Kerryon Johnson feels lucky to play a game for a living

[Roary]

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A year after he was drafted, Lions running back Kerryon Johnson hasn’t lost his sense of wonder that he gets to do what he’s wanted to do since he was a little boy.

Johnson, who led the Lions in rushing as a rookie last year, was asked if his rookie season felt long and said that doing something else for a living would feel a lot longer.

“I get to come to work in sweatpants and shirts,” Johnson said. “I get to go out and play a game that I’ve been playing since I’ve been 5 years old. I get to go home, and I get to come back and do it all again. I don’t have to sit in a cubicle. I don’t got to do no spreadsheets, no nothing. I like to have fun with this, and it’s long, like I said before, but you chop it into itty-bitty pieces. Hey, five weeks here, five weeks here, four weeks here and progress that way, and before you know it, you’re in the offseason and like, dang, Year Two is starting.”

Johnson is hoping to have as much fun in Year Two as he did in Year One.