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Calvin Johnson broke NFL receiving record with broken fingers

Detroit Lions receiver Calvin Johnson catches a pass against the Atlanta Falcons.
(Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
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Calvin Johnson isn’t making any excuses for a 2012 season in which he scored his lowest number of touchdowns in three years or tied for the second-most dropped passes in the NFL.

Not that the Detroit Lions star has to anyway -- setting the all-time league record for receiving yards in a season (1,964) kind of makes up for the rest of that stuff.

But if he wanted to make an excuse, he’d have a pretty good one, because he apparently played last season with more than one broken finger.

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That’s right. Johnson told the Detroit Free Press that he was catching all those passes for all those yards while playing with an unspecified number of broken fingers, as well as other injuries to his foot, ankle, knee and head.

Calvin Johnson confirmed that he played with broken fingers last season. Said he’s been trying to straighten them out. No offseason surgery — Chris McCosky (@cmccosky) May 20, 2013

Johnson was spotted with a splint on one of his hands as early as last pre-season, according to the Free Press.

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The paper is also reporting that Johnson is now healthy, despite not having any off-season surgery on his fingers. He’s a bit vague about it all, saying only that he’s been “pretty much just getting them back straight, trying to straighten them things out.”

Although it’s tempting to say Megatron could have scored more touchdowns and not dropped as many passes -- and maybe even caught for even more yards -- with all of his digits intact, he’s not buying it.

“I don’t blame anything on it,” Johnson said of his finger injuries. “I don’t blame any drops or anything like that on it. It’s just part of the game and had a heck of a season with it and just fortunate to be in that position.”

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