Leading OFF
Can RB Johnson be the Lions’ best since Barry Sanders?
We do research. We talk to people. We draw on past experiences.
At the end of the day, it means nothing. Ultimately, we’re all just guessing.
So, as I am beginning my 13th year covering the Detroit Lions, I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to base it mostly on how I feel. What I believe.
Here it is: I think rookie Kerryon Johnson is going to be a great player, a Pro Bowler at some point, and easily the best running back the Lions have had since Barry Sanders.
That’s a lot. I know. Especially after the Jets dismantled Detroit 48-17 in the season opener and Johnson wasn’t much of a factor in the game.
Again, this is based on what I feel about Johnson in the limited time he has been with the team and the limited time I’ve watched him, spoken with him and spoken with his coaches and teammates about him.
But make no mistake, I feel strongly about Johnson’s potential. There are two reasons I feel Johnson will be special: His play and his poise.
In addition to his impressive play in the preseason, I can point to his poise. It’s uncanny the way he carries himself. He feels like an old soul, like he’s been here before.
You can usually pick out NFL rookies in a locker by the way they answer questions. They like to rely on the clichés of not having any knowledge of the team or the NFL before they arrived. Not Johnson. Here’s his answer about the offense’s identity.
“I think we’re a very good offense,” he said recently. “We have tons of potential. I think, obviously, I wasn’t here last year, but last year I think they were a very good offense. We return a lot of key pieces from that same team. We have all the po- tential in the world.
“But potential is one thing. Going and doing it is another.”
Intelligence, assertiveness, understanding recent history while maintaining focus on the immediate task without a hint of bravado. That is definitely not a rookie answer.
One tactic athletes love is to create their own reality. It helps them tune out distractions. They pretend expectations don’t matter. But Johnson turned the tables. He said he expected high expectations as a skill player drafted in the second round from Auburn.
“And that just means you have further to fall, right?” he said, broaching the scary thought of possible failure that most players won’t even acknowledge exists.
He gets it. I asked tight end Eric Ebron once if it was both a blessing and a curse to be the 10th overall pick and he pretended it wasn’t a curse. Just all positive. Beyond the drops, high expectations were really what did him in while playing for the Lions.
“I think what helps him is he has great poise,” running back Theo Riddick said of Johnson. “He’s very level-headed. He’s never too high and he’s never too low.
“So I think when you have a personality like that and a type of matureness to you like that, it’s going to help you and benefit you down the line definitely with such a long season for him coming into his rookie year.”
Johnson has tried to learn as much as he can from all of the Lions veteran running backs, but he especially has gravitated toward Riddick, who calls him a “sponge” with a penchant for not only asking questions but also asking the same question twice.
“Just to see if there’s more to the answer, you know?” Riddick said. “Because as a rookie, you only want to tell him what he has to focus on.
“But he doesn’t look at it like that. He wants to learn the game conceptually, just not knowing his job but he wants to know what the next guy is doing. When you see that, that’s a great mind-set for a guy coming into the league.”
One of Johnson’s greatest gifts that bodes well for him early in his career is he knows that he doesn’t know a lot.
“I just try to see the things they do,” he said of his veteran teammates, “the questions they ask, how they look at film, how they look at defenses, how they look at people, how they look at themselves, how they go work every day. And I just try to emulate that if I can.”
Of course, there’s a limit. He isn’t quite ready to buy into Riddick and Ameer Abdullah’s vegetarianism. He loves hot wings and lasagna a little too much.
“It would take a lot for me to be a vegetarian, to be honest,” Johnson said with a laugh.
One of the biggest transitions from college to the pros for players can be the freedom they’re given. It sounds good, but it requires discipline and structure, especially for a 21-year-old. Teams help, but it’s largely up to a player to get the right kind of nutrition, rehabilitation and rest for their minds and bodies.
“It’s just crazy that you go from college,” Johnson said, “where it’s just kind of given, everything’s kind of forced on you, to now where you’re on your own.”
Johnson has a plan for his downtime, too: Xbox video games. And no, not “Fortnite.” He prefers “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds,” or PUBG, which is essentially a more realistic version of “Fortnite.”
“So I play that a lot,” he said. “I play ‘Madden.’ I’ll play ‘Battlefield’ when it comes out. I end up playing a lot. I’ll play a lot of different games.”
There’s a reason for this, too. During the grind of training camp, he played games often with Darius Slay and Quandre Diggs, veterans from the other side of the ball.
“You can bond that way, too,” he said. “It’s just nice to have something in common with other guys on the team.”
But the only game that matters comes as he begins playing, and he only got five carries in the blowout loss to the Jets.
Johnson is 5-11 and 206. He has plenty of speed and good ability to change directions. But he also adds a power component that allows him to push through the middle of the field and break tackles.
Running backs coach David Walker said Johnson has good vision, understands blocking schemes and “can anticipate where a seam should open up.”
Johnson can “anticipate” where a hole “should” open, because who knows? No one. It’s why we love sports. We’re all just guessing and hoping. And sometimes, believing.