Do you like sports movies that dish up more cheese than a large pizza?

Movies such as …

“The Replacements” — a football flick with Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman as the recycled quarterback and coach, respectively?

“I remember The Replacements very well,” Josh Johnson, real-life quarterback, was saying Wednesday.


Johnson mentioned a scene that has stuck with him, nearly 20 years later.

Footballers in a jail cell, singing and dancing.

To Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

This movie was not a threat to win an Oscar, even a plastic Oscar, but did have a redemptive theme: Football players availing themselves of a last-call chance.


Johnson is a former NFL quarterback who at age 32 has enlisted with the San Diego Fleet of the Alliance of American Football, a start-up that will launch in February.

It was 10 years ago that he went from the University of San Diego to the NFL as a fifth-round draftee of the Tampa Bay Bucs, a steep jump, especially for a quarterback.

Johnson appeared in 29 NFL games from 2009-13, and compiled statistics that fell well short of the school records he’d recorded with Jim Harbaugh’s Toreros.

Ten interceptions, five touchdown passes and 57.7 passer rating — those were his career numbers.


Johnson reasons that his best football could still be ahead of him, claiming that the years eroded neither his arm strength nor foot speed, yet enriched him otherwise.

“Mentally,” he said, “I’ve grown a lot.”

Putting it another way, he said:

“People will see me, and they will see me with a lot of growth, a lot of maturity, a lot of leadership.”


Coach Mike Martz is jumping back into pro football, too.

A Don Coryell devotee who helped to guide the St. Louis Rams to consecutive Super Bowls two decades ago, the 67-year-old Martz had semi-retired to San Diego in recent years.

The Fleet gig will allow to stay home, while paying forward his know-how.

Martz saw enough from Johnson and heard enough from him in a recent chat in San Diego, to recommend that Fleet personnel man Dave Boller take him first in the Alliance’s “quarterback draft” on Tuesday.


Boller, who goes back with Martz to 1983, said the coach has a knack for spotting flaws. Sometimes, he’s able to fix the flaws.

Martz said of Johnson: “I loved him coming out of college, thought he was a terrific talent. I think he’s one of those guys that had some mechanical things, footwork stuff, that can be cleaned up, and he’d have been fine. I feel like it’s all there for him. Very accurate. Great feet. Smart guy. And, he’s local.”

School and Beast Mode

Johnson said the chance to assume control of a football club is the main reason he took the job.

Along with a salary of $70,000, the Alliance is picking up tuition for players who have college work to finish up.


Johnson, who said he had to pay for his tuition at USD when he was quarterbacking Harbaugh’s program, has about a semester’s of work to gain a degree in communications with a minor in business administration and plans to get that done.

He’s looking forward to doing charitable work, he said, while “connecting” with San Diegans.

Johnson said a fellow Oakland resident with an NFL past, his cousin Marshawn Lynch, is “more than likely” to attend a few Fleet games.

Will Johnson be handing off to Lynch, the featured running back on two Super Bowl teams with the Seahawks and a Raiders starter earlier this season? “You never know,” the quarterback said.


Film study among Fleet coaches and players will begin this month, following by the Alliance’s training camp in San Antonio, where the Fleet will begin its season Feb. 9. The Fleet will play its home opener at SDCCU Stadium on Feb. 17.

Tom.Krasovic@SDUnionTribune.com; Twitter: SDUTKrasovic