Before the Seahawks defeated the Eagles on Sunday night, their star WR D.K. Metcalf found a little a motivation. According to the second-year player, who had 10 catches for 177 yards against Philadelphia on Monday night, Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, who coached Calvin Johnson in Detroit, told Metcalf that he’s not “Megatron.”
The comment, according to Metcalf, motivated him against Philadelphia and led to him having a big game on Monday night.
On Wednesday, Schwartz responded to Metcalf’s comments:
“I can’t believe paying a compliment to a player has become such a big thing. Before I even go into that, I want to say everybody needs to know the high esteem that I hold Calvin Johnson in,” Scwartz said. “Calvin was not only the best player I’ve ever coached, he was the best player I ever coached against, and I think he’s one of the great players in the history of the National Football League. I had five years up close and personal of every defensive coordinator’s number one job was to stop Calvin Johnson and ran every tricked up defense known to man and he still made the plays and he was an incredibly hard worker, underreported with him. Great person. And just the honor of my career to coach a guy like Calvin Johnson.
“So, it’s, in my mind, it’s a little bit funny, anytime you even speak somebody’s name in the same sentence as Calvin Johnson I don’t know how you could take offense to that. So I tried to pay the guy a compliment, said I read his story, knew he had overcome injury, heard he was a hard worker, and said he reminds me a little bit of Calvin and congratulated him after the game. At the time he told me, ‘Hey, thanks, Coach, that means a lot to me.
“So if anybody wants to take offense to being compared to who I think is one of the greatest players in the history of the National Football League, then, yeah, if you get your motivation that way, then fine, but we’re not going to worry too much about that. I think that the only person in the whole thing that deserves or that has any sort of whatever in that thing would be a guy like Calvin. But again, you just have to understand how much esteem I hold Calvin in, and like I said, the greatest honor of my coaching career was coaching that guy day-in and day-out. He’s meant a lot to my kids and family and everything else. So, tried to pay a guy a compliment. I chatted with Russell Wilson before the game because I respect him so much and saw DK on the sideline in between plays and wanted to compliment him on his work ethic and overcoming injury and stuff like that. So, there it is.”
Who knows what to believe. Maybe Metcalf is telling the truth; maybe Metcalf is pulling a Michael Jordan and trying to make up stories to find motivation. Who knows, but one thing for sure, Metcalf is a stud, but at this point, he’s not Calvin Johnson just yet.
Leave a Reply