THE FLORIDA KEYS

The buses pulled out at 6 a.m.

Unfortunately for Keyshawn Johnson and the rest of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Warren Sapp is a morning person.

The driver had barely cranked the engine for the trip to Orlando for a series of practices with the Miami Dolphins last month, but Sapp’s motor already was running 100 miles an hour.

Who should ask for mercy but Johnson, Sapp’s new rival for mouth of the South?

“He looks at me, and says, ‘Shut up, Sapp!’ And everybody laughed, because they knew it wasn’t going to be that way,” Sapp said.

Just like that, Johnson already had been outyapped by Sapp.

“I think he’s a middle-of-the-afternoon kind of guy,” Sapp said. “Once he gets his motor going, he’s ready. I told him, ‘I came out the womb talking, I’m ready to go.’ ”

The Buccaneers are ready to go--or in this case, ready to stay home.

Super Bowl XXXV is Jan. 28 at Raymond James Stadium.

With the addition of Johnson, Tampa Bay has a chance to become the first team to play a Super Bowl on its home turf.

The Buccaneers reached the NFC title game against St. Louis last season with a team that ranked third in the NFL in defense, but 30th out of 31 in passing offense.

They had Sapp, the tackle who was NFL defensive player of the year after racking up 12 1/2 sacks.

Now add Johnson, the two-time Pro Bowl receiver acquired from the New York Jets for two No. 1 draft picks in a stunning April trade.

Say all you want about Johnson’s gift of gab.

This is about his gift of grab.

The Buccaneers haven’t have a 1,000-yard receiver since 1989. Johnson, the No. 1 pick overall out of USC in 1996, all but certainly is the next.

The Jets, going through a coaching transition from Bill Parcells to Al Groh, balked at negotiating a lucrative long-term extension for Johnson with two years still remaining on his contract.

The Buccaneers? They gave him an eight-year, $56-million deal that included a $13 million signing bonus and made him the highest-paid receiver in the NFL because they think he gives them a chance.

“He gives our offense an identity, which we’ve never had around here,” Sapp said.

“He’s a guy that’s not going to be silent about something that ain’t going right. When we were down in Miami, he blasted all over the sidelines, saying it was embarrassing we only had six snaps in the first two times we had the ball.

“We all kind of looked around as a ‘D’ line and said, ‘Yeah, just what they need.’ ”

No big deal, Johnson said.

“I was just telling them we had to get going in the right direction if we planned on winning games.

“I try to assure the defense they won’t be on the field all season long. We’re going to put points on the board.”

Besides Johnson, the Buccaneers added Pro Bowl offensive linemen Randall McDaniel and Jeff Christy, signing both as free agents.

Although quarterback Shaun King remains something of an unknown quantity in only his second season out of Tulane, he was a clutch performer as he started the final seven games as a rookie, leading Tampa Bay to the NFC title game.

If he can get the ball to Johnson consistently, the Buccaneers’ prospects are solid, although the defense lost a main cog when linebacker Hardy Nickerson signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“If we can take care of our business, execute our game plan, take care of the Bucs, then I think we have a legitimate shot at advancing to the dance and getting to the Super Bowl,” Johnson said.

“But you’ve got to take care of business to get to the playoffs. You can’t all of a sudden start saying ‘We’re going to be in the NFC championship game again’ because they were in the NFC championship game last year. It doesn’t work that way.”

If Johnson didn’t know that already, he learned it last season.

The Jets reached the AFC championship game in 1998.

In the opening game of ‘99, quarterback Vinny Testaverde ruptured an Achilles’ tendon, and the Jets’ Super Bowl hopes were gone.

“You sit around and think about how you’re playing well. Then you lose the game and you lose your quarterback,” Johnson said.

“Now all the hard work you went through. . . . All of a sudden you don’t know what you’re going to do, you don’t know what the coaches are going to do.

“They didn’t know what they were going to do. Parcells was walking around with his hair all frizzy. He didn’t know what he was going to do for a couple of days, actually weeks, until he finally realized this other guy [Rick Mirer] ain’t getting it done and went with [Ray] Lucas.”

Johnson’s beef isn’t with Parcells--he remains loyal to the former coach, now director of football operations.

His complaint is with Groh, because he believes Groh was responsible for the trade.

“I don’t like him. That’s no big secret,” Johnson said.

Excerpts from Parcells’ new book “The Final Season” reported by the New York Daily News this week blame the puzzling trade partly on friction between the Jets and Johnson’s agent, Jerome Stanley. In the book, Parcells writes that he believed Johnson would have been “a bitter, probably disruptive” player if the Jets had kept him and not renegotiated.

“Which is smart,” Johnson said, with a shrug and a smile. “You don’t want a disgruntled athlete.

“Bill had to do what he thinks was best for the organization, and he did. Of course he approved the trade. But it wasn’t his decision. There’s a difference.

“It’s like, if I’m the board of trustees and somebody is telling me I’ve got to approve something or the world’s going to blow up, I’ve got to approve it, even if I might want to take my chance on the world blowing up.”

Well, OK.

In any case, the Jets talk has blown over, but only until the teams meet Sept. 24 in Tampa Bay.

“It will be a zoo,” Johnson said.

“I had fun. New York is great. I’m going to have a lot of fun in Tampa too.”

He certainly is being embraced. Sapp enjoys the verbal volleying, although Johnson pretends he doesn’t attempt to spar with Sapp.

“I don’t even try,” he said. “I don’t really talk! Where do people get that from? I never talk.”

Cornerback Brian Kelly can only chuckle. He played two seasons with Johnson at USC.

“Cotton Bowl and Rose Bowl,” Kelly said. “He’s still the same guy. It’s funny, because most people do change when they come into the league. He has the same mentality, the same mind-set he had when he was at ‘SC. Nothing’s changed. He’s just got a bigger stage to show his personality.

“He did it in college, but nobody was listening back then. Now he’s done some things and gotten a little attention. He’s still out there mouthing around. It’s fun.”

Johnson is more mature than the player who wrote “Just Give Me the Damn Ball!” after his rookie season.

Sapp remembers.

“My first thought then was, ‘Who gives a damn about the fast times, hard-knock life of Keyshawn Johnson?’

“I’ve got my own damn problems to worry about. I don’t want to be reading his.

“But when you get to know the guy, as I did through seeing him at the Super Bowl and the Pro Bowl, you understand what he was saying.

“To have a chance of winning a game, you have to work your best players, and that’s all he was saying, ‘If you want to win games, put it in my hands.’ I understand that. It ain’t bragging when it’s true.

“You can have a big mouth come in, and if he can’t play, everybody just looks at him like a fool.

“But if you’ve got a guy whose mouth runs as well as he runs the routes and catches the ball? We don’t mind it. The thing about it is, he’s a proven guy in this league.

“He doesn’t mind going across the middle catching the ball, linebackers trying to rip his head off. He’s still going to go get it done.”

Sapp was one player who made sure the deal got done after he heard the trade rumors, marching in to see the general manager.

“I went straight to Rich McKay’s office. I had to hear it from the horse’s mouth,” Sapp said.

“I was like, ‘What’s the deal?’ He’s like ‘Well, everything’s in the pot, but it ain’t brewing yet.’

“I was like, ‘Turn up the heat.’ Do what you’ve got to do, baby, it’s that time. Because the window of opportunity doesn’t open up in this league very often, and when it does, you have to take advantage of it right now.

“I’ll take a pay cut, whatever. Whatever y’all want. Whenever you’re talking about a chance to win a Super Bowl, you have to make a sacrifice. I think the one thing we all realized was we needed this guy. And more than that, he wanted to be here.”

That he does.

The other day, Johnson donned his tuxedo for a photo shoot, but balked at putting on a Super Bowl T-shirt.

“I’m not going to do that,” he said. “The Super Bowl’s not until January. Come back January 30th.”

If he’s wearing that shirt, then he’ll really be the talk of the town.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Gift of Grab

How Keyshawn Johnson’s numbers last season compare to the leading single-season receivers for his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

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Johnson 1999 N.Y. Jets 89 receptions 1,170 yards 8 TD Mark Carrier 1989 Tampa Bay 86 receptions 1,422 yards 9 TD James Wilder 1984 Tampa Bay 85 reception 685 yards 0 TD Kevin House 1984 Tampa Bay 76 receptions 1,005 yards 5 TD Mike Alstott 1996 Tampa Bay 65 receptions 557 yards 3 TD Warrick Dunn 1999 Tampa Bay 64 receptions 589 yards 2 TD

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