Oh, they call him the Freak.
Regardless of whether Jevon Kearse is the next great thing in professional football, as everyone says he is, he certainly is the next great football nickname.
I introduce myself to Kearse and ask something I never asked any athlete, even Dennis Rodman: “Are you `the Freak?”‘
“Yes,” Kearse answers, “yes, I am.”
The Freak waits on the other side of fame’s window, ready for renown, with the numbers and the name. Being a rookie and playing in Hee Haw Junction, or wherever it is the Tennessee Titans/Oilers/Orphans are playing these days, Kearse has yet to explode into the nation’s imagination.
A Super Bowl would fix that. Maybe even an AFC title game, if the Freak could somehow get into one of those instant-replay assisted miracles instead of just, oh, knocking the sweat off Leon Searcy, the designated anti-Freak across from him on game day, and bothering Jacksonville quarterback Mark Brunell a couple of times.
Not since Refrigerator Perry has there been a marketing prospect like the Freak, and not since Bruce Smith has there been a defensive end like the Freak. Imagine what Smith would have become had he had a home appliance or a sideshow label of his own.
Smith needed Buffalo to get to four Super Bowls to become the model defensive end. Except Smith never sacked any quarterback 14 1/2 times in a single season. No other rookie ever did either.
“Freak just describes my physical attributes,” the Freak explained, “and how I put ’em to use. I can be the Freak or I can be anything you want me to be.”
He could be the Wacky Weirdo, I guess, or the Chomper. He sometimes does the Gator Chomp after a sack, clamping his extended arms together like a reptile chewing. That’s from college–Florida. The Freak comes prechoreographed.
But Freak fits just fine. “He’s like something you go into a lab and make,” Titans cornerback Denard Walker said. “The Freak is like a genetic specimen. God just really put him together great. And he uses every ability that he has.”
For the record, let us detail the Freak’s freakiness. Faster than a mean rumor. Tougher than barbed wire. Stronger than a Frenchman’s breath. Hands the size of spare tires, an arm span longer than a city bus (he can pay the fare and open the back door at the same time) and shoulders broad enough to carry the regrets of every pro scout who passed him through the first 15 picks of the draft.I would like to be more specific with heights and weights, times in the 40, that sort of thing. But the Freak isn’t limited by clocks and scales and tape measures.
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“How fast are you?” I asked.
“Fast enough,” the Freak said.
In his one season the stories of the Freak are already legend, told around the league with appropriates sighs, mostly by those 15 scouts who passed over him, including the Bears … well, you know.
Here’s one of the tales, told by Titans linebacker Joe Bowden. “That’s a freak of nature there, chasing down running backs and receivers,” he said. “There’s not a defensive end, a linebacker and most receivers who can stay with him.
“He chased (49ers running back) Charlie Garner from one side of the field and caught him on the other 53 yards down the field. You look and say, `Who was that defensive back going so fast?’ And then you look and see it is No. 90.”
Against the St. Louis Rams, Kearse had tackle Fred Miller so spooked that Miller was called for five false starts.
“Come on,” I say. “How fast are you?”
“I get on the field, I look at the guy across from me, I wait until the ball moves and I go. However fast my feet move, that’s how fast I am.”
No rookie defensive end has made the Pro Bowl for the AFC since the merger in 1970. The Freak will be in Hawaii.
“You know, back in my head I can’t help thinking about not being drafted higher,” he said. “When I really think about it, all that matters is an opportunity to play in the NFL. But then again, I see those guys drafted ahead of me and, well, here I am and where are they?”
Cade McNown, I believe, is in the waiting room. Freakin’ incredible.