Lynn Swann thinks Calvin Johnson may not be a Hall of Famer
If in fact Calvin Johnson carries through on his decision to retire, most observers think the next uniform he’ll don will be the gold jacket of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Most observers. Not all.
“I would think that it would be difficult for Calvin Johnson at this point to be considered a Hall of Famer,” former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swann told the Detroit News. “Calvin Johnson has an extreme amount of talent and ability, but when you start to look at his team, the success of his team and did he lift that team; he made them a little bit better, but at the end of the day, I’m not quite sure.”
This opinion is, to put it gently, highly questionable. Megatron has been one of the most dominating wide receivers of his era, and the fact that he’s done so on such an godawful run of teams in his nine years in the league (two postseason apperances, zero wins) only burnishes his legend more. Johnson has made six Pro Bowls and is a three-time All-Pro. He’s also been the victim of one of the most dysfunctional organizations this side of the Cleveland Browns, with quarterbacks that have ranged from serviceable to awful. The fact that he’s able to put up numbers at all is a testament to his all-world skills.
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Plus, it’s not overly petty to question Swann’s own credentials here; he was a member of four Super Bowl-winning teams in Pittsburgh, which, to twist a baseball analogy, is like being born in the Red Zone and thinking you drove the distance of the field. Yes, Swann won the MVP of Super Bowl X, but you could make a plausible argument that the Steelers would have done just fine with only Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, and the Steel Curtain … in other words, Swann may not have made that team significantly better.
“Hard to say he’s going to be in the Hall of Fame when his team hasn’t gotten to a Super Bowl, and they don’t get a chance to get into the playoffs,” Swann said. “And that’s for a lot of guys across the board. If he had broken every passing record, like Danny Fouts, who didn’t win the Super Bowl, then yeah, I think there’s going to be consideration.”
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Do we really need to break down the difference between a quarterback, who controls every single play, and a receiver, who is the very definition of a passive player at the mercy of others? Plus, the argument that a player needs to win a Super Bowl to validate his career falls apart when you consider Hall of Famers like Barry Sanders and Steve Largent. Football is a team game, and even if most players don’t mention it, we will: sometimes the team lets you down. And sometimes, you play your entire career in Detroit, and the entire franchise lets you down. This is most definitely the case with Calvin Johnson, and anyone who thinks he’s not a Hall of Famer simply isn’t paying enough attention.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
