Ellis Bernard Johnson (born October 30, 1973) is an American former college and professional football player who was a defensive tackle in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for ten seasons during the 1990s and 2000s. Johnson played college football for the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, and was recognized as the National Defensive Player of the Year. He was picked in the first round of the 1995 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the Indianapolis Colts, Atlanta Falcons and

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...

of the NFL.

Early life

Johnson was born in

Wildwood, Florida Wildwood is a city in Sumter County, Florida, United States. The population was 6,709 at the 2010 census. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2018 estimates, the city had a population of 7,024. Due to rapid growth the city had over 33,000 re ...

in 1973.Pro-Football-Reference.com, Players
Ellis Johnson
Retrieved July 7, 2010. He attended Wildwood High School,databaseFootball.com, Players

. Retrieved June 3, 2010. where he played high school football for the Wildwood Wildcats.

College career

Johnson accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the

in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Steve Spurrier's

Florida Gators football The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division o ...

team from

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

.
2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide
'', University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, pp. 77, 88, 97, 99, 101, 103, 125, 153–154, 182 (2011). Retrieved August 29, 2011. As a senior team captain on the Gators' 1994

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

(SEC) championship team, Johnson was a first-team All-SEC selection, an honorable mention All-American, and

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's National Defensive Player of the Year; he was also selected by his Gators teammates as the team's most valuable player. He finished his four years as a Gator with 16.3 quarterback sacks and 26.8 tackles for a loss. In a retrospective series published by ''The Gainesville Sun'' in 2006, Johnson was rated No. 32 among the top 100 Gators of the first 100 seasons of Florida football. He was inducted into the

University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame The University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame includes over 300 former Florida Gators athletes who represented the University of Florida in one or more intercollegiate sports and were recognized as "Gator Greats" for their athletic excellence ...

as a "Gator Great" in 2007.

Professional career

Indianapolis Colts

The Indianapolis Colts selected Johnson in the first round (fifteenth pick overall) of the 1995 NFL Draft. He played for the Colts from to .National Football League, Historical Players
Ellis Johnson
Retrieved June 3, 2010. During those seven seasons, he started eighty-four of 104 games, recording 269 tackles, thirty-three quarterback sacks and two

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team ...

Atlanta Falcons

Johnson signed with the Atlanta Falcons before the season, and he played for the Falcons from to . In the two years, he started five of thirty-two games, recording sixty-seven tackles, and fifteen sacks.

Denver Broncos

Johnson was traded by the Falcons to the

before the season in exchange for the Broncos' fifth-round selection in the

2005 NFL draft The 2005 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 23–24, 2005. The league also he ...

. In his only season with the Broncos, he played in thirteen games, recording sixteen tackles, three sacks and an interception. The interception came on a deflected pass in the famous "snow game" with the Oakland Raiders, and Johnson put on an impressive burst of speed to reach the end zone.

Career Statistics

In his ten-year NFL career, Johnson appeared in 149 regular season games, started in eighty-nine of them, and was responsible for 356 tackles.

References

Bibliography

* Carlson, Norm, ''University of Florida Football Vault: The History of the Florida Gators'', Whitman Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia (2007). . * Golenbock, Peter, ''Go Gators! An Oral History of Florida's Pursuit of Gridiron Glory'', Legends Publishing, LLC, St. Petersburg, Florida (2002). . * Hairston, Jack, ''Tales from the Gator Swamp: A Collection of the Greatest Gator Stories Ever Told'', Sports Publishing, LLC, Champaign, Illinois (2002). . * McCarthy, Kevin M.,
Fightin' Gators: A History of University of Florida Football
', Arcadia Publishing, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (2000). . * Nash, Noel, ed., ''The Gainesville Sun Presents The Greatest Moments in Florida Gators Football'', Sports Publishing, Inc., Champaign, Illinois (1998). . {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Ellis 1973 births Living people People from Wildwood, Florida Players of American football from Florida American football defensive ends American football defensive tackles Florida Gators football players Indianapolis Colts players Atlanta Falcons players Denver Broncos players