The Talking Head of Eskie town

There's an interesting feature on the CFL network homepage about the Eskimos back up quarterback Jason Johnson, taken from a recent Vicki Hall story in the Edmonton Journal.

Johnson, like a few other CFLers has taken to spending his off field time working the radio waves. His program airs Tuesday nights from 8-9 pm Alberta time, on CHED which you can listen to over the net by clicking here (if you miss the show check their audio vault).

It seems to be a growth industry for CFL players and coaches these radio chat shows they host, Johnson's seems kind of interesting considering his background and tendencies to be a tad verbose. Check it out below.

CFL players use radio shows to give listeners a
different perspective on sports
By Vicki Hall,
Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - Quarterback Jason Johnson is paid to stare down defensive linemen intent on plastering his body into the ground without mercy.

Fear? Never crosses his mind on the football field. But the broadcast booth? That's a different story.

Even though he's blessed with the gift of the gab (think Bryan Hall, without the bluster) the man known by his teammates as J.J. admits feeling a tad nervous the first time he sank into the announcer's chair a few weeks back at 630 CHED.

"It's a lot easier to be back in the pocket," he said. "Nah, I'm just kidding you. But sitting behind the microphone is harder than it looks."

The Jason Johnson Show runs every Tuesday from 8 to 9 p.m. The Edmonton Eskimos' backup quarterback is just one of a growing number of CFL players to host their own radio programs across the country.

In the week before every home game, Edmonton linebacker Singor Mobley joins Bob Stauffer for an hour as a co-host of Total Sports on the Team 1260.

Defensive tackle Doug Brown has his own show in Winnipeg while Calgary linemen Randy Chevrier and Sheldon Napastuk run the Chevy and Nasty Show.

Stampeders kicker Sandro DeAngelis and punter Burke Dales team up to host The Foot Patrol, another weekly program in the highly-competitive Calgary radio market. According to DeAngelis, the whole point is to give people a glimpse of athletes beyond the typical cliches like "We've got to give 110 per cent," and "We didn't play a full 60 minutes."

"Yeah, you hear so much of: 'I just want to thank my teammates' and 'I want to thank the Lord,' " DeAngelis said after practice Wednesday. "It's boring to hear the same questions and the same answers all the time.

"I'm not going to lie. We just try to be jackasses and have a lot of fun."

Napastuk and Chevrier kick off their radio program with a segment called "300-pound poetry" where they review the week that was in sports.

"We want to have a little fun ," Chev-rier said. "We want people to know we're not super-professional athletes. We're just normal guys who enjoy what we do."

Mobley can be quite blunt, and he figures professional athletes give listeners a different perspective than regular journalists.

"Not taking away from the guys who normally do it, but I think we bring a little character to the shows," he said. "I'm probably going to get in trouble for saying that. We bring a different insight."

In three short weeks, Johnson's guests have included Oilers winger Fernando Pisani, and Casey Printers, the former B.C. Lions quarterback in camp with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Johnson promises to deliver NFL greats such as Matt Hasselbeck, Drew Bledsoe and Brian Urlacher as the year goes on.

On Tuesday night, he talked to Ricky Ray and Dave Dickenson, the two quarterbacks set to battle Friday when the Edmonton Eskimos take on the B.C. Lions at Commonwealth Stadium. Johnson even asked Dickenson about the soap opera that surrounded the Lions last year with Dickenson and Printers fighting over the same job.

And Johnson promises not to shy away from tough queries from callers -- especially if the Eskimos come up with another stinker like the 46-10 loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers."I encourage those kind of questions," he said. "Ask away.

I encourage people to call in and ask what happened."

Johnson did colour commentary a few years back for the CBS Radio broadcast of the Hawaii Bowl. An aspiring Hollywood director, he is charming, articulate and, above all, chatty.

He need not fear competition from Ray in the radio department. The starting Eskimos quarterback is happy to be a guest, but he has no desire to bump Johnson out of the announcer's chair."

That's not anything I'd be interested in," Ray said. "That's not my personality. I don't think I would run a good radio show."

Why not?

"I couldn't see filling an hour of listening to myself talk," he said. "But J.J., he can blab for hours so he's a good fit for it."