by Monte Burke
Working for Joe at the Nighthawks was a big opportunity for each of these men. Andrus had the chance to redeem himself after the CFL fiasco, and to try his offense on a professional stage. Olivadotti would finally be able to work with a longtime friend, closing a loop that had opened in 1984, when he’d offered Joe a job with the Hurricanes. And for the younger staffers, most of whom were hoping to get into big-time college programs or even the NFL, the Nighthawks job enabled them to bulk up their résumés.
There was also something else, another chance that these coaches and even the front office staff members had with the Nighthawks, something that was left unsaid but was nonetheless true: if the team had success, all of these men would be able to boast to a potential employer that they had helped a friggin’ CEO beat some NFL coaching legends.
They would look like geniuses.
Besides wanting to see how well his new team would work together, Joe saw the tryouts as an opportunity for a bit of mischief—and to test his staff to make sure they would stand up to him. Joe’s stepson, Jeff Jardine, had asked if he could intern for the team during the upcoming season. The twenty-one-year-old had just graduated from Southern Methodist University. Joe said he could, but he needed a favor from him first. Joe wanted Jeff to secretly try out for the team in Dallas, not letting any of the other coaches know about their family connection. Their different last names provided the necessary cover. Jardine agreed and decided he’d go out for quarterback. “I thought I might as well aim high,” he says. Though he’d last played football as a sophomore in high school (as a backup offensive guard on the junior varsity), and is maybe a tad short for the position, Jardine did sort of look the part. He’s a good-looking, sturdy kid with thick, sandy blond “high school quarterback” hair.
Jardine showed up on the day of the Dallas tryout. He and Joe didn’t share so much as a glance during the entire day. Jardine informed Mueller and Andrus that he was there to play quarterback, then proceeded to choose the very un-quarterback-like number 91 for his tryout shirt.
Like a method actor, Jardine totally dove into his role. “He was running around like a chicken with no head, slapping high-fives with the other players and some of the coaches,” says Andrus. Jardine lined up for the forty-yard dash. He finished it in a glacial six seconds, then, huffing and puffing, jogged up to Andrus and explained that a huge gust of wind had blown against him right as he started running. Then Jardine hopped into a drill where the quarterback is supposed to throw simple ten-yard “out” patterns to wide receivers. His throws went nearly everywhere but their intended targets. “And he had absolutely no zip on the ball,” says Andrus. But his lack of throwing success didn’t dampen his spirits. “He never stopped running around, slapping guys on the butt and yelling, ‘C’mon, guys, let’s get it!’” says Andrus.
Meanwhile, Mueller, who’d been watching Jardine, turned to his personnel guys: “Man, there is something really wrong with that guy.”
Then he watched as Jardine launched himself into a big blue pad at the bottom of the goalpost.
“I think that guy is on drugs,” said Mueller.
Andrus dutifully made a note on Jardine. (“I think I wrote down ‘no freakin’ way,’” he says.) Then he moved on to evaluating the other guys at the tryout. But number 91 refused to relinquish the stage. He kept yelling; he kept asking Andrus how he was doing. When the final whistle blew and the tryout ended, Jardine delivered his coup de grâce. As the 150 or so players started to make their way off the field, Jardine played sheepdog and rustled them all together, arranging them in a circle around him. “All right guys, good workout,” he yelled. “On three, ‘Nighthawks’…one, two, three, ‘Nighthawks!’” By that time, more than a few of the other players were looking around, confused.
“I really think this guy is on drugs,” said Mueller again.
In the van on the way back to the hotel, Joe asked Andrus if he saw any quarterbacks he liked. Joe was sitting shotgun. His coaches were all in the back. No one could see his face.
“No, but we might have found our mascot in that squirrelly white kid, number 91,” Andrus replied.
At the hotel, the coaches met to go over player evaluations. They went around the room to each coach, going over the positions one by one, and finally came to the quarterbacks. Andrus said they were all terrible.
“I kinda liked that squirrelly kid. I liked his leadership,” said Joe. “And it looked like he could run.”
Andrus looked at his sheet. “He ran a 5.9, Joe.”
“But how much experience does he have? Maybe we can work with him?”
Andrus looked at his sheet again. “It says here—and these are his words—‘To tell the truth the last time I played organized football was in JV, as a backup guard. But the last few weeks I’ve been throwing the ball around with my buddy, Robbie.’”
There was a round of dismissive laughter from everyone in the room—except for Joe.
“I kinda liked him,” said Joe, sounding insistent.
Andrus says now that at that moment, a cold fear began to creep up the back of his neck. He worried that he had signed on as a first mate on a ship that was going to sink before it left the harbor, that Joe really had been out of football too long and had no idea what he was doing.
“He can’t play football, Joe,” Andrus said, pleadingly.
“Yeah, but he had spirit,” Joe said. “He really led those guys out there. I think we need someone like that on the team.” At this point Joe was biting hard into his knuckle to keep from laughing.
“There was something really, really wrong with that kid,” came Mueller’s voice from the back of the room.
“But Joe, the guy couldn’t play! At all!” said Andrus. He felt like putting his face in his hands and weeping.
Joe couldn’t hold it in any longer. He finally ’fessed up. The room rocked with relieved laughter.
“Well, at least you know I’ll always be honest with you,” Andrus said.
“I still think there’s something wrong with that kid,” said Mueller.
Jardine would join the team as an intern during training camp a few months later. Mueller would eventually admit that he was actually “somewhat normal.”
In April, Joe and his staff started to work on the team’s roster. They quickly made the decision not to invite Garcia and Green back, despite their ongoing popularity with the fans. “They were both pretty done,” says Mueller. The staff combed through the rest of the roster to see who they did want to keep.
Despite being the worst (and oldest) team in 2010, the Nighthawks did have some high-quality players, especially on the defensive side. Dusty Dvoracek, the former Chicago Bear, was a very good nose tackle. Ricardo Colclough, the former Pittsburgh Steeler, was an athletic cornerback and kick returner. Stuart Schweigert had been a four-year starter for the Oakland Raiders at safety. The long snapper, Matt Overton, was proficient.
On the offensive side, George Foster was a big and physical left tackle. Running back Shaud Williams, a former Buffalo Bill, was a solid runner and pass catcher. And Joe wanted to bring back another running back, the troubled former Ohio State star, Maurice Clarett. D. J. Shockley, the team’s third-string quarterback in 2010, would serve as a good backup.
But that was pretty much it. In all, Joe and his coaches decided to keep just sixteen of the fifty-one players from the 2010 squad. Mueller and his staff had some work to do. Most important, they needed to find a quality quarterback. It turned out they had one right in their backyard.
Eric Crouch had been out of football for three years. He’d become a medical supplies salesman and also ran a playground construction firm in his hometown of Omaha, where he was born and raised. The former Heisman Trophy–winning (2001) option quarterback from the University of Nebraska had endured a checkered professional football career. The St. Louis Rams had drafted him in 2002…as a wide receiver. Then he was injured in training camp and never played. He’d later been in camps with the Green Bay Packers and Kan
sas City Chiefs, but didn’t make the final rosters. He’d played in NFL Europe as a safety. He’d tried to play quarterback in the CFL but was injured after only three games. After seven years of bouncing around (and getting operated on—he’d had eight surgeries on his shoulders, knees, and legs), Crouch had seemingly retired for good.
But in the spring of 2011 Crouch got a call from Joe, who wanted to know if he had any interest in playing for the Nighthawks. For Joe, the move was risky (Crouch’s rust and injuries), but it also made some sense: if Crouch could still play, his ability to run and throw would be a perfect fit for the Nighthawks offense. And if he made the team, the hometown hero—who’d gone to high school at Omaha’s Millard North—would put some butts in the seats, potentially even more than Garcia and Green ever could.
Crouch didn’t immediately say yes. But the more he thought about it, the more the idea intrigued him. He’d liked Joe a lot when he’d met him with Huyghue the previous fall. Crouch no longer harbored dreams of playing in the NFL, which would make him a rarity in the UFL. But he did feel like he still had something to prove, to himself and to others. Like Joe, he had not quite finished what he’d started when it came to football. Crouch also wanted to set an example for his children, a twelve-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son. “I wanted to show them that I don’t give up,” he says. And he wanted to have them see him play in an actual game, now that they were old enough to understand and remember it. “I certainly wasn’t going to do it for the money,” says Crouch.
He called Joe back and said he was interested. He came in for a tryout in front of Joe and Andrus. “He looked good,” says Andrus. “He threw the ball well. He just had to get that burst back in his legs. But he had time for that.” The Nighthawks signed him shortly thereafter.
In late April, the NFL was still locked in its labor battle. The big league did, however, go through with its annual collegiate draft hullabaloo. The event, held at Radio City Music Hall, is spread over three days and is nationally televised from start to finish.
Just two days after the NFL’s draft, it was the UFL’s turn. Things are a bit different for them. There were no ESPN cameras present at the UFL draft, no helmet-haired Mel Kiper Jr. breathlessly obsessing over the forty-yard-dash times of the prospects. There wasn’t even a central place where the teams gathered to do their picks. It was all done remotely, and the picks were announced as they happened on Twitter.
The UFL draft presents a difficult conundrum for UFL general managers like Mueller. While the Nighthawks obviously want to draft the best players available, they don’t want them to be too good. If they actually do have true NFL-level talent, they probably won’t sign, preferring instead to wait and try to make an NFL team as a free agent. If they even believe they have NFL-level talent (or have an agent telling them so), they may not sign, either. No UFL draftee jumps out of his chair and tearfully hugs his grandmother upon seeing his name attached to a UFL team.
Complicating everything even more this year was the NFL’s labor situation. With no new collective bargaining agreement in place, no players—rookies or free agents—were allowed to sign with NFL teams. The problem was, once a player signed with the UFL, he couldn’t sign with the NFL (unless he was released by his team). So most of the players who would be drafted by the UFL were waiting out the NFL drama.
Still, the UFL draft goes on. The Nighthawks took Reynaldo Hill with their first pick. Hill, twenty-eight, had been out of football for two years, but he was once a starting cornerback for the Titans. He wanted to work his way back to the NFL. Mueller had watched him work out and liked what he saw. Perhaps more important than that, Hill seemed very likely to sign with the Nighthawks. NFL teams don’t generally sign guys who have been out of the game for two years.
Later in the draft the Nighthawks selected Jeremiah Masoli, a quarterback. At the University of Oregon, Masoli had run an offense very similar to the one Joe and Andrus were planning to install with the Nighthawks. In 2009 Masoli had led the Ducks to the Rose Bowl (they lost to Ohio State), throwing for 15 touchdowns and running for another 13 that year. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated. But just as his football career was beginning to take off, he ran into trouble. He and a teammate got caught stealing some laptops and a guitar from a fraternity. Then he got busted for possession of marijuana. He was kicked off the Oregon team. He transferred to Ole Miss, where he didn’t quite replicate his Oregon success, throwing for 14 touchdowns but also 13 interceptions. Masoli had played against Joe’s team in the college all-star game. Joe had liked what he saw of him on the field. Both he and Andrus believed Masoli was a perfect fit for their system. And his off-the-field troubles at Oregon could even work to their advantage: they might scare off potential NFL teams.
As feared, the 2011 UFL draft amounted to merely a perfunctory act. Only three of the twelve players the Nighthawks chose actually ended up on the team—Hill, Masoli, and tight end/long snapper Kyle Nelson. The others either went to the NFL, failed to report to camp, or didn’t make the final roster.
Chapter Three
Nightmares
For its headquarters, the Nighthawks use the Kroc Center, a lavishly endowed Salvation Army community center located in south Omaha, a predominantly Hispanic section of town that was once home to the city’s famous stockyards. (The area’s past is never far from mind, however: even the slightest breeze from the north carries with it the scent of kibble from a pet food plant that’s strategically located near one of the few remaining animal rendering plants.) The Kroc, as it’s known, is surrounded by small boxy houses and is across the street from the Davis Erection Company, a crane sales and service concern that proudly and somewhat profanely displays its name in large letters on the side of an old, out-of-service tractor trailer.
The first thing a visitor notices about the artificial turf football field in front of the Kroc is that it is visibly slanted to the north. This is for drainage purposes. Most football fields are slightly crowned for this same reason, but because the Kroc was built on former stockyard land—where decades of animal waste have been (one hopes) buried—digging more than five feet deep into the earth requires special permits that can take years to procure. Slanting the field a bit solves the bureaucratic problem and doesn’t seem to affect the players much.
It’s not quite an NFL setup, but the Nighthawk facilities stack up with any midlevel college program and are far and away the best in the UFL, with everything a football team could need: modern weight room, locker room, basketball courts (for indoor walk-throughs), a vast dining area, and plenty of meeting rooms.
The entire team—seventy players, and all of the coaches and staff members—reports to the Kroc on July 13, 2011, two days before training camp is set to begin. There had been a three-day minicamp in June, and the coaches had been together for most of that month, but the real work would start now. Training camp is supposed to be a month-long preparation for an eight-game season that begins in late August and runs through late October.
Joe huddles with his coaches that night to reiterate the plans for the offense, defense, and special teams and to reiterate his general philosophy. This is worth doing: after all, it’s an entirely new staff and, save for sixteen players, a brand-new team. He tells the coaches that he does not want them to be at the Kroc at all hours of the night and day. “Get some sleep during camp and the season,” he says. “Exhaustion gives you no advantage, especially at critical moments in games and in practice, when I want you cool and sharp.” The way to do this, he says, is to keep things simple, to concentrate on a few crucial things and to do them extremely well. It is, he says, the best lesson he learned during his business career.
At the end of the meeting Joe asks some of the interns to stand up and introduce themselves. Chris Parker, a twenty-four-year-old who will be helping out with the secondary, ends his introduction with his voice coming to a crescendo: “And I want to bring home a championship. I want to get a ring!” Then he stops and turns to Joe with a quest
ioning look. “If they do that kind of thing here,” he says in a lowered voice. He means the league, which sort of seems like the NFL but isn’t.
“Rings? Are you crazy?” Joe says. “Chris, do you know how much money this league lost last year?”
The coaches erupt in laughter. But the merriment won’t last long.
The Nighthawks already have some fairly serious issues to deal with. First and foremost, Masoli hasn’t reported to camp. He’s holding out hope that he will land in an NFL training camp, if and when the lockout lifts. The team has brought in former Penn State quarterback Daryll Clark, another run-pass threat, to compete with Crouch and Shockley. A possible fourth quarterback has broken his hand in a bar brawl and won’t be showing up.
But there is a potentially bigger problem with the league itself. Rumors abound that the NFL lockout is about to end, which would leave the UFL and its players in a state of uncertainty. The UFL would lose players just as its training camps were beginning. But more important, the league had gone all-in with the bet that the NFL would miss at least some games, and had structured the season around taking advantage of that circumstance. The UFL doesn’t seem to have much of a backup plan if the NFL resolves its issues and plays all its games, as it now appears will happen.
The next morning, one day before camp is to begin, Joe calls an emergency meeting with the coaches. They gather in the defense’s meeting room. Joe is sitting on a table when they walk in, his back against the wall, his arms resting on his knees. It’s a relaxed, confident pose, but with a tip to either side, it could easily become the fetal position, which might better reflect how he feels at this moment.