Why Calvin Johnson is a nightmare

He watches his stride to make sure it's short at the beginning of routes to avoid giving away his intentions. He watches his hands at the line of scrimmage as he fights press coverage. He drills those things specifically because they are areas in which he believes he can still improve.

One thing Woodson found is that Johnson heavily favors "about three or four routes." (A full route tree has nine routes, although many of those have variations.) The stats support Woodson's observation. Of the seven No. 1 receivers whose patterns were analyzed by Pro Football Focus, Johnson was the only one who ran go routes more than 30 percent of the time in 2013. Johnson also ran posts more than any of the other six receivers charted. In addition to go and post routes, Johnson ran in routes and slants more than 10 percent of the time last season.

Woodson entered each game bracing for these routes. But knowing what Johnson intends to do and stopping him from doing it are two entirely different things.

"You can't prepare for him," Woodson said. "There's nobody in your practice that's going to be like Calvin. ... When you play him, it's a very unique situation."

Adding another dimension

Johnson was used almost exclusively as an outside receiver at Georgia Tech. He was occasionally moved into the slot so defenses wouldn't double-team him on every play. Those slot assignments, though, were simplistic.

He was used in a similar fashion through his first five pro seasons, even after the Lions hired Scott Linehan as offensive coordinator and drafted Matthew Stafford as their quarterback of the future in 2009. By 2012, though, Johnson's role began to subtly shift. Linehan slowly increased Johnson's plays in the slot, and that expanded his perspective on the position.

"It was an area that was unknown to me," Johnson said. "When I finally got comfortable with it, and it was like maybe a year or two ago, I had all this space to work. You have to work within the confines of the offense, but at the same time, you're not working against the sideline like you are when you're an outside receiver. [On the outside], you only have two ways to go, deep or inside. So it's definitely a good thing for me."

Good for Johnson, but bad for opponents.

New Lions offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, who previously served as quarterbacks coach of the New Orleans Saints, is planning to move Johnson around a lot. While Johnson possesses different qualities than Marques Colston or Jimmy Graham, the level of positional movement seen with those players could approximate how Lombardi uses Johnson.

That includes in the slot, where Lombardi said Johnson may end up being used a quarter of the time.

"I don't think there's anything he can't do, so it's just the sky's the limit, the limits of what our imagination is to use him," Lombardi said. "I don't want a defense to be able to know where he is, so he's going to be in multiple spots."

The matchup implications for when Johnson runs out of the slot are obvious. If an opponent uses one cornerback to shadow him on every snap, it affects responsibilities for the rest of the secondary. If a team doesn't assign a particular cornerback to follow Johnson, he could end up with an even bigger mismatch.

"If you're not in the sub package [with three cornerbacks], then you've got a linebacker or safety on him. That's a no-brainer," Finnegan said. "When you've got a sub package, you've got your third corner who may not get as much playing time or maybe just comes in for that series covering the best wide receiver.

"That in itself is an advantage, just the fact that he's Calvin Johnson. But him on a third corner or a safety or a linebacker, that's an 'advantage Lions, advantage him' all day long."

Lombardi has said that Detroit's new offense will share a lot of similarities with the Saints' scheme. Add the fact that the Lions drafted tight end Eric Ebron and signed receiver Golden Tate, both of whom also have inside-outside flexibility, and it could lead to even more opportunities for Johnson.

"Teams are always going to want to be able to double-team him, you know. There's different ways teams can double-team him, and it changes when he's outside versus when he's inside," Lombardi said. "If he's always outside, then it's easy for a defense to say, 'OK, here's how we're handling him.' Now he moves inside, and it's like, 'Uh oh, now we've got to talk about this.'

"Maybe even one more spot inside and he's the No. 3 receiver. ... It just forces a defense to have to prepare more things, where it's not real stressful on us."

Another potential advantage for the Lions when they put Johnson in the slot is that teams might be less likely to blitz.

"If you're bringing any type of pressure, then the middle of the field is wide open," Woodson said. "He's a guy that you don't want being able to break across the middle and catching a pass across the middle and getting up the field."

'You've got to double him'

Game day arrives. Mental preparation is complete. What type of coverage is most effective against Johnson?

"You've got to double him," said Houston Texans safety Chris Clemons, who was part of a Clemson defense that held Johnson without a catch in 2006. "You've got one of the best receivers in the league. You can't do one-on-one coverage."

Said Buffalo Bills cornerback Leodis McKelvin, who faced Johnson in high school, college and the pros: "Some teams may use zone or whatever, but he finds creases in that too. So there's just different things you have to throw at him to keep his mind jumping from different coverages."

How teams do this differs.

Teams with a shutdown defender such as New England's Darrelle Revis or Arizona's Patrick Peterson might move that corner anywhere Johnson lines up on the field. While with the Jets in 2010, Revis had perhaps the best individual performance by an NFL corner against Johnson, holding him to one catch for 13 yards.

"I covered him most of the time in man coverage," Revis said, "and happened to just do a great job on him."

Some teams employ a straight double-team with a cornerback and safety. Others ensure that coverage on every play is shifted toward Johnson's side of the field. That guarantees the Lions will have someone in single coverage, but it's a risk opponents take to assure that Johnson isn't being defended one-on-one.

In addition to doubling Johnson, corners agree that it's necessary to bump him in an attempt to knock him off his routes, delay his timing and tire him out. However, making contact at the line of scrimmage is a high-risk maneuver. In Week 3 last season, Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall said his defensive backs coach, Raheem Morris, wanted him to take a shot at Johnson early to try to confuse him.

"Certain plays I could jump on him and certain plays I played off because I felt I could beat him in and out of some breaks," said Hall, a three-time Pro Bowler. "As a whole, he's just such a tough cover."