Collision Low Crossers

by Nicholas Dawidoff

  Now that the undrafted free agents had been signed, the NFL teams were in negotiation with free-agent veterans. A football team employs many people, and most of them, coaches included, are unaware of personnel transactions the team is considering until the decisions about signings or trades are made at the top of the command chain. Ryan and Tannenbaum spent their days walking up and down the stairs to each other’s offices, speaking behind closed doors, seeding their plans. The other coaches talked of having no clue about what’s going on. They’d ask just about anybody, including me, “You got any idea?”

  The coaches were normally so busy that they rarely took the opportunity to hear or read media commentary on their own team. Now, during the crucial signing interval, however, everybody along the facility hallways had an ear or an eye alert to what the radio, the television, and the Web knew. When the Jets re-signed their enigmatic top receiver Santonio Holmes, plenty of front-office people learned about it via news reports.

  Eventually word spread that the team was in pursuit of Nnamdi Asomugha. This was really Rob Ryan’s fault. During the five seasons Rob had coached the Raiders defense, he and Asomugha had grown close. NFL tradition holds that when a player makes the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, he brings his coach to Honolulu as his guest. Even after Rob left the Raiders for Cleveland, he remained the coach Asomugha invited to the Pro Bowl. Because the Ryan brothers spoke at least once daily, Rex Ryan by now had heard many things about Asomugha, things that made a man covetous—even a man who already had Darrelle Revis.

  Ryan’s thinking was that if you took away the opposition’s two best receivers without allocating double coverage to either, you could then use your surplus personnel to unleash a terrifying pass rush. The problem was that plenty of other teams also wanted Asomugha, including Rob’s new team, the Dallas Cowboys.

  With all Jets defensive free-agent decisions contingent on what happened with Asomugha, even DT took a break from his usual sources of television companionship and switched over to ESPN. So it was that one morning when Sutton stopped by, he found his colleague in an apoplectic state. An ESPN expert, contrasting the skills of Revis and Asomugha, had described the free agent as the more aggressive press corner. “It’s awful!” DT seethed. “Awful! This guy’s just wrong. Nobody’s ever played like Revis. The number-one thing he does is play physically after the receiver takes his first step.” He began drafting an e-mail to ESPN. What distinguished Revis, DT wrote, was that while Revis trailed the opposition’s best receiver wherever he went, Asomugha lined up exclusively on the right side of the field. That allowed opponents to place their number-one receiver free of the flytrap, on the left. The e-mail grew longer, taking on a heavy ballast of statistics.

  Sutton loved that in support of his player, DT was willing to go all Marshall McLuhan on the ESPN man, showing up from nowhere the way the philosopher had appeared out of the mists in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall to tell a windbag McLuhan scholar: “You know nothing of my work!” But Sutton’s years at West Point had taught him about picking one’s battles. There were a lot of media messengers out there, Sutton said, too many for even a Lancelot like DT to conquer. The thing to do was switch the channel and rise above. “You’re right,” said DT. He hit Delete and started up a game of solitaire.

  The first day of training-camp practice would be August 1. A winning football team, Ryan believed, depended on the elusive unity that came from bucolic immersion and so he preferred to take the Jets away for training camp to the SUNY campus in Cortland, a slow-moving small town between Syracuse and Binghamton. There, players spent a few weeks in college-dorm beds—“It’s like a huge man trying to sleep on a matchbox,” Bryan Thomas said—eating dining-hall food, and, for a big night out, visiting the local fish-fry. But this year’s labor truculence had made it impossible to confirm arrangements with the university, so the Jets players would train in Florham Park, and (except for the hotel-bound rookies) would sleep in their own beds. With two-a-day training-camp practices eliminated by the labor agreement, everything felt strange to the coaches, and easier. Football was, the coaches all thought, an argument for difficulty. To them, in a time of parity, difficulty was their advantage. So now, in their new collectively bargained world, they worried.

  Under the rules, until August 1, the Jets players could work out on their own at the facility, in plain view of the coaches but without their supervision. They could approach the coaches and ask questions, but the coaches couldn’t approach them. A rookie defensive back, playbook in hand, visited O’Neil for some early clarification. Clarification received, he looked at O’Neil and said, “Man, if we ran some of this shit in college, we’d have been niiiice!”

  Looking through the facility’s second-floor windows to the turf field just below, you could see camp bodies wearing minimal Lycra, stretching and sprinting and taking quick glances up toward those same second-floor windows, hoping to find someone standing against the glass noticing how ripped they were. It was a team sport, but out there the camp bodies were a bunch of guys who’d driven in from somewhere, local heroes just trying to punch their way in. Most had been astonishing college athletes, and almost all didn’t stand a chance with the Jets.

  Each camp body had put so much into football. What would happen to them when they ended up out on the street? They had all been to college, and no doubt the future would go well for some, but not for many others, for whom the rest of life would sink into anticlimax after the thrill of the game. A recent Sports Illustrated report had found that nearly 80 percent of players encountered financial stress within two years of departing the NFL. The Hall of Fame former Ravens tackle Jonathan Ogden told me, “As soon as you get into the NFL, you don’t think about life after football. The job demands focus and energy; you can’t plan for life after it. These guys are twenty-two years old. The typical career is three and a half years. They don’t realize what it means to live off their interest. They buy big cars and they don’t fly JetBlue. A lot of guys go broke.” For some players, life after the NFL had commonality with the struggles of soldiers arriving back home from military combat. Ryan himself knew former NFL players who got depressed after their careers ended and took to drugs. During an off-season trip, he’d encountered one of his former Ravens defenders, a top draft choice now in such financial disarray that he had no coat for the cold weather. Ryan stripped off his own coat and gave it to the man. “There’s a million of those stories,” Ryan said. “Some of those guys get taken. Or they just blow it all.”

  Growing up, many players had found the structure of football to be its greatest advantage. The Jets, like every NFL team, had many players who had experienced severe trauma as children—a mother who died in childbirth, a father who died of an overdose. There were Jets players who had been shot at, stabbed, abused by relatives, jailed. It was a world of peril out there. One person who would be late reporting to the team this year was the Jets reserve defensive back Marquice Cole, a Northwestern graduate with liquid eyes and a penchant for hooded sweatshirts. Cole’s brother had been shot multiple times and killed outside Chicago, and Cole was back in Illinois for the funeral. Later during camp, the undrafted rookie defensive back Davon Morgan, who’d been raised in Richmond by his grandmother because his father had been murdered when Morgan was two months old and his mother was a drug addict, would learn that his cousin had been murdered. Morgan and the cousin had grown up, he said later, “as brothers,” but he didn’t return to Virginia for the funeral. “I didn’t leave because if I left, I knew they weren’t bringing me back. They’d just bring somebody else in.” The Jets team doctor Kenneth Montgomery told me that in all ways football players were naturally selected to endure pain.

  Football was often seen as an outlet for aggressive young men. Among the players, a more commonly expressed attraction of the game was the company of coaches and teammates, who offered some of what was missing at home. It was up to the coaches to provide consolation to these players, around whom they spent most of their waking hours. This was a
reason that Tannenbaum valued the warm presence of Ryan; of sturdy men like A-Lynn, Devlin, Sutton, and DT; of mature Jets players like Bart Scott, David Harris, Brandon Moore, Bryan Thomas, and offensive tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson. The NFL life could quickly give way to the slipstream beyond the facility, and a GM needed to establish as many sources of manly stability as possible.

  Out on the field, Sanchez led some passing drills with the receivers, including Scotty McKnight, a diminutive figure crossing from the slot to hug footballs to his chest in a way that made you think someone had just tossed him a sack stuffed with groceries. McKnight ran precise patterns and hauled in everything thrown near him, yet I kept expecting a can of San Marzano tomatoes to drop from his arms and go bouncing along the turf.

  The players couldn’t see them, but from time to time there were front-office people and coaches watching from behind the second-floor curtains. Invariably, each of them rooted for those he’d championed through the draft process. In Terry Bradway’s office, he and Schottenheimer spectated as Greg McElroy completed a pass to the free-agent swingman Josh Baker. “McElroy to Baker for another Jets first down,” called Bradway, who’d advocated for both. A play later it was Jeremy Kerley accelerating into the open for a catch and Schottenheimer exulting, “And Kerley has that extra gear!”

  “I’d give anything to be the worst guy out there,” said Bradway. Not Schottenheimer. He felt born to coach. In any case, something he’d noticed had been nagging at him—the way Sanchez seemed to be redesigning playbook routes to get the ball to McKnight, as though the two of them were back in sixth grade.

  The Jets hadn’t yet signed any notable free agents because they were waiting for Asomugha to decide what team he’d play for, and Pettine was annoyed at the way the cornerback’s indecision was costing the Jets. Antwan Barnes had just given up on Ryan and Pettine and signed with the Chargers. Maybe a guy like Asomugha wasn’t really interested in sharing the field—and the attention—with Revis? Down the hall, DT was watching Cold Case and thinking dark thoughts. “Come on, Nnamdi,” he called out. “You’re holding up progress.”

  Westhoff wasn’t happy either. Was Westhoff ever truly happy? I encountered him in the hallway one day. “Hi, Mike,” I said. “How are you?” His gaze was long. “Tortured, as always,” he replied. Now, as Asomugha deliberated, Brad Smith, whose photograph had pride of place on Westhoff’s office wall, had joined the Buffalo Bills. The belief in the Jets front office was that it was unwise to commit too much money to a player who was rarely on the field, even such a dynamic athlete as Smith. “I’m gonna miss Brad,” Westhoff said. “I love that kid. Love him. He offered to take a million a year less than Buffalo offered, but I don’t think they even noticed. The offer was not noticed.”

  Such was the budget that the team asked Bart Scott to accept a salary cut. Perhaps “asked” was not quite the word. Sitting in Ryan’s office, the linebacker agreed. Money was never the defining factor for any decision Scott made. What was a million dollars less to stay with a coach you’d lay down your life for? That was also Scott’s way on the field; he emitted an aura of sacrifice and danger, disrupting the point of the blocking scheme in the same reckless way that he used to forfeit his body on kickoffs. “I wouldn’t do that for somebody who didn’t have my best interests at heart,” Scott said of Ryan.

  Many players took salary cuts or signed on with the team for less than they were offered elsewhere. Some were given reduced offers and then put on a timer by the team, to be cut if the clock went beep-beep. All were praised afterward by people in management for being “pros” about the money. The players felt provisional. They were all for a better team, they wanted to win, and yet their careers might end tomorrow. They were eager to see how the money saved on them was spent.

  Jim Leonhard was hanging out in Pettine’s office with Pettine, O’Neil, and Mike Smith as Pettine’s television displayed a news crawl about the new contract the Chargers had given their safety Eric Weddle; his signing bonus alone was more than all the Jets safeties combined were earning. “White DBs are getting paid! Nice!” said Leonhard. Then he smirked and joked that the salary must be related to Weddle’s off-field charitable activities—“Now we’ll hear he’s really great in the community or something.” On the Jets, where white players were in the minority, where the atmosphere was open and people were blunt when they talked about race, Leonhard was always making jokes about his white man’s lack of speed—a syndrome the white coaches called Caucasianitis. Scott referred to himself and David Harris as “lineblackers,” since he and Harris were African American but neither of their backups was. Kenrick Ellis, who’d attended Hampton University, was asked in a meeting for details about an exotic defensive formation, and when he answered correctly, another lineman (black) said, “That’s that black-college education.” One day, some outside linebackers and Pettine had a discussion about white guys’ alleged aversion to dancing, a conversation begun by Jamaal Westerman, who was black.

  Westerman: “Y’all are bar guys.”

  Garrett McIntyre (white): “That’s like saying all black guys club!”

  Bryan Thomas (black): “I’m a bar guy!”

  Brandon Long (white): “I like to dance. I churn the butter!”

  Long was blockily built and had been unable to practice because of a leg injury more or less since his arrival at camp, so this seemed especially funny. As everyone laughed, Pettine said, “Yeah, you churn, with the white man’s overbite and the random finger-point!” More laughter.

  One day, Marcus Dixon, a young black lineman, and I were talking about race. As much as any Jet, Dixon had thought about the subject. Dixon was a child in Rome, Georgia, when his father abandoned him. His mother was a drug addict and had been in jail. His grandmother cared for him until he was eventually taken in and adopted by a white couple, Ken and Peri Jones. After the Joneses did this, Ken and his brother stopped speaking, and his mother moved out of the house. The Joneses always referred to Dixon as their child and believed he was a boy of rare abilities and exemplary conduct. His 3.96 high-school grade point average and football excellence won him a scholarship to Vanderbilt. In 2003, when he was an eighteen-year-old high-school senior, Dixon and a white fifteen-year-old sophomore had sex in an empty classroom. Soon he found himself charged with rape. Many commentators believed Dixon’s case would not have gone to trial had he not been a young black male in Floyd County, Georgia, who had had sex with a white girl. He was acquitted of rape, but the prosecutor also charged him with statutory rape, a misdemeanor, and aggravated child molestation, and Georgia’s sentencing guidelines for child molestation applied even when the two parties were teenagers close in age. Dixon was, in effect, convicted of having consensual sex with someone two years behind him in high school. When Dixon was sentenced to the standard amount of prison time for the charge—ten years—his jurors were aghast. He spent over a year in prison before he was set free by the Georgia Supreme Court. Dixon eventually went to Hampton University, where he was three times the captain of his team and made the dean’s list. Dixon said that on a football team, all the racial back-and-forth brought black and white players closer: “When people joke about race, it just makes us realize we’re all brothers here.”

  As for Leonhard, everyone understood that attitude was Leonhard’s edge. The scorn he displayed in conversation translated to the defensive secondary, allowing him to seem unimpressed even by the fastest NFL receivers. He was supremely confident on the field and played his best in big games. Leonhard would be a free agent after the season, and more than ever the coaches were hoping he’d get a big contract like the one Eric Weddle had just received from the Chargers. Partly this was because Leonhard was such a pro, so generous with help and advice for young teammates. For Jim O’Neil, who worked with Leonhard and the other safeties, it was also because Leonhard compensated for what he wasn’t with preparation, intelligence, and will. In Leonhard, O’Neil saw himself.

  Mo Wilkerson was sitting with Pettine, who
was telling the Jets number-one draft choice that his Temple film had reminded a lot of Jets people of a young Trevor Pryce. Then Pettine described the way that Pryce in his All-Pro years as a defensive lineman could “make himself skinny” and fit through crevices in the offensive battlements, and the way Pryce’s feet never ceased moving. Every defensive meeting began with a posting of the depth chart, where, Pettine told Wilkerson, he would be a day-one starter. Still, he’d draw competition from Ropati Pitoitua. He wasn’t as physically gifted as Wilkerson, but “Ropati’s relentless—nobody plays harder than he does. He gets the most out of himself, and that’s true of the whole unit. I hope that won’t be a problem for you.” Wilkerson had a peaceful way about him. He’d just been taking it all in. Now he said it wouldn’t be any problem.

  Just then a whoosh of energy shot through Pettine’s door. It was Bart Scott, his alert round face looking as full of life as ever, despite his lightened pockets. Pettine told Scott about Marquice Cole’s slain brother. “Chicago!” said Scott. “That shit’s crazy. If Quice is like me, back home it all falls on him.” Scott made some terrible decisions in the midst of play, and the coaches referred to the propensity as “Bart losing his mind.” This football quality was noteworthy to me, because off the field no Jet made keener, more imaginative assessments than Scott. He said playing football was like serving in the army: you inhabited a separate, extreme life. The months away from the facility required “disconnect” from football and a process of “reentry” into normal life. Scott had formulated this transition. When he returned to Detroit every year for an off-season family visit, he went first to the Eastland Mall, bought himself an orange slushie and some cheese nachos with jalapeño, and then he ate, drank, and watched the soft parade: “I see ambitious kids that used to be me. I see people it’s not working out for. I reengage with life. The ghetto’s crazy. Then I go to my grandmother’s house and sit on the porch. I’m not the biggest guy. Wearing a polo shirt, eating nachos, I could be anybody.”