Early years

Johnson was born in Panama City, Florida. He attended Rutherford High School in Panama City, where he was a standout high school football player for the Rutherford Rams.

College career

Johnson accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Charley Pell and coach Galen Hall's Florida Gators football teams from 1982 to 1985. Johnson was a key member of the Gators' defense in 1984 and 1985 when the Gators posted identical 9-1-1 overall win-loss records and led the Southeastern Conference (SEC) with best-in-the-conference records of 5-0-1 and 5-1, respectively. He was a first-team All-SEC selection and a first-team All-American in 1984 and 1985, and also a team captain both years. He finished his four-year college career with 335 tackles, fifty-five tackles for a loss and twenty-seven quarterback sacks.

Johnson was later voted to the Florida Gators' All-Century Team and All-Time Team, and inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great." In 2006 he was ranked as No. 35 among the top 100 Gators of the first century of Florida football by the sportswriters of The Gainesville Sun.

Professional career

Johnson was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round (forty-eighth pick overall) of the 1986 NFL Draft, and he played for the Eagles from 1986 to 1987. As a rookie, he played in fifteen games and started nine of them at rightside linebacker, with three interceptions. He left the Eagles before the beginning of the 1987 season in order to enter a drug rehabilitation program, and subsequently only played in three games for the Eagles in 1987. He was placed on the non-football injury list in December 1987, and did not play again.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]