Prima donna wideouts still commonplace in NFL

By Darin Gantt - daringantt@carolina.rr.com

CHARLOTTE -- The T.O. Show rolls into town today, just in time to catch Steve Smith one week after vocalizing some of his frustrations.

You can only imagine that Keyshawn Johnson is somewhere smiling, or at least will have something to say about it. Chad Ochocinco will probably catch you later on his Twitter page.

The wide receivers will be at center stage today when the Carolina Panthers play the Buffalo Bills. But the guys who play the position manage to find themselves there often enough anyway.

CLICK FOR MORE PHOTOS

“They're not crazy, just a little different,” Panthers radio analyst Eugene Robinson, a former Pro Bowl safety, said with a laugh of the guys who play the NFL's most attention-needy position.

It's no surprise that receivers have become the league's divas, but the game has changed in the last few generations. Once the province of the confident but quiet, wideouts are now on full blast and loving it.

Some crusty league old-timers insist that the guys who play the position haven't changed, just the multimedia world that covers them. Receivers, they say, always have wanted the ball, they just have more forums in which to express those desires.

Smith has toned down his act in recent years, no longer planning out elaborate celebration dances. There was a time he was standing on the gas to get noticed, from using his touchdown-scoring football as a baby he'd rock to sleep or change, to his boat-paddling act when he scored against Minnesota — a sly tribute to the Vikings' “Love Boat” scandal.

“It's because a receiver, or a guy that's in the limelight, wants people to look at him,” Smith said last week when asked about the nature of the position. “You're out there by yourself, you have a lot of thinking going on. It's a fun position. It's a position that brings criticism, but it's also a position where you have to make your money, make your plays.

“As the game has gotten more high-scoring, it creates pride, it creates ego and everything that happens in every other job that comes with success.”

Maybe fans shouldn't be surprised at the phenomenon. After all, fans created it.

As the league has gained popularity, with its recaps and highlights on every television, Web site and newspaper in the land, the big plays are going to get magnified. So the big-play makers are going to be looked at more closely than ever before.

Former NFL linebacker Dwight Hollier — now a national board-certified counselor with Southeast Psychological Services — offers a unique perspective on the guys he used to line up across from.

Hollier agreed that receivers always have had an edge, but said it's the nature of the performer to do whatever it takes to retain the spotlight once it's earned.

“The thing is, when they make a play, it's usually a big play, and it naturally draws attention to them,” Hollier said from the perspective of his day job. “And they're like any person, when you get that positive result, you get that attention, it feels good and you want more of it.

“We all do it in our own way, too. When you do something that brings attention, positive attention, you want to repeat that behavior so you get more. For some of these guys, it becomes a personality trait.”

That's why Buffalo's Terrell Owens continues to make a spectacle of himself, going the reality-show route this offseason after his act wore too thin for Dallas. That's why Johnson wrote a book called “Just Give Me the Damn Ball” after his rookie season. That's why Ochocinco, the former Chad Johnson, will go to seemingly any lengths to get himself on television (or noticed in general) from changing his name to reaching out to fans through the Internet.

“I don't know what it is; they're a different being,” Panthers safety Chris Harris said. “Not all of them are prima donnas, but a lot of them are. They're the attention people.

“That's just what they do. They have a certain cockiness or arrogance. There's a fine line in between. I guess they've got to be that way.”