The Bears’ trade of quarterback Justin Fields to the Steelers last week hurt cornerback Jaylon Johnson, even though he thought he was prepared for it.
“If you truly believe in a guy, I feel like the speculation would’ve been shot down,” Johnson told FanDuel TV’s Up and Adams on Wednesday. “And I think for me that’s when I kind of started preparing for it, when the speculation and the questions weren’t kinda like shot down.”
He’d hoped the Bears wouldn’t move Fields.
“But then when you actually see it come across … it’s like ‘Damn, my dog really isn’t gonna be with us no more,’” he said.
Whomever the Bears draft to take his place — team officials visited Caleb Williams’ USC pro day en masse Wednesday — will get a fair shake in the locker room, Johnson said. But Bears players won’t tolerate ego.
“You just humble yourself coming into the building,” he said. “You can’t bring that Hollywood stuff into the building especially with guys who have played the game at a high level for consecutive years …. We going to see through that. What you did in college, the Hollywood, it’s like, ‘Nah, you gotta prove yourself. That stuff like that doesn’t matter.’
“You gotta get to know him, too. I think there’s a fine line between trying to prove a point to him but you also gotta get to know him. Because at the end of the day, we want him to be the absolute best he can be.”
