AS EGOS GO, SO GO THE JETS; SO FAR, JOHNSON AND PARCELLS ARE PALS.

Byline: Michael Madden Boston Globe

The trip from One Large Ego to Another Large Ego at the New York Jets' practice facility is short. Merely head down a corridor from the media room where Bill Parcells is talking, turn left, enter the locker room, fand a pull - maybe even a magnetic pull - inevitably draws visitors toward the far right corner.

Toward the locker of No. 19. Toward the locker of Keyshawn Johnson.

And Johnson, inevitably, is talking. And the media, inevitably, is listening.

``At the end of the interview (last Sunday), they tried to twist what I was saying,'' Johnson was saying Thursday. ``They were trying to get me to say, `Aw, I think the players this,' and all that stuff, but I didn't give them anything. You know, I was thinking, `You don't have any juice, (Cris) Collinsworth. It was a bum interview.' ''

Another flap. But the cause of this one was unknown. So a New Englander asked Johnson to backtrack. What happened this time?

``Collinsworth was talking about my performance and about how I was playing and Coach Parcells and how the locker-room reactions are,'' said Johnson, ``and I just explained it to him. On camera, there really wasn't anything. I was just saying yes and no, and it was basically like, `There's no problem in the locker room.'

``And he goes, `No problem?' and I say, `No, there's no problem,' and he goes, `What do you mean, there's no problem?' But he can't use that on TV. So what happens is they go nitpicking to find what they can find. They twist things. So they went into trying to create something at the end of the interview.''

Keyshawn Johnson. Media wise, but misunderstood again. By his own words, again.

Once again, there is the same surprise, always the same surprise when venturing into the locker room of a New York team.

The players don't scream.

Every sentence of a New York player does not end with an exclamation point after it. Or two (!!) or three ().

They don't shout.

In sum and substance, players in a New York locker room are far different in person than how they appear on the back pages of the tabloids.

Keyshawn Johnson, the wide receiver who was the top overall draft choice of a year ago and has been a lightning rod for friction ever since, spoke softly when he was asked about his times with the Jets, at times his trying times with the Jets.

A Florida State T-shirt was hanging in his locker, and Johnson explained - with no () - that public relations director Frank Ramos had given it to him as a joke because Florida State had beaten his University of Southern California alma mater last weekend. Parcells is now coach of the Jets, and Johnson explained softly - again with no () - that he likes having ``a tough coach, because every football player has had a tough coach somewhere,'' and tough coaches get things done. Not to mention that tough coaches win games.

And on and on.

``In my mind,'' Johnson said, the flap with NBC ``is over with. It's a deadbeat issue. The guys are playing good football right now. We're concentrating on winning. But everybody is trying to distract that. They try their best, and it never happens, and guys (in the media) get upset with that. They get ticked off because they're expecting to continue (the controversy), but it's not. It's dead as a doorknob.''

Er, Keyshawn, not to keep anything going, but in the first game against Seattle, when Wayne Chrebet caught that touchdown pass from Neil O'Donnell, weren't you the first one downfield and the first Jet to leap on the back of Chrebet? The same Chrebet whom you called the ``team mascot'' in your inflammatory book during the offseason, and the same O'Donnell you called a ``statue''?

``I was down there first,'' Johnson recalled. ``I was near (Chrebet's) route, so obviously, I'd be the first guy near him. I don't think anybody's going to beat me down there since I was so close to him.''

Anything to read into his leap onto Chrebet's back? All's well now between receivers on the same team?

``Aw ... these people in New York just write what they write,'' replied Johnson. ``It's tough out there. The stuff down here is ridiculous, but there's never been a problem personally (between him and Chrebet). And there isn't a problem personally now. It was natural for me to do that. I'm excited about the TD, I'm excited because we went up, I'm excited about the victory, all of that. That's more than enough for me to congratulate a guy for getting open and doing a wonderful job of getting open and helping our team win.''

Would he do anything differently? Would he change any of the words in his book, ``Just Give Me The Damn Ball''?

``Oh, not at all, not at all, not at all,'' replied Johnson. ``The same ... everything ... if it goes that way, then that's the way it is. If the season goes 15-1, obviously, there'd be some changes, but we went 1-15 and that was just the way I seen it.''

Since back in their Pacific-10 days, when Johnson was catching passes for USC and the Patriots' Lawyer Milloy was playing in the secondary for Washington, receiver and defender have been close. They will be again Sunday night when the Jets visit the Patriots at Foxboro Stadium.

``Lawyer's beaten me twice in the pros, and I think we're 2-2 in college ... no, wait, I think we tied them once,'' said Johnson. ``We're like 2-1-1 or something like that.''

Since Milloy is a safety, it is not often he'll be in close proximity to Johnson on the first break, ``but I think I've had a pretty fair game each time I played against Lawyer,'' said Johnson. ``One year up in Washington, I did OK. Lawyer I don't think had any interceptions, but he's had some pretty good hits on me.''

Like last year in Foxborough, when Milloy leveled Johnson. ``He hit me last year,'' said Johnson with a laugh, ``and then he says, `Oh, I could have killed you,' or something like that. That's the way it is with us.''

So it was that when Parcells was named Jets coach after leaving New England last February, Johnson asked his pals on the Patriots - Milloy and wide receiver Terry Glenn - how bad it would be for him. ``They told me it was going to be tough but I'd like playing for Coach Parcells,'' said Johnson. ``That cleared my mind.''

``He's just a young kid,'' Parcells said of Johnson. ``I like him.''

Johnson had a dropped pass last Sunday against the Bills, but much more damaging was when he failed to come down inbounds with two feet on a pass from O'Donnell that would have set up the Jets deep in Buffalo territory on New York's final drive, a drive which did not produce the winning score.

``When I got to the sidelines,'' said Johnson, ``Coach Parcells told me what I done wrong.''

Calmly?

``Yeah. The thing is, he'd been taking me after practice and teaching me how to do it,'' explained Johnson, ``and he told me what I'd done wrong.''

Parcells was expansive on the incident, saying he had been teaching Johnson ``what (former Patriots receiver) Harold Jackson had taught me.'' Parcells then went into great detail on the technique, about how the positioning of a receiver's hands has a huge effect on where the receiver's feet will land, ``and I'd been working with him on it.''

Then in the game, ``he has a visible situation where he has a chance to do it,'' said Parcells. ``We'd be on the 13-yard line (of the Bills in the final minute) if he does it with a first down. But he's been doing it the other way all his life, and so now I'm fighting the player's instinct.

``It'll take time,'' added Parcells, ``so I've got to be patient with him.''

And not just about landing his feet in bounds.

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Photo

Photo: Keyshawn Johnson doesn't mind sharing his often inflamatory views.

Associated Press