Former RB Johnathan Franklin on an NFL career cut short at 24 and trusting in God's timing
Sports Spectrum Podcast
Sports Spectrum
5 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2021
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Johnathan Franklin is a former NFL running back. He was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft. In college at UCLA, Franklin had a standout career rushing for a school record 4,403 yards and 31 touchdowns.
In his senior year of 2012, he led UCLA to a Pac-12 South Division championship rushing for 1,734 yards and 13 touchdowns. Expectations were high for the Los Angeles native and when he arrived at Green Bay, he immediately made an impact, rushing for 103 yards in Week 3 against Cincinnati. But in week 12 against the Vikings, Franklin suffered a neck injury that would end his football playing career at the age of 24.
Today on the podcast, we talk to Johnathan Franklin about his career-ending injury, what he learned from God during that dark time, how he was able to push forward and find new purpose and why he's excited to be in his front office role with the Los Angeles Rams.
---
Receive our 10-day Sports Spectrum Devotional written by professional athletes for FREE when you sign up for our Sports Spectrum Weekly Email Newsletter. Sign up here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, today's episode, the inspiring story of Jonathan Franklin is presented by our friends at Compassion International, releasing children from poverty in Jesus name. |
| 0:11.7 | Check out fill the stadium.com to learn how you can help partner with compassion and our pro athlete friends to release 70,000 kids and their families who are in compassion programs |
| 0:23.9 | from poverty. You can donate and help these children and their families through the next critical |
| 0:28.9 | few months. Every donation helps fill a seat toward a year of needed funding. This is a stadium |
| 0:35.9 | that cannot remain empty. Help us restore what COVID-19 destroyed |
| 0:40.9 | and donate today at fill the stadium.com. Welcome to Sports Spectrum, where we bring Jesus back into the conversation. |
| 0:58.0 | Here's your host, former ESPN producer, Jason Romano. |
| 1:02.0 | And welcome everyone to Sports Spectrum. I am Jason Romano. So glad you're tuning into the show today. |
| 1:07.2 | You can follow along with us on social media, on Twitter and Instagram at Sports |
| 1:12.1 | underscore Spectrum, and you can find us at our website, sportspectrum.com. That's where all of our |
| 1:18.4 | content can be found. And it's all for free right there at the website, podcast, devotionals, |
| 1:24.1 | stories, conversations, articles, all available for free on the intersection of sports |
| 1:29.9 | and faith at sportspectrum.com. And when you're at our website, click that newsletter icon at the top, |
| 1:36.6 | and it gives you an opportunity to put your email address in and sign up for our Sports Spectrum |
| 1:41.3 | weekly newsletter. Every Wednesday morning, you will get an email from us |
| 1:47.0 | updating you on all of the stories and the articles that you may have missed throughout the week |
| 1:51.9 | here at Sports Spectrum. We're releasing a lot of content and we're writing a lot of content and a lot of |
| 1:57.5 | stories and we want to share them with you. We don't want you to miss them because they're all important, importing people back to Christ. So signing up for Sports Spectrum Weekly is a great |
| 2:06.1 | way to stay in touch with all that we have going on. And when you sign up, we have a free gift for you, |
| 2:11.4 | a 10-day daily devotional written by professional athletes to help you in your journey with God. |
| 2:17.9 | And it is for free. |
| 2:19.3 | All you got to do is put your email address in and sign up for Sports Spectrum's weekly |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sports Spectrum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sports Spectrum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.