Chuckles from the audience.
—And when I walk back behind the huddle, he grabs my face mask and says ‘Tony! What the fucking fuck are you fucking doing, you bugfucker?! Don’t you know what a fucking power block is?’
Audible laughs.
—So needless to say, I’m feeling like shit after practice, walking through the locker room, and I kick a water bottle, and a genie pops out. The genie tells me that I have one wish. One wish? Man, I’m thinking to myself, I really just want to get drunk and forget about everything. So I say to the genie, ‘I wish that I can piss vodka.’ The genie shrugs and says, ‘Okay, and so it shall be,’ and disappears in a puff of smoke. I go to the bathroom and take a piss and sure enough, pure vodka! So I go into our meeting room and I tell all the guys about it and everyone gets excited so I fill up everyone’s glass and we’re having a grand old time. Well, most everyone forgets about it the next day, except for Brew. He comes up to me after practice and says, ‘Hey, boy! How ’bout some more of that vodka?’ So I say okay and I fill up his cup again. And the next night, Brew finds me again and grabs me by the back of the neck. ‘Hey, boy! How ’bout some of that good stuff?’ So I hook him up again. Then the next night, I see him walking toward me in the hall. He had just got through motherfucking me out on the field again. And here he comes with that big ol’ smile on his face, and he says to me, ‘Hey, there, boy! How ’bout some of that good stuff?’ like I’m his best friend in the world. So I said, ‘All right, Brew, I’ll give you some of that good stuff. But tonight . . . you’re drinking from the bottle.’
Yes! The room collapses in laughter and applause and appreciation of the rare moment when a player regains the upper hand. Brew laughs along and takes it all in stride. He may be a hard-ass, but he has a sense of humor. Tony walks back up the aisle and squeezes behind Brew, S.A., and me, and sits back down as I congratulate him.
—Well done, bugfucker!
Coach Shanahan descends the stairs with a smile on his face.
—Good one, Tony. We’ll see how that one plays out tomorrow at practice.
Late the next week I see Charlie in the hall before meetings and he tells me he’s just been traded to the Dallas Cowboys. He says he’s leaving, like now. His flight is in a few hours. I don’t know what to say to him. Football goodbyes are strange. It’s like he’s being deported, voted off the island, banished. It happens nearly every day to somebody. And I know from experience, it’s likely that I’ll never see him again. NFL players evaporate when released.
He is on the plane to Oxnard, California, that night, which is where the Cowboys have training camp. He’s met at the airport by a driver who takes him to the team’s headquarters. The next morning he takes his physical, which is a formality before he can get on the field. But he does not pass the physical because of his knees. He’s had multiple ACL tears and knee surgeries over the years. His knees are junk. He practices every day in Denver on those knees, but they’re not good enough for Dallas, and the trade is nullified. He gets back on a plane to Denver and is back in meetings the next evening as if nothing ever happened. But now he knows the score. With Rod, Javon, Ashley, and now Brandon Marshall, there is a surplus at wide receiver. Someone is always getting the old squeeze.
Camp winds down and preseason games are in full swing. Jay has overtaken Bradlee for the number-two spot. Bradlee is doing his best to keep calm and carry on but the Jay Cutler tidal wave is rolling over everyone in its path. Jay plays well in the preseason, which disproportionately excites the media and the fans. But Jake plays well, too.
He throws me a 35-yard touchdown in the third preseason game against the Tennessee Titans. I’m wide open after a nice play-action fake by the entire offense, and as the ball floats down into my hands, I have to concentrate extra hard so as not to drop it. The wide-open catches are the hardest because you’re thinking about catching the ball. Catching the ball is an instinct: a reflex. When you stop to think about it, you put a kink in the circuit. Empty your mind and you’ll catch everything.
After the game, Charlie, Kyle, Matt Mauck, and our friend Grant Mattos stand at midfield and talk. Matt is gone now. He was cut the previous season and now plays for the Titans. Grant’s from San Jose, too. And we both have Ryan as our agent. Grant went to the University of Southern California, then San Diego, then we signed him in the off-season. He merged into our group of friends immediately but he was cut the day before training camp started and landed in Tennessee with Matt. Now here we all are, reunited for a moment on the fifty-yard line. We pose for a picture and say goodbye, scattered again to chase our gridiron dreams alone. The next week our roster is set.
Despite the media’s Jay fetish, Jake is our starter for week one. It’s in St. Louis and we put in a very heavy game plan. Nearly every team, every year, freaks out this way because the coaches have had all summer to prepare for the first opponent. None of the preseason games mean a thing. Game one looms as soon as the schedule is set. Game one matters. When it finally arrives coaches want to fire all of their guns at once.
Going into the game we have multiple audibles and line-of-scrimmage checks that depend on what defensive fronts and coverages and blitzes Jake sees when he gets under center. If they show this we change the play to that. If they show that we change it to this. If they blitz this guy we’ll do this, that guy we’ll do that. But it will be loud down on the field. So we practice in front of high-powered speakers blasting white noise so we can get used to our silent snap count. At home you can listen to the quarterback’s cadence and move when he says, “Set-hut!” But when you can’t hear him you have to go when the ball moves. If you can’t see the ball you move when everyone else moves. This slows down your jump by a count because when the quarterback says, “Set-hut,” you really fire your gun on the soft and rolling “Set” even though the hard “hut” is emphasized. “Sethut” is said as one word, and since the offense knows the snap count and the defense doesn’t, the offense starts moving before the defense and catches them off guard.
Crowd noise takes away that advantage. It also makes it hard to change the play at the line of scrimmage. We can’t hear Jake’s audibles so we have to look for hand signals. A tight end in a three-point stance can’t always see hand signals, so we have to look at the defense and know how Jake will change the play based on what they’re showing. Football players are smart and all, but it’s not our main thing.
As expected, it is very loud in St. Louis on game day. The audibles and the blitz-reads are too much for us to handle. We never get anything going. We lose the game 18–10 and have five turnovers on offense. Jake throws three interceptions. In the locker room after the game, some reporter (probably Frank Schwab) asks him if he thinks people will be clamoring for Jay now.
—I’m sure they will. They’ve been calling for him since he got drafted.
Jake’s candor is rare and doesn’t help his image in Denver. But he doesn’t care anymore. By then the two—Denver and Jake—have fallen out of love with each other.
One bright note from the game: Rod went over 800 career receptions; the only undrafted player to ever catch that many passes. He is thirty-six years old and he’s the savviest receiver I’ve ever watched. He understands the angles better than anyone. And he also understands the simple concept that many ballcarriers often forget: the end zone is north and south, not east and west. He catches a pass and shoots like a rocket straight up the field, always tacking on at least five yards to a catch that normally would be stopped on the spot. And he’ll play until his body breaks.
Jake is right about the clamoring for Jay. The following week the airwaves light up with JEN-induced Jay love. But after the loss in St. Louis, we go on a run. In the middle of that run, we travel to New England to play the Patriots. On Saturday morning, right before we leave for the airport, Charlie gets a tap on the shoulder again. But this time he isn’t being traded. He’s being cut. And no strange goodbyes either.
I don’t notice his absence until the plane takes off and Charlie isn’t in his seat. Later, dude.
We end up winning five in a row and are alone in first place, and dating back to the previous season, we are 19-5. But still there is dissatisfaction with the product; with the way we are playing. Simply winning is not enough.
We lose to the undefeated Colts at home 34–31, and the “bench Jake” chorus starts up again.
—Look at Peyton Manning! Now that’s a quarterback!
He threw for 345 yards and three touchdowns. Jake threw for 174 yards and one touchdown. These stats weigh heavy on the minds of Broncos fans and serve as a smoke screen to the view of our team’s success.
After our loss to the Colts we go to Pittsburgh with revenge on our minds from the AFC Championship loss, and we get it. Ben Roethlisberger throws the ball 54 times for 433 yards, one touchdown, and three picks. Jake tosses it 27 times for 227 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, and no credit. Javon Walker and our defense are celebrated for the victory.
The next week we beat the Raiders in Oakland. I’m starting to figure out the tight end position. S.A. is our starter and Tony is our main passing threat but I’m getting some good action. In the second half I catch three passes in front of my friends and family, all dressed incognito so as not to rile up the indigenous creatures at the Oakland zoo. Four of my close friends have some nice seats down in the north end zone. They are dressed in neutral colors, as directed, and are staying silent all game. When I catch my first two passes, they keep quiet. They have made friends with the surrounding Raider fans and have bonded over an assumed mutual hatred of the opponent.
But in the third quarter I catch a pass on a corner route that leaves me running down the sidelines toward my friends. I am tackled around the five-yard line and they instinctively jump up and high-five each other. Whoops. They’ve revealed themselves as the enemy. And not just the enemy: the enemy in disguise! They spend the rest of the game deflecting thrown trash and idle threats. They learn a valuable lesson that day in Oakland: it’s a good thing the bottles are plastic.
As the season rolls along, I use my free time to go house hunting. I’ve been in Denver for over three years, and live in a nice apartment in a cool eight-story brick building ten minutes from the facility. But lots of guys are buying houses in the suburbs. Me, too, I think. Why not?
Things have started to fall apart with Alina. She didn’t know anyone when she first came to Denver a few years earlier but by now she has a group of party friends who are pulling her in all directions at once. I want no part of them, especially during the season. She wants fun and excitement. I have a playbook to look over and my body hurts. You want me to go to dinner and talk with these people? About what? The Broncos? I’m staying home.
Then when I tell her I’m thinking about buying a house she sits me down and tells me how to do it. She insists that I use her mother, who is a real estate agent in California, as a reference to my Colorado real estate agent so that she will get the referral fee and kick it back to us. I don’t want to do that. I like my real estate agent. I don’t want any funny business. Alina can’t understand why I’m being so hardheaded about this. She tells me I have no idea what I’m talking about. This is how it works. To spite her, I go about it alone and close on a house in Greenwood Village, a suburb twenty minutes from downtown and four minutes from Broncos headquarters.
A few weeks later we break up. We could both see it coming for too long now. Three and a half years of young NFL love is over. We never stood a chance. I move into my new suburban family home alone: 2,600 square feet of future regret, with a fabulous view of Cherry Creek State Park and the best neighbors a guy could ever have.
Back at work, the Denver media are orchestrating their coup. They’ve gotten what they wanted—a loss at home to our division rivals, the Chargers—and now the drumbeat comes louder and faster, drowning out our 7-3 record.
Local shill Mike Klis of the Denver Post, on November 22, 2006, the day before our Thanksgiving game against the Chiefs:
“Just in time for Thanksgiving, it’s open season on Jake Plummer. The whole town, it seems, is in an outrage.”
The next day, on Thanksgiving morning, national shill Adam Schefter (Denver’s former local shill) hit the wire with “breaking news”:
“ . . . Jay Cutler will be starting for the Broncos on December third against Seattle . . . a Broncos team source [says] that Cutler would’ve been starting this week if it wasn’t such a short week for the Broncos.”
We lose the game in Kansas City. Obviously. The gallows lever had already been pulled. It’s hard to play quarterback with a noose around your neck. After the game we slouch in front of our lockers removing our gear and tape. We had no mojo. Our usually potent rushing attack was stifled all day long, gaining only thirty-eight yards, and our usually stout run defense gave up 223 yards. Jake played pretty well, I thought. It was the team that lost the game.
The media are giddy as they enter the locker room and make a beeline for Jay’s locker, which is next to Jake’s. The backup quarterback doesn’t get interviewed after games. But they want to crown Jay right there in the Kansas City locker room with the grass stains still on Jake’s ass. And they want Jake to see it. That’s the moment when I permanently lose faith in sports media. They don’t give a fuck about us. They want to watch us burn.
After they’re done with Jay, they set in on Jake.
—Have you heard anything from the head coach, Jake, regarding your . . .
—No. I haven’t heard anything. I get little bits and pieces from people around me, ya know, when people are saying, ‘Hey, hang in there. Don’t listen to what’s going on.’ I realize that it’s the media, really, you guys, that start that stuff because it’s your job to, and, the best I can, I shut it out because I know I have a lot of fans that are rooting hard for me. Yeah, there are some who don’t want me to play anymore, but I can’t control their thoughts unless I play well.
—What’s the most frustrating part of the situation?
—Not winning ball games. That’s it. I don’t care if I play like shit. I want to win. That’s all I care about. I don’t care how pretty I look, obviously.
He points to his shabby outfit.
—I want to play ball and try to win games for my team, and if that doesn’t happen, that’s frustrating to me. A lot of times I get too much credit and I get too much blame. Right now, the blame is there. I didn’t make some plays today. And I’ve got to make those plays.
—Do you think you will be the starter next week?
—Did I just not answer that question for you? I don’t know. I’m taking three days off. You guys will probably know before me because I don’t read anything, I don’t listen to all you guys on the radio, I don’t watch any of your TV shows. When I find out, I’ll find out. Whatever it is. And if I’m starting, I’ll bust my ass as hard as I can, for Al Wilson, for Rod, for all those guys. That’s how I play, that’s what I’ve always done.
—Do you think you deserve to be the starter?
This last question, another gem by Frank, really gets me thinking. What comes first, Frank, the chicken or the egg? The story or the storyteller? Did you create the need for the story or did the need for the story create you? And why can’t you just be cool for once?
Either way, a few days later Jay is named our starting quarterback.
Privately a few players grumble, but for the most part everyone stays silent. We know we don’t have a say in it. We felt the pressure weighing down on the building from the day Jay was drafted. It was the elephant in the room and it took a dump everywhere. We were stepping in elephant shit on our way out to practice every day. The media had JEN in their eyes every day; their every question was laced with it. The only thing that can equalize JEN is a story of what could be, not what is, because nostalgia is, in its way, an unwillingness to accept the present. That’s why they lov
e Jay so much, because they haven’t had a chance yet to decide that he’s not John.
An NFL football team is not built to depend on one man. It is built to rely on one system. The men are temporary. The plan is permanent. The scouting department brings in the talent, and once they’re in that front door, they become cogs in a machine. Jake has never been benched in his life. Confronting the reality of the machine is something he hasn’t had to do until now. Franchise quarterbacks are the last bastion of sentimental aw-shucks football fairy tales. Former quarterbacks and quarterback coaches wear suits on television and tell football fans why the quarterback is all that really matters. But someday that quarterback will be thrown out with the trash. Eventually the lie reveals itself to everyone. Everyone except John.
Seattle comes to town for Jay’s first start. It’s to be his grand entrance against an inferior opponent: a perfect first game for a rookie quarterback.
But we lose 23–20. Jay’s play is understandably erratic. Jake’s demeanor is understandably aloof. Coach Shanahan has made his decision and there’s no turning back, come what may. But it’s the middle of the season and we’re used to a certain game-day vibe and style from our quarterback. It takes time for an offense to adjust to a new one.
First, the two of them throw very different footballs. Every quarterback gives a personality to the ball he throws. Each one is a snowflake. Wobble, spin, angle, trajectory, velocity, accuracy, timing: all unique to the thrower. This information is vital to the receiver. Know thy ball and ye shall catch thy ball. Some balls are misleading and tricky, come in at strange angles, fall like torpedoes, wobble and break. Some balls are pearls. Some are rainbows that shoot from the quarterback’s hand. The receiver’s hands are the pot of gold.
Jay’s ball came nose down with an aggressive spin. Jake’s was nose up and a little softer. Unless you catch it clean with your fingertips, the ball’s movement will determine its ricochet, which in turn determines how a receiver positions his body for a ball that’s coming in hot. Knowing where the ball will come down before the defender knows where it will come down is 90 percent of the battle as a receiver. If I react first to the ball in flight, meaning, if I understand the ball’s flight better than you, then I will be there sooner, and will create a wall between you and the ball with my body. Now all I have to do is catch it. Nose-down ball means it is diving and I need to get my hands underneath it. Nose-up means it’s rising and I need to get my hands on top of it.
Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile Page 13