ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- When Detroit took the field against Atlanta late in the 2012 season, Calvin Johnson was still a couple hundred yards away from making history.
Didn’t matter. His wide receivers coach at the time, Shawn Jefferson, went up to Johnson and told him that day -- Dec. 22, 2012 -- would be the day he would pass Jerry Rice and set the single-season receiving yards record.
“After the first drive, he said, ‘We’re going to get that this game, you know that, right,’ “ Johnson said Sunday. “I just shrugged it off, but he believed it.