Detroit Lions legend Calvin Johnson has a major financial regret during his NFL career
Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports
The Detroit Lions are great and NFL Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson has one major regret during his playing days, and that is loaning money to certain people close to him.
Calvin Johnson is one of the NFL’s greatest wide receivers of the season. If a football fan created a player in the latest Madden video game, that player might very well look like Johnson. At 6-foot-5 and over 230 pounds, he had the prototypical build of the perfect receiver. But he was also fast, strong, could do great tricks and had exceptional hands.
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There was very little Johnson couldn’t do in his nine-year career. Despite playing his entire career for the Detroit Lions — a franchise long known for its ineffectiveness at winning — the 36-year-old still won six Pro Bowls and earned All-Pro honors three times.
Detroit Lions great Calvin Johnson says loaning money ruined several close relationships
However, as good as he is at catching passes in the NFL, he has made several key mistakes during his time as a professional football player. One such mistake he spoke about during a recent appearance on the finance-focused show “In Depth with Graham Bensinger.” While speaking with the host, Johnson admitted that one of his biggest mistakes in life was finding out the hard way that lending money to close friends and family often ends up being much more harmful than ‘useful.
- Calvin Johnson net worth: $45 million
“You lend money and you think you’re going to get it back, especially [from] close to you, but I would tell everyone now that if you lend money to a friend or relative, just know that you won’t get it back. I lent a lot of money to people and grew. I’m just like, ‘OK, I know I’m not going to get it back.’ It’s cool with me now, but what it does is it degrades relationships. The money you can always get back, but the relationships you have to cherish. … Money can easily ruin a relationship.
Calvin Johnson on financial regrets [h/t Yahoo sports]
During his career, Johnson has earned over $100 million. Luckily for him, those loans gone bad didn’t affect his long-term finances, and he reportedly has a current net worth of $45 million (via Celebrity Net Worth).
