It was the shot heard ‘round MetLife Stadium Sunday afternoon, but it ended up being a blank for Buffalo’s Stevie Johnson.
By now you’ve probably seen the video. Dancing like he was in a club, Johnson mockingly imitated shooting himself in the leg, an obvious reference to Plaxico Burress’s nightclub arrest three years ago. If that wasn’t enough, Johnson then extended his arms and imitated an airplane — a jet — in flight, crashing in the corner of the end zone. It was a dig at wide receiver Santonio Holmes, who made the pose famous as one of the Jets “Flight Boys.”
For Jets nose tackle Sione Pouha, it was a classless move by Johnson, not only to take a rip at Burress, but then to imitate a crashing airplane just miles from the site where the Twin Towers once stood.
“It’s probably not as professional as you should be in a professional setting,” Pouha said. “Us being from New York, we like to hold ourselves to integrity and that airplane thing was kind of a dagger a little bit, considering the circumstances in remembrance we had on Sept. 11 and stuff like that. Just unprofessional, but that’s just my opinion.
“We all stand for pride, all of us are from around this region. We know that’s a sacred moment for a lot of people. It is a very sobering moment.”
Talk about the touchdown celebration dominated the Jets’ locker room on “Victory Monday” and to a man, all the players took exception at Johnson’s antics being pointed at their teammate.
“That’s just wrong to me,” Darrelle Revis said. “It wasn’t smart on his part, doing the gun thing and shooting himself. To me, that was disrespectful to Plaxico in a way.”
Johnson texted Burress yesterday to apologize.
The team was more interested in talking about Johnson dropping what could’ve been a game-winning score, however.
“Well, he shot himself at the end of the game,” tackle Sione Pouha said. “He didn’t win it. I don’t know which shot is worse.”
Follow Jets beat writer Kristian Dyer on Twitter @KristianRDyer.
