Calvin Johnson (81), a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, warms up before the San Francisco 49ers game at Ford Field on December 27, 2015, in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Required Credit: USA TODAY Sports’ Tim Fuller
It seems like Calvin Johnson has been waiting for the ideal opportunity for some time.
The note that the legendary Detroit Lions player, now retired, delivered to the squad on Sunday went viral. The six-time Pro Bowl receiver Johnson was selected as a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame back in January 2021. In February of the same year, he was elected to the Hall. At the time, Johnson received a congratulations message from the Lions via their official page on X, which was then known as Twitter.
It’s interesting to note that Johnson didn’t openly acknowledge the message until Sunday, almost three whole years later.
You might wonder what the significance of the timing was. With a 30-24 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, the Lions formally secured the NFC North. Detroit hasn’t won the division since 1993, and the victory made a lot of the team’s current players cry.
From 2007 until 2015, Johnson spent his whole NFL career playing in Detroit. However, he left the team abruptly at the age of 30, and he went on to have a long-running feud with the Lions, allegedly because they made him repay a portion of his signing fee after he left. More about their conflict can be found here.
Johnson’s prolonged silence suggests that he either didn’t want to ruin things for his old team or that, like Alec Baldwin in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” he was waiting to acknowledge Detroit until they had won before doing so. Whatever the situation, Megatron now seems to be warming up to the Lions again.
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