USC wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson starts talking and suddenly it seems as if you’re watching reruns of the Arsenio Hall Show.
Johnson is a smooth talker, but that’s not the link. It’s his hands, featuring these long, sinewy fingers.
With hands like that, it’s a wonder how Johnson could drop anything. That’s ironic because about the only knock on Johnson is that he has muffed a few too many.
“I once palmed, what was it? It was real slick?” Johnson said when asked about any tricks he could do with his grip. “Oh yeah, it was a helmet. The equipment guy told me that was something only offensive linemen ever did.”
As the NFL Draft approaches this weekend, Johnson again figures to stand out. In a year when the crop of talented receivers is extremely deep – the deepest position in the draft – Johnson is clearly the best.
Perhaps good enough to go No. 1 overall. That would make Johnson only the second wide receiver to be the top pick since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. Irving Fryar was the first in 1984, but that was the same year that the NFL was competing with the U.S. Football League for players and Mike Rozier was already gone.
Johnson could end up No. 1 on his merits alone.
“That’s the stuff you dream about,” said Johnson, who caught 90 passes for 1,218 yards and six touchdowns last season. He added another 12 catches for 216 yards and a touchdown in the Rose Bowl.
Aside from the numbers, Johnson is a prototype big receiver at 6 feet 3, 217 pounds. He is a smooth athlete who knows how to get open and is physical in traffic.
“It’s kind of startling,” Jets personnel director Dick Haley said. “You see this big receiver and you know that everyone on the defense sees him, yet he still gets open. I mean really open.”
Still, plenty of scouts and coaches are hesitant to take any receiver with the top pick. Jerry Rice and Herman Moore notwithstanding, the position is not considered that important.
“I think there are some good reasons why you wouldn’t want to take a flanker with the No. 1 pick,” said Tom Braatz, Dolphins director of college scouting. “Especially this year.”
The reason are that wide receivers just don’t have the same impact other players do. A great running back, for instance, touches the ball 400 times in season. A great receiver may catch 100 passes.
Moreover, Johnson will almost surely be good. But how much better will he be than a receiver who is available in the second round, such as Derrick Mayes of Notre Dame?
Put it this way: If you were running the draft for the New York Jets, who have the No. 1 and No. 31 picks overall, would you rather have Lawrence Phillips and Mayes or Johnson and Stephen Davis of Auburn? That’s the kind of scenario the Jets face.
Then again, Johnson could be the second coming of Jerry Rice or Michael Irvin, a game-breaking receiver and not just a guy who piles up stats. Johnson has often been compared to Irvin.
“It’s not so much that I emulate him,” Johnson said. “I study film from the best of the crop that play professional football. Whether it’s Michael or Jerry, Sterling [Sharpe), Herman Moore – any guy who’s having success.”
Until a month ago, it was believed that the Jets were a lock to take Johnson. They may still, preferring to sidestep the controversy surrounding Phillips.
Not that Johnson is the model citizen, either, but at least his problems are well in the past. In eighth grade, Johnson spent nine months in the California youth prison systems for possession of a weapon and drugs.
Now, however, Johnson is a lot closer to playing the Arsenio role than having to explain his way out of a nasty predicament. At the scouting combine in February, Johnson entertained writers for hours, even coming back to do extra interviews. During the NFL playoffs, Johnson also spent time at the Fox studios, trying to learn about a business he hopes to get into someday.
Right now, it’s all at his fingertips.
