It’s difficult to label a receiver who contends with double coverage on a weekly basis a ghost, though Calvin Johnson owners should certainly be horrified given the lack of production they’ve witnessed up to this point in the 2012 NFL season.

Johnson totaled 10 touchdown catches through the first seven weeks of the 2011 campaign, all in connection with quarterback Matthew Stafford. Looking ahead at a difficult Week 8 matchup against Seattle, the Megatron-Stafford threat has only amounted to a single touchdown, despite Detroit’s continuance of a pass-heavy scheme that has the team ranked first in the NFL in passing attempts per game.

Is it time to panic? Is the 2012 season simply another episode of “Nightmare on Brush Street” featuring the clichéd abuse of Lions fans? Be afraid … Be very afraid …

Detroit finished the 2011 season ranked fourth in the NFL in points per game and third in total passing touchdowns. Seven weeks into the 2012 season, the Lions are ranked 19th and 26th, respectively. To make matters worse, Matthew Stafford and company will be forced to host one of the strongest defenses in the league this Sunday at Ford Field. Surely, this is not the antidote that the Lions have been waiting for to mitigate such an offensive epidemic.

So it’s panic time, right?

Not after six games.

There may not be anything that Calvin Johnson can do to assuage the consternation of fantasy owners short of a breakout game this week, but his numbers have not fallen conspicuously. In fact, aside from a few counting statistics, they are identical to his 2011 numbers. He’s on pace for roughly the same number of yards and receptions as he tallied last season and is still in the top 10 in the NFL in total targets, despite having already missed a week due to an early bye.

After an embarrassing showing in Chicago on primetime television Monday night that featured the coronation of Bears’ defensive back Charles Tillman as an elite player at his position, Johnson will undoubtedly try to ignite the struggling Lions offense back into 2011 form. The schedule to end the season is anything but reassuring for fantasy owners, given that all of the remaining matchups for Detroit, with the exception of Jacksonville, include teams currently ranked in the top half of the NFL in passing defense — a tall task for any offense down the stretch.

Nothing is guaranteed if you decide to weather the storm and retain Calvin Johnson for a possible playoff run, but in fantasy football, patience is rewarded more often than it is punished.

A lot can change in one week. It was just a few weeks ago that the analysts of ESPN were reading the eulogy of Peyton Manning’s Hall of Fame career and singing the praises of the 49ers’ offense.

You don’t trade a player like Calvin Johnson after six games. The fact that the Lions offense looked stale and out of rhythm Monday night should not cause you to shop the most explosive wide-out in the game as if he were a Dutch colonial in Amityville, N.Y. If Stafford and Johnson can revive the chemistry that had their opponents’ secondaries trembling at times last season, there may just be a ghost sighting at Ford Field this Sunday.