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49ers Hall of Fame Cornerback Jimmy Johnson Passes Away at 86

Johnson was one of the NFL's original lockdown cornerbacks. He was Deion Sanders way before Deion Sanders.

Grant Cohn

Oct 3, 1971; Philadelphia, PA, USA; FILE PHOTO; San Francisco 49ers defensive back Jimmy Johnson
Oct 3, 1971; Philadelphia, PA, USA; FILE PHOTO; San Francisco 49ers defensive back Jimmy Johnson / Tony Tomsic-USA TODAY Sports
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One of the greatest cornerbacks of all time has died.

Jimmy Johnson, who played 16 seasons for the 49ers and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, passed away Wednesday night. He was 86 years old.

Johnson was one of the NFL's original lockdown cornerbacks. He was Deion Sanders way before Deion Sanders. The 49ers drafted Johnson out of UCLA with the sixth pick in the 1961 NFL Draft. He was a star in the early 1970s when the 49ers went to back-to-back NFC Championships, losing to the Dallas Cowboys in 1970 and 1971. He was a first-team All Pro three years in a row, a second-team All Pro twice and he finished his career with a whopping 47 interceptions -- a 49ers franchise record until Ronnie Lott broke it and finished his 49ers career with 51 picks.

Johnson was such a dominant athlete, he played wide receiver his second season on the 49ers, caught 34 passes, averaged 18.4 yards per reception and caught four touchdown passes including an 80-yarder, which was a franchise record at the time. Then he switched back to defensive back, and from 1964 to 1976 he was the 49ers starting left cornerback. He was so good, opposing quarterbacks rarely tested him. And when they did, he often intercepted them.

In 1994, Johnson was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's also a member of the All Decade Team for the 1970s. And he's unquestionably one of the greatest players in 49ers franchise history.

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Grant Cohn

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.