The Detroit Lions are going to have to pay up if they want to reconcile their relationship with Calvin Johnson.
The wide receiver retired early in 2016 and was made to pay back at least $1 million dollars of his signing bonus in order to do so. Johnson wanted out of his contract to play for a more successful team, but the Lions wouldn’t allow it, making retirement his only option.
The wide receiver compared playing for the team at the time leading up to his retirement to insanity, saying “I didn’t see the chance for them to win a Super Bowl at the time, and for the work I was putting in, it wasn’t worth my time to keep on beating my head against the wall… and not going anywhere.”
Now, Lions president Rod Wood calls reconciling the relationship with the best wide receiver in team history a “very high priority,” and Johnson resoundingly says that him getting his money back is the only way that will happen.
The situation mirrors that of Barry Sanders’ — a legendary Detroit RB who was made to pay back part of his signing bonus when retiring early but got that money back from the Lions before returning to the franchise as a paid ambassador.
