Well, the wheels have officially fallen off. The Bucs cut Keyshawn Johnson. Or more accurately, they told him to have the rest of the season off. (Interestingly enough, this is the second week in a row that a player named K. Johnson has been handed their walking papers. But anyway.) Due to some cap problems, they couldn’t cut him outright, though a offseason trade isn’t out of the question. My brother and I have always been big Keyshawn fans; he blocked better than some of the linemen on running plays and was always willing to run the dirty routes over the middle, the ones that make headhunting strong safties salivate. He always was willing to lay out for catches (a gigantic plus in our eyes, a reason to worship and idolize) and he brought a swagger to a normally subdued offense. He also however dropped too many easy balls, talked an incredible amount of smack disproportionate to his production on the field, dissed his head coach to the media and failed to get along with many of his teammates, including some of the more outspoken members of the defense.
The sad thing is, even after cutting their #1 reciever, the Bucs are still barely holding on to any playoff hope, and I’d be a fool not to acknowledge at this point only a miracle the likes of which the NFL world has never seen could propel my hometown team to a wildcard spot.
Sigh. 4-6. Makes you want to move to Kansas City. Or Indianapolis.
I think that cutting ties with Keyshawn will be a good thing for the Bucs (if a few other things happen) because he will become a sort of scapegoat for the losing season. In that respect the Bucs, especially Gruden can feel like the slate has been wiped clean, and they can go forth and win some games. Also, pulling on such a powerful string can help Gruden gain more control (via fear/respect?) over the rest of his team. For all this to happen successfully the Bucs really have to win the next two to three games.
This also caught my eye last night, and I wrote an entry about it in myblog, but I had a different slant to it. I feel like the media doesn’t particularly like Keyshawn any more than Gruden does (perhaps because he doesn’t do many interviews and causes hiccups when he does,) so every article I’ve read regarding this has pretty much roasted Key. The story has been painted into this sensationalized thing with Keyshawn causing problems, being a distraction, etc. when it could easily have been happening the way Johnson described it… simply a failed meeting of the minds between Johnson and Gruden. The only way I could hear what Johnson’s opinion is was by finding a video interview of him.
Left by David on November 19th, 2003