Diontae Johnson explains why he refused to enter sport for Ravens: ‘Simply wasn’t for me’ – The Baltimore Banner

Formally, Diontae Johnson spent simply over seven weeks in Baltimore. However by the tip of the extensive receiver’s first month with the Ravens, he was already sad.
In an interview with former South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia, Johnson mentioned on a “Sport and Fits” episode printed earlier this month that he was “checked out mentally” earlier than the Ravens’ Week 13 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in early December.
Johnson refused to enter the sport after extensive receiver Rashod Bateman was injured, and he was suspended one sport for conduct detrimental to the team.
“That was a tricky state of affairs for me,” Johnson, 28, mentioned of his time in Baltimore. “I like the gamers and stuff. I like the group. Nevertheless it simply wasn’t for me.”
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Johnson mentioned he “felt like I wasn’t getting used” by the Ravens, who acquired him as a part of a late-round decide swap in late October with the Carolina Panthers. He received simply 39 offensive snaps over his first 4 video games in Baltimore, making one catch on 5 targets for six yards. The Ravens went 3-1 over that stretch, averaging 31 factors per sport.
Johnson then didn’t seem within the first half of the Ravens’ showdown against the Eagles, a late-afternoon game in Baltimore, the place the temperature at kickoff was 41 levels.
“It was chilly,” mentioned Johnson, a Florida native who was within the closing 12 months of his contract final season. “So I’m on the sideline, simply standing there, simply going to the heater, backwards and forwards, simply ready to listen to my identify referred to as. So finish of third [quarter], going into the fourth over there, they’re like, ‘’Tae, we want you.’ I’m like, ‘Nah.’ To me, I’m considering, ‘I don’t suppose it’s a good suggestion,’ as a result of I used to be occupied with, like, my legs. I don’t need to go on the market and put dangerous stuff on movie.
“And it’s not like I didn’t need to go within the sport. However you’ve received to suppose, like, main up up to now, I’d been by means of a lot. … I’d checked out mentally. I used to be like, ‘No matter occurs, occurs.’ I used to be simply rolling with the punches at the moment. So I advised them I wasn’t stepping into. I used to be like, ‘I perceive what you’re saying, however I’m not [going to] go in.’ So I simply sat on the bench, and that’s once they suspended me.”
Three days later, in the course of the Ravens’ bye week, the staff announced Johnson’s suspension. In a press release, DeCosta referred to as it a “troublesome determination.”
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Johnson didn’t return to the staff’s practices, and the Ravens waived him on Dec. 20.
“I already knew if I went again, I used to be going to be within the doghouse much more,” Johnson mentioned. “So I simply requested to get launched, and I received picked up by Houston.”
Johnson lasted simply three weeks with the Texans, showing in a single sport and making two catches on 4 targets for 12 yards. Irritating along with his taking part in time, he mentioned he “checked out” once more. Johnson was waived on Jan. 14, solely to be claimed once more by the Ravens forward of the playoffs, as a part of an apparent compensatory-pick ploy.
After the season, Ravens normal supervisor Eric DeCosta mentioned the staff had accomplished its “homework” earlier than buying Johnson, an occasional lightning rod for controversy over his stops with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Panthers.
“We understood the dangers and the rewards,” DeCosta mentioned in late January. “[We] didn’t take a look at it as value prohibitive. It was a comparatively cheap deal for us to make, in some ways. We knew that it wasn’t 100% going to be a slam dunk. It didn’t work out. We all the time attempt to mitigate our dangers. One of many jobs of a normal supervisor is to mitigate your danger and take a look at the draw back and the upside and see the way it works out. In that specific state of affairs, I actually didn’t see a number of draw back. I feel we understood what the draw back could be.”
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Johnson signed a one-year, $1.2 million cope with the Browns in April. In line with Climate Underground, the common temperature in Cleveland this previous December was 35.8 degrees.
Jonas Shaffer
jonas.shaffer@thebaltimorebanner.com
Jonas Shaffer is a Ravens beat author for The Baltimore Banner. He beforehand coated the Ravens for The Baltimore Solar. Shaffer graduated from the College of Maryland and grew up in Silver Spring.
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