Talking Grit: A Detroit Lions Podcast
Talking Grit: A Detroit Lions Podcast
Bonus Episode - DK Metcalf comparison to Calvin Johnson (with Brandon Cain and Mike Dugar)
In this special episode of 'Talking Grit,' Jason Harwood revisits an intriguing segment from a prior episode featuring Brandon Cain of 'The Hawk's Nest' and Mike Dugar from 'The Athletic.' The focus is on the comparison between NFL wide receivers DK Metcalf and Calvin Johnson, also known as Megatron. Cain argues that DK Metcalf, despite statistical similarities to Calvin Johnson in their first five NFL seasons, is often underrated and less hyped. He points out the differences and similarities between their performances, physical attributes, and circumstances, such as team dynamics and draft positions. Mike Dugar compares DK Metcalf's potential to Calvin Johnson's established greatness, emphasizing Calvin's exceptional hands and reliability in tight situations. Harwood concludes by analyzing the stats and discussing Calvin Johnson's legendary status compared to DK Metcalf's ongoing career. The segments highlight the passionate debate around these two phenomenal players while recognizing Calvin's Hall of Fame career and DK's promising potential.
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Welcome everybody to a special episode of talking grit. This is Jason Harwood. When we do the pride previews with podcasters or reporters from other teams, we have to cut some really good material. Just due to time or relevance to the topic sometimes. That was certainly the case in our most recent episode, when we were interviewing Brandon Cain from the Hawk's nest and Mike Dugger. From the athletic. Brandon Cain has a video on his YouTube channel titled return of Megatron, where he compares DK Metcalf to Calvin Johnson. He makes an argument, did DK Metcalf is not considered a great while. Calvin Johnson is. The video is very interesting. Sorry. Encourage you to watch it again. It's titled return of Megatron. It's on the Hawk's nest. A YouTube channel. Jacob. And I previously talked about. The comparison on the podcast. Before most, and the similarities and physique and speed. Between DK Metcalf and Calvin Johnson. So when I saw that video, I was really interested in the topics I made sure to ask Brandon about that. And of course, I followed up and asked my Dugger about it too. Just cause the reports on the team every day. I'm going to include those interview excerpts. They weren't in the original, the pride preview. They're just going to be here. So there, if you listen to that, it wasn't in that it's, this is just some separate. And then after I dropped those and you can listen to those and then I'll get to my response. Afterwards. So first let's hear from Brandon Cain.
Jacob Litton:So, one video of yours that we took a particular interest in, uh, was one that was titled, The Return of Megatron. this is a comparison that a lot of people have made between DK Metcalf, but just tell me about the comparison that you made with DK and Calvin Johnson.
Brandon Cain:Yeah, so let's go. Both players have gone through, this is prior to the start of this year where both players had been through five years of their NFL career and through five years, Megatron had 366 receptions. DK Metcalf has 372. Megatron had 5, 872 yards, DK has 5, 332 yards. Megatron had 49 touchdowns receiving, Metcalf had 43 touchdowns receiving. And I, I'm not saying he is right at the pinnacle. I will say that there's some things that I think DK does that Megatron didn't do as well. I think there's things Megatron did better that DK doesn't do. I think something that allows Megatron to separate in some people's mind on this argument. I don't know. I'll see where you guys stand on this, but I just want to kind of preface, make sure I'm clear on where I'm coming from with it is that people will take offense to this a little bit. And I think it's sometimes it's that, yes, there are these. Plays where you see Megatron high pointing the ball and maximizing his catch radius. And that's a place that I would certainly say DK doesn't have as much of that in his bag is as Megatron did. And that those are some of the more eye popping plays you'll see with him. But I think when it does come to some of the route running, you've seen with DK in this time and how he's developed on that. And then some of the considerations you have to bring into those stats that I just presented. How many of those games during those times there with Detroit, were they behind in games? Throwing, throwing, throwing, throwing. Okay, well, DK throughout his time here in the NFL has not been behind in games by and large part. They've been the playoffs his first year. They've always been up around 9 to 10 wins every single season basically. So it's It is also that part of it where there's not that, the stat pad for thing that got brought into play at that time. You guys know that whole so like that's that was brought for a reason, right? That was presented as something out there kind of for a reason. So I'm not presenting the Metcalf didn't or that Megatron didn't get his stats legitimately, but I am going to present the Metcalf has been right along. In alignment with him in the start to the career that he's had that Megatron's had. And what I don't get is that DK doesn't always get anywhere near the same level of hype or love that Megatron has. Instead, it's more about nitpicking away on DK's game. Namely, that high pointing stuff. That becomes the thing I think people get mainly caught up on. Or the, the penalty thing, which is a whole other avenue to go down. But I don't mind that stuff at all personally. That's just the softening of the modern NFL.
Jason Harwood:I, we've, Jacob and I had this discussion pretty much throughout the, our whole podcast of how, guys look, when you look at them side by side, their physical attributes are like almost the exact same. It's hard to compare cause they hadn't had, same quarterbacks. I mean, Johnson, Calvin Johnson started out with John Kitten as quarterback. He didn't always start out with, Stafford. So his first couple of years are a little wonky. Um, I feel like Stafford would also just, probably take more chances with Calvin than, Gino Smith is going to take with DK as far as throwing the ball up and doing the high point. I think Calvin Johnson had a lot more opportunity with that. will say, it's hard to, DK, DK is still young in his career. Calvin, Got a lot more respect in the coverage than I see decaf. They, they would double team, Calvin right off the line. Um, and that might be just due to some of the other weapons that the lions had at the time. It's hard to do, do the one on one comparison. I. Do I agree with you that DK Metcalf probably does not get the respect he deserves, but also, I, as a Lions fan, I think Calvin Johnson is one of the best wide receivers ever. And, uh, it, DK has got a little bit to work on that. I also. I think just DK's nature, in my opinion, he's a little more fiery than the lions or then the lions Calvin Johnson was, um, which, can be good or bad, you, you want people that are fiery sometimes you just don't want them to get penalties, but once you start getting a couple of penalties, then the refs always look your way to, and I think, DK has probably fallen into that.
Brandon Cain:Well, I will say to the advanced to, I know that like we've got the, again, that's those screenshots you get with Calvin that are so, there's the double team with him on the outside. You have as a moment, but was he by and large double team with outside corners game in a game out when you watch Calvin Johnson, or was it by and large one single outside corner was out there on the outside. And the advanced statistics on this with, with, uh, DK Metcalf are pretty, um, It's pretty succinct on this where he's one of the most double teamed wide receivers in the NFL by the advanced statistics. He was as high as number two, but just behind Devonta Adams, but two years ago. Second most double teamed wide receiver in the sport. And when you do talk about those limitations, let's go back to Russell Wilson as well, right? Through the first two years of when he was playing here. And I know that, that the moon balls and his production was all good within that. But there's also another side that we've seen with the Russell Wilson situation, right? When it comes to him as a quarterback. And we were getting some of that stuff with Russell Wilson in his final years here. And I was on the record. You can still find videos of me on the record at that time, two and two years prior to Russell, even going Houston, we've got a problem here with the quarterback position. While those moon balls were all great down there, the intermediate stuff, the short stuff, the middle of the field. Coach Carroll, not targeting the middle of the field. How does that hamper a wide receiver? So start to think about that production a little bit. When you have a guy being double teamed, often you don't throw to the middle of the football field. You want to be a run basis team by and large with Carol and sort of a 50, 50. Anyway, it's going to depress some of the statistical backing here. I, I would offer, I think he's been right there. Step for step with him. I, I, I do not want to put any shade on Calvin. Calvin is one of the best all time as well. Um, he deserves his flowers for me. This is as much about trying to show. DK also deserves these flowers and he's kind of not getting them as much. And when it comes to the fiery stuff, from my perspective on this, I'm a little old school, I'm a little bit, maybe a dying breed on this part of it. But if I've got 53 DK Metcalfs with the attitude that he brings on a weekly basis, I'm going to go win me a lot of Lombardi trophies. Because that man goes out there and on top of catching like a demon he goes out there and blocks his ass off every single week. And when you get him penalized a lot of these times, what is he doing? Trying to block. He's not out there just free flowing throwing punches at people. And then there are things that happen where you see at points and in times where this has happened with these officials where they start to target him. And he starts to get now more and then people that might be watching sort of on the side go look another penalty to DK. And go man, they're just, they're just They're just targeting him here at this point. That was not a penalty. He had a holding call this year where he's right in here, hands inside on the, doing his job and they called it, wiped off a touchdown off the board. And you see a lot of that too. So I don't have a problem with the, with the fiery stuff. It's, it toes the line. I get that. But again, we've got a lot of players in this day and age that you sometimes question whether or not they're all in. Whether or not they're truly inspired to play their best and I don't gotta, I don't have to ask that question. So when you come back to why I'm, so hyped with this guy, it's, it's that all the way around of that. This is what I think we should be aspiring for to see in our, our players. We're seeing both greatness continuing to get better. He's missed one game, his entire professional career here through this first five seasons. And I think new offense now targeting the middle field, which you're going to now see is actually him reaching into that 14, 1500 yard state on a yearly basis.
Jacob Litton:When you have the comparison, um, you kind of hit it on the head as far as the contested catches. Just, uh, DK, with Megatron, he so many times had, uh, Calv er, Matthew Stafford had to just throw the ball up. Calvin had to try to come down with it. That happened very frequently. That's kind of one of those highlight reel throwing up to Calvin. He's got, multiple people on him. He's got to jump up and make those catches. He came down with a lot of those contested catches frequently. I don't think that DK does that, uh, as often, but where DK beats you is with the route running, he's able to get the ball. And then he just, he takes off. He can take a quick, 10, 12 yard catch and take it to the house. He can take those slants. He can take those check downs, whatever he's doing. I also think it has to do with the fact that Calvin was such a high draft pick. And he was the only bright spot on the Lions team for so long, DK was a later traffic later. I guess, he's not in the 1st round. He also has Tyler Lockett there. The offense was moving the ball better. The team was doing better. Calvin was pretty much all that we had and we, everybody had a Calvin Johnson jersey. That was pretty much all that we were doing. And, uh, yes, I guess maybe being more vocal. Hasn't helped DK because Calvin really laid low. He didn't really say much. He was just, doing what was on the field. But outside of that, I think that DK really, I mean, has done just as good of a job to this point, as you said, with the stats, I mean, everything about them is really similar.
Brandon Cain:Yeah, it's, it, and the good points on your part. I, um, I think to the thing that affects it with some of those fade balls with Stafford too, and the, not to harp on this a bit, but that risk adverse nature, again, a little bit of the prior coaching staff when it came to offense, I'll give you a story to kind of back this up. Uh, Brandon Marshall, who played with a cup of coffee with the Seahawks for about five minutes recounts this story, still can find it online talking about this. And this was really opened my eyes to some of the things you see, because when you watch the games at times, we throw fade routes. Like if you guys think about in your mind, how many times can you think of like fade balls with Russell. Down by the end zone, not a lot in your mind, like all the touchdowns you with it's moon balls. Do you, you don't think a lot of fade balls, but why that is, is because I think Carolyn struts a little bit of the way they run that fade. So Brandon and Russ training camp working on the fade ball down on one end of the field, Carol comes ambling down that side of the field and he says, what's going on, what are you guys doing? Well, we've got this, we're perfecting the fade and how we're going to run this. Cause Marshall obviously could do that very well during his, during his time, even at the end was a good jump up and ball guy couldn't run anymore. We could still jump and go get it. And Carol's watching me. He's listening. He goes, no, no, I don't want you to do it that way. I want you to do it the way you did with jimmy graham and and him and russell proceed to have this Sort of tete a tete according to marshall on the field where russell is voraciously arguing about the way he wanted to throw this ball and Carol saying no I want you to throw it this way and when I combine that with my All 22 eyes watching film through the years in recent years with them Of so many throws that you would see down by the goal line tossed three yards out of bounds Where there is no opportunity to give that kind of thing. I'm not countering by the way at all. DK has got that part of his game that can get better on. There's even a couple of throws this game, a Denver game. We started out the year through a trust ball down there. Didn't pull it in. Second game came back this year, another trust ball down there. And that one, um, kind of had a chance that it wasn't able to reel it in. So I think that there's still, this is where there's some fairness to that, but then there's this other side of where this may be going in his game and where, okay, now is that adjustment taken off? Is he now going to be targeting the middle of the field? We're using him out of the slot for the first time now. Part of the clamping coming down is that double team is it's easier to double team the guy when he's on the outside and you can keep the safety top over, see a safety up over the top. You trail with the corner and press and you got the guy kind of bracket up. Naturally, you put him into that slot. As you guys have seen with online, same brown kind of hard at times to get that guy doubled in there. It's not as easy to pull in the bracket coverage on it. You got to kind of manipulate your defense to make it work like that. So these are new things are going to come into play, I think, including those. Potential ways they throw the fade balls down there by the goal line. I saw this in training camp with my own eyes going to Seattle and watching it where they're working on this very stuff. So i'm not trying to put it all on this. I'm, I don't i'm not trying to kick your guys's legs out at all because I think that the the criticisms are fair. I do. Um, but I do think they're very close like you just said on that we're They're so much more closer than they are further apart when it's all said and done.
Okay. Now let's hear what Mike Duker had to say.
Jason Harwood:We asked Brandon Kane from the Hawks nest, and we had an interesting conversation about he was comparing DK Metcalf and Calvin Johnson. I know you're unprepared for the question. What's your impressions on that comparison?
Mike Dugar:Yeah. I think Megatron was what everything DK could be, you know, like every drafts, like every drafts little report has like the ceiling kind of like, if all the, imagine if just all the strengths. Or strong, stayed strong when you draft to the guy and then all the weaknesses got fixed too. Like it's just like the perfect prospect like he could just do everything. He was DK's height, weight and with speed too. And then with the leaping ability, uh, it was just a total game game wrecker. Like he's just one of the best receivers ever. I think DK has the potential to be that. I think the obvious difference between the two thus far is that Megatron's hands were just cash. You know, they were just high point stuff, tight window stuff, all hands. Like you could just catch anything. And even DK, he knows that he said this off season, one of his emphasis was working on 50, 50 balls. I'm glad that he admitted that. Cause we were saying for a while, like he hasn't been good in that aspect of the game. He caught a ball, you know, That was all hands against the Dolphins over Kendall Fuller while Kendall had his back turned and he, uh, he was asked about that play and he was like, yeah, I'm glad I caught that because last year I probably would have dropped it, you know, whereas Megatron's hands like glue, you know, it's just ridiculous. And that's a big. It's a big difference. DK can go up and get stuff, but very inconsistent. Whereas you knew if you threw it up to 81 double coverage, triple coverage, quadruple coverage, Hail Mary, there was a chance he was coming down with it and that's just invaluable. It makes you better red zone threat too. Whereas DK is like a good player, but not like super efficient red zone option. Whereas, I mean. Is that famous picture? I think it was the Saints double teaming. It's like two guys down there and like press coverage on Calvin. Like, come on, that's great. And that wasn't even a bad idea. I would for sure do that as a DC. I would absolutely do that. Like, it's just it was smart because that's how dangerous he is. So, yeah, I think D. K.'s got he's got all the tools to be that type of player. Calvin just put it together. If D. K. puts it together, he can have. That same type of impact because the physical
I hope you enjoyed those interviews. I could certainly understand Brandon's passion for his player. We all have the same excitement for our Detroit lions. Of course for me that extends a Calvin Johnson. I think Mike Dugard. Bugger put it best when he said Megatron was what? Everything DK could be. I think that just encapsulates it perfectly. I mean, If you look at the comparison, they're the exact same size. You know, speed and everything. But overall skill and everything like that, there's, there's definitely some differences. So let's get into this. Brandon makes some good points when he mentioned the stats and how similar they are. However, after I had some time to think about it critically and examine the stats for myself. Um, I'm going to mention that. DK he's had the advantage of a 17 game season for three out over the first five seasons. So our next two or three games. Calvin did miss four games in his first five seasons while DK only missed one. So DK played it. 82 games of all possible 83, all Kabalan played 76 of a possible 80. If you go on a stats on a per game basis. Calvin Everett, 77 yards per game. While DK is at 65 yards per game. Calvin. Also average 1.7 yards per reception, more than DK. And when you're catching a hundred passes, that's considerable amount of yardage per year. Calvin led the league in receiving yards in his fifth season. While DK finished 18th in the league last year in his fifth season. And then Calvin six season. He set the NFL receiving record that still stands at 1,964 yards in one season. Currently through three games and DK Metcalf, sixties, and he is at 262 yards. I could not find penalty stats for Calvin Johnson's first two seasons. But he did not have a personal file for the rest of his career. Well, DK Metcalf has committed nine unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. And that led to two disqualifications NEC cannot be discounted dose penalties or potential drive killers. And obviously the disqualifications are unacceptable. What I just all mentioned, this is all objective data. You can look at it and it all points to Calvin being obviously the more impressive receiver. There's a possibility that DK develops more and can become an all-time great. But to me that's a big, if. You know, subjectively. I am biased. Of course, being an Alliance fan. I personally think Calvin Johnson is one of the best wide receivers to ever bless a football field. I mean, he's in the hall of fame for a reason. His hands and his ability to high point the ball cannot be overstated. He was among the elite of elites in that category. We have the ability of hindsight with Calvin while we are currently in the middle of DKS career. During his time, Calvin was the receiver that other teams knew they needed to stop. They would double or triple team him. DK Metcalf while a gray receiver and physical specimen. I do not believe that teams based our entire defensive game plans around stopping him. To me, it's clear that DK is fiery. Nature gets him and his team in trouble. Calvin was a model teammate and did not put himself above his team. While the stats are fairly close in the first five years closer, frankly, than I expected. DK would really have to put on a show to keep up with Calvin's pace of his career to match Megatron stats. I do think draft status comes into play with how people view both players. Kelvin being selected second overall, while the Seahawks drafted DK 64th overall. Calvin. Johnson's a hall of fame receiver and will be inducted in the pride Alliance tonight. He deserves all the accolades that he has coming to him. While DK is a great wide receiver. And my opinion, but he still has a lot to prove. I do believe DK does not get enough credit for what he provides his team on the field. We will see how we continues to produce. And it's also ironic to me that the first DK play that I think of, and probably a lot of people think of is, would that play where he catches up to Buddha baker on interception? Certainly showed off his speed, but it's interesting that we don't think of a catch. Or anything like that, we think of, you know, him using his lifeblood. A lot of CISM to catch Buddha baker, another, you know, very fast player. So I hope you enjoyed this. Just some short I wanted to put out there. I hope everyone has a good day and go lions.
