Ethical Sports Takes

Calvin Johnson didn’t play very long, but he didn’t need to. In just nine NFL seasons, Megatron showed everyone exactly how dominant he could be. Unfortunately, Johnson was drafted into a struggling Detroit Lions organization, and even after Matthew Stafford arrived, the duo was never able to carry Detroit deep into the playoffs. What they did manage to do, however, was put on one of the greatest quarterback and wide receiver shows of their era.

Before Megatron was terrorizing NFL secondaries, he was already doing it at Georgia Tech. Johnson made an immediate impact as a freshman in 2004, catching 48 passes for 837 yards and seven touchdowns while averaging 17.4 yards per reception. He followed that with 54 receptions for 888 yards and six touchdowns as a sophomore before putting together his best collegiate season in 2006. As a junior, Johnson caught 76 passes for 1,202 yards and 15 touchdowns. He won the Biletnikoff Award as the best receiver in college football, was named ACC Player of the Year and earned All American honors.

By the time his three year college career was over, Johnson had accumulated 178 receptions, 2,927 receiving yards and 28 touchdowns, averaging 16.4 yards per reception. His 2,927 receiving yards and 28 receiving touchdowns remain Georgia Tech career records, while his 1,202 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2006 also established single season school records. Johnson also recorded 13 career 100 yard receiving games, another Georgia Tech record, and his dominance eventually earned him induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.

At 6 foot 5 and around 237 pounds, Johnson had the size of a tight end but the athletic ability of a much smaller receiver. In fact, his combination of size, speed and physical dominance was so ridiculous that teammate Roy Williams gave him the nickname “Megatron,” comparing Johnson to the massive and powerful Transformers character. Think about how crazy that is. Calvin Johnson was such a physical freak that one of the most intimidating nicknames in sports actually felt appropriate, and eventually almost completely replaced his real name among football fans.

Detroit selected him with the second overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, and it didn’t take long for the rest of the league to understand why. By his second season, Johnson was already one of football’s most dangerous receivers, catching 78 passes for 1,331 yards and a league leading 12 receiving touchdowns in 2008.

What makes that season even crazier is that the Detroit Lions went 0 and 16. Johnson was playing for a team that didn’t win a single game, yet he still produced more than 1,300 receiving yards and led the entire NFL in receiving touchdowns. The team around him might have been historically bad, but Megatron was already becoming historically good.

Once Matthew Stafford developed into Detroit’s franchise quarterback, Johnson reached another level. From 2011 through 2013, Megatron put together one of the greatest three year stretches the position has ever seen. In 2011, Johnson caught 96 passes for 1,681 yards and 16 touchdowns, leading the NFL in receiving yards while averaging 17.5 yards per reception.

Then came 2012. Johnson caught 122 passes for an NFL record 1,964 receiving yards, breaking Jerry Rice’s long standing single season record. He averaged an incredible 122.8 receiving yards per game and recorded eight consecutive games with at least 100 receiving yards, which was also an NFL record at the time. Defenses knew where Stafford wanted to go with the football. They could roll coverage toward Johnson, put multiple defenders around him and make stopping No. 81 the centerpiece of their game plan. It often didn’t matter.

Johnson followed his record breaking season by catching 84 passes for 1,492 yards and 12 touchdowns in only 14 games in 2013 while averaging an absurd 17.8 yards per reception. Across those three seasons alone, Johnson accumulated 5,137 receiving yards and 33 touchdowns. For a three year stretch, there simply wasn’t a more terrifying receiver in football.

Then there were the individual games where Megatron looked almost impossible to defend. Perhaps the greatest example came against the Dallas Cowboys in 2013 when Johnson caught 14 passes for 329 receiving yards, finishing just seven yards short of the NFL single game receiving record. Detroit won 31 to 30, with Johnson producing one of the greatest individual receiving performances the league has ever seen.

His dominance translated to the postseason as well. In Johnson’s first career playoff game following the 2011 season, he caught 12 passes for 211 yards and two touchdowns against the New Orleans Saints. Detroit ultimately lost, but Johnson once again showed that the stage didn’t matter. If the football was coming his way, he could dominate anybody.

What makes Johnson’s career even more impressive is where his numbers stand historically despite how little time he actually played. Johnson retired with 731 receptions, 11,619 receiving yards and 83 receiving touchdowns in only 135 regular season games. That works out to 86.1 receiving yards per game across his career, an average that remains among the very best marks in NFL history.

His 1,964 yard 2012 season remains the standard for receiving yards during a 16 game NFL season. He won consecutive NFL receiving yardage titles in 2011 and 2012 and also led the league with 122 receptions in 2012. Johnson remains the Lions’ all time leader in receptions with 731 and receiving yards with 11,619, and he recorded seven seasons with at least 1,000 receiving yards.

All of that was accomplished despite Johnson walking away from football after the 2015 season at only 30 years old, and Megatron didn’t retire because his production had disappeared. In his final NFL season, Johnson still caught 88 passes for 1,214 yards and nine touchdowns. He essentially walked away while he was still an elite NFL receiver.

In only nine seasons, Johnson made six consecutive Pro Bowls, earned three First Team All Pro selections, won two receiving yardage titles and was selected to the NFL’s 2010s All Decade Team. In 2021, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

That’s ultimately what makes Calvin Johnson’s career so remarkable. There are receivers with more career yards, more touchdowns, longer careers and significantly more postseason success. But there haven’t been many human beings who could do what Megatron did on a football field. He was 6 foot 5 and roughly 237 pounds, could run past defensive backs, overpower them at the catch point and turn Stafford’s seemingly impossible throws into completions. Double coverage sometimes wasn’t enough because Johnson didn’t necessarily have to be open in the traditional sense. Throw the football high enough and give Megatron a chance, and there was a pretty good possibility he was coming down with it.

The lack of longevity and postseason success keeps Calvin Johnson from climbing even higher on my list. But when you’re ranking the greatest wide receivers ever, dominance has to matter, and at his peak, Calvin Johnson was as dominant as almost anyone to ever play the position. He dominated at Georgia Tech, produced on an 0 and 16 Lions team, broke NFL records once Stafford arrived and then walked away at 30 years old with more than 11,600 receiving yards already to his name.

Calvin Johnson may have given the NFL only nine seasons, but nine seasons were more than enough to make Megatron immortal.

At No. 4 on my list: Calvin “Megatron” Johnson.

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