by Mark Bowden
“I’ll talk to my guys,” said Greene, somewhat taken aback.
“We’re all professionals out here … your guys don’t have any respect!” Ron raged.
“I’ll watch the film,” promised Greene apologetically.
Persnickety Ron once even ran over to the sidelines in a redfaced rage during a Dallas Cowboys game (a linebacker had poked him in the eye) and, to what must have been the everlasting amusement of the Cowboys, pointed an accusing finger at coach Jimmy Johnson and bellowed “You should be ashamed of yourself!”—so there!
This finer edge to Ron’s personality aside, he is a hardened, proven veteran, a man’s man. There isn’t a fire-breather in the league he can’t block, he knows, except—and this is what haunts him … except when he can’t hear.
See, Ron has this nightmare. It is late in the ’90 season. The Eagles are playing the Buffalo Bills up in frigid Rich Stadium on a gorgeous December afternoon. The stands, of course, are jammed with screaming Bills fans. Crowds in Buffalo don’t need a dome to reach the upper-decibel range, the subarctic air condenses the roar and pools it in the stadium bowl like noise soup, a sustained viscous roar. Out on the field you have to read lips to hear the quarterback call plays. Hearing the snap count is impossible at Ron’s spot on the end of the line, where Bruce Smith, one of the quickest and strongest pass-rushing grizzlies in the game, is grinning at him with steam rising through the grille of his face mask. Ron has his feet planted wide, he’s bent at the waist, and he’s got his arms up; in other words, he’s in perfect (we’re talking perfect here) form to maintain balance while absorbing Smith’s initial full-body ram, retreat, and then fend him off. No way Bruce Smith is going to get around Ron Heller, except poor Ron has to look back over his shoulder to see when the ball is snapped. Smith, who doesn’t have that disadvantage, is getting this huge jump on every play!
“Look, Randall, I can’t hear you out there,” Ron complains to the quarterback on the sidelines after the first series.
“I’m using my soft voice,” Cunningham says.
“You’re using your soft voice?!”
“I had this teacher once, and he said that if you want people to really hear you, you should speak softly, because that forces them to listen harder.”
“Randall, you don’t understand. I’m concentrating. My problem is I can’t fucking hear you! You’ve got to be loud.”
“Don’t worry about it, man,” says Randall, seeing that Ron is getting a little worked up about this and all. “If he beats you around that corner I’ll”—here he kicks up his knees and swivels his hips— “just scoot up in there.”
Terrific. Back out in the noise soup, play after play after play, Smith is just blowing right around him. Ron is being made to look foolish. Then midway through the game—this is the worst—Buddy Ryan yanks him. Benches him! This has never happened to Ron before. The fair-haired wonderchild of Farmingdale High—yanked! Cocaptain of the mighty ’82 Penn State national champion Nittany Lions—benched! Butt kicked! Do you think it matters a bit to Ron that his replacement, unassuming journeyman Daryle Smith, gets windburns from Smith blowing past him, too, all through the second half? Ron is sitting on the bench in a purple funk. He hopes the goddamn Eagles lose at this point. He’s gonna quit this fucking game. He can’t figure it out. Sure, Smith was getting a jump, but Ron’s always been able to cope at least somewhat with that. It turns out later, when they view the fiasco again on videotape, that not only was Ron at a disadvantage because he had to turn his head, but ol’ Soft Voice was unknowingly hitching his knee shortly before each snap. They rewind the tape and watch again and again—sure enough! Randall is giving the snap away. Ron didn’t have a chance.
Okay, but tell that to the whatever million CBS regional viewers who watched throughout the northeastern United States (including Farmingdale, New York). Tell that to Philadelphia’s know-it-all sports writers and columnists, paid sadists, who scour the wreckage of every Eagles loss for scapegoats and mount their heads on pikes. Ron, ordinarily the picture of poise and master of well-reasoned postgame analysis (he’s done TV work down in Tampa), loses it postgame when some unfortunate wire-service grind has the temerity to suggest that just maybe Ron’s not playing in the second half had something to do with the great day that Bruce Smith seemed to be having … and what did he think about it? Naked, huge, and still flushed bright pink from the cold and the postgame shower, Heller lights into the wretch— What the fuck do you know, you pussy, about blocking Bruce Smith? and Why don’t you just come right out and ask what you want to ask? and such. The noise explanation, and even the knee-hitch, won’t do him any good. Sure, Ron, right. We hear you. Tell that to the ignorant gabfest harpies who play host on Philly’s sports-talk radio station, the aptly named WIP, who flog the town’s pro athletes (particularly the Eagles) twenty-four hours a day, twelve months a year, with razor Lilliputian lashes. Tell that, fer Chrissakes, to Buddy, who can spot the sorry-ass excuse of an offensive lineman below the rim of a West Texas horizon, and who knows damn well that it wasn’t his defense that lost that lousy football game.
Oh, the injustice!
The humiliation!
The nightmare had, of course, been real, and Ron lives in fear of its happening again. It was the low point of his professional life. Ever since, he has been trying to make coaches take him seriously about noise. It is considered another of Ron’s effete concerns. He’d tell Richie, “We’ve got to do something to prepare for the noise.” The coach would just smile indulgently. “Yeah,” he’d say. “We’ve got to concentrate”. Ron would walk away muttering, “Concentrate, shit. If you can’t hear, you can’t hear.”
Finally, this year, the Eagles had hired a new line coach named Bill Muir, who was eager to earn the trust and affection of his new charges, especially the veterans. Muir, bless his heart, listened. Together they had come up with a new system for the silent count that worked. They’d had a few problems with it against Dallas in Texas Stadium, but in the week before this play-off game Richie had asked the folks over at NFL Films to truck over some speakers and tape and broadcast crowd noise at high volume so they could perfect it during practice. Heller had been so happy it was all he could do to keep from kissing the coach. “Rich, this is the best thing you’ve ever done,” he said. “When we win this game, you get the credit.”
And it was working. They had three ways of doing it. There was the helmet technique, by which, at some point after the line was down and set, center Dave Alexander would lift up his head, and they all would silently count to a prearranged number. There was the ball technique, by which the silent count would begin the moment Dave leaned over and put his hand on the ball. Then there was the touch technique—Ron had come up with this one on his own and it was his favorite. With the touch technique, nobody even had to look back down the line at the center. The guard just reached over and touched the tackle’s hand, releasing the touch the moment the ball was snapped. This, of course, left the Eagles’ offensive line wide open to potential leaguewide ridicule— The Eagles? Ain’t they the guys who hold hands? But they are using it today, and it is working! Swilling hasn’t even been a factor. Ron is as concerned as any of his teammates about the halftime score, but more than anything he feels relief. We’re talking career breakthrough.
Unfortunately, that and the bomb to Fred are about the only things that have worked.
Before the coaches come out of their halftime huddle in a side room, Dave Alexander steps up to the blackboard. Dave is an amiable country boy from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, who loves to play football and has settled with good-natured discipline into the essential but glamourless role of snapping the ball. He’s the kind of guy who apologizes to his coaches after making a mistake. “It was me, Coach,” he’d say. “I screwed up.” This being something of a rare and remarkable trait at the pro level, coaches were often taken aback. They’d even try to coach Dave on how to make excuses for himself like everybody else. They’d say, “Ah … well, Dave, the ba
ll musta been all wet.”
“No, the ball wasn’t wet,” Dave would insist. “It was my fault. I screwed up.”
He approaches the game with an honest, cheerful intensity, oblivious to the raging egos and turf wars around him. If he sees something that needs doing, on the field or off, Dave steps up. That’s what he does now. All through the first half the offensive line has been having trouble on passing downs. Randall has had two of his third-down passes batted back at him, and blitzing linebackers have been chasing him all over. The problem has been handling the Saints’ nickel coverage (a five-defensive-back formation). Dave doesn’t wait for Bill Muir to emerge from the coaches’ meeting.
“Here’s what they’ve been doing,” he says, drawing X’s and O’s in chalk. “This is how we’re going to block it.”
With the diagram, he clearly redefines their blocking assignments. In nickel, the Saints are positioning their defensive front with rushers over both guards and tackles and letting their linebackers roam, probing for a vulnerable spot. The Eagles’ blocking schemes are designed to send the line pushing together either right or left, with the running back stepping up to plug any gaps. Only, with backers poaching from a variety of directions, the running backs had started just keying on them individually, instead of covering the unprotected gaps. Swilling, when he avoided Ron and rushed from the middle, had been particularly troublesome.
Dave tells running back Heath Sherman, “Look, wherever Swilling’s at, the offensive line will be responsible for him. If we’ve got a right call, and he’s on the left, we’ll block Swilling; you just stay with your regular assignment.”
When Muir comes out of the meeting, he walks up to the board and nods.
“Yeah, that’s what we’ve got to do,” he says. “Who drew this?”
The other linemen start nudging the center and teasing, “Coach Dave! Coach Dave!”
Apart from Ron and Dave, and Randall, Fred, and Calvin, the only other vested member of what might be called this team’s inner circle on offense is the long-suffering Keith Byars. A devoutly religious, very proper young man, Byars is about four times thicker in every department than an ordinary human being. Keith’s original nickname with the Eagles was “Sweet Sixteen,” because that’s what size shoe he wears, but when Keith didn’t laugh along they dropped it. The former Ohio State star approved, however, of the nickname “Tank,” which is what Richie calls him. It is an apt description of what his 240 pounds looks like tearing downfield with the ball.
The problem today, as far as Keith sees it, is no different than the problem most weekends—that is, getting him the football. This has been the sad theme of Keith’s six-year career with the Eagles, and it got worse this season. When the Eagles’ star tight end Keith Jackson first sat out for eight weeks and then skipped Philadelphia for Miami in October, Byars, a running back (got that, a running back) was pressed into service on the line. He gets the ball less and less. In the first half of this game he has one catch—one catch!—for just six yards. Not that he hasn’t been open, mind you. Poor Keith has been out there jumping up and down, waving his hands over his head, shouting “Woooo! Woooo!” (which is his way of trying to capture Randall’s attention) all afternoon. One of the things coaches will complain to Randall about during this halftime is getting the ball to the tight end— which Randall already knows because Byars has been pleading with him on the bench for most of the first two quarters. It’s just so frustrating for Keith. It isn’t all ego either (although it is partly ego). Keithreally believes in himself. He really believes the single best thing this offense could do to get moving is give him the ball! Hadn’t these guys watched the tapes of what he had done in his glory days at Ohio State? Back when Buddy was coach he had gotten over his disappointment at not being used as the classic tailback he was, instead being moved around the backfield to block on one play, catch a pass on another, carry the ball on another, even though this multiple role had deprived him of the stats he needed in any one spot to win leaguewide recognition. Pro Bowl slots were voted by position. What was he, a tight end? A fullback? A receiver? Byars has long since given up caring how the Eagles use him, so long as they give him the ball. They could dropkick it to him from the Goodyear blimp for all he cared. It seemed so obvious to him. Why couldn’t everyone see it? All through the offseason the hue and cry of the so-called experts had been “The Eagles need a running back!” Kotite goes out and drafts two this year, using his top pick and a fourth-round spot. What was Keith Byars, wet toast? Runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in ’84, second-leading rusher in Ohio State history, first-round draft pick, average of more than one thousand yards gained running and receiving over the four previous seasons? Then the Eagles went and shelled out $1.45 million (a half million more than they were paying Keith) to obtain Herschel Walker, who in ’91 had averaged 4.2 yards per carry—Keith had averaged 4.1. Didn’t anybody notice these things?
All this weighs on Keith’s extrathick brow. His scruples won’t allow him to complain—at least not a lot. He has become, in consequence, a brooder. Disappointment envelops Keith Byars like a damp aura.
Herschel, on the other hand, has already had about all the glory and acclaim a body can stand. He has seen the upside and the downside of fame, from the Heisman Trophy to the cover of Sports Illustrated to the news stories in Minnesota of his supposed suicide attempt— when all he’d done was fall asleep in the garage listening to music in his car. Most recently he’s been making headlines as the marquee member of the U.S. Olympic bobsledding team. Herschel is happy just to be here, playing football. After his troubled sojourn with the Vikings, the Eagles have assumed his mega-salary for a few more seasons, and Herschel is grateful. He isn’t looking for glory; he just wants to fit in. He even volunteers to play on special teams. In the first half he’s caught one pass (for a one-yard gain) and carried the ball once (for two yards), but he’s not complaining.
Alongside Herschel sits Teen Wolf, or just Wolfie, as teammates call Heath Sherman, a taciturn bowlegged little Texan who has become, despite Tank and Herschel and those draft picks, despite all the ambitious plans of owner and coach, the team’s premier back in the last half of this season. Heath is the man who runs falling down. He can start falling at the line of scrimmage and not hit the ground until he’s thirty yards upfield. With this peculiar, lunging style, Sherman looks like a quadruped cradling the ball with one limb. Until this season, his style worked against him. Head down, he kept running up the backside of his own blockers. But last summer running backs coach Richard Woods suggested a remarkable adjustment—Son, you need to watch where you’re going—and voilà! Heath was dangerous. He started averaging more than five yards per carry and had broken free for five long touchdown runs in the last half of the year. His teammates had started the wolf nicknames because Heath has a low hairline and a beard that tends to creep up his cheeks toward his eyes, but “Wolfie” partly stuck because of his hungry, four-legged running style. Heath has yet to really cut loose in this game. He’s carried the ball six times for just twenty-three yards.
There is one other true insider on the offensive side of the room, but he is a special case. Seated before his locker in pristine uniform is Jim McMahon, the pop cult hero who led the ’85 Chicago Bears to football’s pinnacle, who still advertises his maverick attitude with punk hairdo, earring, and wraparound shades. Only now, six years on, the look and, to a certain extent, the punk quarterback himself, are anachronisms. With scars scribbled all over his pale frame and braces on both knees, eleven years into his pro football career, Jimbo has become a low-profile locker-room-loving rat, the kind of player who can’t wait for training camp every summer. He and his wife have four growing children. The lucrative endorsements, best-selling autobiography, and constant train of media attention are history, but Jimbo is still living and loving the football life, decking his corner space in the Eagles’ locker room with crude porn and comical newspaper and magazine cutouts lampooning his coaches and teammates (usually with hi
s own additions in the form of drawn-in appendages or dialogue). Champion of the team’s ’91 bowling league, ever-ready drinking companion, dead-on domino player, Jimbo doesn’t just fit in with whatever football team he joins, he becomes the hub of its wheel. And don’t think Randall doesn’t notice. After Randall went down in ’91, Jimbo had battled his own body through eleven starts, winning eight, including a come-from-behind masterpiece against the Cleveland Browns (341 yards and three touchdowns) despite being so hobbled that he literally had to be carried up the dugout steps to the field at Cleveland Stadium. There are a lot of people in the locker room (Jimbo most of all) who feel he should be playing quarterback in the second half.
One player with no opinion in the matter is Antone Davis, the team’s anchor-ass right tackle and Richie’s boldest coaching experiment. With Antone’s worries, he can’t afford to concern himself with anyone else.
Richie, desperate to upgrade his offensive line in ’91 just months after taking over as head coach, used both that year’s and the following year’s number-one choices (he traded his ’92 number one to Green Bay to move up in the pickings) to snare Antone—who was promptly christened the Megapick. The ever-gracious Buddy Ryan, who had been silent since his firing three months earlier, wrote a guest article for the New York Times that (surprise!) awarded Richie and the Eagles the booby prize for making the “biggest mistake” of that year’s draft. Antone hadn’t done a lot yet to prove Buddy wrong. He was six-four and weighed in at well over 325 pounds, most of it spread liberally around his upper backside. He had helped make Tennessee’s offensive line the most overpowering blocking front in college football in ’89 and ’90, and on paper and in the highlights film he looked like that rarest of football finds: a natural offensive lineman.