Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan isn’t losing any sleep preparing to face Lions receiver Calvin Johnson on Sunday, because Ryan says his defense practices against better receivers than Johnson every day.
“We work against better receivers with Miles Austin and Dez Bryant,” Ryan told the Dallas Morning News.
Between Ryan’s two and Cris Carter’s six, we’ve now identified at least eight NFL receivers who are better than Megatron. By the time Johnson’s critics get done, the league leader in touchdown catches will be out of the Top 10.
After saying Austin and Bryant are better, Ryan did offer that Johnson is “almost that good.” But Ryan isn’t too concerned about Johnson extending his streak of two-touchdown games to four in a row.
“We’re going to get after him,” Ryan said. “I know he’s on some touchdown thing like that, whatever. [Lions offensive coordinator] Scott Linehan has done this before with great receivers with Randy Moss. If the guy is as good as Randy Moss I’m going to go in there and hide. Thank God he’s not, but he’s a pretty [expletive] good player.”
Pretty [expletive] good. Just not good enough to be anything more than the No. 3 receiver if he played for the Cowboys, according to Ryan.