The Many Faces Of Deion

Deion Sanders--a hired gun if there ever was one--is the ultimate symbol of the free-agent era

WHEN DEION SANDERS IS inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, how will his plaque be identified?

Will it bear the name of the Atlanta Falcons, the team for which he first gained fame as a shutdown cornerback and a game-breaking kick and punt returner? Sanders did, after all, make the NFL's all-time team based on his punt-returning exploits in Atlanta.

Or will he be enshrined as a 49er? In his one season in San Francisco in 1994, he was a key player on the 49ers' final Super Bowl team, a big-play performer who intimidated quarterbacks into ignoring his side of the field. He was the NFL's defensive player of the year that season, even though he didn't join the Niners until mid-September.

Or will Sanders go in as a member of the Dallas Cowboys, for whom he made his mark with his versatility and earned a Super Bowl ring in 1995? Not only was he an All-Pro cornerback who could nullify the Jerry Rices and the Herman Moores of the NFL, but he also was Dallas' third receiver for a while as well as a gifted kick returner.

Or will the team featured be his latest employer, the Washington Redskins, who hired him this year because they thought he was the type of difference-maker who could take them to the Super Bowl?

Better yet, perhaps Deion's plaque simply should be adorned with a big, fat dollar sign.

That would be fitting, because he is the ultimate product of the free-agent era, going from team to team for multimillion-dollar contract after multimillion-dollar contract. And we're not talking about a guy who has jumped from, say, the Seattle Seahawks to the Carolina Panthers. Instead, Sanders has switched from bitter rival to bitter rival. When he left the 49ers for the Cowboys in 1995, those teams' contempt for one another was at an all-time high. And now he's left the Cowboys for the Redskins, who have been engaged in a decades-long blood feud with each other.

No, Deion isn't shy about changing allegiances, as long as the price is right. But regardless of what you may think about his motives or his brash demeanor, you can't deny this: He's a winner, as evidenced by those two Super Bowl rings.

"All Deion wants to do is win," says Michael Irvin, his former teammate with the Cowboys who retired over the summer after suffering a neck injury last season. "He's all about helping a team win, whether it's the Cowboys or the Redskins."

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Keyshawn Johnson, one of the toughest and most talented wide-outs in the game, also is an admirer of the man known as "Prime Time." "He's the best dude, and when you can back it up, you can say what you want," Johnson says. "He's still got his flair. With him, he don't need no help. He's Prime Time. That's what they pay him for, to take away the best receiver. His experience and speed alone are enough. He's a player."

Johnson especially likes the way Sanders responds to the criticism directed at him. "I love when people produce when somebody says something negative about them," Johnson says. "The guy changes the game."

What about the criticism he has endured upon joining teams where he previously was hated by the local fans? Deion has that figured out, too. "I know it's hard to accept a man with open arms who's done a little work against you," he says. "You win over fans by making plays."

That's something Deion has been doing since the Falcons made him the fifth pick overall in the 1989 draft--two spots behind another Sanders, Barry. But unlike Barry Sanders, who played his entire career with the Detroit Lions before abruptly retiring last year, Deion has been a mercenary. However, in an era when loyalty to a single team and city is virtually nonexistent, it's difficult to slam Sanders for being so transient. And while his boastfulness and flamboyance have turned off some fans, he is embraced by teammates wherever he goes.

Darrell Green, regarded as one of the classiest individuals in pro sports, lost his starting job when Sanders signed with Washington. Yet Green was one of the people who helped recruit Sanders, welcoming him at a dinner attended by Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and director of player personnel Vinny Cerrato.

"As the job changes, your responsibility changes," says Green. "This is only normal--this is only natural. To be able to bring a player the caliber of Deion, a veteran who has been a top guy wherever he plays, is great thinking on the part of the team."

Second-year Redskins wideout Irving Fryar, who spent most of his career working against Green and Sanders, loves the idea of having both cornerbacks on his side, as well as having up-and-coming Champ Bailey on the unit. "It's called lockdown," Fryar says. "We've got three legitimate corners now who can lock three legitimate receivers down. On third down, it's tough for some offenses. There are only so many routes you can run."

And as the years go by, there are only so many more teams Deion can join. In all likelihood, this will be the last stop for the 33-year-old Sanders. He signed a seven-year deal with Washington, but he isn't likely to play more than four.

Injuries have limited Sanders' playing time in recent years, which is why the Cowboys did nothing to try to keep him following last season. Concerned about his injured toe, which could be a chronic problem, and an assortment of other ailments, the Cowboys felt their money would be better spent elsewhere. So what did Deion do? He stuck a dagger deep into the heart of Dallas by signing with its staunch enemy.

Sanders, of course, shrugs it all off. "That's the business of the National Football League," he says. "Nobody understands that better than me." We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Few people have taken better advantage of the free-agent system than Sanders, who will earn $56 million if he plays out his entire contract with Washington.

And, as Johnson pointed out, Sanders has backed it up on the field, using his speed and guile to earn eight Pro Bowl berths. When he has the football in his hands, nobody in the game is faster and shiftier. Still, there are some negatives that go along with Sanders. He is a poor tackler, rarely putting his body And his run support is, well, not very supportive. There also is that little matter of team loyalty. If you're a fan of the team Deion is playing for, how you root for him, knowing he so easily discards one jersey for another?

Roger Clemens might be with the New York Yankees these days, but he always will be remembered for his exploits on the Boston Red Sox. Raymond Bourque currently is paid by the Colorado Avalanche, but his identity is as a member of the Boston Bruins. Deion, though, never achieved icon status in any single place--except perhaps in Tallahassee, where he was an All-America cornerback/kick returner-track man for Florida State.

Atlantans have little regard for him because the team didn't win while he was there, and he left the Falcons for a lucrative free-agent deal in San Francisco. And since he spent only one season with the 49ers, he hardly became a beloved figure in Northern California. He did have a decent following in Dallas--where he played for five years and was a perfect fit for a region that embraces people who seem larger than life--but his ties with the fans there pretty much were severed forever when he joined those hated Redskins.

There is, however, more substance to Sanders than immediately meets the eye. Why else would he be so popular with his teammates in each of the four NFL cities he has played? In addition, he has a strong religious base that many fans aren't always able to appreciate. While on the Cowboys, he staged "Prime Time Tuesdays," which ultimately wound up drawing hundreds of worshippers after beginning as a function for a half-dozen players. Sanders did his best to keep those Bible classes quiet, something that didn't match his "Neon Deion" persona.

"People doubt that he's a real Christian, and then they come here and see he's a real, true Christian," Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, one of the original members of the "Prime Time Tuesdays" group, once said. Charlie Williams, another Cowboys player who was a charter member of the group, said: "It's a blessing. I appreciate Deion for doing this. He's saved a lot of souls."

He's also ticked off a lot of them with his garishness. The thing is, many of those non-believers weren't in Atlanta when he was there, or in San Francisco when he was there, or in Dallas when he was there. They aren't in Washington D.C. now that he is there.

Deion Sanders may be a mercenary-the quintessential mercenary, in fact, in this turnstile age of pro sports--but he also is a producer. That's what the Redskins are counting on, just like the Falcons, 49ers, and Cowboys before them.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group