It doesn’t take long during any discussion of the league’s best receivers for Calvin Johnson’s name to come up in discussion.
Johnson’s exploits over the last few seasons have left plenty of defensive backs wondering how they are supposed to stop the man they call Megatron. Those soul-searching moments could start coming even more frequently this season if Nate Burleson is correct about Johnson’s conditioning. The Lions receiver said that Johnson looks “stronger and faster” this year when asked about which of his teammates looked impressive this spring.
“I know it sounds corny,” Burleson said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “You wouldn’t think a guy like that could come back and get better, but he does.
Burleson’s right. You wouldn’t think that a player like Johnson had any room to get better and the prospect of a better Megatron is rather hard to comprehend. He’s been pretty much unguardable by legal and conventional means and there’s pretty much no chance of defenses slowing him if he is in fact a stronger and faster version of the guy we’ve seen in past seasons.
The nice thing for the Lions is that they’ll be just fine if Burleson is merely being hyperbolic about a talented teammate. The old Johnson is plenty good enough to get the job done in Detroit this season.