Where Have You Gone, Keyshawn?

Where Have You Gone, Keyshawn?
By Adam Greene 10/05/2005

Sometime early Tuesday morning my thoughts turned, as they often do, to The Beastmaster’s Marc Singer, and what must be his intense and fiery hatred of Russell Crowe. It isn’t because Crowe is more famous than Marc, more talented, or even that he got to bang Meg Ryan before she paid a plastic surgeon to replace her mouth with a dolphin vagina. No, I’m pretty sure that Marc Singer is okay with all of that.

Marc Singer hates Russell Crowe because of Gladiator. More specifically, because TNT and TBS now show Gladiator four to seventy-two times a month in time slots which, before Crowe’s Maximus stabbed and gutted his way into our nation’s Atkins-enlarged hearts, were reserved, as Dennis Miller once told us, for a healthy dose of Singer’s patented method of mastering beasts.

Thirty-four or so showings of Beastmaster a month was the difference between Marc enjoying the 2/3 pound bacon cheeseburger combo with curly fries at Hardees and finding out how many packages of Ramen noodles he can fit into a grocery hand-basket. Singer now knows that the answer is twenty-six packages of beef flavored noodles. And it’s all Russell Crowe’s fault.

That’s why, at this very moment, Singer sits outside Russell Crowe’s palatial estate in a rusted Camaro with a ferret in each hand, mentally commanding them to swim up through Crowe’s sewer line and into his toilet to attack Russell when he is at his most vulnerable.

What does all this have to do with Keyshawn Johnson? Well, I’m pretty sure he’s doing the same thing right now to Terrell Owens, minus the fanny pack of ferrets and the Chicken ‘n Herb Ramen noodle breath.

See, Keyshawn has never been a better football player than he is right now, which is to say that he has always sucked. Achingly slow, with a hideously cumbersome running style, I spent the first three years of Keyshawn’s career sure that he was white. What Keyshawn had, at a time when no one else did, was a flair for outrageous stupidity. In that respect, for a few wonderful years, Keyshawn was in a class all by himself.

Keyshawn, I firmly believe, has always known how terrible he is. So he made up for his lack of speed and pass-catching ability by becoming the biggest prick possible. In this, he was a master. Keyshawn employed a power of magical illusion so magnificent and diabolical that the only person on Earth who could possibly hope to match him is Criss Angel, TV’s Mindfreak. And even then, Criss would have to make some hot chick sign a quarter, swallow it, and kill a pigeon flying overhead by blasting the coin out of his asshole.

Then maybe…just maybe he could match the trick Keyshawn pulled on the NFL when he fooled the New York Jets into drafting him number one in 1996 ahead of Marvin Harrison, Eric Moulds, Muhsin Muhammad, Joe Horn and the aforementioned Terrell Owens. Wow. You know, I still can’t believe it. It’s like Keyshawn was some sort of fantastic middle-finger wielding Jedi or something. Phenomenal.

Planning ahead for his rookie season to blow dog, Keyshawn had conned his way into a book deal that would make him infamous forever…and buy him a few more years of undeserved hype as he giggled and ran, albeit very slowly, all the way to the bank.

Titled Just Give Me the Damn Ball, Keyshawn’s book was a scandalous hit at the time of its release (even though now it can be bought out of the bargain bin at Barnes and Noble with expired Arby’s coupons). Johnson uses the book to blast his Jets teammates, coaches and team management in an effort to blame them for his almost unearthly ability to suck at football.

Flipping through the book, I was surprised to find that Keyshawn apparently intersperses it with rare little comedic gems like the imaginary story he tells on page 20 where, in a pre-draft work out, he pretends he ran a 4.41 40 yard dash. Hilarious. Luckily I wasn’t drinking a steaming hot beverage at the time or, needless to say, I could have experienced some nasty burns from my ensuing spit-take.

Just Give Me the Damn Ball worked, mostly because Neil O’Donnell, Keyshawn’s rookie year quarter back’s follow-up book, I Would If You Could Actually Get Open, Dumbass, was lost forever when he accidentally downloaded a computer virus from Napster while trying to complete his Jackyl bootleg collection. A tragic loss for all involved.

His secret now safe, Keyshawn managed to suck for a few more years without anyone noticing… mainly because the only other decent wide receiver on the Jets roster, Wayne Chrebet, had to leave for a good portion of Johnson’s early career to join a fellowship of humans, elves and dwarves who were high tailing it to Mordor in order to destroy a magic ring that his uncle gave him at some sort of going away party.

Then, something new started happening. NFL wide receivers with actual talent and ability began acting like total bastards. Guys that could actually catch the ball, run fast, and score touchdowns were being complete jackasses. They were signing footballs after TDs with Sharpies, making cell phone calls, pretending to moon fans of opposing teams… it was total bedlam. Shenanigans reigned supreme. Tomfoolery was afoot in endzones and sidelines all over the country. Keyshawn was being out-punked by guys that could actually play. Where the hell did they get off?

By the time Keyshawn’s own cousin, Chad Johnson, scored a TD and whipped out a homemade sign in celebration, there was only one thing a player of Keyshawn’s incredibly low caliber could do; call his coach bad names until he was suspended for the rest of the season. Now Key could sit behind a desk at the Fox Pre-Game show and pretend he was an elite football player without actually playing football. He could also be relatively sure (considering that the average age of the Fox pre-game team was 74) that, if he stretched thoroughly beforehand and wore the right kind of shoes, there was a good chance he could beat at least three of the hosts in a footrace to the Frito Lay vending machine.

It was almost the perfect plan. Almost. Key’s dilemma was that he would eventually have to dupe someone into paying him to play again. And who better than Bill Parcells? The guy who thought enough of Keyshawn in New York to let him play opposite a Hobbit for three years. Johnson was promptly traded in the 2004 off-season to the Cowboys, and the rest is history. For real, it’s history. Because, for Keyshawn Johnson, the worst has happened; he’s disappeared.

Much to Keyshawn’s chagrin, players like Joe Horn, Randy Moss and his cousin Chad continue to be utter pit stains. Not only that, but Terrell Owens, who is probably the best wide receiver in the NFL right now, has taken his douche bag-gery to an unheard of level. This is why Keyshawn Johnson hates him the most.

I see them, in my mind’s eye, passing each other driving to their destinations. Marc Singer in his yellow 1987 Camaro Z28, Keyshawn in his ’99 BMW. They nod at each other knowingly, sensing a kinship few men can ever know. Legally, I guess you could say that they’re stalkers, but it’s not like that. It’s something more. Russell Crowe has taken something away from Marc Singer, his ability to buy milk with a good expiration date. But Terrell Owens has taken much more from Keyshawn Johnson. He’s taken Key’s very existence. Keyshawn is invisible now. When he takes the field wearing number 19, half the crowd thinks he’s the team punter. Unlike the Beastmaster, Keyshawn has no ferrets to mentally command. He has only the poorly honed tools of his trade; the heart that has always been three sizes too small, the hands that could barely catch a cold, and the slow, tortoise-like feet that have always failed him.