OOB Interview: Jason Sehorn on kick returning, Mike Shanahan and jogging with Randy Moss

On November 4th, Captain Morgan officially launched its One Million Poses challenge. To celebrate the occasion, 500 people did The Pose at once and created a 185-foot version of the Captain at New Meadowlands Stadium. Captain Morgan’s staff invited me to take a look at their festivities and talk with footballing legends Keyshawn Johnson and Jason Sehorn. Here’s my talk with Sehorn.

OUT OF BOUNDS: In your first few years in the league, you were a kick returner. What were your feelings when you caught that ball and had 11 guys steaming down the field trying to take your head off? Were you scared to death?

JASON SEHORN: Ah, it didn’t really bother me. I had done it before in college and the only difference now is that they’re a little bit bigger and faster and it may hurt a little bit more when they hit you but you also have ten guys in front of you trying to block for you and get in their way so if you just make a couple people miss and skip out of the front line you have a chance from that moment on to break one.

So there was no fear when you were returning kicks, you just went out there with the mindset to help your team?

Yeah, you don’t think about the consequences when you play football. It’s inherent. You understand that there’s risk in it but it’s not really present in your mind when you play otherwise I don’t think you’d be able to play. If you were actually concerned with what may happen to you, you’ll have a pretty difficult time playing fast.

Yeah, like the thinking that if you’re thinking of your actions instead of reacting, that’s how you get hurt.

Exactly. You just gotta play. Play fast, play hard and if you’re going full speed the odds of getting hurt are slim. Injuries happen, but it’s better for you if you’re going full speed.

I think it was in your second year when you blew out your knee. I know a lot of people who’ve struggled to regain their former explosiveness because of ACL injuries; how did you recover from that and did that injury dog the rest of your career?

Oh, it was tough to overcome but doctors nowadays, like mine, Doctor Warner, did an amazing job of putting me back together and I really felt pretty good about my return. I didn’t really lose any explosiveness, everything was back to normal. The problem was a few years later towards the end of my career I had something called microfracture surgery. That was a little more debilitating and with that I felt like I lost some explosiveness. Those injuries are more of a quality of life surgery but with that being said, the ACL is what it is; a process.

So with the microfracture surgery did you feel like you couldn’t push off correctly? Did you feel more timid on the field?

What happens is you lose a certain range of motion in your knee where you still have it but it feels awkward and uncomfortable. Your explosiveness is hindered about four or five degrees in your range of motion so you can really feel it, and as a corner you need to have all the degrees of motion and when you lose some of that it’s really debilitating.

As a former cornerback, how would you defend a Randy Moss who’s jogging his route? Would you be relieved that he’s not trying, or are you wary that it’s all a ploy to blow by you later when you have him in the corner of your eye?

Never take your eyes off of him. If he’s not going full speed it might be a setup, he might be hoping that your eyes do go off of him. You never know when he’s going to take off vertically. The guy has tremendous speed, tremendous ability to go up and get the football. He definitely has his pluses and minuses to him but for the most part you should never underestimate him.

You think if any other player jogged as much as Moss on the field they’d get cut on the spot?

If you watch wide receivers, and as a corner I can tell you, when they know they’re not the option or if it’s a running play away from them a lot of times they don’t come off the ball the same way; they can’t. They can’t explode and run up the field to try and block you every play because they might come back to the huddle and the next play is a go route. They want to be fresh. As to the mentality of the receiver position, for the most part they play like that. You’ll find some guys that can go all the time but for the more elite ones they have to conserve so when they’re called upon they can explode and go get the ball.

James Harrison threatened retirement after the league kept fining him for helmet to helmet hits because it took away his natural instincts on the field. Do you agree that the new rules to protect players make defenders have to think too much about hits and not rely on the instincts that were drilled into them from a young age?

Yeah, the new rules are a knee jerk reaction that happened in the middle of the season that shouldn’t have happened. They should have waited until the off-season to take some time and discuss it with the competition committee and the players. Get their input. I understand that they’re trying to protect players but it is a VIOLENT game. There will always be violent hits. You can’t just start arbitrarily fining people because you said they hit them too hard or in the wrong spot. It’s football!

Regarding the Donovan McNabb situation, how would you feel if you were perfectly healthy and a coach decided to undermine you by taking you out of a game in a crucial situation?

Oh, that’s a bad situation to be in right there to be a starting quarterback for an NFL team and get pulled during a two minute drill because the coach, whatever his thinking may be, I’ve never seen that. I’ve never been in a game in my ten years where a quarterback played the whole game and didn’t run the two minute offense. I have no idea what they’re doing there but that’s not normal.

What are your views on the NFL’s current problem with concussions? How can the league save their players from a future of headaches and blurred vision.

You can’t do anything. There’s nothing you can do about it. You just can’t stop it; you put a helmet on and somebody hits you and that’s it. There’s only so many things you can do in the game to save the players and prevent injuries and with concussions, they’re just going to happen. There’s no concussion proof helmet made.

How many concussions did you suffer in your career?

None.

You were also a pretty good baseball player. Did you ever have any thoughts about pulling a Deion, and do you think we’ll someday have another athlete who could pull off two sports at once?

No, I didn’t like baseball that much to put that much time into it. You can never be great at any one if you play two. You can be good at both but not great and I didn’t feel like being average at anything.

I was talking with former Eagle Jason Short and he talked about a fight between Hugh Douglas and Terrell Owens in the underwater treadmill after a practice. How prevalent were fights in the locker room between players during your time with the Giants and Rams?

Oh, you got 53 guys in the locker room, tempers are going to flare every once in awhile. You’re going to have moments where people disagree and they’ll start puffing out their chests and all of a sudden they’ll go to blows. It happens and it’s an aspect of life. Not everybody agrees and I guess some people go about their disagreements differently.

Have you been taking your football game to the recreational fields to go dominate some middle aged men?

Oh, no. I’d gain nothing out of that. Having played at the professional level I don’t take any solace or find any fun in playing any other level. No.

How big is speed in the NFL? As you got older, bodies deteriorate and speed diminishes, obviously. Were you still able to play at a high level as your body broke down because you understood the thinking aspect of the game?

At the end of the day, speed is the only thing you can’t teach a kid so if you have it, you have an advantage, but you also have to have intelligence.