National Football League

Jerry Jones knows who can shut down Calvin Johnson

Published Oct. 29, 2013 7:30 p.m. ET

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After a 329-yard outburst on Sunday against Dallas, Calvin Johnson is well on his way to a third straight receiving-yards crown, and there’s a case to be made that Johnson, who just last year had the single most prolific pass-catching season in NFL history, simply can’t be covered.

But maybe that’s just because the one guy who could have covered him happened to play in the wrong era.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones appeared on KRLD in Dallas on Tuesday and made the substantial claim that Deion Sanders, in his prime, could have shut Johnson down.

“Deion has such catch-up speed and he had real good center-field ability, and I mean that in baseball terms, but in [a] football sense,” Jones said, at about the 14:00 mark of his appearance. “He could really play the ball, and he had such ability to get into position to play the ball.

“Now, you're talking about the greatest cover guy maybe that's played this game, and I've seen where he's been declared the greatest cover guy — Hall of Famer. But I do think he could do a real good job on Johnson. Johnson's going to get some probably, but I think he could do a great job. Deion's a great player.”

Indeed, Sanders is one of the best cover corners of all time, and if anyone could put the clamps on Johnson it might be him. But the man they call Megatron would have a distinct size advantage over Sanders, and that — as is the case with most corners — might have given Johnson the edge, had they ever met on the field.

As for Sanders, he didn’t comment about covering Johnson directly, but he certainly didn’t say that he couldn’t cover the Lions star.

Clearly, there’s only one way to settle this debate once and for all. I’ll go fire up the PS3, play a game of Madden pitting the All 25 team against the Lions and let you know how it goes.

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