Megatron to retire

[Clayton]

Last year Stafford had 71% completion to everyone not named Megatron, and 59% to CJ himself.

Totally irrelevant when Megatron is getting so much production on his catches.

 

[SonnyCID]

Totally irrelevant when Megatron is getting so much production on his catches.

I wouldn't call it totally irrelevant when it also kills drives and leads to turnovers.

 

[Clayton]

I wouldn't call it totally irrelevant when it also kills drives and leads to turnovers.

The turnovers is the one thing I can't speak to but Calvin when matched up with the Lions 2nd best WR, a good #2 WR, was getting 50% more yards and generally on pace or better with first downs and TDs. Not a lot of empty calories there.

Turnover margin and the run game are as far as I can tell the massive issues with the Lions so turnovers might matter. Its possible Stafford developed bad habits but the Lions are still better off at QB long term than over half the league. Lions are irrelevant next year, though...they should tank and come back in 2017 when Rodgers, Culter and Peterson likely wont be big factors...or Rodgers will be slightly less of a factor.

 

[redseat]

Lions ruin yet another career

 

[ducky]

Anyone thinking that losing Calvin is going to make the Lions passing game more efficient is bat shit crazy.

Calvin, even in games where he was far from 100%, dictated coverage. Once NFL DC's get used to what the Lions want to do in the passing game without Johnson (usually takes awhile for NFC DC's to pull their head out of their asses and figure such things out), Stafford and the Lions passing game are going to be in big trouble.

You don't lose a coverage dictator like Johnson and not have it ripple for quite awhile.

Johnson was one of the few truly #1 WR's in the league. It was rare for teams not to commit 2 guys to covering him on every single play. And in Johnson's hay day, it was not uncommon to see defenses put 3 guys on him to try and stop him. The number of WR's that have played in this league that can say that would be Moss and Johnson and that is about it.

Sad to see him go. Was a unique talent that the league won't see again for quite awhile. You see a guy go out this early and you can't help but wonder if he isn't trying to find a way out of Detroit. Guy certainly has a lot of football left in him if he wants to play. But he has made his money (and then some) and maybe he is really just done with the game.

 

[SonnyCID]

Volume stats are nice and all. But efficiency wins games.

Obviously CJ is one of the best athletes any of us have ever seen. But you're not going win much if your entire offense is predicated on a single receiving threat who the QB throws to every other play. Field position, leaning on your run game, leaning on your defense, minimizing turnovers, this is how you win.

When was the last time that a team whose offense that operated almost exclusively through a single top notch receiving threat won a SB, or even had b2b playoff appearances?

The need for a "true #1" is an overrated concept if you abandon team effeciency in favor of their ability to put up individual stats.

 

[Old Lion]

Anyone know Marvin Jones's Cell phone number?

 

[ATL96Steeler]

I wasn't arguing that Tate is better than CJ even at this point. Just that Stafford developed a very poor habit of forcing him the ball and now Stafford may actually become more efficient.

Last year Stafford had 71% completion to everyone not named Megatron, and 59% to CJ himself. And I wouldn't just attribute that to CJ slowing down, his career average is 56.5%. Although a great player, he's been a crutch to Lions QBs and coaches his entire career, and IMO part of the lack of growth because of it.

The completion % should be higher to the secondary guys...with a CJ on the field I'm gathering the targets to the other players were due to single coverage.

To your point...I saw the same thing here in ATL this season with Julio...203 targets this yr...the next closest guy was 120+ targets shy of that...insane. But, I put the crutch more on the OC than the QB...most plays are setup with the WR1 being the #1 read....if he's halfway open the QB is going to let it rip to the #1 guy most of the time.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

Volume stats are nice and all. But efficiency wins games.

Obviously CJ is one of the best athletes any of us have ever seen. But you're not going win much if your entire offense is predicated on a single receiving threat who the QB throws to every other play. Field position, leaning on your run game, leaning on your defense, minimizing turnovers, this is how you win.

When was the last time that a team whose offense that operated almost exclusively through a single top notch receiving threat won a SB, or even had b2b playoff appearances?

The need for a "true #1" is an overrated concept if you abandon team effeciency in favor of their ability to put up individual stats.

The Lions failed to capitalize on all of the talent they've had...when the DEF was at its peak with Suh, Avril, etc...the OL was terrible so the running game never developed and they had CJ and well...CJ...Pettigrew never became a solid TE and by the time they were able to address WR2/OL...the DEF started losing guys...it never seemed to be a balanced team.

Megtron was leaned on too heavily but that lies on the HC & OC.

 

[SonnyCID]

The completion % should be higher to the secondary guys...with a CJ on the field I'm gathering the targets to the other players were due to single coverage.

To your point...I saw the same thing here in ATL this season with Julio...203 targets this yr...the next closest guy was 120+ targets shy of that...insane. But, I put the crutch more on the OC than the QB...most plays are setup with the WR1 being the #1 read....if he's halfway open the QB is going to let it rip to the #1 guy most of the time.

But that's not the case with other offenses with hands down #1 receivers. JJ caught 9% more of his passes than White, AB caught 14% more of his passes than Wheaton, Fitz caught 11% more than Brown.

 

[SonnyCID]

The Lions failed to capitalize on all of the talent they've had...when the DEF was at its peak with Suh, Avril, etc...the OL was terrible so the running game never developed and they had CJ and well...CJ...Pettigrew never became a solid TE and by the time they were able to address WR2/OL...the DEF started losing guys...it never seemed to be a balanced team.

Megtron was leaned on too heavily but that lies on the HC & OC.

It takes time and commitment to find balance. The Lions were always in a rush to get CJ the ball rather than trusting the rest of their offense, and imo it stunted their development.

And yeah, playcalling has a lot to do with it. But I've also seen a lot of broken plays where Stafford just panicked and heaved it to his security blanket. Now this offense is all Staffords. Not many thought that Wilson would get better without Lynch, but it actually made playcalling easier and gave reps that allowed the pass blocking and route running to improve.

 

[ducky]

But that's not the case with other offenses with hands down #1 receivers. JJ caught 9% more of his passes than White, AB caught 14% more of his passes than Wheaton, Fitz caught 11% more than Brown.

Most of that just has to do with the routes that these WR's were asked to run.

All of those guys had a lot of screens and short passes set up for them.

The Lion's used Calvin as their run off guy if they were going to throw a screen because they had Tate as their YAC and short area guy. And even more than that they used their RB's in the passing game to catch the easy throws after Johnson would clear a zone for them.

Just to give you an idea:

The number of catches behind the LOS in 2015:
Calvin Johnson: 2
Antonio Brown: 19
Julio Jones: 16
Larry Fitzgerald: 25

The Lions offense over the years has been HORRIFICALLY mis-managed. But none of that had to do with Calvin and his abilities. It was the coaching staff and the general manager screwing up the roster and the schemes.

 

[MiamiVice]

The 1st part of that is a given...agree 100%.

On the 2nd part in bold...show me the 11 better...I think still top 10....since his peak yr in '12 he's caught 84, 71, 88 the last 3 yrs with all of them being over 1k in yds...that's still WR1 type production in my book...this guy can still play, but mentally he's probably wondering why bother putting up with the aches and pains for another 7-9 to 9-7 type season.

i think it has less to do with a 9-7 season than the fact the guy wants to be able to walk when he is 60 and has made plenty of money.

 

[ducky]

i think it has less to do with a 9-7 season than the fact the guy wants to be able to walk when he is 60 and has made plenty of money.

The fact that Megatron has been one of the highest paid players in the history of this league has A LOT to do with it IMO.

But if they were competing for SB's year after year, it probably would have made this a much tougher choice. The fact that the Lion's are once again basically starting from scratch certainly isn't helping sway Johnson back to the football field.

It will be interesting to see how the next couple of months play out. If Johnson doesn't file his retirement papers, the Lions might be forced to cut him when FA starts or else he will count $24M against the Lion's cap. If he gets cut and a team like the Pat's come calling will Johnson decide to stay retired? It would be a much tougher decision than the one he has now I bet.

 

[ducky]

It takes time and commitment to find balance. The Lions were always in a rush to get CJ the ball rather than trusting the rest of their offense, and imo it stunted their development.

And yeah, playcalling has a lot to do with it. But I've also seen a lot of broken plays where Stafford just panicked and heaved it to his security blanket. Now this offense is all Staffords. Not many thought that Wilson would get better without Lynch, but it actually made playcalling easier and gave reps that allowed the pass blocking and route running to improve.

The lack of talent on the offensive side of the ball outside of Johnson is what stunted the Lions development.

Over the last 5 years very, very few teams had worse RB's than the Lions and even fewer teams over the last 5 years had worse OL's.

And despite that lack of talent and production from the RB's and OL's, the Lions were a better than average offense in almost all those years. Most of that had to do with just how good Johnson was and how he was able to open up the rest of the field for the other players.

I've said it before: Calvin Johnson is the 2nd most covered WR I have seen in my lifetime. Only Randy Moss had more attention paid to him during his career. Most of the #1 WR these days never see the type of coverage those two commanded.

 

[MiamiVice]

The fact that Megatron has been one of the highest paid players in the history of this league has A LOT to do with it IMO.

But if they were competing for SB's year after year, it probably would have made this a much tougher choice. The fact that the Lion's are once again basically starting from scratch certainly isn't helping sway Johnson back to the football field.

It will be interesting to see how the next couple of months play out. If Johnson doesn't file his retirement papers, the Lions might be forced to cut him when FA starts or else he will count $24M against the Lion's cap. If he gets cut and a team like the Pat's come calling will Johnson decide to stay retired? It would be a much tougher decision than the one he has now I bet.

He has to file his retirement papers or else he gets fined for not showing up....

 

[ATL96Steeler]

But that's not the case with other offenses with hands down #1 receivers. JJ caught 9% more of his passes than White, AB caught 14% more of his passes than Wheaton, Fitz caught 11% more than Brown.

Okay...I'm off track here I think...you're saying that Megatron's completion % (71% vs 59%) was lower than his WR2/3/TE etc. I gotcha now.

There's a lot of variables in there to muddy this debate up...Julio Jones caught 66.9% of the balls thrown to him...DeVante Freeman caught 75.2% of the passes thrown at him...most were probably shorter than 10 yds to the RB...Tamme caught 72.8% of his, again most were 10 yds or less.

If Megatron is going deep down the field, it makes sense that his completion % would be less....in the case of PIT...M Bryant only caught 54% compared to AB's 70%. Some of that is AB is just a better WR, but also Bryant is targeted deep a lot more than Brown.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

It takes time and commitment to find balance. The Lions were always in a rush to get CJ the ball rather than trusting the rest of their offense, and imo it stunted their development.

I agree you need to work to achieve balance on OFC...both in personnel and scheme.

I was referring to overall...OFC & DEF...when the DEF was truly a playoff or near playoff caliber unit, the OL sucked and they had no running game...when they started putting emphasis on the OL/RB/WR2...the DEF had slipped.

 

[ATL96Steeler]

i think it has less to do with a 9-7 season than the fact the guy wants to be able to walk when he is 60 and has made plenty of money.

I think that's in play, and quite frankly I happy to see him make the call vs an injury making it for him. Given his production the last 3 yrs...it's proven that he can still play...if he was on a team that was a legit contender, would he walk away today? The money is great, but he's been set for life financially a long time...he saw no chance at ring in DET...why keep going just for stats?

 

[RobBase]

Reading through this thread, it's obvious 90% of the posters never watched him play, and certainty haven't watched him play the last few years.

Take it from a fan who has watched every snap of his career:

He's not in his prime, and hadn't been in a few years.

He's beaten up, and broken down. The last couple of years he'd go all week without practicing.
Many games he was only healthy enough to be a decoy.

He loves Detroit.

He's not retiring because the Lions suck.

He's not going to play for anyone else.

The Lions didn't ruin his career. We all wish the Lions had win more with him. But he had a great career, and will be in the HOF one day. I'm sure he's very proud of his individual career accomplishments.