After the season they had in 2011, it's no surprise that the Detroit Lions are featured in several primetime games in 2012. It's especially no surprise that one of the most highly anticipated Lions games in 2012 -- at the San Francisco 49ers in Week 2 -- ended up on NBC's Sunday Night Football schedule.
In general, the Lions have become a much more high-profile team in recent years. Winning games is a big reason why, as is the fact that the Lions have superstars like Matthew Stafford, Ndamukong Suh and Calvin Johnson. Johnson has especially seen his star rise in the last year or so. He put up huge numbers last season, and his popularity took off, as evidenced by him being on the cover of Madden 13.
More evidence of Johnson's popularity comes from the fact that he was one of the players selected to be in NBC's opening video for Sunday Night Football. The shoot for the video has been taking place this week, and NBC recently released a brief look at what exactly it entailed for Johnson.
We're on set with Megatron@Bigplaycj Shooting the #SNF Open twitter.com/SNFonNBC/statu…
— SNF on NBC (@SNFonNBC) June 21, 2012
Jared Allen, Nick Mangold, Rob Gronkowski, Ray Lewis, Larry Fitzgerald and Aaron Rodgers were among the other players who took part in the shoot. You can truly tell that Johnson is in elite company in the NFL these days.
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