Calvin Johnson reaffirms retirement decision: 'I'm not coming back'
Nearly one year after hanging up his cleats, Megatron isn't gearing up for a return.
Despite watching his former team, the Detroit Lions, return to relevance, Calvin Johnson insists he's not going to come out of retirement, pointing to the physical toll he's still experiencing due to his nine-year career.
"I'm not coming back, man," Johnson told ESPN's Michael Rothstein. "Look, man. I got stuff that's going to hurt for the rest of my life. I got a finger that's literally bone-on-bone. This bad boy, it gets smaller. The more and more I do, it grinds bone-on-bone.
"Literally from last year, I went this year to get another X-ray - and this is after I retired - I knew it was messed up but I didn't know to what degree because it was hurt."
Johnson said he deals with injuries to his ankle, shoulder, and knees, as well as his fingers. While he said he misses the locker-room environment and his teammates, the future Hall of Famer is happy to be rid of the grind of playing football.
"The only thing I miss, but I still get it because I get to hang out with the guys, is the camaraderie," Johnson said. "The guys that I really hung out with, Dom (Raiola), Rob (Sims), Matthew (Stafford), the guys I played with for most of my career, five, six years each, I still hang out with those guys, so it's not that bad.
"The thing I don't miss is waking up in the morning, hurting, the grind of the game. I got chronic stuff that everybody has when they're done playing football for any length of time. So the good thing is I'm able to walk. I feel good. I'm able to spend more time with the fam. I'm able to chill. I don't have to go out and run three miles every day in practice, you know what I'm saying. Goodness gracious."
Johnson is content just watching football solely as a fan, something he says he'd been looking forward to since entering the NFL.
"Oh man, to watch football now, I've been looking forward to sitting back and watching football ever since I stepped into the league. You lose that," Johnson said. "When I was in college, I used to love to watch football on Sundays. And for nine (years), almost a decade I was away from that.
"To be able to sit back and enjoy the game, sit back and watch guys that you know played and you might have worked with it or you personally know, it's cool, it's awesome to sit back and say I know that guy because you're more of a fan of that game and that person. But I've only been able to watch the last three or four games."