Much was made of how few times Matthew Stafford threw the ball in the direction of Calvin Johnson during Sunday's game, especially once cameras caught the two having a conversation on the bench. Actually, it wasn't really a conversation. Stafford was talking, and Calvin walked away after seemingly not wanting to listen to what the rookie had to say. The announcers commented on the exchange, and many people assumed that there was a beef between the two. I personally thought it was just a heat of the moment type of thing, which is why I hadn't even brought it up until now.
Calvin Johnson spoke to reporters yesterday, and when asked about the exchange, he basically said that it was no big deal and that there is no problem between him and his quarterback.
"I haven't seen the TV replays, because there's no reason for me to watch them -- we're fine," he said. "People are blowing this way out of proportion. Trust me, no one is going to be happy during a game like that. If you win, all this goes out the window."
Jim Schwartz talked to Calvin and Stafford to make sure there was no problem, and he came away from the meeting echoing what Calvin said.
"There's no issue there," Schwartz said. "You always want to be winning games and happy and cheerful, but goodness gracious, if you had a camera on every person on every play, you could try to read between the lines on a million things. There are times you need to talk things out, but there's no issue here with the players, and I don't understand why people are trying to create one."
To me, I interpret what happened on Sunday as a frustrated player on a losing team boiling over and reacting poorly to the situation. Let's not forget that this was Calvin Johnson's first game back from injury, and there's no question something was up. I don't know if the injury was still bothering him or what, but it's not like Stafford went out there and purposely ignored the best player on the team. My guess is that it was a combination of many factors that led to Calvin's statistically bad game, and I'm betting once he is fully recovered from his knee injury, things will be back to normal in no time.