By a show of hands, who thinks Dez Bryant and Miles Austin are better wide receivers than Calvin Johnson?
Well, regardless of what you think, Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan believes it to be true -- which is why he's not stressing as he prepares to stop the Lions' go-to guy Sunday.
"We work against better receivers with Miles Austin and Dez Bryant," Ryan said Friday, according to The Dallas Morning News (via ProFootballTalk.com).
By Ryan's assessment, that means Megatron wouldn't be any higher than the No. 3 receiver in Dallas. Anybody else agree with that? At least after saying Austin and Miles were better, Ryan had it in him to offer that Johnson is "almost that good."
Look, Ryan's confidence in his own guys is a great thing. But it's probably not smart to create bulletin-board material for Johnson, who leads the NFL in touchdown receptions (six) as he clicks with quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Speaking of Stafford, he's probably the guy Ryan should be worried about infuriating. Because if Stafford couldn't let go of Cris Carter's diss of Johnson, then we'd expect him to come out firing passes his friend's way in Dallas -- just to prove a point.
Could a fourth consecutive two-touchdown game be in the works for Megatron? Ryan isn't worried about it, but he might want to be.
"We're going to get after him," Ryan said. "I know he's on some touchdown thing like that, whatever. (Lions offensive coordinator) Scott Linehan has done this before with great receivers with Randy Moss. If the guy is as good as Randy Moss, I'm going to go in there and hide. Thank God he's not, but he's a pretty (expletive) good player."