Matthew Stafford, Golden Tate's Fantasy Outlook After Calvin Johnson's Injury

That sound you hear is an entire nation of fantasy football players gasping at the loss of their first-round pick. Oh, and possibly the entire population of Detroit ready to burn this mother down.   

Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson left Sunday's matchup against the Buffalo Bills in the third quarter, heading back to the locker room after seeming to reaggravate his lingering ankle injury. Johnson was injured making his only catch of the day, a seven-yard play over the middle. He did not return, as the Lions blew a two-touchdown lead in their 17-14 loss.

The severity of his injury is unknown at this point, which basically explains why said Detroit metro has not yet been been engulfed with flames and the blaze put out by hydrants filled with tears of distraught fantasy players.

Receptions	Yards	Targets	TD
1	7	1	0

Johnson has been dealing with the ankle injury for the past two weeks. He was limited to decoy work in last week's win over the New York Jets, catching two balls for just 12 yards. 

"It was tough (playing), but I figured from (Saturday's walkthrough), moving around, I'd be able to get on the field a little bit," Johnson told reporters, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. "It's good to be out there with the fellas. It sucks to sit on the sideline and not to play at all, and it sucks to have injuries, too, but that's just part of the game."

The good news here is that Johnson is one of the toughest football players on the planet. His career has been littered with injuries of the minor and semi-major variety, and each time Johnson grits his teeth and toughs it out.

This is a man who set an NFL record for receiving yards with three broken fingers, spent his entire 2013 campaign battling a knee issue and has spent more than 50 weeks of his career on the injury report.

There is no reason to panic. But let's do it anyway.

Rick Osentoski/Associated Press

Working under the worst possible assumption, there are a bunch of instant implications. The Lions, who have looked solid in their 3-1 start, are in a heap of trouble if Johnson misses extended time.

Their defense has improved to such a degree that we're due for a mean regression, and the Matthew Stafford-to-Calvin Johnson connection can atone for the occasional lapse. If we head into super-duper-serious territory, Detroit could fall off a cliff and into a 6-10 finish. 

The other implications—the ones you, Mr. I Just Opened a Fantasy Football Article, Please Stop Talking About the Regular Product—are much harder to project. 

Losing Johnson is obviously a crippling blow. He was a first-round pick in nearly every format, the most reliable source of consistency and excellence in football. He's an irreplaceable piece, a weekly fixture atop my wide receiver rankings. Even in "off" games, Johnson will produce enough to give him value. The uncertainty regarding his health has for two straight weeks ruined his outlook. 

Stafford, who was the fourth quarterback off the board and a third- or fourth-round pick in most leagues, instantly loses a ton of value. The former Georgia star is a high-variance player as is, and he's losing a target who bails him out on a good amount of 50-50 balls. Including, again, some of those deep plays last Monday. 

Completions	Attempts	Yards	TD	INT
18	31	221	1	1

Detroit scored 22 points in the two games Johnson missed last season, with Stafford combining for 459 yards and two touchdowns. He basically became Alex Smith. The only other game where Johnson has been absent and Stafford has played came in the latter's rookie season. He went 14-of-33 for 168 yards and an interception.

Even acknowledging that the rookie game shouldn't count—Stafford himself was coming off a month out of the lineup—it's safe to say he's not going to be the same quarterback. Would anyone take a Johnson-less Stafford over Tony Romo or Philip Rivers? Romo and Rivers went undervalued on draft day, but they nonetheless came off the board 13th and 14th respectively.

In a nutshell: Knock seven rounds off Stafford's draft value. That's about the guy you have now.

The only player who might benefit here is Golden Tate, and that's probably a stretch. Tate becomes Stafford's No. 1 option for as long as Johnson's absent, and he's really the Lions' only above-replacement-level option. No Detroit receiver other than Tate or Johnson had more than eight targets coming into this week.

Rick Osentoski/Associated Press

In one sense, that should mean more targets for Tate, who is already headed toward his best career fantasy season. He had 24 receptions for 317 yards before Sunday, making at least five receptions in each contest. Stafford had only thrown seven incompletions Tate's way. 

Receptions	Yards	Targets	TD
7	134	9	1

In the other sense, with a No. 1 wide receiver title comes with No. 1 wide receiver coverage. Rookie tight end Eric Ebron doesn't have the NFL bona fides to draw much attention—and his status in the Detroit hierarchy isn't settled quite yet either.

Tate is going to see double-teams or at the very least opposing teams' top corner on most possessions. Losing Johnson also means losing all of the free space to roam he provides in the middle of the field. Opponents are going to be bringing their safeties as step or two close to the line of scrimmage, and it's going to affect everything from Stafford's yardage totals to Reggie Bush and the ground game.

Nutshell time: Tate is a "winner" here simply because he doesn't lose value. But there really are no winners from a real-life or fantasy sense.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.