Ty Johnson and how the Buffalo Bills can 'manifest' playoff glory
His career should've ended with one torn pec. Instead? The running back supplied the best play of the wild card round and — now — his perspective is exactly what the entire Bills team needs.
ORCHARD PARK, NY — Aerial footage only adds to the absurdity of the play that fueled the Buffalo Bills’ wild card win. First, you see the running back trot in motion and take off on a wheel route. He’s window dressing. A decoy. The Denver Broncos are not fooled. Swooping up the left sideline, Ty Johnson looks back toward his quarterback to see if the ball’s spit out to one of the wideouts breaking on their pivot routes.
It is not. So, he improvises.
The 5-foot-10, 210-pounder scrambles to get parallel with Josh Allen roughly 44 yards away. As the ball arrives underneath his forearms, he manages to simultaneously drag his right knee across the blue paint. The degree of difficulty is extreme, yet both parties involved make this look like a breeze.
You know the MVP candidate.
Now meet the 27-year-old flexing his biceps in the end zone.
This canvas of tattoos rocking a septum ring, an industrial piercing and an untamed mane is everything that everybody inside of the Bills locker room desperately needs into the game of their collective lives. Buffalo hosts the Baltimore Ravens at 6:30 p.m. (EST) on Sunday inside Highmark Stadium. An arctic blast could drop wind chills below zero. Heartbeats, conversely, run the risk of spiking to record highs. These Bills could easily become strangulated by here-we-go-again dread on the heels of five straight demoralizing postseason defeats.
Brandon Beane took steps to address those nerves. The team’s general manager valued the influx of new players who don’t bring “scars” to this moment.
Sean McDermott has made a concerted effort to loosen up, and get this team to imagine everything that can go right vs. what could go wrong. When Cael Sanderson told him that he became a better wrestling coach when he realized coaching wasn’t all that important, a light bulb went off. McDermott’s goal now is to serve more of a “Dad”-like role, to be whatever he can for players day to day. Crucial self-reflection for a coach whose former assistants felt the entire building mirror his nervousness the week of playoff games past.
Still, players win games. Eleven moving parts must play 150 snaps with a clear mind. It’s no coincidence that some treat such pressure as a trip to the local Starbucks, while others tremble in fear. Legacies are on the line. This city’s been starving for a title. Your life could change forever in a split-second. Thus, these Bills have every reason to urinate down their pant leg when the national anthem blares. All week, players have made it clear they’re trying their best to treat this week like any other.
They’d sure be wise to follow the lead of the man with the word “Manifest” tatted on his right shoulder.
It’s no accident that Ty Johnson always finds himself in the right place at the right time. His conscience is clear. His perspective is refreshing. As the team’s third-down back says, it’s hard to get into the NFL and even harder to stay in the NFL. He’ll have fun while it lasts.
“We tend to forget it’s a kid’s game first,” he says. “We just get paid a king’s ransom.”
Granted, there will be a moment on Sunday when somebody inside of this locker room will have the opportunity to play hero. Stefon Diggs got his chance vs. the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round last season, and dropped Allen’s gift from the heavens. Bring up the reality of this profession — the fact that this is when reputations are cemented, the fact that players like him are replaced year ‘round — and Johnson, again, declares football “a kid’s game.” Then, he offers a few words that are more helpful than any X ‘n O permutation devised by McDermott’s staff on a whiteboard.
“We as fans, players, coaches, whatever, we take this game way more serious than it needs to be,” Johnson says. “It’s really just like, ‘Damn, just have fun with it. Play, have fun, laugh.’ Know what I’m saying? There’s going to be mishaps and negative things that happen, but shit, it’s football.”
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The best play we’ve seen in the playoffs so far is the direct result of everything that happened in the spring of 2023. That’s when Ty Johnson tore his pectoral muscle while working out. An injury that easily could’ve ejected him into 9-to- 5 life on the spot. On April 26, 2023, Johnson was abruptly released by the New York Jets with a “non-football injury designation” and the NFL wouldn’t touch him for four months. He bided his time in Miami, Fla., with renowned trainer Pete Bommarito.
Not only did Johnson rehabilitate that pec — this is precisely when he sharpened his mind.
He embraced the power of “manifestation,” writing and speaking outcomes into existence.
He told himself that whatever he wanted in life was within reach if he simply took it.
“I believe if you put in the work and you put yourself in position, the universe will give you everything you ask for,” Johnson says. “As long as you put yourself in that space to receive it. I don’t make plays or anything like that from half-assing throughout practice or not being locked in on meetings. It really comes down to always putting myself in the best position possible for the outcome that I want to speak into existence.
“You can want to grow flowers, but if you don’t water ‘em, they won’t grow.”
In total NFL limbo, Johnson studied the 12 Laws of the Universe. Life, he realized, is “a circle.” If something happens — and there’s nothing he can do to change it — why worry? Two of those laws specifically spoke to him: the law of attraction (the idea that positive thoughts bring positive outcomes to our lives) and the law of correspondence (the idea that everything happening around us is a direct reflection of what’s happening inside of us).
That May, on Instagram, Johnson admitted he suffered through “dark, dark days.” From a cold tub, Johnson explained that he reported that injury directly to the Jets and the team’s doctor instructed him to get it fixed ASAP. He flew out the next day for surgery and was promptly released that following Wednesday.
It took until late August for Johnson to get signed again with Buffalo stashing him on its practice squad.
After the Bills limped to a 5-5 start and fired their offensive coordinator, it was finally time for Johnson to put all of this Zen to the test. His amplified role coincided with the team’s December surge. He took one fourth-and-1 catch to the house against the Jets, finished with 194 total yards and, one day, a hearty debate broke out amongst the running backs: Who’s fastest? When Johnson regaled all with tales of his 40, teammates didn’t believe him. Position coach Kelly Skipper checked with the Bills front office and reported back that Johnson had a time of 4.33. Jaws practically hit the floor. The Bills clearly found a gem in that NFL K-Mart bin.
One of Beane’s easiest decisions was to re-sign Johnson this past spring at $1.29 million.
There’s been an ample amount of food on the plate of this receiving weapon.
During the regular reason, Johnson totaled 497 total yards with four touchdowns. He’s proven fully capable of both stonewalling linebackers in pass pro and toasting them out of the flat as a receiver. This week, Allen dubbed Johnson the best third-down back in the league and it’s easy to see why the MVP-caliber QB trusts him so much. Johnson has caught 25 of the 32 passes thrown his way as a Bill, good for a 78 percent catch rate. His value is obvious.
“Works hard. Finishes every play. Hell of a blocking running back,” tight end Dawson Knox says. “But he’s an unselfish guy, too. He’s celebrating when other guys are making big plays, and then when the ball comes to him? He makes unbelievable catches. Unbelievable run after catch ability.”
Only good things seem to happen when the ball is in the hands of No. 26. None of it is an accident.
To manifest, Johnson writes down “affirmations” throughout the week.
“Writing down that I’m great. I know my job. I know my execution. I know how to execute and I know I’ve prepared correctly,” Johnson says. “So I find comfort in that — knowing that when the time comes, I’m going to make those plays because I put in the time and the work. I understand that week’s game plan.”
Affirmations are jotted down on sticky notes attached to the mirror of his downstairs bathroom. That way, Johnson sees them all day. After Buffalo took the AFC East for a fifth straight season, Johnson wrote on one: “Keep going. Keep faith. Be present.” On another, “Be where your feet are.”
Each gameday, he’ll also write a message on his wrist tape so he’s able to read it during the game.
“Hammering those thoughts into my head,” Johnson says. “A constant reminder at all times.”
The cavalier improvisation that made McDermott’s heart jump and broke open the Broncos game might’ve resembled backyard football when, in truth, it was the direct result of countless scramble drills at practice. (“Trust,” Knox adds, “they’ve built in practice.”) That’s why Johnson makes an important distinction: Nothing about manifesting is luck. He creates these opportunities.
That’s been the case his entire life. All the way back to a hometown hit hard by the opioid epidemic. Cumberland, Md., pop. 18,751, has a poverty rate double the national average. Johnson grew up in a single-parent household. Nor were college recruiters banging on the doors of Fort Hill High School back in 2012 and 2013. Hell, probably 99 percent of ‘em didn’t even know the school existed. Johnson played in the state’s lowest classification, 1A, while splitting carries in a Wing T offense. And considering Fort Hill pulverized teams by an average of 32.6 points his final season, Johnson barely even played in the second half of games. Whenever he did touch the ball, he maximized that opportunity. He averaged 17.6 yards per carry as a junior and nearly as much as a senior.
To this day, Johnson can picture the spacious South Cumberland Library positioned at 100 Seymour Street, just off Pennsylvania Avenue.
“I was always in there,” he says.
Producing on the field alone wouldn’t be enough to play college ball. His head coach at Fort Hill, Todd Appel, is honest. Colleges didn’t care much about a tiny 1A school in Maryland.
“They turn their nose up to you,” Appel says, “because, well, ‘Who are they playing against?’”
The coach printed out as many email addresses as he could of college football coaches across the country, fashioned it into a binder and handed it to Johnson. (A “huge-ass binder,” Johnson specifies.) Johnson then took that binder to the local library and did his research on a computer. Coaches are always jumping from school to school, so he wanted to make sure whoever he was emailing was still at that listed school. Then, Johnson wrote a personalized email with a link to his highlight reel. He sent at least 50 emails per day to head coaches, running backs coaches, even DB coaches.
During school hours, he couldn’t help himself. He’d get in trouble at math class for sneaking in a few more emails.
This is the only speed Ty Johnson ever knew. At Fort Hill, the gym was open to the varsity team from 8 a.m. to 9:30, and Appel remembers Johnson sticking around for every second. He was always the last to leave. That young, at age 16 and 17, Johnson wrote down his short- and long-term goals. Everything from the number of reps he wanted to churn out on the bench press to making this D-I dream a reality.
“His work ethic is unmatched by anybody,” Appel says. “When you have the best player on your team work the hardest, you’re going to have a really good football team. And that was Ty.”
One day, while cutting firewood, a Fort Hill assistant asked Appel if he thought the kid could make the NFL.
If anybody could, Appel answered, “it’s Ty.”
Most college coaches never replied to those emails. Many asked him to fill out a recruiting questionnaire — the universal code for “Scram, kid!” A select few invited him to their summer camp but, unfortunately, Johnson didn’t have the money to travel around the country. In all, he received two offers. The University of Albany visited, saw Johnson run the 40-yard dash and offered him on the spot. Then, of course, the University of Maryland offered a scholarship. That’s one camp Johnson was able to attend because College Park, Md., was located only 132 miles southeast. Coaches took one look at his wheels and were convinced.
At Maryland, Johnson played for multiple different coordinators in a part-time role… but still managed to rush for 1,004 yards as a sophomore on only 110 carries for an preposterous 9.1 average that led the entire nation. He didn’t receive an invite to the NFL Combine… so he blew up his pro day. He ran a hand-time of 4.26 seconds and benched 225 pounds 27 times to get drafted in the sixth round of the 2019 draft by the Detroit Lions.
Of course, these were not yet Dan Campbell’s Lions. Echoing others, Johnson assures that playing for Matt Patricia was often a cruel experience. Inside the building, Patricia was friendly. Johnson calls him a “great person,” adding that the head coach even went out of his way to give players a chance to voice their opinions through an emotionally turbulent 2020. “But obviously,” Johnson adds, “he can motherfuck you. It was rough.” After getting waived by the Lions on Oct. 1, 2020, he remembers watching the Jets and Broncos on Thursday Night Football and thinking he could go to New Jersey. That night, Jets assistant GM Rex Hogan called to say they were claiming him.
He took his second carry 34 yards against Miami. (“I can do this,” Johnson told himself.)
Later that season, he eclipsed 100 yards vs. the Raiders. His confidence grew. He remembered what one of the all-time greats — Adrian Peterson — told him when they were teammates in Detroit: “Just run.” Don’t overthink. Don’t hesitate. Go. The Jets continued to jet. While Johnson doesn’t want to disparage a team that employed him for three seasons, he assures it’s never fun when a team goes 13-37 over three seasons. Nor was getting so unceremoniously cut. It took a long time to build up the mentality he has today in Buffalo.
In hindsight, Johnson knows how easily he could’ve been puked out by the NFL machine. One bad coach. One freak injury. That’s all it takes to get forgotten forever. Those four months out of work could’ve broken Johnson. Clearly, there was an internal struggle. Dark days. Thing is? Appel never noticed. With his arm in a sling, Johnson still ran his football camp in Cumberland that summer with “a big smile on his face and his hair flopping in the air,” the coach says.
Johnson acted then as if he knew everything would be just fine. He was manifesting.
By supplying just enough film before that torn pec, Johnson dotted Beane’s radar.
“The will and the willpower and the want to keep going and knowing that I can be here and play,” Johnson says. “I might not have been getting the ball 100 times. But being able to make the most of every little opportunity, that’s been my whole deal since college.”
When Appel visits his friend today in Western New York, he sees those sticky notes all over the mirror. Messages like, Be Great Today and I Can Do This.
He never hears Johnson utter a negative word. Never hears him get down at all.
Forget football. Appel says that he fully expects Johnson to achieve greatness in life.
“If you want to be uplifted, hang around Ty for a while,” Appel continues. “I think we can all take an example of that. There’s days where we don’t want to go to work. There’s days where there’s something tragic in our life or there’s days when there’s things going wrong and — if you speak positive existence in your life — good things are bound to happen and he’s a good role model with that.”
Which, of course, is everything the Buffalo Bills need right now. Negative thoughts have too often loitered in the psyche of players January games past. The vet Knox, who’s been around for the last five crushing playoff defeats, sees a team sincerely doing its best to treat Sunday as any other game. A welcomed change.
“We’re trying to stay loose,” Knox says. “It’s focusing on stuff that we can control: our playbook and playing free, playing fast and letting our personality shine through. It feels a little more relaxed in a good way this year.”
No coach, no captain, no guest speaker can merely instruct a group of grown men to quit stressing, to relax. A team must get to this mental state naturally.
The key has been building trust with the coaches. If a player makes a dynamite play in practice and starts dancing, Knox explains, coaches aren’t saying anything. They know you’ll bring the same juice to gameday. In fact, they’re even encouraging such personality to shine. (“They’ve got to trust us,” Knox adds. “We have to have trust in each other.”) Treat a divisional playoff matchup like this too seriously — allow the magnitude of it all to weigh on your shoulders like a 100-pound boulder — and the result can be tightness.
Knox witnessed this effect in playoff games past.
“The longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve seen the progression of everything in this building,” he says. “That calmness comes with preparation. Knowing that we’re doing the right things day-in and day-out, working on our style of play, our headspace, there’s a lot of confidence that comes in preparation, too. So it’s not pressing or worrying about the opponent or trying to do something extra special this week. It’s just doing what we’ve been doing all year. Focus on us.”
There are many ways to reach such peace. Knox relies on prayer and absolutely sees the power in Johnson’s manifestation.
Say something out loud again… again… and again… and he believes it can happen.
“Positive self-talk is huge,” Knox adds. “Keeping the anxious thoughts away.”
So, ready or not, here comes Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and a Ravens team full of their own Super Bowl expectations. As kickoff nears, nerves may heighten. All Johnson needs to do is gaze at those affirmations on the sticky notes and the ink covering his body. Messages are everywhere. In addition to that “Manifest” inscribed just above his clavicle, he points to the “Good Vibes Only” Shaka symbol on his ankle. And “Memento Mori,” Latin for “remember you must die.” This reminds Johnson to stay present and live life to the fullest. And “Amor Fati,” Latin for “love of one’s fate.” This keeps him leveled through life’s inevitable ups and downs.
He hopes to inspire kids in Cumberland. Whenever Johnson has a chance to speak to kids back home, he’s speaks positively… with a dose of brutal honesty. Manifestation is not a matter of scribbling down a few words, closing your eyes and waiting for greatness to land in your lap like a fourth-and-1 pass from Josh Allen. He bluntly tells kids that nothing will be easy.
These days, Johnson sees far too many kids bailing the second times get tough.
“You’ve got to put in the damn work,” Johnson says. “Look at the transfer portal — shit gets hard and people leave. And same thing with high school sports. They’ll just quit and go to another sport. Yeah, you can do it but it’s not going to be easy.”
The playoffs have most certainly not been easy for the Buffalo Bills, but they keep dusting themselves off. They keep fighting their way back into this divisional round of the AFC playoffs.
On this day, it’s relatively quiet inside the locker room. No music is blaring. All you hear is the squishing of flip-flops and a few inaudible conversations at lockers around the corner. Nobody’s battling at the team’s Bubble Hockey machine. Nobody’s playing ping-pong. Two teammates engage in a laidback game of cornhole, then exit. Allen thumbs through his cell phone at his locker for a while, then he exits.
Someone passing through this room will need to make the play that decides Buffalo’s fate.
Consider it all the calm before the storm. The Bills put the work in. And now — finally — maybe they’ve all entered the right mental space to make that play, to win this game.
After all, shit, it’s just football.
Hey! Let’s hang out this Saturday night at Fattey Beer in Orchard Park, NY. Details:
ICYMI:
‘I bleed for that win:’ Our 1 on 1 with Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott
ORCHARD PARK, NY — All playoff pain on your mind is on his mind. Sean McDermott doesn’t hide those losses deep into his subconscious. He cannot pretend like those games never happened. Bury “13 Seconds” and the rest of those defeats or use them? Before the question is even finished, he interjects — “no way” — and pops off a leather chair to grab something at his desk on the other side of his office.
This was great, Tyler. I'm thinking back to your feature last year with Bill Polian, who spoke of prioritizing players who step up in the playoffs and jettisoning those who don't... Johnson seems like the type of player who doesn't cower or fade when the lights are brightest.
Ty on Ty. Who else? Great read.