for up to eight months or until the emergency declaration is terminated.

“The proclamation declares an emergency regarding threats to the availability of sufficient supplies of fertilizers to meet America’s agricultural demand,” the declaration stated. 

“This proclamation will ensure that American farmers have access to a sufficient and timely supply of phosphate fertilizers in the near term to mitigate any significant risks to the domestic food supply.”

IN TEXAS CATTLE COUNTRY, ONE RANCHER WELCOMES TRUMP’S FOCUS ON DECADES OF THIN MARGINS

President Donald Trump is pausing tariffs on Moroccan phosphate fertilizer imports. (Al Drago/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The document cited recent overseas conflicts and trade disputes as factors that have disrupted global supply chains and affected access to critical fertilizers needed by U.S. farmers.

“President Trump believes that American farmers must maintain reliable access to key fertilizers to mitigate significant risks to food production, safeguard national security, and ensure a stable domestic food supply,” the declaration stated.

The tariff suspension is considered a short-term measure as the administration works with American companies to expand domestic fertilizer production and reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign suppliers. 

SMART POLICY AND CHEAPER EGGS: TRUMP-ROLLINS TEAM GOOD FOR FARMERS AND US CONSUMERS

A farmer drives a tractor in a field with yellow flowers along Limekiln Lane in Caernarvon Township on Thursday afternoon, May 27, 2021.  (Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The declaration is one of several actions Trump has taken to “support American farmers and drive prices down for hardworking families,” according to the White House fact sheet. 

The White House highlighted the president’s Working Families Tax Cuts Act, saying the law provided “historic relief” to farmers by allowing them to write off new equipment costs, creating a permanent 20% tax deduction for small businesses, and letting farmers delay capital gains taxes when selling farmland to another farmer.

“President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts Act delivered historic relief to American farmers: Made the virtual elimination of the death tax permanent, benefiting more than 2 million family farms,” it said. 

TRUMP TO UNLEASH $12B FARM RESCUE AS CHINA TRADE RESET HITS US GROWERS

A worker fuels a tractor while tilling a field on April 2, 2026, in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. (Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public via Getty Images / Getty Images)

In February 2026, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to protect the U.S. supply of elemental phosphorus, a critical material used in both farming and military equipment.

In June 2026, Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating the development of agricultural technologies and strengthening the nation’s food security. 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The White House added that Trump’s “America First Trade Agenda has dramatically increased global market access, strengthened farmer incomes, supported rural jobs, and reduced the agricultural trade deficit.”

Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN] is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 150 countries. Franklin Templeton’s mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes through investment management expertise, wealth management and technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers, the company offers specialization on a global scale, bringing extensive capabilities in fixed income, equity, alternatives and multi-asset solutions. With more than 1,300 investment professionals, and offices in major financial markets around the world, the California-based company has over 75 years of investment experience and over $1.4 trillion in assets under management as of June 30, 2023. For more information, please visit franklintempleton.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

This article was written by

Follow

There are always things in life that I don’t understand. I bet you a lot of people feel that way. How did that happen? Why did that happen? Or it makes no sense. Somehow we have to accept these decisions, even if we don’t like them or understand them. So here’s a couple.

The Supreme Court ruled that President Biden’s appointee to the Federal Trade Commission could be fired by President Trump. Justice Neil Gorsuch, concurring in the court’s decision, said “independent agencies are not so independent after all.”

Well that I like. Makes perfect sense. As Mr. Trump put it, it reverses a bad decision made by the Supremes 91 years ago back in 1935. It gives the chief executive true executive authority. He defines quote “cause.” Yet what I don’t understand is how the Supremes let Governor Lisa Cook off the hook regarding the Federal Reserve. They decided that at least one so-called independent agency was truly independent and cited a way-long-ago, more or less 200 years ago precedent for the First and Second Bank of the United States. A long time ago.

By the way President Jackson didn’t think the Second Bank of the United States was so independent because he stopped their charter from being extended. Anyway, today’s court also cited the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. That’s a long time ago. Yet many people believe that central bank charter was highly ambiguous. And if presidents have the authority to appoint chairs and governors, they should have the same authority to fire them.

And then Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion, writes quote “today’s interim ruling does not decide whether the President may lawfully remove Governor Cook for cause.” And he goes on to say “the ultimate decision about why the President may remove Governor Cook for cause will largely depend on the facts regarding the governor’s actions. And those facts have yet to be determined.”

Justice Clarence Thomas called the ruling “incorrect” in his dissenting opinion. “Although the Court expresses concern that the President removed a Board member for ‘the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history,’” he wrote, “it expresses no such concern that it today upholds an injunction against the President’s removal of an executive officer for the first time in the Constitution’s 237-year history.”

Well Ms. Cook has been accused of mortgage fraud because she apparently or allegedly took out mortgages in three different states, Michigan, Georgia, and Massachusetts. And then she labeled each one her primary residence.

So if she can’t count or if she can’t read, why are we entrusting her with the monetary power of our currency? Her case was referred to the Justice Department, which I guess opened a criminal investigation into mortgage fraud back in August 2025. Almost a year ago.

Yet nothing’s happened since then. So far as we know, no charges have been brought, no grand jury has been convened, or maybe stuff is going on that we don’t know about. Justice Kavanaugh’s comment suggests Ms. Cook may yet get busted, tossed off the court.

The president wrote on Truth Social that the Supremes just sent it back on a strictly procedural basis, but the issue of firing her for cause was not settled. Sounds like he’s right. Yet here you have an independent agency that’s not so independent, and then you have an independent agency that may be independent, but we don’t actually know. So for now, acceptance is the answer to all my prayers, but I don’t really understand any of it.

By Jennifer Nash

The Dallas Fed released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) for June. The general business activity index fell 0.4 points to 0.0, indicating slower growth of manufacturing activity and stable business conditions perceptions.