For years now, Detroit Lions’ wide receiver Calvin Johnson has been considered one of the best, most physically dominating receivers in NFL history. Johnson has put up monster numbers in his career thus far, and at 30 years old Johnson has more than a number of years left to cement his place in history.
But that’s not going to happen if Johnson’s comments about retiring are more than just thinking out loud, and the Lions have reason to believe they are.
On the one hand, I have a hard time thinking Johnson is being serious. I mean, at 30 years old Johnson is nowhere near the decline of his play. At the very least Johnson has four years, maybe even five before things really start winding down for him. The suffering of his stats lately are more to do with the injuries he’s sustained, which are out of his control, and not because of his play.
But then again, there are the other two sides of this whole thing. The first is that Johnson might be taking these injuries as a sign it’s time to hang it up. Somewhere out there, Patrick Willis is nodding his head in agreement. This could be another example of a guy not wanting to risk the injury anymore, and with recent precedent the Lions have to assume that as a possibility.
And then you come to the possibility that Johnson just plain wants out of town. The Lions aren’t exactly trending upwards right now, Johnson has a very high cap hit, and the overwhelming odds are that the rest of Johnson’s career in Detroit will be spent trying to turn them around. I can’t imagine Johnson wants to be a part of that — not when this game is built around winning Super Bowls. This could be some crazy, passive-aggressive power play Johnson is using to get himself off the team.
Out of those three options, it’s the first one I have to discount as the least likely. Johnson isn’t critically injured or even dealing with a major one that could do more damage. So I have to conclude that Johnson either wants out of football or out of Detroit. In either case, whatever plans the Lions might have had to keep Johnson around will have to be scrapped. To me it looks like Calvin is ready to take his show down the road, and the Lions had better start getting prepared.
