Demanding Keyshawn in back, thank goodness Gary Shelton, The St.Petersburg Times, published 10 December 2001 It is no wonder the ball floated a bit as it sailed toward him. Considering all that was riding on it, it was a wonder it stayed airborne at all. Keyshawn Johnson was in strange territory. The end zone. He stood like a trespasser, jockeying with cornerback Jimmy Wyrick, and a season hung in the air. It was all there, spinning with the ball, defeat and despondency, shame and scorn. Then Johnson, warrior king, leapt in the air and saved the bacon. "A baby is falling off a 10-story building," is the way Johnson would sum it up later. "Do you catch the baby?" Okay, so Johnson exaggerated the circumstances a little. But only a little. The circumstances were dire. The Bucs, once again, spent most of the day tap-dancing around their own burial plot. The more you watched, the more certain you knew they would fall in. The game was inside its final minute, and the Bucs trailed the Lions. The smell of death was in the air. Lose this game, and it was over. Get stopped on that final drive, and the season was complete. Only the blood-letting would remain. And Keyshawn would not allow it. It was not that Johnson scored his first touchdown of the season with 53 seconds left on his 93rd reception, covering yards 1,064 through 1,077. Those are just numbers. This was about will, about impact. It was about a receiver taking over and refusing to allow his team to finish second. It was about a player fighting off pain and exhaustion, strapping a heavy offense with a lightweight gameplan across his shoulders and carrying it to the end zone. The guy is a hell of a player. You watch him every week and you think you know that. But every week he shows you a bit more. He is tougher than you thought. The game matters more to him than you suspected. He is money, and shame on the Bucs for not getting him to the bank more often. How do you measure a great player? By his contract? By his celebrity? By his controversy? No. With Johnson, you measure it by his competitiveness. "Say what you want, the guy's a stud," John Lynch said. "He's a driven guy." For most of this season, we have seen it. Johnson walks from most fields with a limp, yet he runs those patterns over the middle that invite safeties to make mush of his insides. He runs through secondaries where everyone grabs him, where everyone wants a shot. He makes the tough catches on the field where the fast guys tiptoe. Not since his arrival, however, has Johnson done more for his team than he did Sunday. Consider the final drive when Johnson caught four passes for 59 yards. Every one was on a third- or fourth-down situation. Every one was more important than, say, oxygen. "He's a monster," defensive tackle Warren Sapp said. "A monster. Everyone in the stadium knew we were going to throw the ball to him. We were going to find it, we were going to throw it and he was going to catch it. That's what he does. He's the best receiver on Sunday there is." Better than Moss? Better than Bruce? Better than Carter? "Key does more things," Sapp said. "He's the guy I want." Down the stretch, Johnson also was the guy the Bucs wanted. But in case they had forgotten, Johnson decided to remind them. Oh, he'll let offensive co-ordinator Clyde Christensen know his thoughts. Every day, 25 times a day. Between series, during timeouts. But, Johnson said, before that final drive was the first time he approached coach Tony Dungy on a sideline and demanded the ball. He had done it with Parcells, with Kotite, with John Robinson at USC. But not with Dungy. "I said, 'They don't see. They don't understand what I'm talking about.' So I went up to Coach Dungy and I said, 'Win with me or lose with me. Bury No. 27 (Wyrick) or make him a hero.' " How could there have been any other thought at that time? You can use a lot of words to describe the Bucs offense, but co-ordinated usually isn't one of them. Sometimes, however, fire will fuel a team to the end zone. That's the thing about Johnson. He cares more than most. He gives a higher percentage than most. The greatest tribute you can give an athlete is that he plays not for his pay or persona, but for the sheer love of the game. "If you ask me what his trademark is," Christensen said, "it's coming across the middle, knowing he's going to get hit and making the play anyway." "Nothing can knock him out of a game," Sapp said. "Nothing." Did you see him on that final drive? Johnson's body language said he was exhausted. At the conclusion of every play, he walked slowly back to the huddle on dead legs, looking as if ready to fall over sideways. Then he gathered himself to make the big catch, absorb the big hit. Then he was in the end zone, a place he had not visited all season. Brad Johnson was crunched as he threw, and Keyshawn went over the top of Wyrick, pulling the ball out, refusing to let the play have any other outcome than his touchdown. He lay there, allowing exhaustion to take over. "Since I've been here, that was really the first chance I've had to make the big play at the end of the game," Johnson said. Big play? Yeah, you could remember this game that way. Or this way: Keyshawn caught the baby. Baby, what a catch.