Ray Mickens “raps” with Keyshawn Johnson often. Close friends since they came into the league together with the Jets in 1996, they spoke as recently as Tuesday, the day Johnson was blackballed by the Buccaneers, essentially ending his four-year run in Tampa.
The question on everyone’s mind now, of course, is this: What’s next for the loquacious wide receiver?
“Trust me, he would love to play here,” Mickens said yesterday. “Believe me on that. He loves being here in New York with the big market. This is his type of gig here. He would love to come back here.”
Jets players who played with Johnson before he was unceremoniously traded to the Buccaneers for two first-round draft picks before the 2000 season were unanimous in their support for a Johnson return to their locker room should he become a free agent.
“I’ll go to war with him again anytime,” Curtis Martin said.
“Yeah, for sure we’d welcome him back; a player like that will help any team and he would definitely be a help to us,” Jets’ NT Jason Ferguson said.
“No question we’d love to have him back, but I don’t know if we’re going to be able to afford him,” Mickens said. “Any team would love to have a player like him.”
The 31-year-old Johnson, as reported earlier this year in The Post, had reached out to Herman Edwards and inquired about the possibility of reuniting with the Jets and Edwards, who was a Buccaneers’ assistant coach in Johnson’s first season at Tampa Bay and become close with him.
So it’s readily apparent that Johnson has methodically orchestrated his ouster in Tampa, forcing the Buccaneers’ hand in this latest internal implosion and getting himself one step closer to being either released (most likely) or traded (unlikely).
Edwards, cautious of the NFL’s strict tampering rules, had to choose his words judiciously when asked about Johnson yesterday, and he sounded most upset about the effect the public blowup will have on the league.
When asked if Johnson was a player he’d like coaching, Edwards said, “Can’t talk about it. He’s under contract.”
Asked how his relationship was with Johnson, Edwards twice said, “Very good.”
Edwards said he addressed the Johnson issue with the team in the weekly Wednesday morning meeting, saying, “I’m a little disappointed that it has to come to this in our league. It stains our league a little bit when things of this nature pop up. I’m not saying who is right or wrong. I don’t know who is right or who is wrong. I don’t know the situation.
“It’s senseless, because they [Bucs’ coach Jon Gruden and Johnson] are both competitive people and both want to win. I hate for it to have come to this. We’re trying to beat Jacksonville [Sunday at Giants Stadium], and I’m talking about what happened in Tampa. To me, that’s a distraction.”
The Johnson issue was certainly on a number of players’ minds yesterday.
Mickens, for example, found himself daydreaming about Johnson playing opposite of Santana Moss, saying, “You’re talking about fantasies now, really.”
Mickens, knowing Johnson’s state of mind after having spoken to him, said he was “not surprised” to see Tuesday’s blockbuster.
“He’s just frustrated he’s not more involved,” Mickens said. “That’s the main thing. A guy his caliber wants to be involved.”
Mickens, Martin and the rest of the Jets who played with Johnson were upset to see him traded in the first place.
“He won a lot of games for us in ’98,” Ferguson said. “He’s a competitive player. I don’t know what went on down there, but we know Keyshawn is a good player on the field. He just wanted to win. He always hated to lose. That’s the type of guy you want around.”
Here’s how Keyshawn Johnson and his teams have fared since he was drafted No. 1 by the Jets in 1996:
Yr. Team Record Catches
1996 Jets 1-15 63
1997 Jets 9-7 70
x 1998 Jets 12-4 83
1999 Jets 8-8 89
2000 Bucs 10-6 71
2001 Bucs 9-7 106
x- 2002 Bucs 12-4 76
2003 Bucs 4-6 45
x- Reached AFC title game
y- won Super Bowl
