Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile

by Jackson, Nate

  Halfway through practice I stand on my own with my helmet in my hand, trying to catch my breath after a series of scout team plays. A voice startles me.

  —You’ll get used to it. It’ll take a few weeks but you’ll get used to it. No one realizes how bad the altitude change is until they get here. I’m Mike.

  Mike Leach: the team’s long snapper and a backup tight end, a New Jersey kid and a standout tight end and punter at William & Mary. Coaches often say that the more you can do, the better. Mike took that to heart and learned how to throw a two-handed spiral backward, between his legs, while looking upside down. Thirteen years later and he still has a job in the NFL.

  —Hey. I’m Nate.

  —Nice to meet you. Just get in last night?

  —Yeah.

  —Man they got rid of that guy quick. You’ll like it here, though. Coach takes good care of us. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. I know how it is arriving in the middle of camp.

  After practice the media want to talk to me. Strange. The 49ers media didn’t care about the bottom of the roster. The Denver media, I’ll learn, care about the whole team.

  Adam Schefter, Denver’s number one Broncos antagonist, sidles up to me.

  —Now, do you know about the history of your number?

  —My number? Fourteen?

  —Yes.

  —No.

  —Well, the last two guys to wear it didn’t turn out so good around here. Some think it’s cursed. Are you concerned about that?

  —I am now.

  Not only did last night’s number 14 disappear like a ghost in the night, but the guy who wore it before him was a dirty word in Denver: Brian Griese. Griese took over for John Elway after Elway won two Super Bowls, dropped the mic at the fifty-yard line, and galloped into the sunset on a white horse. His residue still shines on all things Denver. His name is everywhere: in the newspapers, on the backs of children, on the lips of every talk radio personality in the area, and, of course, on car dealerships. In the three years since he retired, the Broncos have struggled to find his replacement. How do you replace a legend? You don’t. But in the NFL, you fucking better! Griese didn’t measure up so it was off with his head. Before it stopped rolling, Coach Shanahan signed highly esteemed free agent Jake Plummer, who arrived from Arizona in the off-season. My neophytic opinion after day one is that the locker room has obviously accepted him. Plummer’s the guy, part of the crew: no seams or cracks. I want to be a part of it, too.

  I change into my new Broncos sweats and realize what was missing in San Francisco. The guys here are enjoying their work. The locker room is lively and loose. Everyone is friends: white guys, black guys, all guys. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was Mike Shanahan’s doing. He brought in good personalities, not just good football players. Shannon Sharpe, All-Pro tight end (whom Shanahan had converted from receiver) is a boisterous locker room presence and a beast on the field. His voice carries through the locker room and the laughs follow in his wake.

  And the leadership gives every meeting a purpose. In my position group alone are Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey: two Pro Bowl receivers nearing the end of their careers. The Niners had veteran guys, too. Terrell Owens was an All-Pro and surefire Hall of Famer. But I hardly heard a peep out of him while I was there. Rod’s vocal. He is thirty-three years old, six feet tall, and two hundred pounds. He is the consummate professional and he thrives on sharing his knowledge—from coming out of a break on a comeback route, to coming out of a club before the cops come out. He considers it a sin to keep anything inside if he thinks it can improve his team. If he ever notices us doing something wrong, he’ll pull us aside and give it to us straight. I decide I’ll learn how to be a pro from watching Rod.

  But I don’t have much time to make an impression: It’s already mid-August. Camp’s winding down. But I feel fresh and energized. Training camp inevitably becomes mundane and guys get sluggish going through the same routine every day. Changing up the scenery has given me a spark that I know I can use to my advantage.

  After a few weeks of good practice, my life in professional football comes down to the last preseason game, at home, against the Seattle Seahawks. The atmosphere at [Insert Corporate Logo Here] Field is impressive, especially compared to dilapidated Candlestick Park. The stadium is full and intimate, the weather crisp and clear. The cheerleaders lithe and sexy. The hot dogs wafting sweet and wonderful all around us.

  I play special teams and, on a kickoff, make a tackle, tripping up a returner who was about to bust through the wedge untouched. Then in the fourth quarter I’m wide open in the end zone on offense. Danny Kanell, the backup QB, throws me a high ball. I leap, but it slips off my gloveless fingertips. A defender jumps on top of my body and lands on my shoulder as I reach for the elusive ball in vain. Lucky for me it’s my good shoulder. Now it’s my bad shoulder, my second bad shoulder. But already I don’t care about my body. It was the only ball that came my way and I didn’t catch it. I’m the only receiver who doesn’t wear gloves. I have never needed them before. But the altitude in Denver makes the ball slicker, drier, and faster through the air. I decide after the game that if I make the team, I will spring for a pair.

  That night we go out and get hammered. I’m with Ashley Lelie and Charlie Adams—two fellow receivers—and Kyle Johnson, a fullback. Ashley is a first-round draft pick and a lanky speedster from the University of Hawaii who doesn’t take anything very seriously. Charlie is a record-breaking receiver from Hofstra, a friendly, outgoing guy, always upbeat, always smiling. Wherever we go, everyone always knows Charlie. Kyle is from New Jersey and went to Syracuse. He is a thick, powerful, thoughtful man: a philosopher in a warrior’s body. He detonates the dumb-jock stereotype with ease. I like my new friends already. It’s my first real night out in Denver and it’s raining the wavy hard rain of Colorado summer storms. I have a new girlfriend back in California whom I met in the summer. Her name is Alina. We are very excited about each other. We talk on the phone, a lot. We will make it work, regardless of where I am. That was our vow.

  But it will prove difficult. The world is ours in Denver. I learn that very quickly. There’s never reason to worry: Drink up, young stallion. And keep your wallet in your pocket. Your money is no good in this city. Your dick, however, is another story. Keep that thing ready. You never know when you’ll need it.

  The next morning I sit on my hotel bed watching the phone. Coach said to be ready for a call between eight and twelve. That’s when they’d be doing the cutting. I don’t know what to expect. I’ve practiced hard, made some good catches, played well on special teams. But it’s all happened so fast. My phone rings shortly after nine. My gig is up. Time to go back to California and move on, sell insurance, and have sad sex with my girl. But General Manager Ted Sundquist is on the phone saying in fact that I’m not being cut loose. They want me on the practice squad. I clear waivers—the twenty-four-hour period that I’m able to be picked up by another team—then I go upstairs to Ted’s office to sign my contract: $4,350 a week. He congratulates me with a handshake. Ted is a former fullback at the Air Force Academy who worked his way up the scouting ladder in Denver. His hair is exquisitely coiffed and he knows it. He was promoted to GM by owner Pat Bowlen two years ago. Ted has an amiable, genuine way about him. I like this Denver place. And now I have a bona fide job in the NFL. Look, Ma, I’m a Denver Bronco.

  On Tuesday, our first day off of the regular season, I buy a new Denali. It’s a foolish purchase but I can’t help myself. I could picture it with my eyes closed as soon as I signed my contract. I love the Denali’s angles, the chrome grill. I love the idea that I can buy a giant luxurious machine with only my football skills.

  Still, practice squad players have less job security than anyone on the team. They are shuffled around constantly. If someone on the active roster gets hurt, the scrambling and rearranging often squirts a practice squad guy onto the s
treets. But I had no vehicle, not even my green Civic, and when I looked around at the players’ parking lot, I glimpsed the spoils, at minimum, that my talent might afford me. No point in saving every penny. Might as well try to keep up with the Joneses, just this once. And the Denali does make me feel like I have accomplished something. It gives me a tangible reminder of my hard work. Every morning when I jump onto the soft leather seat and turn over that sweet engine, I tell myself that I better have a great day at practice or I won’t be making the payments. I’ll be “workin’ a nine-to-five with a thirty minute,” just like our special teams coach Ronnie Bradford says will happen to us if we keep fucking up the plays.

  Later that week Rod holds a money meeting for rookies. Rod loves money. He loves making it and seeing it grow. He loves talking about it and he has a wealth of knowledge about everything monetary. All you have to do is ask him a question, sit back, and listen. During the meeting, Rod is stressing the importance of paying attention to what things actually cost. He says that we often have a skewed perspective of the money we are spending because all we are doing is signing our names. Well, he says, if you buy a $50,000 car, it’s not just your signature. This, he says, is what you’re spending. He reaches into a small black bag and produces five stacks of wrapped cash, ten grand apiece. He drops them on the table with a plop. So that’s what fifty grand sounds like. This is the year that the meaning of money will change for me, forever.

  There are five of us on the practice squad. Our obligations are simple: practice hard. The NFL workweek starts on Wednesday and ends on game day, with an adjustable Monday schedule and nothing at all on Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are really all that matter for a practice squad player because those are the days we practice.

  My job is to run the opposing team’s plays during the week leading up to the game. An assistant coach pores through our opponent’s game film and draws up every one of their plays on large cards. He color-codes each skill position and writes the jersey number of each player inside the colored dot that indicates where he lines up. There’s no memorizing of plays, no learning of concepts. Just find your colored dot and copy it, shmuck. All week I’m the same dot.

  Practice squad players don’t travel with the team. It’s a strange feeling watching the games on television after the week of practice. I’m a part of the team all week. An important part of the team, too. I prepare our defense to dominate. The better I play, the better they play. I want to make it harder on them in practice than it will be on Sundays. When our DBs play well, I pat myself on the back. When they don’t, I take it personally.

  Usually when our team is off in another city playing, Charlie and I go to Earl’s, our favorite restaurant, to get fed and drunk. Then we saunter downtown and hop around a handful of bars and clubs, dividing our attention between all of the girls who want to hang out with a Bronco. No Broncos around here but us.

  —But you’re on the practice squad!

  —But you’re a slut!

  And we have an understanding. Alina can feel it with every minute that I don’t respond promptly to her texts, don’t reassure her that the party’s boring, that the girls are ugly, that I’m having a horrible time. I feel her desperation but I’m too weak to be honest with her about what I’m up against: a mob of bloodthirsty jersey chasers.

  As the season wears on and injuries stack up, I become more and more anxious to join the active roster. When an active player gets hurt, a practice squad player often takes his place. I want to be on that field “taking live bullets,” as we say. Not only do I want live bullets, I want a bigger paycheck. My salary is the lowest in the locker room. I don’t think about it early in the season but as the months pass, it’s impossible not to. I’m a rookie and so every once in a while Rod has me go upstairs to pick up his check. I can’t help but take a peek at it. My eyes nearly pop out of my head. Rod has my $4,350 a week in his couch cushions.

  Some time after Thanksgiving, we have our offensive rookie dinner, minus the offensive linemen. I’ve been hearing stories about the previous year’s rookie dinner at Del Frisco’s steak house. Clinton Portis had flown in some adult entertainers from Miami to provide flexible, pink comic relief in between bites of filet mignon. The bill was outlandish. The rookies picked up the tab.

  Now that C.P. isn’t a rookie anymore, he plans to take full advantage of the situation. He brings some friends and they bring some friends. The back room of Del Frisco’s is full. Wine and champagne and cognac are flowing like the rivers of Capistrano. Ashley Lelie shows up late and orders two bottles of the priciest wine I’ve ever seen. The waitress starts to cork one of them and Ashley stops her.

  —No! No! Don’t open it. I’m taking them home.

  Then he leaves with his loot. The bill’s over $26,000, split four ways between the rookie offensive skill position players, none of whom was drafted very high. Jake, bless him, feels so bad that he palms me some money to help me pay the bill.

  Still, I’m not losing any sleep over money. Football was never about the money to me. It was about competing with the best athletes in the world. And just practicing with them isn’t enough. I want to get hit. I mean really hit. I want to hit the ground hard and get up shaking myself off because I think I’m dead. That’s the feeling I want. When I was in high school, my friends and I used to have typical teenage stoner conversations. Who would win in a fight between Mike Tyson and two lightweights? What would be the best way to thwart a shark attack? Could I kill a mountain lion with a pocketknife? And would I be able to take a hit from Levon Kirkland?

  For my friends and me, Steelers linebacker Levon Kirkland represented the pinnacle of big, scary football players in the mid to late 1990s. They insisted that there was no way I could take a shot from him. I vehemently disagreed. Of course I could! He’s only a man, after all. It’s football. But there I was stuck with no way to prove them wrong.

  Every week of practice, my colored dot means that I’m a different player. My favorite week is when I get to be Randy Moss. Randy’s still with the Vikings and is still a badass with some very unorthodox habits. It is ingrained in the mind of football players to go hard, 100 percent on every single play, maximum effort all of the time. So when we watch Randy Moss on film, his tendencies stick out like a dead fish at the aquarium. He has the habit of taking plays off completely. On run plays, he might literally walk off the line of scrimmage, or jog, or skip. He rarely engages the corner in contact on run plays, and generally avoids it altogether. This tendency allows me to do the same throughout the week. I’m a Method actor. I take my role seriously. How seriously? Ask the wives of the players I impersonated.

  Randy’s inconsistency works to his advantage and allows him to survey the scene, wait for his moment, then attack the defense downfield or across the middle. Football is about angles: linear movement in a contained area coupled with a finite amount of time in which to exploit it. Randy understands that finite time period better than anyone and can narrow the gap between action and reaction because he’s really damn fast.

  As he lazily skips off the line of scrimmage, everyone else explodes into the play. This forces the defenders to account for both his slowness and everyone else’s speed. The defenders pay more attention to the things around them that move faster, and Randy’s able to let the play develop in front of him before he joins in, and streaks up the field for an 85-yard touchdown.

  Of course, it doesn’t always work. You don’t even get to try that stuff unless you’re Randy Moss, or an actor playing Randy Moss. This week is the most fruitful week of my practice squad days. I catch a million balls: short, intermediate, deep. At the end of the week, Charlie has to pay me twenty dollars. He’s a practice squad receiver, too, and we have a running tally every week. Whoever catches the most balls gets paid. Touchdowns are worth two. Big money for a couple of big-time guys.

  When the game arrives, and the team ships out to Minneapolis, I’m not in the partying mood. I
wake up early on game day and drive to the foothills for a hike and some fresh air. It’s a crisp, sunny November day; patches of snow dot the ground and glare white in the sun. I stop next to a creek, find a handful of sticks, and pull out my pocketknife. I whittle off the knots, kneel down, and fashion a water wheel in the shallows. My dad used to do that when my brother and I were kids.

  I sit down on the bank and watch the wheel turn with the current. Soon I lie back on a soft patch of dry grass and drift off in the afternoon sun.

  The next thing I know, the sun is gone and I’m running through the forest with my knife in hand. I come upon fresh mountain lion tracks that lead to a cave. There’s a rustling sound inside and baby paw tracks around the outside of the cave. I pick up a rock and throw it into the cave. Then another. Then I throw a large stick. I taunt the lion, yell at her, insulting her choice of caves.

  I see a snake sliding along a fallen branch on a gentle slope toward a dry creek bed. I pick him up by his tail and fling him into the lion’s den. Two cubs come bounding out, followed by their mother, who recognizes me as the idiot causing the commotion. She squares me up and bears her teeth.

  —Here kitty kitty. Here kitty kitty.

  I flash my blade. She squats down and leaps at me with her front legs out and her jaw wide open.

  During our stony arguments I could never convince my friends that I’d have the wherewithal to actually, tactically, complete the task. They thought there was no way I could find her neck with a little knife. And besides, her jaws and claws were razor sharp and her hide was too thick to penetrate. She would rip me to shreds.