Michael Strahan slammed over NFL legend Chris Johnson’s ALS interview… as viewers claim he failed to ask the most important question
Michael Strahan has been criticized for failing to ask ‘football-related’ questions during his interview with former NFL star Chris Johnson.
Johnson, a former running back, sat down with Strahan on Good Morning America this week to reveal that he has been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) at age 40.
ALS – which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – is a progressive neurological disease that slowly destroys motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord over time.
However, Strahan, a former defensive end, has come under fire for avoiding a particular topic during the sit-down.
Sportswriter Dan Le Batard claimed the New York Giants legend should have asked a football-centric question about the potential link between the sport and the illness.
‘Michael Strahan has a responsibility in that instance to ask some sort of football-related question, and he did not do it, and he came under no criticism from anybody except (journalist) Jeff Pearlman because we don’t actually want to know’ Le Batard said on his self-named show Tuesday.
Michael Strahan has been criticized for his interview with former NFL star Chris Johnson
Former running back Johnson shared his ALS diagnosis in an emotional interview with GMA
‘We don’t. It’s just too uncomfortable. You just can’t enjoy that thing the way you do … you don’t actually want to know what it is when these guys are limping through their retirement homes to an early death.’
He added: ‘The reason Chris Johnson is being interviewed is because this is a former athlete of some name. They’re not interviewing random people with ALS, they’re interviewing this person.
‘And so to neglect that question is an omission that I don’t know why the omission is there. And I’m curious. And if you ask the question, you remove the hole in your interview by just asking a question, if football had something to do with this.’
Sports journalist Pearlman, whom Le Batard cited, quoted a study in the American Medical Association on how football players were four times more likely to wind up with ALS than the general population in an earlier TikTok.
‘So, look, there’s a tie,’ Pearlman said. ‘If Michael Strahan were being genuinely inquisitive and genuinely at all journalistic, I know he’s not a journalist by training, but blah blah blah.
‘There are a couple questions you have to ask. Number one, do you regret playing football? Looking at your life now, sitting here at 40, seeing the ties between football and ALS, the possibility that that game causes. If you could do it all over again, would you play? And maybe (Johnson) says no, I would do it, it was worth it. Maybe he says, no, I would do it either way. That’s the money question of a reasonable interview.’
Strahan may have had football-related questions that did not make it into the seven-minute segment.
Among the questions he did ask were: ‘What would you like people to know?’; ‘Why do you want to share this now?’; and ‘When did you notice something was off?’
Johnson was one of the fastest running backs in NFL history, playing for the Titans and Jets
Johnson has four children. He admits life is not like it was a year ago as he lives with ALS
At one point, Johnson’s wife Brittany said, ‘I thought because football and his career it had to be something with that,’ when discussing how she first noticed something was amiss last year.
Having already lost the ability to speak due to the rapid progression of the disease, Johnson used his eyes to trigger a voice machine as he sat alongside his wife for the interview with Strahan.
‘First, I want people to know that I’m still me,’ he began. ‘ALS has changed what my body can do but it hasn’t changed who I am.’
His rapid decline left fans in tears as they watched him explain his diagnosis and the subsequent effects on his body.
When asked why he had chosen now to share his story, Johnson revealed: ‘Because if sharing my story helps even one person get diagnosed sooner, inspires more research or gives another family hope, then it’s worth it.’
The ex-NFL star was in what he describes as the ‘prime of his life’ when he received the diagnosis and had been working out every day and spending time with his wife and four children.
He was diagnosed last year and now uses his eyes to trigger a voice machine to speak
‘I first noticed weakness in my right hand,’ he told Strahan. ‘At first it was little things like, my grip didn’t feel right. And I wasn’t as strong as I’d always been.’
His wife Brittany explained how she had initially thought it was a simpler, football-related injury like a pinched nerve, before their world began to unravel.
‘We hoped it was something else, but after thorough testing, they finally came down with a diagnosis of ALS,’ Johnson then explained. ‘They told us about a medication that might extend life by a few months, then they told us to get our affairs in order.
‘It was hard hearing that but after watching Good Morning America and seeing Dr Merit [Cudkowicz] with Eric Dane, we reached out to her. She was willing to think more creatively and offer experimental treatments that might help and advance research.’
