That didn't take long. The news about wide receiver Calvin Johnson receiving a seven-year extension has been confirmed by Tim Twentyman, who writes for the Detroit Lions' official website. According to Twentyman, the extension, which will be announced at a 1 p.m. press conference, will keep Johnson under contract through 2019 (eight years total) and make him the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL.
Sources are telling me the Calvin deal is close to $130 million. Tops the Fitzgerald's $120 million deal
— Tim Twentyman (@ttwentyman) March 14, 2012
What this means in the long term is that Johnson is going to be a Lion for the rest of the decade. Think about that for a second. The best wide receiver in football is going to be on the Lions through 2019.
In the short term, this move will give the Lions extra cap space to work with. Johnson's old deal was going to result in him having an extremely high cap number in 2012, but by signing the extension, it's believed that the cap number will go down quite a bit. This will allow the Lions to start making some other moves since they will actually have some cap space to work with.