Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell is certainly worthy of some cool nicknames, but team legend Calvin Johnson has come up with a new one.
Upon his arrival as the second overall pick in the 2007 draft, Detroit Lions Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson was given the nickname “Megatron” by teammate Roy Williams, in reference to the Transformers character.
Over his two seasons as Lions’ head coach, Dan Campbell has been given the nickname “MC/DC”, short for “Motor City/Dan Campbell” in the style of the legendary hard rock band AC/DC. The stories that are out there about him thus far in his tenure, and those that may never be told for as long as he’s the head coach in Detroit, invite the notion of some worthy and unique nicknames.
Johnson was on FanDuel TV’s “Up And Adams” with Kay Adams last Thursday, and he had a new nickname for Campbell.
Calvin Johnson offers up a new nickname for Dan Campbell
Here’s what Johnson said about Campbell.
He’s a soldier, you know. I don’t know if all the guys know man Dan was out there starting tight end in the NFL basically with one arm—he’s like Robocop out there. He had like a cast on his whole arm,” Johnson said. “He was still starting, he was still productive—that’s why he was playing. That just goes to show you what kind of man he was. He played through pain.”
For those who are too young, “RoboCop” was a movie released in 1987, starring Peter Weller as a Detroit police offer who is killed and revived by a corrupt company in cyborg form. It had a couple sequels that were not as good. So there’s the Detroit tie to inform Johnson’s doling out of the nickname.
Campbell and Johnson were Lions’ teammates for two seasons, 2007 and 2008, before Campbell retired as a player in 2009 after playing a total of three games in those seasons and trying to latch on with the New Orleans Saints. But Johnson clearly knew of Campbell’s toughness as a player, which he has carried into his time as the Lions’ head coach in fostering a culture of “Grit.”