Calvin Johnson was famously required to pay back a seven-figure portion of his $16M signing bonus after retiring from the NFL in 2016, and he says his strained relationship with the Lions won’t improve unless he’s returned that money.
“They already know what they got to do,” Johnson told Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “The only way they’re going to get me back is they put that money back in my pocket. Nah, you don’t do that. I don’t care what they say. They can put it back, then they can have me back. That’s the bottom line.”
As recently as 2017, NFL teams were reportedly interested in luring Megatron out of retirement, but he’s said he has no interest in returning to the league.
Here’s more from the NFC North:
- While Johnson may not be mending fences with the Lions anytime soon, the show must go on in Detroit, and Tim Twentyman of DetroitLions.com has passed along a few interesting nuggets from the second week of organized team activities. While it’s certainly early, Tom Savage reportedly looks like the favorite for the Lions’ backup quarterback job, per Twentyman. Savage has been taking most of the club’s second-team snaps, and he boasts far more experience than his competition (Connor Cook). Meanwhile, second-round linebacker Jahlani Tavai was viewed as something of an over-draft, but he’s already seeing some time with Detroit’s first-team defense.
- Although Laquon Treadwell has struggled mightily during his first three seasons in a Vikings uniform, now is not the time to release the former first-round wide receiver, argues Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com. Treadwell, 24 later this month, posted the best season of his career in 2018, but that only entailed 35 receptions and 302 yards as he played behind Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs. Minnesota would incur $2.5M in dead money by cutting Treadwell, but the club would open up roughly $654K in cap space by doing so. As Cronin indicates, the Vikings could be hoping Treadwell flashes during the preseason and increases his trade value.
- Vikings chief operating office Kevin Warren was today officially named as the new commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com indicated Monday (Twitter link). Warren will become the first African-American commissioner of a Power Five conference. As Vikings owner Zygi Wilf said in a statement, Warren plans to assist Minnesota in a transition phase over the next three months.
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