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Are stars colliding in Tampa Bay?
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Even while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a bye last week, they were hardly
quiet. At the very least, there were more rumblings inside the locker room.
Warren Sapp seemed to keep hammering away at Keyshawn Johnson, who in turn
warned everyone listening to not "buy into Warren Sapp talking about Keyshawn."
|  | | Keyshawn Johnson says the media is trying to pit him against Warren Sapp. |
In layman's terms, Johnson meant that the whole thing is being blown out
of proportion. I was leery. Sapp has been pretty relentless about his
criticism of Johnson getting with the program. It certainly has had the
appearance of two stars in a head-on collision that could seemingly rip apart
this Super Bowl contender.
I wondered whether Bucs coach Tony Dungy, whose team has lost three
straight games going into Thursday night's crucial matchup with the Detroit
Lions, spent some of his bye week mediating a truce between Johnson and Sapp.
"Not at all," said Dungy. "It has been overblown when you really look at comments, the substance of them, and when they were made. A lot of it is old news. Everything is OK. I don't have to deal with it."
Really?
"Look, those two guys go out to dinner more times than I go out with my
wife," Dungy said. "Warren lives two doors down from me, and Keyshawn's car is
there all the time."
If Dungy weren't such a man of class and integrity, I swear he was almost
ready to laugh at me (not that it would make him any less of a man of class
and integrity).
Johnson and Sapp, good buddies? Come on. Monday, I inquired of Johnson
whether this was true.
"Let me put it this way -- today, me and Sapp were in the locker room,
laughing about it all," Johnson said. "We were having a good time. I told him
that if it wasn't for (Mike) Alstott fumbling in the Jets game, he (Sapp)
wouldn't be riding me so hard. Then we all just jumped on Mike in the locker
room, joking with him, telling him it was his fault. We all had a good laugh,
and a bunch of us are going out tonight."
Johnson said there has never been a personal confrontation between the
two men, except, "The only thing I tell Warren is that as soon as you spit
'Keyshawn' out of your mouth, it causes too much trouble. People are waiting
for a controversy."
Johnson believes that other forces have been at work since he first
joined the team with a seven-year, $53 million contract.
"Right from the start, you had this anonymous source in a gossip column
saying that this was Sapp's team and he needed to get his money, or there'd
be trouble," noted Johnson. "Where do you think that came from?"
Well, most of the words this season have come straight from Sapp's mouth. Prior to the Bucs-Vikings game on Monday Night Football last week, Sapp said that Johnson had to "buy into what we're doing. Take off the green. Take off the
Jets' hat. Leave all of that alone. You're a Buccaneer, put on your pewter and
red, and let's go out and perform."
Johnson wouldn't take the bait. He said, "They (the media) want to drive
a stake between this team."
Now it seems that Johnson at least handed the stake to reporters during
the week of the Bucs-Jets game when he referred to Wayne Chrebet as a
"flashlight."
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I didn't help the situation by fumbling against the Vikings. ... I know what happens with high expectations because I went through that with Parcells. I know the pressure that comes with it, and I can deal with it. ” |
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— Keyshawn Johnson |
"If you really go back and look at everything I've said, I have said
nothing, except the one thing about Chrebet," Johnson said. "I have never
said, 'We're going to beat the Jets, we're going to beat the Redskins, we're going to beat the Vikings' -- none of that kind of (bulletin board) material. I'm doing nothing different than I did with Bill Parcells."
Ah, as Keyshawn noted, "The difference is that we came out on top in New
York, and we happened to lose these games here, and so I have become a
whipping boy for Sterling Sharpe, Mike Ditka and Dennis Miller on the
national TV shows."
Does that hurt?
"No, man, I can deal with that stuff. I didn't help the situation by
fumbling against the Vikings on that first play," Johnson said. "People have
been waiting three, four years, to attack me out of frustration about the
book I did my rookie year. I gave them an opening.
"I know the consequences. I know what happens with high expectations because I went through that with Parcells. I know the pressure that comes with it, and I can deal with it. I
think our own guys here are starting to understand what happens when there
are such high expectations."
The main contention Sapp seems to have with Johnson concerns his "give me
the damn ball" stance. However, it should be noted that Johnson did not
express himself when the Bucs were 3-0, only when they started losing.
Parcells understood this personality -- this burning desire to win, this
insatiable appetite to perform. Dungy understands it, too, and never
hesitated when the Jets' price tag was two first-round picks while Johnson's
contract demands were in excess of $50 million.
"I know what Keyshawn is about," the Bucs coach said. "In fact, Bill and
I had a long discussion about it when were making the trade. There have been no surprises."
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