The Playcallers audio episodes from the previous year’s series were made available as a “Bonus Batch” by The Athletic this week. These abridged interview-style episodes feature three youthful, gifted assistant coaches who each bring something special to the game to share with the audience. Jerrod Johnson, the quarterbacks coach for the Houston Texans, is featured in Episode 2. A partial transcript can be found below:
On the influence from his late father, Larry, as a coach and teacher:
People from all walks of life would stop him in the locations we went. In addition to being the principal, my dad taught drivers’ ed and served as a coach. Whenever I am out and about in Houston, I still have people tapping me on the shoulder who say things like, “Hey, your dad taught me how to drive,” or “Hey, he coached them,” or “He helped them get out of jail when he was a principal.”
The biggest thing I learned from him was empathy. He had a really good understanding of … the trials and tribulations of what kids are going through. Our school (in Humble, Texas) was a huge school. We had over 4,000 kids when I was there. For him to hear the stories … these are my classmates, right? But to know that this kid is acting up because he comes from an abusive household or something happened at home, it really gave me a perspective of having empathy for what people are going through. I think his ability to relate, his ability to just try to dive deeper into the person really helped (showcase) his leadership style.
My brother and I learned empathy from our father, who had a contagious grin and a profound love for people. He encouraged us to look past outward appearances and attempt to understand people’s struggles.
On his relationship with star quarterback C.J. Stroud and their first few weeks together in Houston:
C.J. was a very unique experience, really, and kind of the story of my career. I actually met C.J., I believe he was 17 years old, in high school. When I was playing — or getting released from playing — every time I wasn’t on a team I helped with the Nike Elite 11, which is still going on. At the time, Trent Dilfer ran it. … I did that for eight years, where I traveled around the country and tried to find the top 20 high school quarterbacks. … I met C.J. there when he was 17. And even at 17 when he came in, I don’t think he had much formal quarterback training (and) he wasn’t the highest-rated kid there for a week. But he just bought in to our entire process. He stayed after, he asked questions, and he was just an eager 17-year-old who just wanted to get somewhere, wanted to chase his dreams and he felt there was a lot of information there throughout that camp. He got offered by Ohio State after he left that camp.
Fast-forward for me years later, I’m out here with the Texans and we draft him. Clearly I was happy to draft him, we thought really highly of him. I’ve always believed in C.J. But meeting him at 17 is different than meeting him as a young man. He went through a lot at Ohio State, he went through the draft process. To meet him again as a young man, I do think us having a respect for each other and the time we met when we both were younger kind of broke the ice for us. I think there was a trust level, a mutual respect for each other that allowed us to hit the ground running.
The first thing, schematically, really was the formations. (Offensive coordinator) Bobby Slowik came in, and I was just coming off of learning our system for the first couple of months with Bobby coming in from San Francisco. A big part of our system is formations. We have movement, we have shifts. We try to attack the defense and try to present the illusion of complexity.
But it’s a lot on the quarterback! So the first thing I did was ask him, “All right, look man, I know you’re living OK — let’s buy an iPad.” Buy an iPad, I knew he was a digital learner as most kids his age are. Buy an iPad, and once we have an iPad we have your own personal Google of our system. Every note you take can go in one place, and you can have it forever. He did that. We started with formations, then we went to motions, then we went to pass concepts — and we just started from there. … He said, “Coach, tell me what you want me to do.”
Right after we drafted him, I sent him that text (to buy an iPad), by the next day he had (one) and we were rolling to give him a chance to compete in the spring.
Learn more from Johnson about his teaching philosophy, how the Texans coaches work together in meetings, the moment he saw Stroud had the potential to be outstanding in the NFL, and how he assisted Stroud in succeeding in his first NFL season.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photo of Mike LaFleur: John Rivera / Getty Images)
