Will Johnson was not only one of the best players on the Michigan football team last year, but he was also one of the best players in the entire country. Because of his high level of play, he is a projected top-five draft pick next season. However, Johnson recently revealed that he spent a lot of last season playing at 60-70% because of an injury that he was dealing with.
Last season, Will Johnson missed the first few games of the Michigan football season because of an injury to his knee. However, if you watched him play, you would’ve guessed that he was at 100%. However, he wasn’t.
“It sounds crazy, but yeah,” Johnson said, according to an article from 247 Sports. “It was a lot of games where it was like, I don't know if I'm gonna play. I got this injury going on, and I'm trying to make it through the week, stuff like that. I went into camp, I missed the first two weeks, I came back, I re-injured my knee. I missed the first three games, then I came back, and it was kinda like 60, 70% of my one leg. And then I think it was a few game stretch that I started to get a groove.”
Johnson ended up sitting in the Big Ten Championship game because of his injury as well. He was battling it all year long, but it didn’t seem to affect his game much. He finished the year with 27 total tackles and four interceptions.
Will Johnson is coming into the 2024 season healthy
Will Johnson has now had a full offseason to get back to 100%, and he will be coming into the 2024 Michigan football season in better shape than last year. When a player is battling an injury, it not only affects their physical play, but also the mental side of the game as well. Being healthy should do a lot for Johnson's confidence this year.
“When you're out there and you're not healthy, you don't play as confident, you don't play as comfortable,” Johnson said. “You kinda second guess yourself. There's a lot of different things, so being out there, I felt like I couldn't really run last year, so there's a lot of situations where I was kinda just trying to get by.”
The fact that Johnson had the season that he had last year while playing hurt should scare Michigan opponents. 2024 should be a big year for the star cornerback.
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