by Jim Trotter
One defeat was followed by another, the skid advancing from two games to four to eight to 11. In six of the losses, the defense blew a lead in the final three minutes. In four of them, they gave up the decisive score in the final 47 seconds of regulation or in overtime. This was particularly painful for a player as prideful as Junior, though he refused to show it publicly.
“No one is going to feel sorry for us,” he said. “It’s up to us to change things.”
By this point the Chargers had become a national punch line. Leno and Letterman were using them as the butts of their late-night jokes, and nationally syndicated radio host Jim Rome was openly lobbying for them to become the first team in league history to finish 0–16. Junior shrugged publicly, but inside he seethed. He was not going to have such shame on his résumé, and in the 12th game, with the Chiefs in town, San Diego’s defense played with an intensity not seen in weeks. It limited Kansas City to 10 first downs, 161 yards, and only three conversions on 18 third downs. The unit came up biggest when it mattered most—in the fourth quarter, limiting the Chiefs to a maximum of 18 yards on four possessions. The last two stops were the most important because they (a) positioned the Chargers for a go-ahead field goal from 52 yards, and (b) preserved a 17–16 decision that would be their only win of the season.
Overall, however, the Chargers presented no real fight the rest of the season, and sadly, Junior was becoming known as much for playing on bad teams as he was for being a great player. The Chargers were concluding their fifth straight nonwinning season, and in three of them they lost at least 11 of 16 games. Playing for pride was a given, but loss after loss has a way of demoralizing even the strongest-willed player. One way Junior stayed motivated was by making it personal when matched against a great opponent or an up-and-comer who wanted to challenge his de facto title of best inside linebacker in the league. Case in point: December 10, 2000.
It was a balmy afternoon in Baltimore considering the time of year. Temperature: 31 degrees. Wind: four miles per hour. Wind chill: 28 degrees. Flip-flop weather, relatively speaking.
Inside PSINet Stadium, the best and the worst of the NFL were facing off in a game that featured no anticipated drama. The host Ravens had won four in a row and would go on to win the Super Bowl. The Chargers had lost 12 of 13 and would set a franchise record for losses by finishing a league-worst 1–15.
The only suspense was whether the Ravens would put the game away in the first quarter. The Chargers had appeared to pack it in for the season the previous week in a 45–17 loss to San Francisco. The 49ers entered that game with a 4–8 record and had been held to 16 or fewer points in three of the previous five weeks. If the Chargers couldn’t do anything against them, what chance did they have against a Ravens defense that had held opponents to nine or fewer points in four of its last five outings?
The scoreboard confirmed the inevitable: 24–3, Baltimore. The Ravens forced five turnovers and limited San Diego to 128 yards on offense. And yet the outcome would have been significantly more lopsided if not for Junior, who was determined to show the sellout crowd and the rest of the NFL that the best linebacker on the field—if not the league—was wearing number 55 for San Diego and not number 52 for Baltimore.
The talk leading up to the game was that Ravens middle linebacker Ray Lewis had become the new alpha male at inside linebacker. He was younger (by six years) and smaller (six-foot-one, 240) than Junior, but possessed the same intensity, passion, and relentlessness. There was no way of missing him on the field because he was everywhere. He had that presence about him, that aura.
Junior had tremendous respect for Lewis, and their friendship was so strong that they had compared not only statistics but also contracts. When one signed a new deal, the other was the first to receive a call. Still, Junior had no intention of being upstaged by his young friend. The game was personal, not just business.
“He had the game of his life,” Devaney, the Chargers’ director of player personnel at the time, said of Junior, who had a game-high 16 tackles, 10 more than Lewis. “He played his ass off. Later he said, ‘Ray Lewis is a great player, but I wanted to show the people in Baltimore who was the best linebacker on the field.’ That’s who Junior was. Ray Lewis was okay that day, but Junior was head and shoulders above him. He wasn’t disparaging Ray. It was just an attitude of ‘I’m the best.’”
A strong case could be made that Junior was the greatest inside linebacker in NFL history. He went to 12 straight Pro Bowls, which was a first at the position. He also was voted first-team All-Pro eight times and second-team on two occasions. He had the size of a lumberjack, the quickness of a cat, and the instincts of a clairvoyant.
Few, if any, linebackers ever blitzed the A gap (the space between the guard and the center) better than Junior. It was astounding to see a man so big get so small, often turning his body perpendicular to the line of scrimmage so he could squeeze through narrow openings. He also had a special gift for timing the snap count. He made it look so easy, but it wasn’t.
“That was his thing,” said quarterback Peyton Manning. “No one that I know of did it better. He could time that snap count and hit it on the dead run. He had a good feel on run/pass tendencies, and he was blowing it up on the run, taking the center and the guard, or timing it up on a pass play and making it awfully tough for that running back to block him. You have to remember, this is a large outside linebacker. It wasn’t just an outside linebacker with speed who lacked size. He had them both. Unbelievable speed. It made him rare.”
Manning faced Junior twice in his rookie season, in 1998. Junior was in his ninth year and had gone to eight straight Pro Bowls, so Manning knew he was a quality player. But his reverence climbed another rung when he listened to how offensive coordinator Tom Moore and line coach Howard Mudd spoke about Junior. They referred to him by only his first name, which was a major sign of respect. The only other player who received that first-name treatment was Buffalo Bills defensive end Bruce Smith.
Over the years Manning came to fully appreciate that respect. Manning prided himself on being prepared, on studying his opponents until he knew them better than they knew themselves. But figuring out Junior was impossible because he often ignored long-accepted practices associated with particular downs and distances. He relied on instincts and intuition as well as film study to make plays.
“You’ll have an assistant coach who breaks down film of the opponent and then gives you a report,” said Manning. “He’ll say things like, ‘This is a will [weak-side] linebacker blitz, cover-3 zone blitz,’ and then you watch it and keep watching and you say, ‘I don’t really think that’s supposed to be a blitz. Junior is blitzing on his own, but it’s only because he smells something, and he’s going after it.’
“It can screw up your tendency chart,” Manning continued. “The will linebacker has blitzed on all these downs and distances, and you watch it and you go, ‘I don’t think that’s a planned blitz because, if he was blitzing, the backside defensive end probably would’ve stopped. Those are kind of the rules of a zone blitz.’ I can remember having this argument, and the assistant coach defending his work. I’m saying to him that it doesn’t matter what you call, Junior will be Junior if he smells something. The amazing thing was that he was right all the time.”
Junior explained it thusly: “You come into this game trying to learn. And once you learn, you understand. And once you understand, you feel the game.”
He loved every Sunday, but particularly those that matched him against the best of the best—like in 2002 when he sat in a darkened meeting room at the Chargers complex and studied Rams running back Marshall Faulk on the projection screen in the front of the room. Faulk was as smooth as they came, a lethal threat as a runner and receiver. He had been first-team All-Pro and league “Offensive Player of the Year” in each of the previous three seasons, and in 2000 he was voted NFL MVP. Now he was trying to join Hall of Famer Earl Campbell as the only players to rush for at least 150 yards in four consecutiv
e games.
Junior’s eyes darted left and right as he watched Faulk on the screen, eager for the challenge that awaited him that weekend. “A game like this, facing a player like this, it’s special,” Junior told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It’s about competing—competing with the best, competing with a player who has been successful in his career and has longevity in the league. This is definitely a game in which you want to go after it, a game that you want to be successful and you want to help your team win.
“I’m sitting here with you talking about Marshall because, obviously, there’s a lot of respect. I love talking about great players because it’s hard to play this game. And to be able to play this game and compete and be successful when they have your picture in their locker room for a whole week and they’re game-planning to beat you down but you can still come out there and win—that’s what Marshall and I have in common. That’s special. To know that an opponent is coming to take you out and is game-planning against you to allow their team to win the game? No. 1, it takes a lot of years to reach a point that you’re game-planned against. But No. 2, it takes a special person to fight it year after year after year and be successful.”
Even when he wanted to turn off his motor, Junior couldn’t—like in the Pro Bowl, which players take less seriously than meaningless preseason games. The all-star contest prohibits blitzing, but late in the fourth quarter of one of the games Junior shot through the A gap for a tackle behind the line of scrimmage. It was a flagrant violation (though not called by the officials), and players on both teams gave him grief afterward. “He laughed and said he was fooled and lost his balance,” said Derrick Brooks, cackling at the memory.
There was nothing funny, however, about the toll that losing was taking on Junior. He was the consummate professional, never publicly bad-mouthing the organization, despite its struggles. But he did make silent protests, like when he wore his shorts and sweatpants backwards. Few people knew why he did it, and when they asked he’d rattle off a one-liner that had nothing to do with anything. But once, during the 2000 season, he confided in tight ends coach Paul Chryst.
“He told me, ‘Since the Super Bowl [to end the ’94 season], we’ve been going in the wrong direction,’” Chryst said. “But he said it with a smile.”
Junior’s personal life was deteriorating as quickly as the team’s fortunes. He was redeveloping old patterns and rekindling old friendships. The 19th Hole became a destination again. And as his drinking increased his time at home decreased. Suspicious, Gina began tracking his whereabouts with increased urgency. When he was on the road, she called his hotel room at a designated time to make sure he answered. If she couldn’t reach him, she called his friends.
Privately, Junior was telling his buddies that she was obsessive and out of control. But a woman knows. She just knows.
When Gina’s fears were confirmed by Junior—during her third pregnancy—the marriage was over. To friends, Junior expressed relief. He felt like an albatross had been lifted from around his neck. He was free to come and go as he pleased, as well as spend more time in Oceanside with family and friends. At least that was the public face he put on it. But privately, behind the facade of pretty, young women and wild nights on the town, he was struggling.
On the day he received the divorce papers in 2001, he phoned the house and asked to speak to Sydney. She refused to come to the phone. Ditto Jake. Suddenly he felt like someone who had jumped into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. His only life preserver was a blank piece of paper, on which he spilled his soul. His writings alternated between speaking to himself and speaking about himself. He would confess his sins in one sentence, then lecture himself the next.
I totally feel lost today, more than ever. I don’t know what to do with the situation. I wasn’t capable of loving someone faithfully.
Then he lectured himself.
JR, you have to get on track, and it has to start with not giving yourself up in situations that will come up. You can’t drink, and your friends need to change.
In the next paragraph he was back to baring his soul.
So low right now. I need to get on my feet and go after it. I need to have my family around me and hopefully get back with reality, because right now my vision is horrible. I’m not seeing clear today. I apologize for writing about nothing.
He went golfing that day but found no peace.
I couldn’t think of anything except for Gina. She is on my mind every minute of my day. Whether the kids had an effect on what I’m feeling is unknown. I know one thing, and that is that I am angry about the filing of our divorce papers. I know one thing: I want my family back. I am hurting a lot of people around me and it’s not cool.
Then he lectured himself again.
What do you want, because hanging around here in Del Mar is not going to work? Temptation is coming for a break point. Hopefully everything will be fine, but I know one thing, and that is that we are hurting for answers.
Junior then wrote a list of changes he needed to make:
I need to be honest with the person I love.
I need to honor and cherish Gina.
I need to be a better father to all my kids.
I need to get right with my brothers and bring back my family unit.
I need to change my friends and be at peace without their presence.
I need to call my dad and mom more.
I need to watch my alcohol intake.
Rest[aurant]. Run the joint, don’t drink in there or join the hostess. Bus tables and serve.
I fell in love with the picture and I know that there is never going to be another Gina.
There was no turning back for Gina. She had hired a high-powered divorce attorney and was going to make Junior pay. “The first thing he said when he told me he was going to get a divorce was, ‘She’s going to take me to the cleaners,’” said Annette, his sister. “Then he said, ‘I can’t stay. I can’t stay. I know Mom and Dad are against divorce.’ I told him that Mom and Dad want him to be happy. He said, ‘If I don’t go through with the divorce, Mom and Dad aren’t getting anything. She’s going to take everything.’ He wanted to make sure something was left for them. I told him to do what he’s got to do.”
He masked his pain with more women, more liquor, and trips to the casinos. There were no outward signs of trouble because Junior was a master at compartmentalizing. He excelled at showing people what he wanted them to see, and he skillfully separated personal from professional. On the field he remained a dominant player, possessing a unique ability to troll the clubs until dawn, go straight to the training facility and sweat out the alcohol before anyone arrived, then outwork everyone on the practice field. It wasn’t uncommon for him to put in a full workout before his teammates had wiped the sleep from their eyes and rolled out of bed.
But the late nights and physical play on the field were taking a toll, even if Junior refused to acknowledge it to outsiders. For instance, during training camp in 2001, he had been dominating an 11-on-11 run drill to the point that the offensive coaches became angry. Running backs coach Ollie Wilson was particularly peeved and let fullback Fred McCrary know it. McCrary was entering his third season with the team and feeling the pressure. Only a handful of jobs were safe coming off a 1–15 season, particularly with a new general manager in John Butler, who had no allegiances to anyone on the roster but those he drafted that spring.
It reflected poorly on McCrary when interior run plays failed, because he was the lead blocker on many of them. With tensions rising, quarterback Doug Flutie called for another inside run play in the huddle. McCrary felt a sense of anxiousness. Once again he would have to meet Junior in the A gap, the space between the center and the guard. He tightened his chin strap and told himself to get lower than Junior so he could win the leverage battle.
When the ball was snapped, each charged toward the other. McCrary prevailed this time, putting Junior on his back, but that wasn’t what had people talking. The
sound of the collision was what got everyone’s attention. It was so violent that it could be heard a couple of football fields away, so violent that it left a three-inch crack across the bridge of McCrary’s helmet.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life,” McCrary said afterward. “I’m going to take it home and get Junior to sign it, and I’m going to sign it, and I’m going to put it in my trophy case. That’s a piece of art right there.”
McCrary may have considered the helmet a badge of honor—he still does today, featuring it prominently in the downstairs trophy case at his suburban Atlanta home—but he soon realized that the damage from the hit extended far beyond the equipment. He dismissed it as a “ding” when he saw white spots after the initial collision, but as the day progressed his head began to throb painfully and he struggled with his equilibrium.
That night he ran into Junior at the dorms.
“Bug, something ain’t right,” he said. “My head ain’t right.”
“I know,” Junior said. “My head is on fire! But we can’t tell James [Collins, the trainer].”
They feared that Collins would keep them out of practice, so they kept their condition a secret. Months later, in the late-night silence of his bedroom, McCrary awoke shouting. He couldn’t get his bed to stop spinning. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but this time seemed worse than others. He was scared, but not to the point that he heeded the words of his crying wife, who begged him to go to urgent care. He refused because he didn’t want to take a chance that he might lose his starting job or be cut from the team.