If last week proved anything for the Detroit Lions (other than that they are some sort of combination of less bad than last season and still not as good as two seasons ago), it proved that there is without a doubt still no better receiver in all of football to start in a fantasy football game, and that wide receiver is of course Calvin Johnson. Why did last week’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals prove to be something of a measuring stick game for Johnson? Well it just so happens that he was squaring off against the wide receiver that many consider to be the second best wide receiver to start in a fantasy football game in all of the NFL, Bengals’ wide receiver A.J. Green.
In their faceoff, Green struck first catching an 82-yard touchdown pass early in the first quarter (a career long for both himself and quarterback Andy Dalton). But Calvin Johnson preferred to take his time, catching a 27-yard touchdown from Matt Stafford in the third quarter and then capping off his day with one of the more incredible catches that any of us are likely to see this season, snatching a 50-yard bomb away from no less than three Bengals who were blanketing him in the end zone. Last week was Johnson’s best fantasy football game of the season to date, and it comes only a week after he barely managed to make it onto the field due to injury. When it was all said and done, somehow Green and Johnson both finished with exactly the same amount of yards receiving-155. But Johnson finished with three more catches and also hauled down one more touchdown. So while the Bengals escaped with a victory, Johnson established that at least for the time being he is still the top wide receiver.
