{"id":94500,"date":"2026-01-23T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T11:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/94500\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T11:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T11:12:16","slug":"former-philadelphia-eagles-player-kevin-johnsons-death-investigated-as-homicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/94500\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Philadelphia Eagles Player Kevin Johnson&#8217;s Death Investigated As Homicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260122_8b525f25f5e74b338a5c290f94e3e4a1\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:c93bf4c5-b22d-408a-9495-ef3b88848b8f\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8b525f25f5e74b338a5c290f94e3e4a1_md.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin-Johnson-main-getty-1\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Former NFL player Kevin Johnson &#8212; a member of the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders &#8212; passed away this week, TMZ Sports has learned.<\/p>\n<p>He was 55 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson was found dead near a homeless encampment in L.A. on Tuesday. According to the medical examiner, his cause of death was listed as blunt head trauma and stab wounds. The Los Angeles Sheriff&#8217;s Department is investigating it as a homicide.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"continued\" class=\"continued-anchor\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Family members and childhood friends mourned the loss on social media, including his son.<\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260122_b840136a8d00452cb0b8ff3f1b4b08f7\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:c93bf4c5-b22d-408a-9495-ef3b88848b8f\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/b840136a8d00452cb0b8ff3f1b4b08f7_md.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin-Johnson-sub-getty-1\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Johnson was born and raised in Southern California &#8230; and started his college football career at Los Angeles Harbor College before transferring to Texas Southern.<\/p>\n<p>The New England Patriots took Johnson with the 86th pick in the 1993 NFL Draft &#8230; but he was released in August of that same year.<\/p>\n<p>He eventually made his debut with the Eagles in the 1995 season &#8230; and he made the most of his 11 game appearances \u00a0&#8212; earning six sacks, 19 tackles and a fumble recovery for a touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"js-click-image js-track-link image-lightbox-preview\" data-node-ref=\"tmz:image-asset:image_jpg_20260122_ff9916a9b30543f6b0dd409b98a0b639\" data-container-ref=\"tmz:article:c93bf4c5-b22d-408a-9495-ef3b88848b8f\" data-context=\"{&quot;section&quot;:&quot;permalink&quot;,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p>                          <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ff9916a9b30543f6b0dd409b98a0b639_md.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin-Johnson-sub-getty-2\" width=\"728\" height=\"546\" class=\"img-fluid image-block__img-fluid img-aspect-auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>He suited up for the Eagles again in 1996 &#8230; recording one sack and 14 tackles in 12 games before being released in December of that season.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson also spent a year with the Oakland Raiders before taking his talents to the Arena Football League.<\/p>\n<p>He won a championship with the Orlando Predators in 1998.<\/p>\n<p>RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NFL player Kevin Johnson &#8212; a member of the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders &#8212; passed away&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[139,69,71,70,726,24996,46368],"class_list":["post-94500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-tmz-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}