On Calvin Johnson, Michigan and Walking Away

Calvin Johnson Jr., arguable the third best receiver in NFL history after Jerry Rice and Randy Moss, is reportedly considering retirement.

If there is one notable thing about returning to Michigan, compared to D.C., a place that’s teaming with ambition, is the notable lack of it. It’s good to be a big fish in a small pond. People are content. Not a bad thing. They do things for the love. As a result, the people who are good are often really good, in special and creative ways. Like J Dilla. and Magic Johnson.

But unless you’re blessed with that type of rare talent, and even if you are, you’ll probably have to do what most of the state’s kids have done over the past decade: get up and leave. It can be hard being consistently excellent in the face of decline and indifference around you. I see it every day, in my family and a number of other people I’ve known since childhood, who still plug away, because they love what they do.

Johnson came into league on an awful Lions team and still put up 800 yards. The next year, playing on the worst team in NFL history, with Stanton Orlovsky and Kitna at QB he still put up 1300 yard. He has an injured 2009 on an awful team with a rookie QB, but he never failed to put up at least 1000 yards.

Megatron didn’t just catch passes. He leaps over people and performs superhuman feats, like Dallas triple team back of the end zone. He defies gravity and logic, and singular embodiment of every aspect of a wide receiver. He didn’t play next to Chris Carter or John Taylor. He played next to a washed-up Roy Williams and Mike Furrey, who caught 123 balls while playing with Johnson and was a backup safety just a season later.

For a while, you believe you can overcome the odds and be that 2004 Pistons team that defies all odds and opposition to bring the glory home to Detroit. And maybe you do it for a moment, do it your way, the right way, and you’re just so fucking good that no one can deny. But then they change the rules on you, because no one wants to see a team starring a 6-8 center that averages six points a game in the NBA Finals every year.

Eventually you just accept it, like Barry did, and go home. Let them say what they will say. Eventually people stop asking and believe that you just didn’t have it in you to keep fighting. Not when it was so easy to walkaway. Calvin Johnson might not play NFL football next year. Sadly, as long as he doesn’t play for another team, most Lions fans won’t really feel the difference. The Lions won’t win the Super Bowl next year whether he plays or not. They probably won’t win it the year after that. They may never win it. After going through all the stages, from naivete to hope to heartbreak and discuss, like all Lions fans I’ve chosen acceptance over indifference. We cheer because that’s what we do, and they are our team. We know deep down inside that there will never be any big payoff, beyond the simple joy of watching the game at Ford Field or on Fox Detroit. We are content, and we cheer and care and complain because that’s what fans are supposed to do, the best they can, just like the players.

Until eventually, you can’t. And they it’s time to go. Wherever Calvin Johnson is next year, I hope he’s happy. He deserves at least that much. He definitely doesn’t owe us anything more. A person only has so much that they can give to a futile cause for mere duty or sentiment. At some point, you just have to do what’s right for yourself.

Barry knew that the weight of being the reason for hope for everyone around you will eventually crush you, if you let it. Sure the fans will turn on you, but that is inevitable. The national media wolves were circling Megatron this season, suggesting he is a mere shadow of his younger self, even as he put up another 1,100 yard season, on another terrible Lions team, while again facing constant double coverage and dealing with inconsistent quarterback play. 

We say we want our heroes to stick around forever, to never leave in search of a championship, or sunnier weather, simply proximity to their homes. But as soon as they show the first signs of age or vulnerability, we are eager to turn on them and kick them to the curb like a fuzzy tennis ball. We want to remember them as they were when they brought us the most joy, not stumbling around in the outfield like Willie Mays on the Mets.

15 years later, we only remember two things about Barry Sanders: how great he was, and how he left the game before he had started disappointing us. Because of his decision, we have no choice to remember him in his prime, as an enduring example of greatness in a franchise devoid of it, in a town where competence is celebrated.

If that is all we remember about Calvin Johnson Jr., then he would have done us a favor. No one can be great forever. But once you have been, why be anything less, especially if you know it will ultimately be futile, and life will go on, the same as it ever was.