Detroit Lions' John Cominsky 'excited' to see ex-team; Gardner-Johnson vows, 'I'll be back'
Five days after he suffered a potential season-ending torn pectoral muscle, Detroit Lions safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson took to Instagram to vow his return.
In a video posted to the social media site Friday, Gardner-Johnson, wearing a white T-shirt with a towel on his head, said he'll be back after surgery.
"When y'all see this, I’ll be back," Gardner-Johnson said in the nearly two-minute video. "I got to go lay down for a couple months. ... I'll be back."
Gardner-Johnson tore his pectoral muscle on the opening drive of last week's loss to the Seattle Seahawks. He missed the final two plays of the drive, then returned to play the rest of the game.
Gardner-Johnson showed off his right arm in the video and asked the videographer to zoom in.
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"I played a whole game, bro. With a torn arm," he said. "I'm out there playing with one arm, they can't stop this shit. Most people tap out. I ain't tapped out yet."
Gardner-Johnson signed a one-year deal with the Lions this spring and will be a free agent after the season. He tied for the team lead with 13 tackles and had a team-best two pass deflections in the season's first two weeks.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said Wednesday "there's a chance" Gardner-Johnson will play again this year.
The typical recovery time for a torn pectoral muscle is three to four months.
More: Fueled by doubt and hate, C.J. Gardner-Johnson ready to 'bring a championship to Detroit'
Revenge game
Lions defensive lineman John Cominsky, who spent his first three NFL seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, will face his old team for the first time Sunday.
"Definitely excited," Cominsky told the Free Press this week. "It’s definitely different than the other games. A little bit more motivated. It’s exciting to be able to put it to the team that you have just came from so it’s exciting for sure."
A fourth-round pick out of Charleston in 2019, Cominsky had an up and down career with the Falcons.
He played for three different head coaches, including interim coach Raheem Morris in 2020, during his three seasons in Atlanta, and went from base defensive end to interior run stopper to little-used backup before he was cut last spring.
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The Lions claimed Cominsky off waivers, and Cominsky proved to be one of their most valuable and versatile defensive linemen last season, when he had career-highs of 30 tackles and four sacks.
Cominsky said his time in Atlanta, when he played base defensive end in Dan Quinn's 4-3 system as a rookie, as a run-stopping interior lineman under Quinn and Morris in Year 2 and struggled to get on the field after the Falcons transitioned to a 3-4 defense following Arthur Smith's arrival as head coach in 2021, prepared him well for his multi-faceted role in Detroit.
"I got to see the good and the bad of the NFL early in my career so I feel like it really just set me up for success once I got to here in Detroit where I feel really comfortable," Cominsky said. "Having all that history in Atlanta and now being in a place that is embracing me, the timing was perfect."
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' John Cominsky wants to 'put it to the team' that cut him
