Janikowski, Trouble on Collision Course

Was Sebastian Janikowski trying to kill me?

Probably not, but I’ll never know for sure. The way he roared out of the Raider parking lot, the tires of his SUV squealing through the stop sign, his motives were hard to determine.

Janikowski was a rookie first-round pick at the time, and I was covering the team for the San Jose Mercury News. I had been getting tips, a couple of them highly credible, that Janikowski had been spotted in bars on both sides of the bay. His hard-partying ways had gotten him into a world of trouble at Florida State, and, when he was drafted, he’d vowed to give up drinking. So I asked him about what I had been hearing.

He glared at me, head-popping angry.

“We’re done talking,” he growled. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”

“But ... “

“Don’t ever,” he shouted over the rumble of his engine.

Moments later, he stepped on the gas and peeled out of the lot. Had I not hopped between a couple of cars, I would have been a stain on the pavement.

Four days later, about an hour before kickoff against the Chiefs, Janikowski creaked onto the Coliseum turf and feebly tried an extra point. He looked dazed. A trainer escorted him to the locker room. Not only was Janikowski out for the game, he missed the next one with what the Raiders said was a severe case of cellulitis, an often excruciating and somewhat rare infection of the soft tissue. He spent the better part of the next week in an undisclosed hospital. The whole thing was shrouded in mystery.

Janikowski spent part of this week in the hospital. The Raiders say it’s a relapse of cellulitis in his kicking foot, one that could sideline him for Sunday’s game against the New York Jets. Thursday, the team signed former UCLA kicker Brad Daluiso. Teammates are concerned about Janikowski’s health--in rare cases, people have died from cellulitis--but their patience is also wearing thin with this guy.

Nothing is ever normal with Janikowski. Bar fights, a drug bust, accusations of trying to bribe a police officer, strange illnesses. Trouble is always either on his doorstep or just around the corner.

“This thing is just weird. What else can you say?” said Tim Brown, who floated the theory that Janikowski might be picking up foot infections from, say, never cleaning the carpet at his house. “Hopefully the guy will be able to come in and kick for us this week, but if not, I’m sure the Raiders are making plans for other things to happen. We must keep moving on.”

Janikowski made headlines in October when he took a spill at a San Francisco nightclub and wound up with a head gash that took five stitches to close. Police on the scene said it looked as if he had overdosed on GHB--the so-called “date-rape drug”--but Janikowski’s agent said his client had merely slipped on a wet spot and hadn’t been using the drug. (A year earlier, Janikowski had been acquitted on a charge of GHB possession.)

As he had done in the past, Janikowski dodged the media after the incident, staying in a part of the facility off limits to reporters and sending a teammate to fetch his clothes.

“Boy can’t take it?” asked quarterback Rich Gannon, who occupies the adjoining locker stall.

Gannon, a meticulous professional, seems to be tiring rapidly of Janikowski. That was evident after a Dec. 22 loss to Tennessee when Janikowski--who had been having a very productive season to that point--missed three field goals.

“I’m tired of answering questions for him,” Gannon said after the game. “He’s a grown man; he can answer his own questions.”

To gauge Janikowski’s clout, look at the way teammates reacted when, on the same day this week, they learned they might be without Jerry Rice, whose father is seriously ill, and Janikowski. The widespread sentiment: losing Rice is devastating; losing Janikowski is an inconvenience.

That prompts a question: Why did the Raiders use their top pick on this guy? They already had a reliable kicker in Joe Nedney, and Janikowski came with so much baggage, he needed a battalion of skycaps. Instead, they made him the first kicker in 21 years to be drafted in the first round. A surprising number of Raider first-round picks over the past decade have backfired--Todd Marinovich (bust), Patrick Bates (quit), Rickey Dudley (moped until he was dumped), Darrell Russell (serving a year-long drug suspension), Matt Stinchcomb (beaten out by a free agent), and now Janikowski.

Instead of drafting a kicker, the Raiders could have used that pick on a linebacker or safety, maybe a receiver. They should have moved aside and let Janikowski go by.

That’s a lesson I learned in the parking lot.

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Korey Stringer’s agent has planned a Jan. 15 news conference to formally announce the filing of a $100-million lawsuit against the Vikings on behalf of Stringer’s widow and parents. Stringer died of heatstroke complications after the second day of training camp in Mankato, Minn.

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Denver receiver Rod Smith has been playing with two sprained ankles since mid-November and says his feet feel “like a pair of Firestones before they recall them.”

He sounds tired. (Rimshot, please.)

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Talk about making the best of a bad situation. Kyle Turley, the New Orleans tackle fined for ripping the helmet off an opposing player and flinging it downfield, has emerged as a fan favorite. He got the loudest ovation in pregame introductions last Sunday, and recently made a cameo appearance at a World Wrestling Federation match. Next month, he will ride on a float in a Mardi Gras parade dressed as Uncle Sam. What will he throw in lieu of beads?

Miniature plastic helmets, of course.