Post by MizzouTiger on Feb 19, 2008 15:05:29 GMT -5
sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AonPOa92.SukFOO44J6i_wRDubYF?slug=ms-keyshawnreturn021907&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Keyshawn mulling return to field
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
February 18, 2008
Keyshawn Johnson has a job that most of his former NFL peers envy. The veteran wideout made a smooth segue from the football field to the broadcast booth, and now he gets paid a hefty salary to talk about the game on ESPN.
There's just one catch: After spending a season watching many receivers he believes aren't as good as he was, Johnson is strongly considering a comeback.
"I like challenges," Johnson told Yahoo! Sports on Monday. "The challenge of helping to turn a team around, to help get it to the next level, that gets my competitive fires burning. I have the itch, and right now I'm trying to decide how strong that itch is."
Whether those feelings will compel Johnson, who'll turn 36 in July, to return to the league will likely depend on the way in which potential employers perceive his current value. A three-time Pro Bowl selection with 10,571 career receiving yards, Johnson says he'll decide in the next few days whether to pursue a return to the playing field.
After catching 70 passes for 815 yards in 2006 with the Carolina Panthers, his fourth team in 11 NFL seasons, Johnson was released and attracted interest from several suitors, most notably the Tennessee Titans. In May, he turned down a two-year contract offer worth nearly $8 million from the Titans, instead signing a lucrative, four-year deal with ESPN.
Though Johnson declined to get into monetary specifics Monday, it is not likely that his asking price has come down. Yet the amount of cash he is likely to seek from an NFL team might not be realistic for someone in his situation.
"We wouldn't pay him that much," says Dallas Cowboys president Stephen Jones, who has maintained a good relationship with Johnson since he was released by the Cowboys following the 2005 season. "We have a player who is kind of like him in Patrick Crayton, and age is an issue. Plus, he's been out of football for a year, and it's not like (he got faster). Mother Nature doesn't work that way."
Another person who has final say over his team's roster expressed a similar sentiment, saying, "He's a very good player, but if anything, his value has gone down a little. He wasn't super fast to begin with, now he has been away for a year."
Johnson has been working out regularly since January and scoffs at the notion that his skills have diminished. It's true that many NFL talent evaluators cite Johnson's blocking ability, willingness to battle defenders on the backside during running plays and ability to make the tough catches on third down and in the red zone as assets that transcend his statistical value. He believes that he would also provide leadership and the ability to mentor young receivers.
When he talks about "helping to turn a team around," it's hard not to think about the Miami Dolphins. New Dolphins vice president of football operations Bill Parcells has remained close with Johnson, whom he coached in Dallas and New York (with the Jets, who made Johnson the No. 1 overall pick out of USC in 1996), and the two spent last season together appearing on ESPN's Sunday and Monday night pregame studio shows. The two men speak frequently, though Johnson says they have not discussed his possible signing with the Dolphins in anything but an abstract sense.
Parcells, through a Dolphins spokesman, declined to comment on Johnson's potential return.
Other potential suitors could include the Titans and Oakland Raiders, each of whom expressed serious interest in Johnson last spring; the Redskins, who under owner Daniel Snyder have a history of shelling out cash for big-name veterans; the Buccaneers, who inquired about signing Johnson to a bargain-basement deal toward the end of the '07 regular season; and the Patriots, who reportedly will pass on picking up a $6 million option bonus for wideout Donte' Stallworth (thus making him a free agent). Johnson is close with Patriots coach Bill Belichick, though it is unlikely New England would covet Johnson at the numbers he believes he's worth.
The Bucs scenario is especially intriguing, given that Johnson was deactivated (and essentially banished) for the final six games of the '03 regular season after he feuded with coach Jon Gruden, for whom he won a Super Bowl the previous year. Yet Johnson, traded by Tampa Bay to the Cowboys for Joey Galloway in March '04, gave serious consideration to the Bucs' offer last December and says he absolutely is not averse to playing for Gruden again.
As athletes-turned-commentators go, Johnson has a pretty sweet situation with ESPN and its parent company, Disney. Like Tiki Barber's deal with NBC, which includes a part-time role for the ex-New York Giants halfback on the "The Today Show," Johnson's pact includes potential for crossover appearances on programs like ABC's "Dancing With Stars." On Monday he filled in for Jim Rome as a guest host on ESPN's "Rome is Burning."
Keyshawn mulling return to field
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
February 18, 2008
Keyshawn Johnson has a job that most of his former NFL peers envy. The veteran wideout made a smooth segue from the football field to the broadcast booth, and now he gets paid a hefty salary to talk about the game on ESPN.
There's just one catch: After spending a season watching many receivers he believes aren't as good as he was, Johnson is strongly considering a comeback.
"I like challenges," Johnson told Yahoo! Sports on Monday. "The challenge of helping to turn a team around, to help get it to the next level, that gets my competitive fires burning. I have the itch, and right now I'm trying to decide how strong that itch is."
Whether those feelings will compel Johnson, who'll turn 36 in July, to return to the league will likely depend on the way in which potential employers perceive his current value. A three-time Pro Bowl selection with 10,571 career receiving yards, Johnson says he'll decide in the next few days whether to pursue a return to the playing field.
After catching 70 passes for 815 yards in 2006 with the Carolina Panthers, his fourth team in 11 NFL seasons, Johnson was released and attracted interest from several suitors, most notably the Tennessee Titans. In May, he turned down a two-year contract offer worth nearly $8 million from the Titans, instead signing a lucrative, four-year deal with ESPN.
Though Johnson declined to get into monetary specifics Monday, it is not likely that his asking price has come down. Yet the amount of cash he is likely to seek from an NFL team might not be realistic for someone in his situation.
"We wouldn't pay him that much," says Dallas Cowboys president Stephen Jones, who has maintained a good relationship with Johnson since he was released by the Cowboys following the 2005 season. "We have a player who is kind of like him in Patrick Crayton, and age is an issue. Plus, he's been out of football for a year, and it's not like (he got faster). Mother Nature doesn't work that way."
Another person who has final say over his team's roster expressed a similar sentiment, saying, "He's a very good player, but if anything, his value has gone down a little. He wasn't super fast to begin with, now he has been away for a year."
Johnson has been working out regularly since January and scoffs at the notion that his skills have diminished. It's true that many NFL talent evaluators cite Johnson's blocking ability, willingness to battle defenders on the backside during running plays and ability to make the tough catches on third down and in the red zone as assets that transcend his statistical value. He believes that he would also provide leadership and the ability to mentor young receivers.
When he talks about "helping to turn a team around," it's hard not to think about the Miami Dolphins. New Dolphins vice president of football operations Bill Parcells has remained close with Johnson, whom he coached in Dallas and New York (with the Jets, who made Johnson the No. 1 overall pick out of USC in 1996), and the two spent last season together appearing on ESPN's Sunday and Monday night pregame studio shows. The two men speak frequently, though Johnson says they have not discussed his possible signing with the Dolphins in anything but an abstract sense.
Parcells, through a Dolphins spokesman, declined to comment on Johnson's potential return.
Other potential suitors could include the Titans and Oakland Raiders, each of whom expressed serious interest in Johnson last spring; the Redskins, who under owner Daniel Snyder have a history of shelling out cash for big-name veterans; the Buccaneers, who inquired about signing Johnson to a bargain-basement deal toward the end of the '07 regular season; and the Patriots, who reportedly will pass on picking up a $6 million option bonus for wideout Donte' Stallworth (thus making him a free agent). Johnson is close with Patriots coach Bill Belichick, though it is unlikely New England would covet Johnson at the numbers he believes he's worth.
The Bucs scenario is especially intriguing, given that Johnson was deactivated (and essentially banished) for the final six games of the '03 regular season after he feuded with coach Jon Gruden, for whom he won a Super Bowl the previous year. Yet Johnson, traded by Tampa Bay to the Cowboys for Joey Galloway in March '04, gave serious consideration to the Bucs' offer last December and says he absolutely is not averse to playing for Gruden again.
As athletes-turned-commentators go, Johnson has a pretty sweet situation with ESPN and its parent company, Disney. Like Tiki Barber's deal with NBC, which includes a part-time role for the ex-New York Giants halfback on the "The Today Show," Johnson's pact includes potential for crossover appearances on programs like ABC's "Dancing With Stars." On Monday he filled in for Jim Rome as a guest host on ESPN's "Rome is Burning."