The No. 90 debate for the Green Bay Packers doesn’t really need much of one. A few names deserve a nod, sure, but this one belongs to Ezra Johnson, a pass rusher who turned a small-school background into a long, productive run in Green Bay and left behind one of the stranger moments in team history along the way.
Johnson is the Packers’ choice here by a mile, even if the number has also been worn by players like Tony Bennett, Vonnie Holliday and B.J. Raji.
Bennett logged four seasons from 1990 to 1993 and finished with 36.0 sacks. Holliday spent five seasons in Titletown from 1998 to 2002 and posted 32.0 sacks.
Raji played six seasons with the Packers, technically seven, though he missed the 2014 campaign, and had 11.0 sacks.
Johnson, though, is the one who stands out. The Packers took him in the first round of the 1977 NFL Draft with the 28th overall pick after he played college football at Morris Brown College, an HBCU in Georgia with an enrollment of about 1,500.
Plenty of people saw that pick as a gamble. At 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, Johnson was viewed by some as too small to hold up at defensive end in the NFL.
He answered that concern quickly. After a reserve role as a rookie, Johnson moved into the starting lineup at right defensive end in his second season.
His speed did the rest. He exploded for 17.5 sacks and earned a Pro Bowl trip, finishing second in the NFL behind only the Detroit Lions’ Budda Baker, who had 23.0.
Yes, sacks didn’t become an official stat until 1982, but Pro Football Reference’s unofficial totals give us the numbers here, and Johnson’s production is hard to ignore. He never quite matched that breakout year, though he came close with 14.5 sacks in 1983, and he didn’t pick up another Pro Bowl nod. Still, he was a dependable Packers defender for a long stretch, playing 11 seasons in Green Bay.
His time with the team also came with baggage. The most notorious episode came in the 1980 preseason, during a 38-0 loss to the Denver Broncos, when Johnson was spotted on the sideline eating a hot dog.
Bart Starr, then serving as both head coach and general manager, fined him $1,000 and made him apologize to the team, but he stopped short of suspending him. That decision pushed defensive line coach Fred von Appen to resign.
Starr later returned the $1,000 to Johnson at the end of the season.
Injuries slowed Johnson down late in his Packers run, and he left after the 1987 season. He still played four more years in the NFL, spending two seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and two with the Houston Oilers.
By the end of his Green Bay career, Johnson had piled up 82.0 sacks, which still ranks third in Packers history behind only Willie Davis’ 99.5 and Clay Matthews’ 83.5. Despite the friction along the way, he was eventually brought back into the fold and entered the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1997.
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Packers Get A Break As Bears Backfield Suddenly Changes
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For the Packers, the change matters because it takes one of Chicagos more reliable ground-game options off the field for now, even if the Bears are not planning to place Monangai on injured reserve. The door remains open for a quicker return, but at least for this Sunday, Green Bay will face a Bears offense that has to adjust on the fly in the backfield. [Read more 🡒]