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Jets WR
Wayne Chrebet
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I say the numbers are all wrong.
Officially, Jets WR Wayne Chrebet is listed at 5-10, 188 pounds. I don’t accept
this as fact.
Maybe I need to get a new pair of glasses, because whenever I see Chrebet, I see a
player who is 10 feet tall, 300 pounds and runs the 40-yard dash in 4.1 seconds.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. And if you ask me, the results this
season prove me right. Ten weeks into the 2000 campaign, Chrebet is nothing short of a
football superhero. Consistently this season, Chrebet has ridden in like the cavalry to
save the day.
In Week Two, the Jets trailed the Patriots 19-7 in the fourth quarter before two
Chrebet TD catches gave his club a 20-19 win.
In Week Four, Chrebet caught an 18-yard TD pass with 52 seconds left to give the Jets a
21-17 victory over the Buccaneers. In so doing, Chrebet showed up and shut up Buccaneers
WR Keyshawn Johnson.
In Week Eight against the Dolphins, Chrebet played a huge role as the Jets overcame a
30-7 deficit in the fourth quarter of a game they would win 40-37 in overtime. Naturally,
it was Chrebet who made a diving 24-yard TD catch to tie the game at 30. Naturally, it was
Chrebet whose 28-yard reception set up the game-winning field goal.
If I had to pick the most memorable play of this season in the entire NFL, it would
have to be Chrebet’s game-winning grab to beat the Buccaneers and silence Johnson.
I’ve always been a big supporter of Johnson. He was truly a joy to watch and a blast
to listen to during his days with the Jets. That said, he completely embarrassed himself
with all the barbs he threw Chrebet’s way earlier in the year.
First of all, Johnson’s comments were completely misguided. The disrespect he
showed Chrebet’s game showed a lack of appreciation for a performer who has answered
every challenge in his career.
Secondly, it’s always a mistake to tug on Superman’s cape. Oops, wrong
superhero. We’ll get to that in a bit.
What Johnson, and anyone else who had doubts whether Chrebet could elevate himself to
No. 1 WR status after Johnson was traded to Tampa Bay, failed to realize is that Chrebet
is someone you should never sell short. You see a 5-10 smurf; I see a 10-foot giant.
Indeed, Chrebet has been 10 feet tall in my eyes from the very beginning of his pro
career. There was just something about him that caught my eye very quickly after he made
the Jets as an undrafted rookie out of Hofstra. I interviewed him after that rookie
season, and it was obvious to me then and there that this was a guy who would keep fooling
the experts whose poor vision told them that Chrebet was a mere 5-10, 188 pounds.
Back then, Chrebet and I spoke about the draft in which his name was never called and
how the final rounds felt as though they were moving in slow motion.
We talked about the cutdown from 80 players to 60 during his rookie year, when the Turk
would go from room to room to inform players that their dreams were being destroyed. The
training-camp setup at the time was that adjoining rooms shared one door. Chrebet heard a
knock. It was the Turk. But for whom did the bell toll? It was for a player in the
adjoining room.
"It was a tough moment," Chrebet said. "One of those moments where the
silence is deafening. Thank God it wasn’t my door."
Johnson probably wishes it were. Perhaps that would have prevented Chrebet from showing
up the Buccaneers’ receiver. Or maybe not. Like any good superhero, you can’t
kill off Chrebet.
Perhaps Johnson should have heeded the defiant challenge I heard when I spoke to
Chrebet about not being drafted.
"You want to show them that it was their mistake not taking a chance on you,"
Chrebet said.
Point made. There are an awful lot of teams in the NFL that would love to have a clutch
performer like Chrebet. Never was that point made with more clarity than in the silencing
of Johnson. After that game, the football world finally realized what I already knew:
Chrebet is a football superhero. A new nickname made it official. No, not Superman. The
Green Lantern.
It is a play on words dealing with the color of the Jets’ uniform. It is testimony
to the fact that, like the Green Lantern character from the comic strip, Chrebet is more
than meets the eye.
Of the Green Lantern, Chrebet said earlier this season, "I’ve never seen it,
but people told me it’s an average, normal man who turns into a superhero, and I like
that."
He is that.
Chrebet appeared on HBO’s "Inside the NFL" and was given a plastic green
ring, symbolic of the source of power for the comic-strip superhero.
"This is very dangerous if put in the wrong hands," Chrebet said.
Much as Chrebet is dangerous when running through opposing secondaries. I recently
asked Jets RB Curtis Martin, Buccaneers DT Warren Sapp and Steelers RB Jerome Bettis for
their comments on Chrebet, and (are you listening, Keyshawn?) it didn’t sound to me
as though they were describing a pip-squeak who gets his lunch money stolen on the
playground.
Martin: "Toughness. Overcoming the odds. Relentless. Heart. If I had one word that
describes him, it’s heart."
Sapp: "I like him a lot because he does a lot of good things for his ballclub
— runs the proper routes, he blocks, he catches and he’s a playmaker. And
that’s one thing that you can’t find every day in this league — a guy that
can go out, week in and week out, knowing that he’s a marked man and go out and make
plays. He’s that kind of player."
Bettis: "He’s an outstanding player. He’s the kind of guy that you can
count him out, you can count him out and count him out, but yet he comes up with big
plays. He never really says anything to try to pump himself up. He’s a consistent
football player. Those are the kind of players that you want on your team. You want a guy
who can go out there and, against all odds, get the job done."
Against all odds? Hmmmm. Perhaps Bettis was thinking of Chrebet vs. Superman.
"I’m still a Superman fan," Chrebet said. "I don’t want to get
in a fight with that guy, but if I do, I do have the (green) ring."
It says here that Chrebet — all 10 feet, 300 pounds of him — wouldn’t
need it. |
