by Mark Bowden
Marriage, he figures, is a way of taking one of the great and (with the proper precautions) relatively harmless pleasures in life and turning it into a sin. Andre knows that if he were married, it would only be a matter of time before his very own blow-dried sin came walking into some bar, and that would be that. Why tempt fate?
Because fate, for Andre, is not some abstract concept. Lurking in the waters out over the horizon is the whale, and you never know when it might swoop in on some divine current and swallow you whole. You have to be careful. There are just too many ways to screw up.
Take, for instance, the day he didn’t wear his lucky shirt.
It happened in the fourth game of the ’91 season, against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Andre arrived at the Vet at the right time, only to realize he had left behind his lucky shirt, the one with the blue sleeves. There was not enough time to drive back home and return to prepare himself properly for the game. Andre’s rituals were timed right down to the minute. No, he’d forgotten the shirt; now he was just going to have to deal with it.
Sometimes, when you screw up, you can derail the bad luck by taking some dramatic new step, but only if you can think of the right thing. He got a new pair of socks from Rusty, never an easy task, and the socks were okay. Then he paced through his ritual in the usual way. He wrote his slogan on his towel and on the tape—this week it was a recently deceased relative: “For you, Aunt Rosetta, I miss you.” He got the tape in place on his forehead, invoked heaven in the usual way and then hell—he’d missed a ton of tackles against the Steelers in a game three years before—and everything was ready except … the shirt.
He was trying to summon the Dré Master, but it wasn’t coming.
Andre confided his predicament to Eric, whose locker was next to his.
Eric understood immediately. His superstitions weren’t in the same league as Andre’s, but he did have his lucky, white long-sleeved undershirt, which his rules forbade him to wear two weeks in a row. With some misgivings, but seeing Andre’s fix, he offered it.
“But, look here, Dré. When you get two interceptions in this shirt, don’t ask me for it next week.”
This, Eric knew, was a serious concern. Andre promised.
But what a disaster! Three times in the first quarter Andre’s mistakes allowed big plays. He was mad as a stuck gator. Then on the Steelers’ second drive, with Andre scrambling to redeem himself, tight end Eric Green shrugged him off to catch a forty-nine-yard pass. On the next play, Green grabbed a slant pass and ran into the end zone with white-armed Andre, the obviously pseudo Dré Master, flapping helplessly on his back.
Andre came running off the field, muttering to himself, and headed straight for the bench. The network TV cameras caught the moment for posterity as the furious safety jerked off his jersey, ripped at the snaps on his shoulder pads, and in one contemptuous motion peeled off and flung the offending white shirt.
Eric watched with surprise.
“It’s the shirt, man! It’s the shirt!” Andre said. “I’m going to burn it.”
“You don’t burn my shirt, man,” Eric said. “That’s my lucky shirt.”
“I shoulda never worn this shirt,” he said. “You’re the reason all this happened.”
Eric shrugged. There was no reasoning with Andre when he was like this.
From that point forward, the Steelers not only could not score, they failed to move the ball into the Eagles’ territory. Late in the game, Andre forced a fumble.
“Look at me now,” he shouted to Eric midway through the fourth quarter, when the Eagles had the game in hand. “I can concentrate now! I’m doing good now. I can think like I’m supposed to think!”
Eric hid his shirt from Andre when the game was over.
“I don’t think it works for anyone else,” he said.
It had been a close call, but Andre survived the curse. He learned (1) don’t forget the shirt, but, of equal importance, (2) don’t try to replace the shirt. Trying to outguess God, it turns out, was blasphemous, sheer prideful folly. No, if you screwed up, you had to just cope, and hope Bud’s game plan pulled you through.
All of the signs and portents are good for Andre after the triumphant Dallas victory. His team is undefeated and on its way. He is tied for the team lead in tackles (twenty-seven), and, surprisingly, the evil rep caused by the untamable Dré Master is even getting a buff job in the press.
Even Dierdorf tosses him a bouquet during the Dallas game, saying “Dirty” Waters had cleaned up his act, that he was still hitting just as viciously, but now his blows were “clean.”
Andre isn’t buying it, and he isn’t in an especially forgiving mood either.
“I’m no different,” he tells the Pack, pugnaciously. “Everything I do ain’t perfect. Sometimes I make hits that aren’t good hits, but so do other people…. I’m not going to change. My mama told me to always forgive, but I’m a firm believer that what goes around comes around, and I would hope that no one would ever criticize Dan Dierdorf’s kid in front of a national audience, or that his kid doesn’t become a victim the way I became a victim of his criticisms, and that he doesn’t have to hear things on national TV said about his kid that my mama had to hear him say against me.”
He gives the impression, however, that while not wishing it, Andre might not mind too much if some such trial were visited on the Dierdorf clan.
And out in the deep blue stirs the whale.
DESPITE HIS PROTESTS that nothing has changed, Andre’s supposed “reformation” becomes a hot topic before game five of the ’92 season, a matchup with the formidable Chiefs in Kansas City’s snazzy Arrowhead Stadium.
The NFL pregame show features a segment on Andre, showing him delivering a bone-rattling blow to that Emmitt Smith, then leaning over and shouting into the flattened running back’s face mask (just wishing the young man well, actually, advising, “Don’t get hurt out here.”).
Terry Bradshaw’s upbeat narration says, “While the Eagles are still flying, the yellow flags aren’t. That’s because Bud Carson has been playing a more disciplined game. Case in point: Andre Waters, who appears to have cleaned up his act.”
Andre makes an appearance, wearing his NO FEAR black cap, balling up his Fu Manchu in a scowl, and backs down not an inch— “I’m no angel. I do things sometimes that I’m not particularly proud of myself.”
Andre’s belligerence is part of a general Eagles’ defensive chest thumping prior to this game. Having led the NFL in stopping the run for several seasons now, having topped every defensive category in ’91, having won their first four games and just demolished the Cowboys, the Eagles have one foot planted on the platform of legend.
Finally, they’re getting respect. Now, facing the Chiefs, Buddy’s Boys are going on all week about “strength on strength.” Kansas City has the best head-on running game in the pros, with two huge effective running backs, 260-pound Christian Okoye and 242-pound Barry Word. Over the last two years, the Chiefs have been beating teams by using these two giants as battering rams, eventually just wearing down opponents. Their offense has become so predictable even the adoring hometown fans are impatient with it. Well, Buddy’s Boys can hardly wait. All week long they’re promising “big hits,” eager to put their toughness to the test. Wes and Andre are the keys. Bud needs them to step up from the backfield and plug gaps with some spit-splattering hammers. Even Richie tips his enthusiasm for the coming collisions. “Kansas City likes to keep pounding you, but they’re playing the best team in the league against the run, so it ought to be interesting,” he says on his TV show.
Well, Marty Schottenheimer, the Chiefs’ head coach, is no fool. A square-jawed veteran of the Pigskin Priesthood, he’s also a jet pilot in his spare time. Coaches are always saying you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand the Game, but Marty … well, with his wire-rim glasses on, he even looks like a rocket scientist.
To Professor Schottenheimer, the Eagles are like a fighter so certain of his roundhouse right
that he brags about it. Marty had coached with Richie in Cleveland when they were both monks in the temple, and he knows Richie is many things, but subtle and deceptive aren’t among them. If Richie and his team say they plan to meet the Chiefs’ big backs head-on … well, that’s exactly what they have planned. It’s Richie’s style.
So Professor Schottenheimer starts cooking up a lesson plan. All that week, to every microphone in earshot, he laments what a challenge the Eagles pose for his team’s running game, and how, with their homely little veteran Plan B quarterback Dave Krieg, they just unfortunately have no choice but to challenge these bad boys head-on— May God have mercy on our poor blasted hides. He has his running backs at it, too. Word provides the Dré Master’s hate motivation for the week when he tells the Pack, “I’m tired of hearing about the Eagles’ defense. We’re the runners, they’re the run stoppers. We’re very physical, so are they. Something’s got to give.”
The primal smell of barbecued beast wafts over the brim of Arrowhead Stadium, smoke from hundreds of grills set up in the vast parking lots where fans, some of whom drive for many hours from the prairie outskirts to this middle-of-nowhere city to attend weekend games, set up camp four and five hours before kickoff. When they fill the broad, sloping two tiers of the stadium, which holds upward of seventy-six thousand, the stands practically bleed the scarlet color of the home team, with all the Chiefs’ sweatshirts, jackets, hats, scarves, mittens, flags, pom-poms, face paint, et cetera. A Kansas City home game on a brilliant fall afternoon is a great, roaring spectacle of Americana. The upshot on the field is, of course, the opposing team can’t hear a thing.
And with one final intonation of today’s competitive theme by CBS commentator Dan Fouts—”The Chiefs want to run the ball with Barry Word between the guards today”—Professor Schottenheimer steps up to the blackboard.
First play (first and ten on the Chiefs’ twenty-eight): Krieg drops back and looses a sixty-yard bomb deep down the right sideline, where receiver Willie Davis is covered one-on-one by Izel Jenkins, who slaps the ball away at the last moment.
“Okay, no problem,” says Andre, “he got that out of his system, nice try but no cigar. Now we’ll get down to business.”
The Eagles aren’t wasting any man power deep. Why bother? Everybody knows K.C. plans to sledgehammer its way through the Eagles. Bud’s playing both safeties and all three linebackers up on the front line, and the boys are just itching for that first spine-jangling whack—why, on that first play, Wes had tackled Word in the backfield! Of course, he didn’t have the ball. But it was a helluva hit!
Second play (second and ten on the Chiefs’ twenty-eight): A fake handoff (play action) and pass, for a seventeen-yard completion to Davis, who does a little curl pattern covered one-on-one by Eric—the easiest way to come free in one-on-one coverage is to sprint downfield twenty yards, then stop suddenly and come back for the ball. It works like a charm … oh yeah, and the boys were all over that poor bastard Word again in the backfield.
Third play (first and ten on the Chiefs’ forty-five): Another play-action pass, this time, a twelve-yard gain, another curl pattern matching receiver J. J. Birden alone against Eric. Again Word is swarmed in the backfield, breaking some sort of record for getting tackled without the ball.
By now, the beauty of Professor Schottenheimer’s strategy is dawning on the Chiefs’ side of the field. Every time Krieg takes the snap, turns, and fakes the handoff to Word, Arrowhead Stadium tilts about five degrees on its horizontal axis, as all seventy-six-thousand-plus fans lean along with the Eagles into the fake. Marty has never seen anything like this before. He’s come up with the unspoilable gag, the only fake in the whole history of football that works better the more you use it—because, see, every time Krieg feigns the handoff and then throws, the proud and mighty Eagles are that much more convinced that on the next play the handoff will be real, so certain are they of Marty’s game plan, so eager are they for the test.
Fourth play (first and ten on the Eagles’ forty-three): A screen pass, with the Eagles tripping over themselves scrambling toward the runner in the backfield. Only the long right arm of Clyde Simmons, slapping down the ball, stops a big gain.
Fifth play (second and ten on the Eagles’ forty-three): Bud has called a blitz; he’s sending cavalry, infantry, and mess-hall staff into the backfield this time (Andre is practically assuming a three-point stance), and he has this nifty stunt going on in front, with the ends swinging inside the tackles to throw off blocking schemes and just snuff that ol’ running play with a heavy splash of Clyde and Reverend Reggie, once again leaving Eric and Izel isolated in one-on-one pass coverage. Krieg can see the blitz coming (Christ, the Gang Green is panting and slobbering all over itself in blitzful anticipation), so he changes the play, calling for both his receivers, Birden and Davis, just to flat out challenge the cornerbacks. They sprint off the line converging toward a point near the center of the field and then, about twenty yards out, suddenly alter course and angle back toward the deep corners of the field.
Eric turns adroitly, he doesn’t miss a step with his receiver, but Izel (he isn’t called Toast for nothing) is distracted for a fatal instant by Krieg’s pump fake, and his receiver, Birden, has him by a good three steps. Krieg lays the pass out in front of his man, and the Chiefs have a forty-three-yard touchdown pass to conclude their opening drive. Five straight passing plays—so much for “strength on strength.”
But, hey, that was a fluke. Bud’s defense comes off the field chastened but undaunted. They figure Professor Schottenheimer is just setting them up for those big backs. These guys can’t pass the ball all day—they’re a running team, for crying out loud!
See, this is the unspoilable gag, the more you use it, the better it works!
Things settle down for the rest of the first half. The Chiefs actually run the ball a few times, with predictably minimal success. But Randall can’t seem to get the offense moving. For one thing, in all this noise the Eagles are using the silent count, with all the linemen looking back for center Dave Alexander to raise his helmet, and then counting to themselves, only Randall is once again telegraphing the snap every fucking time by jerking his right leg, which is making it all but impossible for poor Ron Heller to block the Chiefs’ speedy outside linebacker Derrick Thomas—Ron’s nightmare, the Bills Game Redux. Randall does manage to inch the Eagles within field-goal range early in the second quarter, chucking the play as drawn and high stepping for a couple of first downs. So there’s just a four-point deficit as the game approaches halftime—where presumably Ron can get the quarterback to keep his silver heels planted until after the snap.
With less than a minute remaining until the half, Richie tries to move into field-goal range with a few passes, but Randall gets sacked again by Thomas (who can’t believe how easy Randall is making this), and then again by the Chiefs’ star pass rusher, left end Neil Smith, who manages to battle through both big Antone Davis and Keith Byars. So with only forty seconds left, after Eagles punter Jeff Feagles gets off a rare bad kick, the Chiefs have the ball back again, just thirtyone yards away from the end zone.
It’s easy to figure the Chiefs’ next move: send that big back Word right up the middle for three or four yards, call time out, hammer him into the middle once more, call another time out, and kick a field goal. Easy to figure. The boys are ready.
Krieg fakes the handoff, the Eagles dive for the ballcarrier, the stadium tilts seven degrees this time—and the quarterback throws another pass, this one for a seven-yard gain. Now they’re in relatively comfortable field-goal range.
Bud decides to blitz, push ‘em back, challenge them. With only twenty-five seconds left, time to get off just one more play before the kick, the Chiefs have two receivers split to their left, where they’re guarded by three Eagles defenders. Cornerback John Booty joins Eric and Wes on that side. But Bud’s call will send Booty after the quarter back, leaving Eric and Wes to handle the two receivers. They’ve done this a thousan
d times: Wes has the inside guy; Eric has the outside guy. Simple. Two smart veterans and a routine adjustment.
Only Booty doesn’t do a very good job of disguising his intention. So Krieg can see he’ll have two receivers with one-on-one coverage on the left side … and then Eric screws up. He follows the inside receiver across, practically colliding with Wes, and leaving the outside man, Birden, all alone down the left side of the field. They had handed the Chiefs a touchdown. Booty pointed Krieg’s nose in the right direction, and Eric cleared out to let the quarterback and receiver play catch.
So the Eagles go into the locker room down 14-3 … and Richie and Bud are convinced—Okay, they’ve gotten away with it twice, lucked out, but now the contest really starts, strength versus strength, don’t be fooled, fasten your chin straps tight, boys, they’re going to be running that ball right down our throats.
The unspoilable gag!
And who does Professor Schottenheimer pick for the coup de grâce? Why, Andre, of course. The Dré Master has been so transparently eager to stop the run all afternoon that he’s practically been playing a third defensive tackle. Andre had knocked himself unconscious (for the second time in two games) in the first quarter delivering a headfirst shot to running back Todd McNair that prevented a Kansas City first down. He was back in on the next series, bailing out of pass coverage at so much as a hint at the fake.