Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas

by Nick Eatman

  From the very start, that’s exactly what Baylor did. Quarterback Jarrett Stidham, who was still aching somewhat from a back injury he sustained early in the last game, showed no signs of any problems when he lofted a perfectly thrown pass to Corey Coleman on the first play from scrimmage. The 48-yard bomb set up an early touchdown.

  Stidham then showed some improvisation on Baylor’s next drive, scrambling around to give KD Cannon a chance to get downfield for yet another bomb. That 59-yard score put the Bears ahead 14–0, giving the few hundred Baylor fans who had traveled up from Texas reason to make their own noise in the southwest corner of the end zone.

  But as expected, Oklahoma State rallied back, tying the game 14–14 before Baylor managed to surge ahead again before the half. The Bears should’ve been up by more than just ten points, having turned the ball over two times in the first half while also missing a field goal.

  However, late in the second quarter, on a third-down play at the OSU 21-yard line, Stidham rolled to his right and was tackled by two defenders near the sideline.

  “I knew right then that something was wrong,” head coach Art Briles said about his freshman quarterback. “He went down right in front of us. That’s just not a way for your foot to bend.”

  Stidham, who had passed for 258 yards in the first half alone, went out for one more series before halftime, but his lack of mobility was apparent as he stood in the pocket for too long before eventually fumbling. That would turn out to be his final play of the game … and season.

  If this were a sports movie, some dramatic music would have played as the coaches huddled up in the locker room before deciding to turn the reins over to the backup, which would have been followed by a dramatic speech from the coach to the player about it being “his time to shine.”

  In reality, there was no time for all of that. Kendal Briles went over to Chris Johnson, who had started the season playing tight end and on special teams, and made it short and sweet.

  “C.J., you’re in.”

  And that was it.

  Johnson, an imposing figure for a quarterback at 6–5 and 235 pounds, which was the same size as some of Baylor’s defensive ends, figured he might get the call, especially when Stidham hobbled into the locker room. All week long, Johnson had practiced as the backup and had been mentally preparing himself to play.

  Backup quarterbacks always talk about the “mental reps” of going over the plays time and time again just to visualize what happens if and when their number is called. But in reality, nothing can truly prepare a quarterback for the game except the game itself.

  As OSU got the ball first to start the third quarter, Johnson could barely contain himself. His heart was pounding so hard that he wondered if people around him could see his 13 jersey twitching with every beat. But you couldn’t tell he was nervous by looking at his face. He kept reminding himself about a saying Kaz Kazadi always preached to them: “Butterflies are normal, but don’t let them control you. Control the butterflies.”

  And that’s how Johnson remained cool and confident, even when he trotted onto the field for the first time with the Bears still leading by ten.

  Not only was Stidham out for the game, but starting tailback Shock Linwood had injured his foot and was held out of action as well. Playing with its third-string quarterback and second-string tailback, Baylor called a run on first down, but let Johnson air it out on the next snap. He had Cannon deep, but the ball was just barely underthrown and OSU’s defender made a great play to knock it down, forcing third down.

  After sending in the play, Kendal Briles didn’t like what he was seeing from the formation, so the Bears called timeout. That’s when Kendal decided to draw up a new play. Literally.

  On the headsets, he called up to Jeff Lebby.

  “Kendal basically came up with a new play we had never done before,” Lebby recalled. “He knew what he wanted to do, so we called for a spread formation and a QB zone play for Chris to keep it.”

  So during the timeout, the coaches discussed the play with the tight ends and linemen, telling them where to go while Johnson was getting instructions from Kendal.

  “We just wanted him to get a little confidence,” Kendal said. “We thought we could open a lane for him, and he’s a good runner.”

  Indeed, the lane was opened and Johnson followed his blockers, not only picking up the first down, but also running over a defensive back in the process for a 10-yard gain.

  And with that, Johnson was ready to fly.

  “I think that play changed the entire game for us,” Kendal said. “C.J. just took over and had a phenomenal game.”

  After his first-down pickup, Johnson finished off the drive with a beautifully thrown pass to Jay Lee for a touchdown, extending the lead to 31–14.

  Pounding his chest with excitement, Johnson was mobbed by his teammates, who seemed more surprised than excited after watching his first career touchdown pass.

  But what they didn’t know was that Johnson was just getting started. On Baylor’s next possession, he connected with Cannon, this time on a 71-yard bomb, stunning an OSU crowd that couldn’t believe Baylor was whipping them with a backup quarterback.

  As if this was his one-hundredth touchdown instead of his second, Johnson smoothly pointed toward the sky and walked off the field, only to be attacked even more by his ecstatic teammates.

  When Johnson walked into the end zone later in the fourth quarter for a game-clinching touchdown run, most of the sideline coaches erupted with joy. But Art Briles didn’t move. He just smiled and turned back toward his fellow staff with a look of joy and disbelief. Not to say that Briles didn’t have confidence in his players, but for Johnson to step in and dominate the game in such a way was a pleasant surprise for all of them.

  Meanwhile, the Baylor defense kept OSU at bay until the fourth quarter when the Cowboys added a couple of touchdowns. All that did was mask what was truly a blowout win for the Bears, who came away with a 45–35 victory, the school’s first at Oklahoma State in seventy-six years.

  In the locker room, Art Briles was in a dancing mood, knowing he had never left Stillwater with a smile on his face. This time he shared a few dance moves with his players before giving his normal “Our House” victory speech.

  “We turned it into whose house?”

  “Our house!”

  “Whose house?”

  “Our house!!”

  “I said whooooose house?”

  “Our house!!!”

  And Briles finished it off with a resounding, “Yes, sir!”

  Seven days earlier, Briles had walked out of the locker-room huddle surrounded by players crying their eyes out after losing to Oklahoma. Now, they had just beaten an undefeated team on its home turf, and did it with a quarterback who had never played meaningful snaps.

  During the Bears’ return flight to Waco, the middle of the plane, which is where the bulk of the athletes sat, was jubilant, the aisle filled with joyous players who were proud of their accomplishment.

  In the back, where the coaches were relaxing, the feeling was bittersweet. While his team was enjoying the moment, Art Briles and his staff really couldn’t.

  “When you play two conference road games in six days this late in the season, it’s tough,” Briles said. “We got back early Sunday morning, and we had to play on Friday. So we were already a day behind and now we knew Stidham was out. Chris played phenomenal, but we had to get him ready for another tough game against a tough opponent. And we had only six days to do it.”

  And this wasn’t just any opponent, but rather Baylor’s fiercest rival in TCU, which always posed a stout defense. There was just no way for Briles to get Johnson and his team prepared for the storm that was about to hit them in the next week.

  Sunday

  In the ever-changing world of technology, keepin
g up with your favorite sports team is easier than ever. While the daily newspaper and ten o’clock newscast still exist, today there are much quicker ways to get the latest news.

  Social media not only provides fans much-needed information right at their literal fingertips, but players themselves now have a strong voice with their own social media accounts.

  If Tony Romo wasn’t the last NFL player to join Twitter, he had to be right up there when he finally did so in May of 2015. And once he did, he quickly gained more than 100,000 followers in just three days.

  By the time Romo rejoined his team in late November after missing eight weeks with a broken collarbone, the Cowboys were more or less helpless, having lost all seven of their games to see their once 2–0 record vanish into a 2–7 mark. Although oddly enough, Dallas’ NFC East rivals weren’t faring much better, and considering that the Cowboys still had two games left against Washington to strengthen their division record, they remained in the hunt for the playoffs. But, they had no room for error.

  Romo, who at this point had tweeted just eighteen times in seven months, again took to Twitter not only to show off his love for the 1980s, but to send a message as well.

  He posted a video of a scene from the movie Major League, a baseball comedy about the Cleveland Indians, a club that began the season hopeless and destined for failure, but rallied to make a run to the playoffs. The scene shows a meeting where the lead actor, Tom Berenger, who plays a catcher and is considered the veteran spokesman, stands up to address his teammates:

  “Well, I guess there’s only left thing for us to do. Win the whole … fucking … thing!”

  In the movie, the pivotal scene brings the team together, and they then reel off the necessary wins to capture the American League East title.

  While it’s standard for some high-profile athletes and coaches to have others handle their social media accounts, Romo was asked in the locker room the next day if he indeed wrote the tweet.

  “Oh, that was me,” Romo said with his customary smirk. “No one else I know is that funny.”

  Could the Cowboys have a Hollywood ending as well? Romo has never been called cocky or arrogant, but like most quarterbacks, he doesn’t lack confidence. In his mind, they were 2–0 with him as a starter, and he saw no reason why the Cowboys couldn’t make another run now that he was back in the lineup.

  Conversely, just as Dallas hadn’t lost with Romo behind center, the team hadn’t won a game since Greg Hardy had been reinstated by the league. Hardy had made a few plays on the field, but not only were they not impactful enough to help the Cowboys earn a win, they were all overshadowed by distractions that were either following him from his past or that he was now creating.

  Heading into the week of the Dolphins game, the focus was obviously on Romo’s return, but Jerry Jones decided it was time to speak up regarding Hardy. This was a player Jones had previously described as a leader for his work ethic in practice, a comment that drew national attention considering Hardy’s troubled history. However, his past wasn’t the main problem anymore.

  The lack of remorse he showed for the alleged domestic violence incident rubbed his critics the wrong way, but he also didn’t seem to be cherishing this second chance that the Cowboys, and most notably Jones, had given him. Hardy had missed a defensive meeting the week before in Tampa, and there had been a few times already in the season when he called the training staff early in the morning to tell them he was sick and couldn’t make it in to practice. The definition of “sick” could mean a lot of things, but there was speculation going around Valley Ranch that Hardy was enjoying the Dallas nightlife a little too much, particularly on Wednesdays.

  So Jones decided it was time to intervene, and he had a heart-to-heart talk with Hardy. Those close to the front office said it was a “shape up or ship out” type of meeting because the Cowboys were rather close to cutting ties with Hardy, whose antics were also starting to strain some of the team’s relationships with its biggest corporate sponsors.

  The Cowboys did lose a sponsorship in the middle of the season although it was never clear, or reported, if Hardy’s presence was the reason. Another sponsor, American Airlines, admitted some concerns after the Deadspin pictures were revealed, but an AA spokesperson was quoted as saying, “American Airlines supports teams, not individual players.”

  In his meeting with the owner, Hardy obviously said enough of the right things to convince Jones not to make any personnel changes—at least not with Hardy.

  To make room for Romo’s reinstatement from injured reserve, the team waived the player that initially replaced him in the lineup. Brandon Weeden was shown the door as the Cowboys kept Matt Cassel as Romo’s primary backup.

  Weeden was visibly upset when he was demoted in favor of Cassel, and while he saw this move coming, he still wasn’t happy as he left the facility for the final time. Weeden’s biggest gripe, which seemed valid, was that he went 0–3 as a starter and didn’t have Dez Bryant available, while Cassel was 0–4 with Bryant in the lineup for three of those games.

  And Weeden’s departure wasn’t the only housecleaning the Cowboys did during the week of Romo’s return. Running back Christine Michael and cornerback Corey White were both waived in somewhat surprising moves.

  Ultimately, performance is the biggest factor in either keeping or cutting a player, but not following the team’s protocols can sway a decision for removal as well. Michael and White did not adhere to the Cowboys’ dress code on the previous trip to Tampa Bay. White told the website TMZ in an interview the next week that he wore a button-up shirt and slacks, but not a suit, and “they cut me.”

  Michael was brought over in a trade with Seattle, but took several weeks to grasp the offense and never contributed to the running game, despite the team cutting Joseph Randle three weeks earlier.

  Defensive end Jeremy Mincey, one of the Cowboys’ more vocal leaders said, “Sometimes you just have to make tough decisions. The NFL is a business. It’s not always pretty. If you don’t take care of your business on and off the field, you’ll be gone.”

  However, cutting Michael and White only begged the question even more in regard to Hardy. Two guys were cut because they hadn’t dressed up enough, and yet Hardy was still around even though he had missed meetings and reported late to others?

  While Hardy remained on the team despite being in hot water, the entire squad found themselves in standing water an hour before the Cowboys’ game in Miami, where an absolute monsoon had attacked Sun Life Stadium about an hour before kickoff. Although trying to see a few feet away was a challenge amidst the downpour, Jason Garrett did see something he liked.

  “Our attitude in pregame was inspiring,” Garrett said later. “They were like kids out there playing in the rain. You could just see their faces and the smiles. They weren’t miserable or anything. They were having fun. I thought it might be a good sign for how we might play in the game.”

  As the team went back to the locker room one last time before kickoff, Hardy was met by arguably his biggest fan—super agent, Drew Rosenhaus, who gave his client a big hug even though the defensive end was drenched from the rain. Rosenhaus asked Hardy if he was going to be able to play through the weather.

  “Come on, man, I’m the Kraken,” Hardy said, referring to the mythical sea monster and his self-proclaimed nickname. “The Kraken lives in the water, bro. I’ll be fine.”

  Once the game started, the rain was actually coming down harder than before. When Romo trotted out for the first series, the focus was certainly on both the weather and the quarterback.

  Lost in the shuffle was Jason Witten’s surpassing Bob Lilly’s franchise record of 198 consecutive games played, which dated back to 2003, the tight end’s rookie season. But Witten was used to being overshadowed, especially by Romo, who entered the league during that same year. Witten had never cared much about individual honors.
Sure, the streak was a sign of toughness and dedication, but at this point in the season, he cared much more about just having Romo back than any personal record.

  Ironically enough, Romo’s first pass since Week 2 was—left-handed. Of course. Feeling a heavy pass rush, the savvy veteran switched the ball to his left and dumped a pass out to the running back to avoid a sack in the end zone.

  Eventually the rain subsided and Romo calmed down as well, despite throwing an early interception. He later fired a touchdown strike to Terrance Williams, who made a leaping grab over two defenders. Earlier in the week, Garrett had personally challenged Williams about just such plays, telling him to “win the ball” when it’s up for grabs.

  Halftime in the NFL is usually just thirteen minutes, which is barely enough time to get everyone in the locker room and to make adjustments, much less to change clothes. However, because of the relentless rain, many of the players attempted to switch parts of their uniform, leaving equipment managers such as Bucky Buchanan scrambling, especially when it came to socks.

  “Everyone wanted to get some dry socks,” he said, “and I really didn’t have enough.”

  As for Romo, he didn’t just want new socks. He wanted everything new.

  Removing a football uniform isn’t a quick process, and it’s even worse when the entire outfit is soaking wet. So Buchanan had to help Romo remove his jersey and pads and scramble to get an entirely new getup. Meanwhile, the big red-numbered clock in the locker room had reached under five minutes before the start of the third quarter.

  Romo called another audible.

  “Matt, you’re going to have to start the third,” Romo yelled at backup Matt Cassel. “I’m not going to be ready. We’re getting the ball first, so you have to warm up.”

  Cassel thought it was a joke. This was, in fact, his first game in uniform alongside Romo. But he quickly figured out that Romo was serious, so he rushed to the nearest trashcan and scraped out a fresh dip of Copenhagen that he had inserted into his mouth only a few minutes earlier. Cassel spat out the dip, grabbed a football, and rushed out to the field to find some receivers to throw to.