The Recent News Johnson Has Been Making Is Ruining His Relationship With Fans.
What? Maybe I need to say it again, Calvin Johnson officially belongs in the NFL Hall of Shame. To be honest with you, I have been bordering on inducting Calvin Johnson into this club for quite some time, but now I have my real milestone achievement. Of course everyone has read the cute little quotes Calvin Johnson gave over the weekend to The Detroit Free Press that were taken at his Catch A Dream football camp over the weekend in Southfield, MI. If you haven’t, well here you go.
“I don’t even like to talk Lions too much just because the way our relationship ended,” Johnson said. “If they see me around here, we’ll see. But hey, I don’t know. I don’t feel any kind of way, but I just didn’t feel like I was treated the way I should have been treated on the way out,” Johnson said. “That’s all. I mean, it’s all good. I’m not tripping. I don’t feel any kind of way, just hey, that’s what they did. Hey, it is what is.”
Really? In my humble opinion, these quotes sound like ones taken off of the text messages of a middle school child rather than a grown man. I am nowhere near the athlete that Calvin is. Nor am I as rich and famous. But where I come from, born and raised in the shadows of Detroit, Michigan, if you’ve got a problem with someone or something, you open your mouth and you state your peace. Calvin bringing up “issues” with the Detroit Lions, especially in the manner that he did, scream of nothing but cowardice to me.
For someone who claims that he is not “tripping”, number 81 sure looks like he has some stubbed toes and maybe scuffed up knees. Now the speculation is that Calvin is upset that he had to pay back the Detroit Lions a sum of $320,000 for retiring before his deal with the club was up.
Let’s also lay out the fact that the Detroit Lions were lawfully owed $3.2 MILLION. This is only speculation and rumor that this issue is what has upset Calvin. Although, this matter wouldn’t be one of speculation if a grown ass man would actually state what is on his mind instead of playing a game like he is trying to hide a middle school crush. Or, if we are to look at it a different way, Calvin is acting how people act after they’ve been on a diet for two weeks and call themselves fat to hear others say otherwise. This is a circus act which is ironic because that was all that Calvin Johnson ever was. More on that in a minute.
To be fair, as big of a fan as I am I cannot say that the Detroit Lions are innocent. The fact that they asked for any money back is as petty as petty can be. Or at least as petty as Calvin Johnson is being for being upset about it. I am no Donald Trump, but if money is the issue, Calvin is essentially peeved off enough to act like a child to what would comparably be the grand total of $11 for someone like myself.
Now here’s the thing. If it’s about the principal of the matter I get it. Your values should always, always cost more than money. That leads me to my next point. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about the Detroit Lions being petty and I certainly do not care about Calvin caring about money or about him losing any money. His most recent actions involving money are just the sprinkles on the expired ice cream sundae that is #81.
Since his retirement from the Detroit Lions, Calvin Johnson has done nothing but try to sink the ship of his former team. Don’t believe me? Hell, before we jump into the Delorean let’s face another one of Calvin’s intelligent recent comments. Again told to The Detroit Free Press, here we go. “Guys get concussions, they don’t tell the coaches,” Johnson said. “It happens. I don’t tell the coach sometimes cause I know I got a job to do. The team needs me out there on the field. And sometimes you allow that to jeopardize yourself, but that’s just the nature of the world.” He also said when asked if he ever hid a concussion, “of course”. Brilliant!
Absolutely wonderful Calvin. Now before I jump on that because I’m sure half of the people reading this out here say “everyone does it” let’s check out another quote given to ESPN as part of an interview last year.
“I guess my first half of my career before they really, you know, before they were like started looking over the whole industry, or the whole NFL, the doctors, the team doctors and trainers they were giving them out like candy, you know?” Johnson said.
“If you were hurting, then you could get ‘em, you know. It was nothing. I mean, if you needed Vicodin, call out, ‘My ankle hurt,’ you know. ‘I need, I need it. I can’t, I can’t play without it,’ or something like that. It was simple. That’s how easy it was to get ‘em, you know. So if you were dependent on ‘em, they were readily available.”
“The team doctor, the team trainers, they work for the team. And I love ‘em, you know,” he said. “They’re some good people, you know. They want to see you do good. But at the same time, they work for the team, you know. They’re trying to do whatever they can to get you back on the field and make your team look good. So if it’s not gonna make the team look good, or if you’re not gonna be on the field, then they’re tryin’ to do whatever they can to make that happen.”
Spectacular. Random adult thought. Don’t blame other people for something you WANT to do. I lived a number of years pursuing somewhat of an athletic career and guess what? When I took pain pills or anything else that I put into my own body, guess who was responsible? Me and me alone.
I didn’t blame anyone involved with the “team” that I was playing with. Hold yourself accountable for your own actions. I bet that Calvin would like to, but that doesn’t garner headlines for someone like Calvin Johnson. He needs to live under the big tent in his circus that he calls home. It’s almost as if in my opinion that Calvin is trying to sink the ship of the Detroit Lions.
The team without question has been poorly run for too many years to speak of. I don’t know if it stems from jealousy, regret or something else, but Calvin should know better unless he has ill will for The Detroit Lions.
The last few years for the Lions have been ones of hope that the team is changing course and steering the ship in the right direction. But deep in the belly of the ship, Calvin Johnson seems to be beating at the bottom of the boat with a proverbial ice pick trying with all of his might to let the water in to sink the ship. To do nothing but further sully the already questionable name that the Detroit Lions carry. It truly is sad. Maybe it’s a self-confidence issue? No one knows but the man who is too big of a coward to give his real feelings.
Let’s really get to my last point about why I feel like Calvin Johnson should never be Hall of Fame bound, and should instead reside in the hall of shame with another ignorant quote. In my opinion, the most ignorant. It’s short but simple and pertains to his feelings on retiring from the NFL. Remember when Calvin Johnson told Michael Smith of ESPN “If we would’ve been a contender, it would have been harder to let go.”
Unreal. This is like the captain of the Titanic absolving himself from any involvement in why the ship sank. Hey Calvin, remember in Seattle when you decided to make a bonehead play and fumble the ball at the one-yard line? I think that the Lions would’ve damn near been locked into a playoff spot at the end of the year if you didn’t pull off that little stunt.
Or how about a few years prior when against The Tampa Bay Buccaneers you decided to fling an easy pass into the air at the five-yard line and cost Detroit another game against a 2 win team? The Lions were “contenders” deep into that season as well, wouldn’t another victory have helped to be “contenders” then? How about even in perhaps his greatest game ever against the Dallas Cowboys when he racked up 329 receiving yards. Yep, that game was special too for a vintage CJ moment when he decided to fling another ball up into the air that would account for another Matthew Stafford interception.
Matthew Stafford took way too much flak early on in his career, from me especially. In large part, in my opinion, this was due to the failures of Calvin Johnson. I didn’t truly see the way that things were until right before Johnson’s last year. Look back at last year. You didn’t see Boldin drop a game winning TD at the end of the game did you? No, you didn’t, and that is because he is a grown ass man even though he most likely will never wear the blue and silver again. And if Matt Prater were like Calvin Johnson? He would make every field goal within 25 yards and anytime the game was on the line he would boot the ball into the Lions bench.
Calvin Johnson started to sour on me when in a year where the Detroit Lions were an absolute train wreck, he bullied his way in garbage time, in garbage games to the NFL record for receiving yards. After the loss in which he earned the record he stood at the podium post-game looking like he just won the Superbowl.
Way to think of all of your teammates and the heartbroken fans Calvin. But he didn’t care. He never did. All that Calvin Johnson cared about was making himself look great at the expense of everyone around him so that he could sell tickets to his three ring circus. Need any more proof? Just google Calvin Johnson or the Detroit Lions right now. All that you will read is that the Detroit Lions are a joke and that Calvin Johnson was truly amazing and spectacular and a near deity.
It makes me sick. And in regards to the original question that reopened and sparked this whole wave of Calvin Johnson news? I hope that if they do retire his number and hang it from the rafters at Ford Field, they hang it upside down because that’s exactly how it belongs.
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