Twitter Reacts to Calvin Johnson’s Impending Retirement

A sampling of tweets from around the Twittersphere after news broke Sunday of Calvin Johnson telling the team 2015 would be his last season.

As most of these things do, the news of Calvin Johnson’s retirement being a mere formality came from Adam Schefter:

Lions fans, and football fans in general, have been waiting to hear if Calvin Johnson had made a decision about his future since the season ended. As this news turns out, the decision has seemingly been made for some time.

When a Lions legend decides to hang up his cleats, the first thing that needs to happen is everyone needs to vastly overplay the comparisons to Barry Sanders. It’s a rule.

This fella had his own reasoning:

He might be on to something. Let’s take a look!

"John Madden: RETIREDEddie George: RETIREDDaunte Culpepper: RETIREDMarshall Faulk: RETIREDMichael Vick: WAS KIND OF BANNED THEN NOT BUT SHOULD RETIRERay Lewis: RETIREDDonovan McNabb: RETIREDShaun Alexander: RETIREDVince Young: RETIREDBrett Favre: RETIREDLarry Fitzgerald and Troy Polamalu: HALF RETIREDPeyton Hillis: RETIREDBarry Sanders: RETIREDCalvin Johnson: RETIRED?"

It’s only a matter of time until the ravages of age, er I mean, Madden curse catch you Drew Brees! Beware the Madden curse.

Anyway, casual fans and fans of other teams found the news less than heartbreaking:

Patriots fans really want Calvin to play for them.

We’ve all been memed.

Crying Jordan will never die.

Then Andy Isaac pinpointed the exact moment Johnson reached his decision.

It’s funny ‘cuz it’s true.

Oh god THIS IS TERRIBLE SOMEONE HOLD ME.

Even Lions fans got in on it a little bit:

This is especially funny because I saw three different mock drafts on Monday that had the Lions taking a receiver in the first round.

But @Sandman7773 wins with this one:

I’d now like to present a story through tweets.

In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed a model for grief. There are five stages of which any or all of them can be felt in overcoming the loss of a loved one.

Those stages are…

Denial:

Anger:

After Anger comes Bargaining:

Again Patriots fans? They have a huge crush on Megatron.

And now, Depression:

And finally, Acceptance:

So Calvin Johnson is retiring. Since nothing has been officially announced, feel free to cling to the fantasy that Calvin will return for one more year. That’s what I’ll be doing. This sucks, so let’s go out looking at some positive moments:

And if that doesn’t help at all, there’s this little tidbit:

Holler at me on Twitter if you’re feeling angry or if you need to cry together. I’m @LethalSax or you can tweet Mike, Jeff and I at @SideLionReport. We’ll get through this together.

via GIPHY