Wood on talking to Calvin: 'We're still giving him time'
San Francisco — Lions general manager Bob Quinn hasn’t spoken to Calvin Johnson yet, but president Rod Wood has talked to the star receiver and his agent Bus Cook multiple times since the season ended.
And for now, the 30-year-old Johnson has yet to make an official decision about his future, but whether he retires or returns in 2016, Wood said the Lions will support his choice.
“We’re still giving him time,” Wood said Friday after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s Super Bowl news conference. “I’m hoping to introduce him to Bob within the next week or so, at least to hand that off to him to start talking to Calvin.
“Obviously, it would be difficult to replace him with one person, but we’ll have to deal with that if that’s what we’re confronted with.”
Wood also said it’s unclear how the team would proceed with Johnson’s contract as he’s set to count $24 million against the salary cap.
“We’ll see if he’s going to come back then we’ll talk about what happens with his contract,” Wood said.
In addition to some conversations, Wood said he exchanged text messages with Johnson on Wednesday. The team doesn’t have a timetable for when a decision will come, but like Quinn said last week, Wood said it’d be helpful to have one before free agency begins in March.
Steve Young helped steer Lions' Ansah to football
“Right now I want him to come to his own conclusion and decide what he wants to do,” Wood said. “I wouldn’t want to try and convince him to play if that’s not what he wants to do, but obviously if he wants to play, we want him back. So, we’re going to give him time to kind of go through all the decision process and hopefully he can come to the conclusion that’s right for him. And whatever that is, we’ll support him.”
jkatzenstein@detroitnews.com
twitter.com/jkatzenstein