David Johnson runs the ball while straight-arming Su'a Cravens during a game against Washington at University of Phoenix Stadium on December 4, 2016 in Glendale, Arizona. (Getty Images)

How good has the 24-year-old been in his second year in the NFL? On Sunday, he became only the second player in NFL history to gain at least 100 total yards in each of the first 12 games of a season, matching the feat of former Colts running back Edgerrin James, who did it in 13 consecutive games in 2005. Johnson leads the league in total yards from scrimmage (1,709) and touchdowns (15), and he is third in rushing (1,005). By every measure, he’s the top running back in every type of fantasy football league.

"David Johnson is the closest player out there today who compares to the fantasy greats of the past like LaDainian Tomlinson and Marshall Faulk," says David Sabino, the longtime Sports Illustrated fantasy editor who is now the lead researcher for ESPN's First Take. "Like Tomlinson and Faulk, Johnson has the two best talents that fantasy owners love: availability and reliability."

But Johnson's availability and reliability only partially explain why he is so revered by his Cardinals teammates.

"We all know David's background, and he's overcome as much as anyone just to make it to the league," says A.Q. Shipley, Arizona's center. "David is open with us about his past, and you can't help but admire a guy who has fought so hard to get where he is today."

Indeed, the story of David Johnson—an against-all-odds narrative of perseverance—is a movie waiting to be made.

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He closes his eyes and can see it all again.

Johnson is sitting in the tiny mailroom at the Tempe team headquarters—"I like it in here, because I've been a delivery boy before," he says—as he recounts his childhood in Clinton, Iowa, population just over 26,000.

"My mom might have been the hardest-working person in our town," he says. "She practically worked in every fast-food place you can name—McDonald's, Burger King, Long John Silver's. She worked factory jobs. Life was hard, and it was a challenge for us just to eat every day, but we didn't know anything else."

Regina Johnson, a single mother, already had three kids when David was born December 16, 1991. But it wasn't just David who arrived that day: Regina also gave birth to David's older sister Danielle and younger sister Darnecia. The father of the triplets wasn't in the picture; David later found out he ended up in prison.

Struggling to pay bills, Regina and her children were constantly on the move, bouncing from apartments to houses of friends to cheap hotels. Wanting to unburden his mom—"She always looked so tired," David says—little David tried his best to take care of himself. Sports became his outlet, his great escape.

"Life was hard, and it was a challenge for us just to eat every day, but we didn't know anything else."

— DAVID JOHNSON

In fourth grade, he excelled on a traveling dodgeball team. Playing schools from nearby small towns, David was such a catching machine that he earned the nickname Glue Hands—the first indication that something was different about this triplet who always seemed to have a brilliant, life-is-beautiful smile on his face.

"That smile was ear to ear all the time," says Jeff Voss, a plumbing contractor in Clinton whose son went to school with David. "It was like he didn't have any problems in the world."

That same year, Regina, battling a problem with alcohol, was arrested for driving under the influence. She landed behind bars.

The triplets moved in with their older sister LaToria for nearly a year. Then they went to live with their mother who, after being released from jail, was placed in a halfway house. Reflecting on those 12 months, David flashes that piano-key grin. That time, he says, was a turning point.

"The halfway house was different, but we had arts and crafts to do, there were other kids around and my mom quit drinking cold-turkey," David says. "It was a new beginning for us."

David Johnson leaves the field after a game against the New York Jets on October 17, 2016, in Glendale, Arizona. (AP Images)

While living there, David started playing a new sport: football. "David was our star running back and linebacker," says Voss, who coached the Pop Warner team David was on. "When we had the ball in David's hands, he always made it look effortless. We gave him rides to games because his mom was so busy at home with her other children. A lot of parents took David under their wing. The entire community helped him."

Yet when adults were out of view, David became the target of a neighborhood bully, an older boy who physically tormented him at a local park. David was so terrified of the bully he often wouldn't go outside to play if adults weren't present. "For years I was scared just to be a regular kid," David says. "I mean, for years."

The bullying stopped in middle school when David began lifting weights like it was his life's purpose. Soon, no one, not even a bully, would be able to handle him—especially on a football field.

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Carson Palmer will never forget his first David Johnson moment.

With less than two minutes to play in the 2015 season opener against New Orleans, the Cardinals had the ball on their own 45-yard line. They led 24-19 and faced a 2nd-and-8. That was when a rookie running back who Palmer knew little about lined up to his left in a shotgun formation.

"I had no clue what we had in David," Palmer says. "You never know how a rookie is going to react when he's in a regular-season game and it's the fourth quarter and we're in need of a first down. You can only tell so much in practice and preseason. It's a different world when everyone is flying around at full speed."

"IF HE DOESN'T GET HURT, DAVID JOHNSON IS GOING TO SURPASS A LOT OF NFL RECORDS BY THE TIME HE'S DONE PLAYING FOOTBALL."

— STUMP MITCHELL, ARIZONA RUNNING BACKS COACH

Palmer took the snap, faked a handoff to wide receiver John Brown and dropped back six steps. With a defender in his face, he threw a short pass into the right flat to Johnson, who was running a shallow drag route.

It was the first offensive touch of Johnson's NFL career. He immediately turned his shoulders and—oh my heavens—lit a blue streak up the right sideline. Three Saints defenders appeared to have the angle on him, but he blazed past them as if he magically found another gear. Johnson bolted untouched for a 55-yard touchdown.

"I was like, 'Whoa, what do we have here?'" Palmer says. "For a guy his size, he has a burst that you simply don't expect. It was an eye-opening play to say the least."

Johnson, who has run the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds, was just revving up.

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David had to grow up.

In the summer before seventh grade, he took a job detasseling corn to help out his family. Rising in the predawn darkness, he'd ride a bus into the Iowa countryside. Wearing long sleeves and pants, he'd spend eight hours walking dusty cornfields in the prairie heat, removing the pollen-producing stems from the stalk.

"The worst part was when the corn was wet and the inside of my clothes would get wet," David says. "I'd get rashes on my legs and elbows."

Once David reached Clinton High, he spent his summers on the school's athletic fields. The football coaches held four conditioning sessions each morning, and the players were asked to attend one. David typically stayed for all four. Then in the afternoon, he usually shot baskets in the gymnasium for a few hours—he would average 15.7 points a game as a senior forward for Clinton—followed often by sprints on the outdoor track.

The Clinton High football coaches fell hard and fast for David, who would graduate with a better than 3.0 GPA, be active in blood drives and be a vocal member of Students Against Destructive Decisions. Playing running back and defensive back for the River Kings, Johnson shattered several school records, including scoring 42 touchdowns his senior year.

"David is such a good person that I'd trust him with the key to my house," says Lee Camp, the head coach at Clinton High when Johnson played at the school. "David was always so mature and classy. One game, we gave him the ball five times and he scored five touchdowns. In that same game, he intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown. He was our franchise player."

So why did no Division I schools offer him a scholarship?

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