Eat My Schwartz

by Geoff Schwartz

  But when I actually tasted a deep-fried turkey, I was blown away.

  So blown away that I went out and bought a deep-fryer to make my own fried turkey. It was simple and the results were just unbelievable: crispy on the outside, and moist and juicy on the inside. Perfection.

  And it only took about forty-five minutes to cook.

  So from then on, I vowed to make one every Thanksgiving. And with my Giants buddies over, we fried one bird and baked another. It was a major feast, even by offensive linemen standards, which are pretty daunting. Between my fried turkey and Meridith’s stuffing, fresh rolls, green beans, mac and cheese, and sweet potato casserole, there was a very southern feel to the meal. And of course, at a party with sweet-toothed linemen, everyone brought pies, pies, and more pies. We had about ten pies for twenty-five people, which was about six pies too many, even for linemen.

  The turkeys, however, were demolished, as was almost everything else. One thing that is great about eating with the guys is that there’s no need to explain the enormous caloric intake. We just eat and enjoy.

  I have cooked for my teammates before, but it usually involved distributing latkes at holiday parties. This was just great having everyone over. Linemen spend huge amounts of time together. During the year, we probably spend more time together than we do with our families. Nine guys on the field, in meetings, in the weight room, at the training tables, and on airplanes and buses. We don’t actually see each other very much in a non-football context, so it was great to meet the women and kids in their lives. And I can’t lie: I loved having my friends meet the loves of my life, Meridith and Alex.

  Meanwhile in the “real” world, there were riots in Ferguson, Missouri, over the shooting of an unarmed black man. An Ebola outbreak in West Africa was picking up steam and scaring the hell out of everyone. The news was filled with stories of bombings and airstrikes in faraway places.

  I was surrounded by laughter and family and friends. As I remind myself every year, I had so much to be thankful for.

  Unfortunately, three days later, in the game against Jacksonville, that aura kind of evaporated for a while.

  There were about six minutes left in the first quarter against the Jaguars. We were at midfield and we went into a no-huddle offense. Eli called a draw play for Rashad Jennings. I walled off the defensive end and Rashad got about 2 yards and was hit. The whole pile just fell on me and during the collapse, I felt my ankle give.

  Now, I’ve sprained my ankle too many times to count and I’ve just played through it. So when it happened, I didn’t want to believe I was seriously hurt. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I had just finished twelve weeks of recovery from that stupid dislocated toe. This was only the fifth quarter of the season for me after missing a ton of games. So I was lying in the pile, thinking “this isn’t terribly painful,” and waiting for everyone to get up. But there’s a fine line between positive thinking and denial. I was also fighting this sense of dread. You know that train wreck phenomenon, when you want to look at something but you are also afraid to look? That was me under the pile. I wanted to look at my ankle and make sure it wasn’t dislocated. Yet I was sort of terrified. I didn’t want to be grossed out. Finally, I was able to turn my head and I could see it wasn’t dislocated, and I thought, “Phew! Okay! I’m fine.” So I got up and walked gingerly back to the huddle.

  Then I put my leg down, heard about three crunches, and crumbled to the turf.

  The medical staff came out and moved my foot up and down to test the ankle’s flexibility. It was fine. Then they checked it, twisting my foot to the inside, and it was fine, too. So I thought, okay, it is a sprain. Then they moved it to the outside and, man, that hurt. You don’t want to cry out, if you can help it. That’s just not the football way, since everybody plays in pain. But I must have winced pretty bad because that’s when the doctor got on the radio and said, “We need a cart out here.”

  Those crunches I heard? I guess that was the sound of my deltoid ligament rupturing on the inside of my ankle.

  Or maybe it was the sound of my fibula breaking, about six inches above my ankle. I’m not really sure.

  The break was discovered on follow-up X-rays. When they carted me off, they thought it was just the ankle injury.

  Anyway, that’s how I remember it. Nasty injuries like that are not the kind of thing you tee up on the video screen and watch in slow-mo. In fact, I plan on never watching that play. Ever.

  * * *

  I had surgery on the Wednesday after the game. Doctors attached a plate with seven screws to my fibula and inserted a bunch of pins to stabilize my ankle while my ligament healed. So I have these two zipper-like scars, a six-inch one on the outside of my leg and a three-incher on the inside of my ankle.

  The surgery wasn’t really the problem for me, and neither was soreness. I’ve been through enough rehab programs to know that I have the drive and the focus to work my body back into playing shape. That’s what I do.

  The hardest, most depressing part was feeling totally useless not just on the field, but also at home. Poor Meridith had just finished dealing with me being on crutches all the time with my dislocated toe. And now, thanks to the second freak accident in four months, I had been ordered to keep all weight off my leg for six weeks. I couldn’t help out with anything. I mean zip, nada, zero. I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t carry a clean diaper for Alex, never-mind change a dirty one. I couldn’t walk or drive anywhere. I just could lay around with my foot elevated the whole day. It was like I was not even there.

  And as frustrating and exhausting as it was for me, Meridith had it far worse. I could make a joke and say that it’s lucky I married a nurse, but nurses get to go home. They get to leave the hospital or the doctor’s office each day and go to the gym, or meet friends for dinner, or just head home and unwind in front of the TV. With a six-month-old baby and a twenty-eight-year-old temporary invalid, relaxing was not really an option for Meridith. She was a full-time mommy and nurse, or as I like to think of her, a saint.

  She took me for better or worse. But worse, through no fault of my own, was winning.

  Eventually, the pins came out, the boot came off, and the crutches were relegated to the closet where they belong. I was back among the living, and able to hold Alex and shadow him as he scurried through the house like some kind of ultra-cute crawling machine. And Meridith got some of her life back—she only had to worry about one babe instead of two.

  When I went to Arizona in March, I was focused on my ankle and leg—I worked out in the morning with LeCharles and then I went to a sports rehabilitation center in the afternoon to build up the ankle’s stability and mobility. Doing things like just standing on one leg can become an important part of a workout. By the end of my two weeks there, I was feeling confident about my conditioning for the 2015 season.

  * * *

  I’ve got a clean bill of health from the doctors, now, and in the last six months, life has finally started feeling normal for me. After two years of uncertainty and drama and a season of injures, Meridith and I have settled in to a zone of blissful stability, where as new parents the biggest uncertainty in our lives is the length of Alex’s afternoon nap. Instead of worrying about my career, I could focus fully on training, and then leave it, and have time for the other things I’m passionate about: Meridith, Alex, my family and friends and, of course, cooking.

  14

  POSTGAME HIGHLIGHTS

  Geoff

  Offensive linemen don’t play forever. Even my iron man brother may give out one day—although I hope his streak runs a good ten more years. And so I’ve started thinking more and more about life after sports.

  In the last three years I’ve written a few articles, and those have been really fun. I like sharing my ideas, experiences, and observations about the game. I enjoy my Twitter feed, although that feels more like a conversation than writing. Sometimes I feel that broadcasting is where my future lies. And, yes, it feels great, as a former stutterer, to say
with some confidence that I’d like to give it a try. I’ve been interviewed on the radio and for TV dozens of times now, and I love going on the Jim Rome show. By now I feel comfortable talking and sharing with an audience and interacting with hosts and reporters.

  In 2015, though I learned what it’s like to be part of a story instead of writing a story—on ESPN of all places. It was pretty funny.

  What happened was a writer for Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback site, which is part of Sports Illustrated’s digital empire, called and asked me my thoughts on bringing an NFL team to L.A. I like that Web site. And it’s an interesting question. So I gave him an answer that focused on the quality of life challenges for players living in L.A. I said it took me twenty minutes to get to a training facility in New Jersey, and an hour at most to get into Manhattan, but that, depending on where you have to go in L.A., you’re looking at an hour-drive minimum.

  “The traffic, the taxes and the cost of living are way more than anywhere else,” I concluded. “I wouldn’t want to play there, and I simply don’t think the city needs a team. It’s been fine without one.”

  In other words, the lousy traffic, really high taxes, and super-charged real estate market are not for me. And I don’t think it always make a whole lot of economic sense for players with short careers to want to play there. Sure, it’s fun. Sure, the weather is great. But there are financial and lifestyle issues.

  The guys on ESPN’s First Take, Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith, had a field day with my remarks. It was a real education into how to amp an innocent opinion—of a guy who has nothing to do with actual decision of bringing the NFL to L.A. — and turn it into a controversial story angle. Skip and Stephen brought major attitude and drama to the segment, blasting my opinion for ignoring side-street shortcuts that can cut down drive times, and pointing out that many players would love to play in the entertainment capital of the world, which of course is true.

  It was an all-star performance by two pros who, when you think about it, need to deliver controversy, insight, and fresh stories in an entertaining fashion every minute of every hour they are on the air. Getting caught in their artful and entertaining cross fire was an honor and a great learning experience—even if it ticked off my dad a bit. And it hasn’t dimmed my interest in broadcasting. In fact, I am actually getting closer to a TV gig than I ever dreamed possible.

  For the last few years, Mitch and I have talked about working on a project that involved food. We’ve kicked around restaurant ideas, gourmet ideas, and, of course, Web ideas.

  Then we were introduced to our agent’s friend Courtney Parker. She worked in TV production and had heard about our food obsessions, so we started kicking around the idea of a cooking show. It was just friendly chatter, but we liked Courtney’s can-do spirit, and the feeling, apparently, was mutual.

  “You guys are adorable!” she told us after we had talked awhile. “I can’t wait to see two gigantic guys dwarfing everyone in the kitchen, and sharing your passion for food. And, you know, this could be a cooking show that football widows can get their husbands to watch. It will appeal to everyone.”

  I said, “Courtney, where do we sign?”

  A few months later Courtney set up meetings with a bunch of production companies and we did a whirlwind tour, meeting various producers, talking food and football, and exuding the old Schwartz charm—which is really just being true to ourselves.

  “This is more tiring than I expected,” I told Mitch and Courtney.

  “It’s like a combine for TV show rookies,” Mitch joked.

  He was right, but there was a big difference. There was no pressure; we didn’t have to perform or pass any tests. Or maybe I should say, the only pressure on us was to be relaxed and ourselves. Courtney was selling us as who we are, two big guys who get totally amped in the kitchen, and who are both passionate about what we eat and how that food can help fuel our careers—or totally slow us down.

  The meetings went well, and in the summer of 2015 we shot a sizzle reel, which is essentially a condensed episode. First, we went to a fun and swanky Beverly Hills restaurant/jazz club just off Rodeo Drive called H.O.M.E. (House of Music and Entertainment) and met the executive chef Shawn Davis, who has run the kitchens of some of L.A.’s hottest restaurants. Shawn showed us how he made a couple of dishes, blowing us away with his speed and confidence. Sometimes when I watch TV cooking shows I wonder if everything goes amazingly smoothly because they got two elements that real people don’t have—a staff to prep things and the magic of post-production editing. But then, when you see pros do it live, it is an awesome display of fluidity and efficiency.

  That is one of the things I love about cooking—there’s movement and motion, and all your senses are engaged: taste, touch, smell, sight, and even hearing gets in the act when you consider the message that the sizzle of the frying pan or the burble of boiling pasta sends us. There are not a lot of art forms that use all the senses all the time. I’m sure that sound or taste can impact a painter in some way, but not very directly. Similarly, for playing music, there are many sensory things to inspire a musician, but I doubt Jimmy Page relied on sense of smell to play the guitar solo in “Stairway to Heaven.”

  But back to our show. After we watched and sampled Chef Davis’s food, we headed to a different home—the house we grew up in. And the camera crew filmed me and Mitch working in the kitchen, discussing our plans, engaging in a little trash-talking as I stirred up saffron seafood risotto, and Mitch rolled and stuffed ravioli.

  Then we turned to my parents—the couple who raised us as kids to dial back on our competitive fervor, lest we kill somebody while roughhousing, the couple who practically sat on their hands during the Schwartz Bowl because they didn’t want to be seen favoring one son over the other—to judge the better dish. My dad, ever the coach, refused to choose sides. So we drafted my mom, and she reluctantly did her duty. I won’t say whose dish she picked, because I want you to watch the show, but her decision didn’t scar the loser.

  Now we are waiting for Courtney to close the deal. I know she was in talks with a number of networks, from the Food Network to the NFL Network. We’ve got our fingers crossed.

  EXTRA POINTS

  15

  TWO-MINUTE DRILLS—QUICK TAKES ON LIFE IN THE NFL

  Geoff on Trash-Talking

  Football fans always ask me about trash-talking and the psychological gamesmanship that goes on during the game. It exists, but it’s not like the guys are out there delivering nasty trash-talk monologues for an entire quarter or exchanging a constant barrage of “yo’ mama” insults. That doesn’t really happen.

  There’s only one exchange that I remember in all my years lining up. I wish I could remember who said it, because it was a fantastic moment. I was playing for Kansas City and we were thumping the other team pretty bad when we lined up for another extra-point conversion. As the snap count approaches, someone on the other team busts out with: “Yo, we have a dental plan in the NFL, go fix your teeth!” I was in my stance and the snap was a second away and I was laughing. It was such a funny dis.

  TV coverage mikes up the biggest talkers in the NFL because, hey, that’s entertainment. But the fact is guys talk all game. It’s not all f-bombs and “screw you” and you’re a this or you’re a that. You might say things to celebrate a good play or psych yourself up, or you might express your fury or frustration if something goes wrong. A lot of the time it’s just, “Great job,” or “You got me that time,” or “Damn.” The exchanges are not always vile or violent. Think about it, you are physically assaulting one another for three hours, you got to say something sometimes.

  Of course there are guys who engage in psychic warfare. Guys want to psyche you out. I’ve talked about how there’s a basic parity between players on a physical level, so a lot of what goes into making it in the NFL is your mental makeup. Everyone plays injured; can you play through injuries? Can you play through soreness? Can you play when someone is trying to intimi
date you? Can you play well when there are guys talking trash to you? There are guys that have better physical talent that aren’t in the league and there are guys—like me—who people might consider not the most physically gifted, and I’m still here rocking and rolling. The margin between me and some of the players who got cut is that I have the mental and emotional focus to cope with the pressure, to keep my cool and perform.

  I’m not really into playing verbally charged mind games out there, because I’m trying to stay focused on the game and my responsibilities. I’m not a guy who talks a lot of BS, but even I get fired up on Sundays. I’ve had teammates tell me they were surprised by my attitude on game day because I’m not like that during the week in practice. You have to have emotion to play on Sundays. As long as you can control and harness that emotion, it definitely adds an edge to your game.

  Mitch on Head Games

  There’s definitely some gamesmanship that goes on between players. Everybody wants an edge. One of the sneakiest things I’ve encountered is when an older defensive lineman will try to bark out fake cadences to get you to jump offsides. To me, that’s a bush league tactic. Everyone is so locked in to moving on the snap and listening for our cues that it just seems wrong to me. We are up there on the line, dealing with the extreme crowd noise and the information getting funneled through the line while running the upcoming play through our head and calculating our opponent’s probable moves. It’s a lot. We don’t need guys adding to the chaos. But then that’s the goal of the defense: to create chaos.

  As far as trash-talking, maybe the most aggressive behavior I’ve seen was in our game against Cincinnati. The Bengals were clearly amped and out to avenge their early season loss to us, and so any time they tackled Johnny Manziel or made a play against him, the Bengals’ defense would all rub their thumbs and fingers together, mocking Johnny’s now-retired “money sign.” They were clearly trying to get in his head and upset him.