by Jim Trotter
As Thanksgiving approached, Junior led the club with 80 tackles but had just one and a half sacks, which tied for only sixth on the team. Instead of grousing, though, Junior nodded his approval because he had asked Joe Pascale, San Diego’s defensive coordinator from 1997 to 2000, to use him as a decoy to help create opportunities for others. The request stunned Pascale, who knew Junior as a guy who not only wanted to make every play but needed to make every play.
When the two had first met in 1997, the team was moving from its longtime offices at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium to a new training complex 10 minutes to the north. Pascale was unpacking boxes in a double-wide trailer serving as his temporary office when Junior walked in and skipped the perfunctory pleasantries.
“Tell me what we gotta do to be better,” he said. “I’m ready. We can get these guys started.”
Pascale was surprised. He and his staff were still moving desks and tables, with months to go until the start of off-season workouts. He had yet to break down the tape of the defensive personnel or to formulate a blueprint for how each guy would fit in the puzzle. But on this day the face of the franchise was standing in front of him, wanting answers—specific answers—for what they were going to do, how they were going to do it, and who they were going to do it with.
Pascale asked him to pump the figurative brakes. “That wasn’t what he was looking to hear,” Pascale said. “He wanted to know what he could do today to get this thing started in the right direction.”
It wouldn’t be the last time Junior pushed Pascale. Each Tuesday or Wednesday during the season he’d walk into Pascale’s office and ask how Pascale planned to get him involved in that week’s game. By that time Junior already had studied the next opponent’s offensive line, running backs, and offensive formations and tendencies that he could exploit. If Pascale’s plan didn’t include things that would put him in the middle of the volcano, so to speak, he’d say: “What, are you going to have me watch the game?”
He was the same way on the sideline during games. Pascale liked to make certain calls early in games to see how the offense would react. Sometimes those calls, made consecutively, didn’t put Junior in the middle of the volcano, and he’d grow impatient. He’d get the defensive call from Pascale between plays, and before passing it along to his teammates, he’d step away from the huddle and drop his hands to his side. Pascale knew what that meant: When are you going to get me involved?
“I knew if I didn’t get him involved, he was going to start dancing around and get involved on his own,” Pascale said. “Getting him involved was always part of our plan because he was a disruptor. That was the foundation of our defense—to disrupt the timing of the offense, make them feel uncomfortable, hinder their ability to make checks, and so forth. The biggest thing that impressed me about Junior overall is that he wanted to be in the middle of the fray when the game was on the line. Some people—I don’t want to say they’re afraid of it—but they’re hesitant when the big moments come up. But he wanted to be in the middle of it, not just for the sake of the play, but because that’s where he felt he belonged. That was the best part of the game for him.”
The perception that Junior often played outside the defense had been valid during his early years, when he relied on his athleticism and instincts because he was still learning the league and opponents’ tendencies. But as the years passed his “freelancing” had been built into the defense.
“A lot of being involved with him was blitzing and attacking that A gap,” said Pascale. “It’s very intimidating for a quarterback when Junior’s in that A gap—one yard away—and the ball’s going to be snapped, and the guard’s got to block down on him. We knew the offense had to account for him and the protection was going to slide to him, so we used to run stunts off it. You couldn’t put a back on Junior because the back couldn’t get to him before he got to the quarterback. They had to slide their protection that way, so our other blitzes were based on that. We’d run the blitz away from the protection.”
Pascale felt that he had at least one stud on every level with John Parrella at tackle, Junior at linebacker, and Rodney Harrison at safety, and he game-planned around them. For instance, he tried to always balance the field by having Harrison on the strong side and Junior on the weak side. He knew if he put them on the same side, offenses would have an easier time scheming away from them, and he was not going to allow that to happen.
Yet here was Junior, during his regular meetings with Pascale, now requesting to be used as a decoy. Here was Junior, the quiet amid the storm. But would it last?
Junior and other veteran players had grown close to Jones, the interim coach. Jones gave them a lot of input into how things were done, and he believed in treating players as if they were business partners instead of employees. One of the first things he did after replacing Gilbride was move the coaches and other nonplayer personnel to the back of the team plane for away games so the players could sit up front in the wider seats.
“It just showed the level of respect he had for players,” Harrison said. “He always used to say, ‘The players are the reason why we’re here.’ He showed an appreciation for us. It was a small gesture, but it meant a lot.”
When Beathard asked Junior about keeping Jones as the full-time coach, Junior eagerly signed off on the idea. He not only liked Jones as a person but also appreciated the fact that he had Jones’s ear. He was much more likely to get his way with someone as amenable as Jones versus a hard-ass like Gilbride. The only problem was that Jones wasn’t interested in the job. His heart was set on the University of Hawaii, where his arrival was greeted with “Dewey Beats Truman” type headlines.
That left the Chargers searching for their fourth coach in as many years.
11
“My Head Is on Fire!”
THE YEAR 1998 had been a difficult one for Junior, both personally and professionally, so he eagerly looked forward to what the new year would bring. Nothing intrigued him more than what the Chargers would do about hiring a new head coach.
Beathard had had a track record of hitting the jackpot in such situations, like hiring future Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs in Washington or landing Bobby Ross out of Georgia Tech. But he had missed so badly on Gilbride that no one knew what to expect. When he chose Mike Riley from Oregon State, people scratched their heads.
Riley was an all-time nice guy, but he had no NFL experience and lacked a commanding presence. He spoke with a slow quasi-drawl and led “Hip Hip Hooray” chants in the locker room after victories. Junior was among those who had to do some research to learn about him; he quickly took to Riley because he saw qualities that reminded him of Jones, most notably that Riley would treat players with respect. It also wasn’t a stretch that he saw an opportunity to heavily influence his coach’s thinking. Riley admitted as much years later.
“I was ill prepared for that job,” he said. “I had never coached in that league or even been a coordinator in that league, so [I lived] with the constant thought that it was unlike any job I’d ever had. I had been a longtime assistant in the Canadian Football League before I was a head coach there. Then I was an assistant coach at ’SC before I got the job at Oregon State, so I knew the league and I knew the teams. I felt confident. But in San Diego I constantly worried, ‘Am I doing the right job for this team, the right thing in the NFL?’ Then you add to that that I’m getting the opportunity to be a coach for one of the greatest players to have played the game, and you wonder: ‘Are we doing the right thing for him?’ One of the things a coach has to do is turn around the perspective and look at it from a team standpoint. Look back at it as coaches and say, ‘What do they need from us?’ That was always a concern for me coaching that team and coaching Junior Seau.”
Beathard selected Riley primarily for two reasons: he had strong people skills, and he had a creative offensive mind. It was hoped that Riley could use both those qualities to bring out the best in Leaf, whom the organization still hoped to salvage. Riley knew he woul
d need the veterans to back him, so he spoke to Junior about the importance of trying to make a player out of the embattled quarterback. Junior agreed to do what he could to persuade the locker room to give him a second chance.
“He remained faithful to his team by trying to support Ryan Leaf longer than anyone did, talking to him, being supportive of him around the building,” said Riley. “There were some rough times in there, but he knew the importance of the investment at that spot, that that was going to have to work for us to be any good. He stayed with it for a long time.”
On most teams the first-string offense and the first-string defense don’t practice against each other. Each works against what’s known as a scout team, which is made up largely of bottom-roster guys who try to simulate the plays that that week’s opponent might run. When the number 1 offense is on the field, the starting defense usually hangs out on the sideline waiting for its turn to take the field. Ditto the offense when the number 1 defense is on the field.
One day Junior excused himself and walked from the huddle to the sideline after seeing Leaf standing by himself. “Ryan was over there, and it was like the loneliness of the long-distance runner,” Riley said. “Who knows what they talked about when Junior went over there? Maybe Junior had some personal empathy for the situation Ryan was in. But he also knew for the team’s sake this thing had to work.”
The attempt to develop Leaf turned out to be another brick in the road of good intentions going nowhere. Early in training camp Leaf began complaining about pain in his shoulder. The organization, with the backing of the players, decided not to waste time hoping he would come around. Instead, they turned to veteran quarterbacks Jim Harbaugh and Erik Kramer, a move that made Junior and other veterans ecstatic.
As much as he tried to support the organization, Junior knew all along that Leaf lacked the heart and commitment to excel. Harbaugh and Kramer were well past their prime, but at least the game mattered to them and they could be counted on to give their all. The reality that the team would not be weighed down by Leaf invigorated Junior. So did Riley’s decision to allow Junior to take reps at tight end in training camp.
By that point, entering his 10th season, the game had become remedial for Junior. He was constantly searching for a new challenge. Knowing he had an impressionable and inexperienced head coach (at least on the NFL level), Junior pushed to play tight end. He’d been a standout receiver in high school and actually had taken some snaps at the position at the Pro Bowl earlier that year. But everyone knows the Pro Bowl is a free-for-all where players do things they never would do otherwise because there’s no real contact in practice and players tend to look out for each other in the game.
Riley’s decision was immediately second-guessed by San Diego’s defensive coaches. They wondered if Riley was being manipulated by Junior’s powerful and persuasive personality. To them, it made no sense to subject their best player to greater risk of injury. After all, in an experiment the previous preseason, Jason Sehorn, a starting cornerback for the Giants, tore knee ligaments returning a kickoff and missed the entire year. There also were concerns that the additional reps would take away from his effectiveness on defense.
“I guarantee you if we had the number 1 offense, this never would come up,” said Junior. (The Chargers had led the league with 51 turnovers the previous season, negating their number 1–ranked defense.) “The fact here is we need an identity on offense. If I can add a spark to the offense, let’s do it. I have no problems about it. We’re going to put the best players on the field.”
At times he looked like a credible threat, but there also were occasions when he looked out of place. Then came the preseason and a wheel route against the Chiefs. Harbaugh spotted him breaking down the sideline and floated a pass in his direction. Junior, in full sprint, reached out with both hands for the reception and carried the ball into the end zone for a 37-yard touchdown.
“I still have a picture of that in my office today,” said Riley, now the head coach at Nebraska. “I personally thought it was a tremendous kind of willingness to step forward and say, ‘I can help in more ways than just doing what I’m doing.’ He also was just personally challenged in his career at trying to do something else. I went for it. Knowing Junior then, the physical condition that he was in, I knew his own personal pride wouldn’t let him play any less at linebacker. Where else could he go to learn about the position, so it wasn’t going to overburden him? And we were going to be careful about any package we used him in. It was actually kind of fun.”
No one was smiling later in the year when Junior ran an underneath route for a two-yard gain and was drilled by Chicago linebacker Ricardo McDonald immediately after catching the pass. The hit was so violent that it opened a gash on Junior’s chin.
“He got up first and celebrated like it didn’t hurt, then he came to the sideline and got stitches,” said teammate Orlando Ruff. “But here’s the thing—he did it without the doctor numbing the area first. He was just yelling, ‘Stitch me up! Stitch me up! Let’s go!’ They were like, ‘Junior, we’ve got to go in the locker room.’ He said, ‘Fuck that! Let’s go!’
“They stitched him up on the sideline, and he went out and finished the game,” Ruff continued. “Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s maybe when I said, ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,’” Riley said. “Maybe all the naysayers were ringing in my ears when he took that hit.”
Regardless, Junior was having fun again because the Chargers won four of their first five. The joy wouldn’t last, though, as the Chargers lost their next six games. Junior and the defense played a major role in the drop-off. After surrendering more than 14 points just once in the first five games, the unit allowed 28 or more five times during the skid. In four of the games, it gave up 31 or more points. Football had become a job again.
Then almost as suddenly as things went bad, the Chargers won four of their last five to finish 8–8. The defense figured prominently in the turnaround, yielding just four touchdowns in the five games. Riley also was a factor, his constant positive attitude serving as a buoy in choppy waters. At his golf tournament in the off-season, Junior called Riley to the front of the banquet room during a segment in which he presented his personal team awards for the previous season.
“It totally took me by surprise that he named me the MVP and gave me a trophy that I still have at home,” Riley said. “It was him supporting what we were trying to do. His loyalty to the people around him and to me—I will just personally appreciate how he put his arms around me. Here I am, I get this unlikely job coming out of Oregon State to be the head coach of an NFL team, and I just really felt his support and his leadership and his willingness to want to help in any way. I will forever be grateful for that. He really reached out and tried to make it work. I believe Junior had a purpose for everything that he did.”
At that point in his career, Junior believed that his purpose was to set the example for not only his team but also players on other clubs. He preached the importance of humility and respecting the game. He was so serious about it that he fined anyone he caught looking at themselves in the mirror during Breakfast Club workouts. He went out of his way to deliver the sermon to young talents who might one day hold the baton of greatness, like Tampa Bay linebacker Derrick Brooks.
The two first met on November 17, 1996, in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. Junior had already made his name as an NFL great and was heading toward his sixth consecutive Pro Bowl appearance. Brooks was a second-year inside ’backer who had yet to appear in a Pro Bowl, but he was beginning to take a claim as an up-and-comer at the position. He had size, athleticism, and innate playmaking skills that pointed to a future as someone special in the league.
“We exchanged information after that game and would talk once, twice a year,” Brooks said. “The Pro Bowl is probably where I spent the most time with him. We would play dominoes together. He thought he was pretty good, I know I was pretty good. Our initial conversations we
re more about the transition at the linebacker position and what I was doing in the NFC and what he was doing in the AFC. We were trying to keep the 4-3 defense ahead of the class, in terms of the style of play.
“But he was big-talking to me about being a strong leader and passing down knowledge to guys who came behind me and played the position. He would say, ‘Make sure you teach them how to take care of this league.’ You listened when he spoke because he was hierarchy. That was a time when I was starting to make a run at the title, so to speak, and he was the measuring stick. We were all trying to catch up to Junior Seau.”
Junior had reached a point in his career where he could relate to players on multiple levels. He was young enough to be a brother, smart enough to be a coach, and wise enough to be a grandfather. He lived in rarefied air, but never looked down on those around him. He knew the names of every teammate and their family members, from the star quarterback to the 53rd man on the 53-man roster. A figurative “welcome” mat was always at the front of his locker.
“That 53rd guy could come up and say, ‘Can you help me with this?’ and he never looked down on him or looked around and acted like, ‘Why are you bothering me? You’re not going to be around much longer anyway,’” said Orlando Ruff, who sought Junior’s counsel in 1999 as an undrafted rookie out of Furman. “He would share his time. How many true stars can you say that about?”
For all the things he would and could do, Junior could not turn the Chargers into winners. He was confident they would build on the 8–8 finish in Riley’s first year, but in a sign of things to come, the Chargers lost their 2000 season opener, 9–6, at Oakland. They led by four with five and a half minutes to play, but allowed the Raiders to drive 53 yards for the decisive touchdown with 2:37 to play. The following week against visiting New Orleans, they led by five with just over five minutes to play. But once again, they allowed an opponent to drive for the decisive touchdown in the final minutes, surrendering an eight-yard pass from Jeff Blake to Joe Horn with 47 seconds remaining.