https://deadspin.com/i-don-t-say-this-often-but-the-lions-are-right-1847458407
I have to agree with this article I really liked Calvin but read article both sides on a contract have responsibility to honor He didn’t
Now Lions have offered to pay him for 3 year plus a donation top his charity an he turned them down He is Wrong an I hope he reconsiders.
Lions are not bad guys in this Calvin is
I don’t know, the author thinks it would set a bad precedent for players but I call BS.
How about those rules don’t apply to HOF players? Calvin DOES have a gold jacket to prove it. Also he’s a first ballot from a team that never won a playoff game, division AND went 0-16 in his tenure. Pretty impressive for the individual IMO.
BS point 2, that the Lions gave him the opportunity by drafting him at 2. Like 30 other non-idiotic teams wouldn’t have done the same thing.
The bitterness is real, and the points are not wrong on either side. Dude didn’t honor a contract, team sucked the life out of yet another HOF player.
I say we merge it!!!
Calvin did have a tendency to create new rules. Complete the process dude. You are doing the Abe thing here as you did in Chicago.
Calvin honored the contract by resolving the lions request for their unearned portion, staying retired and never playing in NFL again
As was all stipulated by contract terms.
I would say it’s over and done with, and just move on on both sides.
Except there’s one more uncomfortable thing somewhere out there on the horizon … at some point, you have to retire Calvin’s number and put him in the Ring of Honor, don’t you? And you can’t do that without his participation, can you?
My guess is that they’ll just go with a “soft retirement” of his jersey, not letting anyone else use the number, until they figure out if, at some point down the road, they can at least get the stadium ring with his participation.
I seem to recall Terry Bradshaw and the Steelers had some rift for a while, but eventually mended.
I still hope sheila goes rogue and pays him
Daring Goodell to look like an ass to every player and agent
If he penalized her too hard for chump nfl change by doing right to a player
And she’d instantly become a legend amongst the players and agents
Making Detroit a desireable Free Agent destination and an owner you’d run through a brick wall for
Why do we need another Calvin thread? …the other 14 aren’t enough?
Rob Parker is an idiot, CJ doesn’t need the Lions nor is he obligated to forgive them for their stupidity.
I didn’t think we needed another thread @Snags
But I really like my idea here and don’t want y’all to miss it ! I feel like Calvin , I know I’m forgetting people.
@Air2theThrown @BarrySanders20 @wesleysh21 @DetroitStrong @Richard_Parker @Spiel54man @sheilahamp 
Congratulations, you agree with a moron like Rob Parker. His first article on this subject was saying that CJ should repay the Lions the money he owes them. How the Lions should have served him with a subpoena during his HOF speach and mentioned how Kareem and Alex English were served with papers during a dispute. He doesn’t even know the basic facts surrounding the dispute.
Rob Parker is and has always been a completely incompetent buffoon. If you find yourself agreeing with him, you really need to pause and think about it.
We certainly don’t need another thread dedicated to his dribble.
I don’t like Parker never did but his points about when you have a contract you honor it an his example he used if Lions decided to to honor there part is correct
Both sides handled it poorly the Lions with Sheila have made I think a good first step an Calvin is acting like a spoiled little kid.
I am sure he could work something out but like when he retired taking money he never earned , he wants it his way again.
Parker is a jerk i agree but points in this article if you look at it are valid . I am not posting to defend Parker but like i said read it an then think what would you do if you were owner ?
No, they are not valid points, that’s what Deadstroke is telling you.
Parker acts like CJ owes the Lions and he’s wrong.
Parker writes:
“Somehow, the Lions asking for their money back made Johnson forget that they actually drafted him and gave him an opportunity of a lifetime to play professional football. And let’s not forget, they paid him millions of dollars to live out his dream.”
Calvin is not Mike Piazza, he wasn’t an undrafted free agent that only the Lions gave him a shot as a favor to his mother. Calvin was the 2nd pick in the draft, if the Lions hadn’t drafted him, someone else would have, probably a better organization.
CJ got sick of the Lions and retired, they wanted their money back, so he paid them. Why is he obligated to take their money now and patch things up?..that ship has sailed for CJ, had they just let him keep that 1.6 million maybe he would be cooler with the Lions…but nobody can tell him how he should feel and you can’t be mad if he won’t let the Lions by him back.
Calvin does not have to like the Lions and it’s obvious he doesn’t, can’t much blame him.
You guys need to let it go already.
Paging Dr. Michelle Garvin for coyote12 and Rob Parker. Yup, still talking out our feelings about Calvin Johnson’s feelings.
I can’t stand Rob Parker. It’s amazing he’s survived in the media as long as he has. However, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in awhile.
Lions may not have been prudent to ask for a portion of the signing bonus money back, but Johnson didn’t earn it and they were legally in the right.
As for Ford Hamp’s offer, I think it was very generous. Calvin’s in the wrong for not accepting.
How is he wrong?? If he doesn’t want to do it that is his prerogative. He doesn’t have to accept anything just because it’s the Lions or it will appease Lions fans… 
That about sums it up. There is no problem to be solved between the Lions and Johnson. Fans just can’t handle the fact a former hall of fame player hates the organization as much as they do. 
Legally, yes. In the NFL, no . . . see Andrew Luck and Tony Romo. Nothing more needs to be said to prove that statement wrong.
That more than $1.6M recouped by the Lions would have bought more than enough goodwill with Calvin at club events and future players/fans respecting the Lions. Rod Wood was too petty and ignorant to see that. It’s impossible to measure financial impact of the bad will that he created, but it’s significant.
If Calvin took $1.6M and invested it in an S&P 500 index fund, he’d have $3.7M today. According to CJ, that $1.6M is still not what he paid back, so it’s far from generous. That’s 43 cents on the dollar, if they would have wrote him one check, but the Lions want to pay it over 3 years, so it’s even worst than that.
If I was the Lions, I would have been embarrassed to submit the offer (maybe that’s why they canned the employee who leaked the offer to CJ). Competent owners, like Jim Irsay and Jerry Jones, who respect their players and all that they’ve done for their organization, would have been embarrassed to make such an offer.
I’m not knocking our current regime of Brad Holmes and MCDC, but since Martha, Sheila and Rod Wood have gotten in there, it sure seems like the Lions have been looking at the bottom line a lot more than when WCF made Millen the highest paid GM and Mooch a very highly paid coach (obviously bad moves), but the bottom line doesn’t appear to be the concern that it is now. Holmes/Quinn and Patricia/MCDC are/were likely amongst the lowest paid GM’s/Coaches. Plus our salary cap situation has greatly improved, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it 100% means we are cheaper with signing/keeping talent than we were under WCF.
I honestly don’t give a rat’s arse if Calvin Johnson never shows up at a Lions game or function.
Seems to me, however, that Ford Hamp offered a magnanimous and substantial apology and Calvin turned it down. That makes him look petty.
Except for the fact that he didn’t earn the money, so he was never legally or contractually entitled to the $1.6 Million in the first place.
Except by NFL standards he did, see Tony Romo and Andrew Luck, amongst others.