Over 69,000 fans piled into Lincoln Financial Field on December 8, 2013, and witnessed one of the most remarkable football games played in recent memory: the Snow Bowl. But the most truly miraculous moment of the weekend occurred around 15 minutes away — unless it's a blizzard, which would make the commute much longer — outside of Philadelphia International Airport. It didn't seem like much of a miracle at first, but it ultimately turned into one that Lions star wide receiver Calvin Johnson would never, ever forget.
Johnson, recently inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, joined "In Depth with Graham Bensinger" and shared the story of what happened outside the airport that week.
"We played up there in Philadelphia. She slips on some ice going into the airport and fell and hit her back," Johnson recalled. "In the process of getting checked out, they noticed some abnormalities and found out she had pancreatic cancer during the process."
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Like anyone would be, Johnson and his family were gutted.
"You know, you hear pancreatic cancer's like a death sentence... everything just drops," Johnson said. "You might not know much about cancer, but if you know anything about cancer, pancreatic is not the one you want to get. We found out, it was a blow.
"I mean, shoot, my dad had a quadruple bypass when I first got into the league, so I could easily be without both parents right now. So it's a straight blessing."
Johnson explained that because the doctors at Johns Hopkins found the tumor early — ironically, thanks to her slip and fill in Philadelphia — they were able to perform a Whipple procedure. Nearly eight years later, she's still with us. The experience opened Johnson's eyes to just how important it is to value every little moment that he's able to spend with his family, a lesson that won't ever escape him.
His whole experience in Philly was an eventful one, and though the fall his mother suffered turned into an unlikely miracle, he had no way to turn some of his interactions with the Philadelphia fans into a positive. The specific incident he then recalled was his first career injury, which occurred in Philly years earlier, and how he was treated after the fact.
"We were playing the Eagles, probably first half of the season, early in the season, and I had the safety and the corner on me. I'm in the middle of them, I go up... I hit the ground, and I'm laying there, and I'm literally like, 'I can't feel my legs,'" Johnson told Bensinger. "So I immediately started to tear up and I'm like, 'oh s***, I can't feel anything.'
"...I get off to the side and they bring the cart over, ride off the field, and this is why I hate Philadelphia fans, man. I was getting carted off the field and they were throwing s*** and booing. I was like, 'y'all motherf*****s don't even know, I can't even feel my legs! Y'all some ass*****.'"
He finished with two catches for 58 yards in that effort, and had a similar stat line (three receptions for 52 yards) in the Snow Bowl. Perhaps both of those traumatizing away games propelled him in future matchups, however, as he went for 135 yards on six catches the next time he was in Philly, and turned up the dial for a three-TD game in 2015 when the Eagles came to Detroit in his final season.
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