Calvin Johnson opened up about his retirement and important NFL issues in an interview with ESPN’s Michael Smith in the newest episode of “E:60”
“There’s a lot of different things I could do but football isn’t one of them,” Johnson said when pressed if he’d come back for a contender.
ESPN gave a rare inside look into one of the better guys to ever play the game, both as a person and a player. We see Johnson being totally honest talking about his body breaking down, views on the harsh day-to-day life of NFL players, and his reason for retiring at 30.
Ultimately, his reason for leaving was that he quite simply couldn’t be the player he used to be. ESPN’s Michael Smith, of hit show His & Hers, does an outstanding job of getting the typically reserved Johnson to give something other than team-oriented, filler quotes. It will be a refreshing and somewhat shocking view for Lions fans.
Johnson suggested team doctors don’t have a player’s best interest in mind. Obviously, this isn’t a new claim or development, but hearing Johnson – never one to stir the pot – talk about dark realities of being a star on an NFL team is something that is new to fans.
“The team trainers work for the team. They’re trying to get you back on the field to make the team look good,” he admitted, which is another cold truth star players like Johnson are faced with regularly. Concussions, one of the NFL’s biggest controversies, are something Johnson had several of throughout his career.
“Everybody would try to hush you up real quick,” stating that the league was more worried about people finding out than helping protect its players from the dangers of CTE. He talks about how drug use is rampant because team doctors were willing to give whatever drugs could help get guys on the field on Sundays.
“You cant take Toradol everyday, you’ve got to give that stuff a rest,” he says, referring to the accessibility of other painkillers like Vicodin and T3’s “They were giving them out like candy.” You can clips of him talking about drug use on ESPN’s E:60 Vault.
Maybe the most disturbing element is the dark picture Johnson paints of the current condition of his body, at just 30-years-old. He mentions he has permanent damage to his legs and hands, dealing with things that are quite frankly hard to conceive a 30-year-old going through. It is in these moments, you see he has no intention of actually coming back.
“I’ve had enough,” Calvin says, “Catching the ball hurts!”
He went on to speak on his time in Detroit “If we would’ve been a contender, it would have been harder to let go.” As fair as that is, it’s surely going to feel like a stake in the heart of certain, naive Lions fans. Those who wanted to believe Johnson’s abysmally low number of career playoff games (2) in nine seasons, had nothing to do with his departure will be disappointed.
ESPN’s Ed Werder also claimed earlier today that Johnson quietly wanted to be traded to either the Carolina Panthers or New England Patriots, at last season’s trading deadline. However, hearing Johnson talk about where his mind is at, it’s clear his body’s decline was the ultimate deciding factor.
“There’s a lot of different things I could do but football isn’t one of them,” Johnson said when pressed if he’d come back for a contender. If he wasn’t Megatron anymore, he didn’t want to play. Sure, Detroit being awful didn’t help, but who didn’t already know that?
Johnson cared about his performance and didn’t want to sell himself or the fans short. Maybe the money and expectations played into that thought process, but it says a lot about his character to not want to just collect a paycheck while only being a good, but not great receiver, in his mind. How many players in the NFL would do that? Sure, Johnson has made a ton of money already, but he clearly values life more than football and we shouldn’t knock him for that.