We were bused to and from practice. Our elevators were separated from the lobby by an enormous curtain. It was like the New York Giants were trying to hide from the surreal scene going on outside the curtain. When I peeked around the other side, I saw merchandise being sold and hundreds and hundreds of fans. It was like a crazy flea market of sports fanatics around the clock who never slept.
Just like every other game, right? Every time we said that, we lied through our teeth. In my case, I was lying through my gap.
It’s funny. While I enjoyed the week, I expected more. From a pure playing perspective, the highlight of the year was still the NFC Championship Game. I wasn’t living my normal NFL life inside the helmet. I was in the hotel by eight o’clock every night. I never partied, I didn’t hit the streets. I put myself on a very strict curfew.
No, it wasn’t a fun week for me. It seemed like a long week but went by so fast. All I wanted to do was put on the pads and get the game started. Since I’ve voluntarily missed the parties and outside fun let’s start the damn game already.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Super and Not So Super Saturday and Sunday
As difficult as Super Mondays through Fridays are, Super Saturdays and Sundays are much more brutal. The night before the big game I lay in bed and watched all those TV shows that break down the matchups and then break down the breakdowns. It’s a constant loop and I found myself watching the same shows over and over again. I tried to turn my mind off at eleven o’clock, but my brain told me to stop my whining and turn the damn TV back on.
I turned back to the matchup shows, looking to see if maybe somehow I missed something. Did they have any information on my matchup with Ravens right tackle Harry Swayne that I may have missed? Midnight came and went. I tossed and turned. I stretched out a bit, trying to tire myself out some more. One o’clock came and went. Then two o’clock came and I really began to worry that I wouldn’t sleep at all, that I would have to drag my tired ass in front of the world for all to see.
You know what it’s like. You have a big meeting the next day, you’re excited and you can’t sleep. So you start watching the clock and worrying. You get jittery, nervous. The more you clock-watch, the more desperate and frustrated you grow, until you finally doze off a few short hours before it’s time to get up. Eventually my body just gave out on me. I fell asleep around three o’clock.
When I woke up Super Bowl Sunday morning, I turned on the same TV shows I fell asleep to. Yup, I watched them all over again. I also awoke with this feeling of invincibility. There was no possible way we wouldn’t win. We had studied the Ravens for two weeks. The only problem, the guys on the other team were probably waking up to the same feeling. We both can’t be right. The entire day I felt like it was my destiny to get that ring. I couldn’t wait to take what I honestly believed was mine.
The biggest challenge of Super Bowl Sunday is containing your excitement. It was the longest day of my career. I started clock-watching again and did things I hoped would eat up large amounts of time. But the day crawled and the wait was torturous. The closer it got to departure time, the more nervous I got. The longer the wait, the more my body tightened. Midway through that day, I was transformed from my jovial self to “Game-Day Stray.” GDS isn’t the nicest fellow. I don’t like to talk to or make eye contact with anyone else. I get very ornery and any little thing that takes away from my focus aggravates me. Even a “Hi, Michael” agitates me on game day. Phone calls infuriate me. It’s not that I’m trying to be nasty, but it just comes out on game day. I didn’t want to hear from family, friends or acquaintances. I was trying to find my inner wrath. Don’t get in the way of that.
On the ride over, one thing lightened me up a bit. Traveling through the streets of Tampa I saw people wearing No. 92 jerseys. I felt like I was in some fairy tale. I don’t have words for it. Was this really happening to me? I was this knucklehead who grew up in Germany, the youngest kid in his family, playing in a game I’ve always idolized, and now fans were wearing my family name on their backs.
An incredible euphoria surged through my body. I welled up with tears as I thought about all the people in my life who I knew were proud of me that day. People who have passed on, people I grew up with, old teachers, girls who blew me off as a kid or teenager, old coaches and childhood friends I thought would remain my best friends forever but haven’t talked to in ages.
When we arrived at the stadium, we were presented with the only thing that made this week resemble every other week: We went into the locker room and went through our same weekly game-day routine. It took six days to find something that felt like “it was just another game.” All of our superstitions, all of our little nuances and routines popped up again. We taped up and laced up just like in any other road game. But that’s where the commonality ended. I didn’t want to leave the confines of the locker room because for the first time all week, I enjoyed the familiarity. But that comfort soon ended. What lay behind those steel doors was something completely different from anything I’d ever experienced.
I went from the dark to the light. I ran through that tunnel for warm-ups, shooting out of the darkness to the flash of cameras everywhere. There were more TV cameras than at any game I’d ever played.
Once I flew out of that tunnel, my engine revved on overdrive, bursting through the red zone when suddenly I was smacked with a disappointing reality. It was half as loud as a normal game because, usually, an entire stadium is packed with crazed supporters of one team or the other, and their collective cheers and boos can be deafening. It took half a second to adjust to how relatively quiet the place was. An impartial crowd? Something wasn’t right.
Regardless of the lack of crowd noise, when I saw my teammates, I realized I was one step closer toward winning the Lombardi Trophy. At that point my blood started to boil. I didn’t need crowd noise. The place might as well have been empty. We were sooooo jacked up for warm-ups, our coaches told us to calm down because they didn’t want us to burn out hours before game time. My heart raced as if I’d just run eight 100-yard sprints in a row.
We were flying around, jumping up and down and slapping our guys. I told myself every couple of minutes to slow down. I was out of breath before the halfway point in warm-ups. If you had hooked me up to a heart monitor stress test, a doctor probably would have told me to get off the treadmill.
Of all the luminaries lining both sidelines and each end zone, I didn’t recognize anybody. I’ve since read about celebrities like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake being there and legendary football players lining the field, but the only person my eyes stopped on was Mr. Charles. Ray Charles! I couldn’t believe it. He was there to see me, to see us! (Yeah, I know, he couldn’t actually see us since he’s blind.) I kept thinking, “Okay, this thing just got a whole lot more insane.”
By the time we finished our normal stretching routine, I was completely drained. I’d become exhausted as if I’d already played three quarters. Back in the locker room, even resting became exhausting.
We had to wait nearly an hour between the time we left the field for warm-ups to the time all the pageantry was done. Let’s start this damn game already! Your body knows what time it has to be ready. On Wednesday and Thursday my body knows it’s okay if I can’t walk. It starts loosening up on Friday and by Saturday I step it up even more. On Sunday your body gets used to a certain rhythm. That’s why so many Super Bowls start off sloppy. We’re all out of the rhythm on a day when tensions run so much higher than normal.
A professional athlete’s life is all about following routine and structure. Our minds and our bodies adjust to it, but this game went against everything we were trained to do.
I’m used to a quick time frame and a set amount of time between warm-ups and introductions, then usually a ten-minute break for last-minute touches and the coach’s speech. But this game had three times the wait. The anxiety started to get guys tight again. Our muscles went cold. Guys were strewn about the locker room try
ing to keep their muscles loose and warm.
It’s about this time I noticed the men looking around at other guys to see how each of us were reacting. I remember thinking to myself, “This game is huge, but you better fake it and put on a good act like it’s no big deal.” I had to set an example.
I now see why New England won all those Super Bowls in their recent run. When you know what to expect and how to remain calm, that’s a huge advantage over those of us who don’t know any better than to burn ourselves out.
Former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis told me that before the Steelers Super Bowl, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who was working the game for ABC, told him in pregame to calm down and take it real easy in the warm-ups and start firing when he came out on the field for introductions. Great advice. Gee, where were you when I needed you, Bill?
As we left the locker room one last time, we walked through the tunnel and I was too juiced up at this point to hear anything except the loud thunder of my own heart pounding. I felt the pulsating surge in different pressure points throughout my body. They all banged the drum together, in unison, in conjunction with the crowd’s chants outside. It was so loud I wondered if my other teammates could hear it, too. My mouth grew dry to the point where I felt I was going to choke.
I didn’t feel an ounce of pain. I felt unstoppable, like I could outlift every one of those guys on an ESPN strongman contest. “I am one invincible ass-kicking machine!” I felt like ten guys could try to stop me and I’d still get to Trent Dilfer all night long.
As I ran out of the tunnel for my grand introduction, I wish I could tell you I had some amazing premonition or the most euphoric feeling of my life. But my thoughts weren’t even close to that. You know what was coursing through my mind? “Please don’t trip, whatever you do, don’t trip running out onto that field in front of the world. Do not make a fool of yourself.” I thought that during my first NFL game, too, but no other time before or since.
When I got to the rest of my team without tripping and making a fool of myself, we were jumping around. I don’t know how the human body can exert this much energy twice in one hour and still be fresh for a three-plus-hour battle. But we were.
After Ray Charles finished his rendition of “America the Beautiful” and the national anthem was proudly sung, somebody standing next to me nudged me to look up at the JumboTron and a black dot in the distance. The dot grew closer and closer, larger and larger, until finally a Stealth bomber silently hovered over our stadium. It was the most massive machine I’ve ever seen, yet it flew under cover of complete silence. The crowd went wild and every single piece of hair on my body fired to attention. My goose bumps had goose bumps. It was the most majestic thing I have ever seen in my life. Those tax dollars were well spent. To grow up an army brat and then see a military machine like that left me breathless.
As the game grew closer, it was time for the coin toss. The former Giants/Jets/Patriots/Cowboys head coach, Bill Parcells, and the former Giants great O. J. Anderson were part of the coin toss. I’ll always remember Parcells giving us a look like, “Now’s the time to pull your nuts up. This is it, let’s freaking go!”
I looked at Jessie Armstead and he was in all his glory, but then I turned and looked at our quarterback, Kerry Collins, and I said to myself, “Please, please don’t be as nervous as you look.” He looked as scared as I’ve ever seen the man and, boy, was I hoping he would snap out of it.
I honestly couldn’t tell you if he did or didn’t, because that was the last thing I remember from my grand Super Bowl experience.
When I walked off the field after the coin toss, my entire memory grew hazy. I stepped onto the sideline as we prepared for the opening kickoff and my memories pretty much end there. I don’t recall the kickoff. I have no idea who even kicked off. It all stopped there for me.
How much does that stink?
I remember three things from the actual game, two of them from the same play. I pressured Dilfer into unloading too soon and he was picked off by Armstead for what would have been an interception returned for a touchdown. The officials screwed up and called it back. It was the worst call in Super Bowl history. (But that’s for another day.) I remember Jessie’s run, watching him from the ground and I remember laying there looking at Dilfer’s face because I think I hurt him on the play.
I don’t actually remember hitting Dilfer, just the expression on his face when we were on the ground. I don’t remember Jessie grabbing the pick, only what he looked like running for the end zone.
The other thing I remember was pretty funny. Our middle linebacker Micheal Barrow and their star running back Jamal Lewis were literally trying to kill each other the whole night. I’ve never seen two guys try to hurt each other like these two guys on every single play of a game. At one point there was a pile and Barrow lost his mind and began choking the Ravens runner.
A bunch of us jumped on Barrow to release the man’s throat. “Let him go, Micheal. Let him go. Don’t get kicked out of this one!” Barrow is actually a very religious man. When we pulled him off Lewis and yelled at him to calm down, Barrow barked back, “He cursed at me and I’m going to choke the devil out of that man.” He yelled in a way that would made any evangelical preacher proud.
A Super Bowl becomes so surreal, it’s like you’re two different selves playing. One self, the physical part, is out there going through the motions and moves you’ve been trained to make. Your other self, the mental half, stands on the sideline watching the physical part play. It was the weirdest feeling of my career.
I’ve heard other players say it becomes just another game after the first series or after the first quarter. But for me, it never became a regular game. I can remember damn near every play of my career. You tell me about a play and I’ll remember it. You can show me any play of my career on film and I’ll remember the call, the situation and anything funny or odd that happened on the play. This game? I don’t remember a single play, only a couple of aftermaths of plays. I was in the Super Bowl Twilight Zone.
I’ve even gone back to watch it on video and it still doesn’t ring much of a bell. I’ve grown to resent it to the point that over the years I get angrier and angrier that my own psyche robbed me of a whole game that should have been a memory for the ages. Instead, it’s all a big, blank hole in an exhausting day.
After the game, I felt relief more than any other emotion. Anger over losing didn’t creep in until a couple of weeks later. That night, I was spent. I walked out to the team bus and did something I’d never done in my life—I lit up a cigar. I had never smoked one before that night, but I stood there and I just looked at my guys and how proud I was to have made it this far with my family of gladiators. It was the most relaxed I had been all year. It was finally over even if the results weren’t what I wanted.
As Super Sunday 2007 rolled to a close, I began thinking about Urlacher and Peyton and all the players. How many of those guys won’t remember a thing about today’s battle? I wonder if it’s happened to anybody else. I’ll probably never ask.
I have tried to dig deep to uncover what caused this mental block. I’ve never discussed it before writing this, because it’s caused me much bitterness. Nothing jogs my memory. I don’t think I’ve blocked it out because we lost, because during the game, I couldn’t have foreseen the outcome. I don’t think it overwhelmed me, either, because early on I felt the same feelings I feel in other games. Ready to win.
But this game was definitely different. This game short-circuited my memory bank and stripped me. How could I have taken all those injections, sat through all those meetings, endured all those injuries and dealt with all the crap if I couldn’t even remember arriving at my lifelong goal?
Fourteen years since I first stepped onto that field, I’ve endured injuries, fights, wives, money scammers, head coach after head coach after head coach, injections, pills and too many teammates to remember. All for the chance to get to that big game.
I’ve laid down so
much blood out there, I can’t bend down and touch my toes four of the seven days in the week. All I ask is the chance at a memory or two from the game of games. I’d give back the ring, I’d spit-shine the trophy every single day if I could have walked away from it all with a title and memories from that one day.
Unless our team finds destiny somehow in 2007, it won’t happen for me again. Was it all worth it? Is a lifetime of pain worth it? Is a lifetime of internal scars that I fear will cause lifelong pain worth it?
I’ve had a record-breaking quarterback sack of Brett Favre that the world viewed as a farce, three head coaches, a lot of injuries and a heck of a lot of days when I made a quarterback’s life an absolute misery.
I’ll forever cherish the relationships I’ve made over the last fourteen years. I’ll love my memories of the practical jokes, the fights, the hazing and the locker rooms where I have lived, eaten, breathed and hurt.
If somebody came to me fifteen years ago and said, “I’m going to make you a star player, but in ten years you won’t be able to get out of bed pain-free, your fingers will dislocate on a weekly basis and in about twenty-five years you may walk with a permanent limp,” would I still do it?
I ask myself that question all the time. Was it all worth it?
Are you crazy? You’re damn right it was!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all the players and all the coaches that I’ve come into contact with over my career. Without your dedication, craziness and camaraderie this book would never have happened. Thanks to all the fans for both the cheers and the boos, the thumbs-up and the middle fingers. You have truly inspired me to always play my best and to never disappoint you. This book was written for you.
I would like to thank Scott Waxman and and Byrd Leavell at the Waxman Agency and Bill Shinker, Brett Valley and Patrick Mulligan at Gotham Books. Thanks to Keith and Ken Zimmerman for their work on the book. I would like to thank Maury Gosfrand and my friend Jay Glazer. Without you, Jay, this wouldn’t even have been a possibility.
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