Micah Johnson plays defensive tackle without an end in sight.
At 35 — a birthday he celebrated on Thursday — he still dominates in a manner that makes rival offensive linemen feel infinitely older.
“It’s crazy to think that I’m still here and still playing and still feel good,” he said after the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ final full practice of the week at Mosaic Stadium.
“I’m still trying to play at a high level. That’s really what I’m still focused on.”
The birth certificate? That isn’t even a tertiary consideration.
“I’m a big MMA guy,” Johnson said. “I’ve watched a lot of mixed martial arts and some of my favourite fighters are all 34, 35 right now.
“It’s just one of the things that’s changed with time and technology and with the different things that guys have got today. It’s easy to do, in my opinion. It’s just about you being willing to do it.
“Even in the off-season, I don’t take too much time off. My wife asks me, ‘Why are you working out so much?’
“I feel like when you start getting stagnant and taking months off at a time, that’s when things start to tighten up and change on you.”
Johnson is making up for lost time, in a sense.
“Everybody has kind of a different football path,” he reflected. “I felt like I was a pretty good football player, like a lot of guys, and had a lot of talent, but I feel like I made some decisions early on in my younger years that kind of swayed where my football career headed.
“I never really forgave myself for that and it was kind of a fuel for me. I was a five-star (recruit) coming out of high school. I had scholarship offers from everywhere. Everything was lining up for me for what I thought was about to be a long, prominent NFL career at linebacker, but everything happens for a reason.”
Everything tended to happen in a season when Johnson was a both-sides-of-the-ball destroyer at Fort Campbell High School in Kentucky.
Over his final two seasons of high school football, he rushed for 2,543 yards and 46 (yes, 46) touchdowns while also amassing 293 tackles as a linebacker. The all-around excellence was recognized when he received Kentucky’s prestigious Mr. Football Award in 2005.
He went on to play NCAA football at the University of Kentucky before spending varying lengths of time with five NFL teams — the New York Giants (2010), Miami Dolphins (2010), Kansas City Chiefs (2010 and 2011), Cincinnati Bengals (2011 and 2012) and Green Bay Packers (2013).
He signed with Calgary on May 24, 2013.
“When I came to the CFL, I was like, ‘I’m going to be up here for a year or two and then I’m going right back to the NFL,’ ” Johnson recalled, chuckling at the notion a decade later.
“My first year, I tear my ACL. Then it’s ‘OK, reset,’ and I come back and I tear it again. For me, it was just like constantly resetting.
“I felt like the work I put in through that time is kind of a testament to how great of a player I felt like I was and still continue to be.
“I was playing at such a high level that even right now at 34, 35, if you’re saying ‘it has dropped off some,’ it’s still at such a level that I feel like it’s high.”
So, ultimately, it has all balanced out. Although Johnson would like a do-over while looking back at how things transpired earlier in his career, he has now outlasted a vast majority of players who were once his contemporaries.
“It’s something I’ve talk to God about,” he said. “I just asked Him, ‘For some of the mistakes I made early, just give me some longevity on the back end.’ I literally talked to Him and asked Him to make up for some of that time.
“It’s such a fun game. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like work. We get to do this for six months and it’s almost like a treat.
“I don’t really want to stop doing it yet. As long as I can do it and I’m still good enough, I’m having fun.”
The next real treat on the schedule is Saturday’s game in Calgary — a city that is still near and dear to Johnson’s heart.
“Calgary will just always be that place for me, just like I’m sure every CFL player has that place,” said Johnson, a six-time divisional All-Star who as a Stampeder was named a CFL All-Star in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
“I remember when my agent was calling me, saying, ‘This team in Canada has your rights,’ and I’d never even heard of Calgary, Alberta — not for a day in my life.
“I’ll always be grateful to that city for giving me the chance that it did. I had never played defensive line before I got to Calgary. I was a linebacker my whole life.
“The coaches there and those relationships, they’ll never go nowhere. And then there’s that city. My middle son was born in Calgary at Foothills Hospital, so he’s Canadian.
“The ties are pretty deep there, so it’s always special going back to that place and you always hold it closely.”
The people closest to Johnson — his wife (Saqouya) and sons JaCorian (11), Micah Jr. (6), Jaxson (3) and newborn daughter Kaleia — are about to make the trip to Saskatchewan from the home base in Florida.
The close-knit family is to be reunited during a bye week that is to begin after Saturday’s game at McMahon Stadium (5 p.m., TSN, CKRM).
“For my last couple of years of playing, I want my boys to be up here,” a proud father said. “I want them to be able to experience it and to see me play.”
Talk about a (slightly) late birthday present!
“It’s going to be a good one,” Johnson concluded with a smile, “that’s for sure.”
