Detroit Lions safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson suffered a torn pectoral in Week 2 against the Seahawks. It’s a lengthy injury and has given Gardner-Johnson a lot of free time outside of the time he’s been training to get back.
This has allowed him to focus on his rap career and do something that a lot people his age love to do, play video games. On Monday night, Gardner-Johnson jumped on Twitch with Madden 11 and make a big signing for the Lions.
That’s right. That’s Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell underneath all that hair.
Here’s the weird thing about all this. Dan Campbell is not a player in the NFL in 2011. He’s actually a coach. 2011 was the first year that Campbell was the Dolphins tight ends coach. He was with the Dolphins in 2010 as well. He was a coaching intern. This leads me to believe that Duce is actually playing Madden 2010. That came out before Campbell accepted the intern job with the Dolphins.
Anyways, if we’re going back in time to 2011, Gardner-Johnson is making Campbell the highest paid tight end in NFL history. Antonio Gates had just signed a deal in July of 2010 that made him the highest paid tight end in history with a five-year contract worth $36.1 million. Campbell is making $47 million here.
Campbell also joins an offense that boats Calvin Johnson, Nate Burleson and ,of course, Matthew Stafford. If it’s indeed 2011, Campbell is about to be a part of Stafford’s 5,000 yard season. He should see some targets for sure. Especially since he’s the highest paid tight end of all time.
The real big takeaway here is that players on this team really like their coach. It’s not like it’s super easy to go onto a video game from 2010 or 2011 to find Dan Campbell. He hadn’t played a full season since 2008. While he was with the Saints in 2009, he never actually played for them. You really have to go into the free agency section and find this guy.
Gardner-Johnson did that. Then signed him to his team and gave him the highest paid tight end contract in the league at that time. Anyone who’s played Madden knows that you don’t really have pay the lower rated free agents all that much. They kind of just take whatever you give them and smile.
The Lions culture is an important thing in this rebuild and the fact that players like the head coach enough to go play with him on Madden says a lot more than you might initially think it does.