by Mike Lupica
“You’re sure this is fun?” Shawn said.
Ben said, “Hey, you think it’s fun for me being a defensive tackle?”
Lily showed up on Friday just as Shawn was leaving. They knew each other a little from school. But just a little.
“Can I ask you one serious question?” Lily said, before she started going out for passes.
“Like I could stop you even if I wanted.”
Lily said, “Does it bother you that you’re trying to help Shawn get better at something you’re already better at than him?”
Ben grinned. “It did at first, no lie. But I just keep telling myself that if it helps the team, it’s worth it.”
“All about the team with you,” she said, “isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah,” he said.
“Boy, there’s something about this guy Sam and Coop really don’t like,” she said.
“You’re kidding,” Ben said, “I hadn’t picked up on that.”
Even though Shawn always seemed to throw pretty well at practice, Ben thought he could see improvement out of him as the week went along. And Thursday’s scrimmage ended with him pulling the ball down on a busted pass play, running to his right, avoiding a linebacker, hitting Kevin Nolti with a strike in the middle of the field. Doing what Ben wanted him to do in games, reacting instead of thinking too much.
Ben and Coop and Sam walked off the field together.
“You gotta admit, he’s looking better,” Ben said. “You gotta give me that.”
“In practice,” Coop said.
“What about the thing that coaches are always telling us, that you practice like you play?” Ben said.
“Shawn doesn’t,” Sam said.
“Even if he is your new best friend,” Coop said.
“You know that’s not right,” Ben said.
“I’m right about Shawn until he proves me wrong,” Sam Brown said.
Ben wanted Shawn to prove Sam wrong. And Coop. But for now, Ben knew Sam was right. Even though they’d only been playing town football since the Bantam Division, they all knew something by now: There were guys who could practice like total champions, just never bring that with them to Saturday, when you started keeping score.
Coop’s mom was driving them all home tonight. On their way to the parking lot a few minutes later, Coach O’Brien and Shawn were up ahead of them, Coach with his arm around Shawn’s shoulders, talking away, Shawn nodding his head up and down, as if to keep up with whatever he was being told.
His dad coaching all the way to the car.
Hewitt was a small town, even smaller than Rockwell, about twenty minutes away, never known for its football teams, from Pop Warner through high school. Last season, in fact, the Hewitt Giants had been everybody’s favorite opponent in the Bantam Division, not winning a single game.
The Rams had played them in their second-to-last game, Ben running for three touchdowns and Sam going fifty yards for another score on an end-around. The final was 26–0 and could have been worse — would have been worse — if Coach Bucci didn’t order them to basically eat the ball the whole fourth quarter.
During warm-ups, Coop said to Ben, “I still think they should do the right thing and change their name.”
“To what?”
“Well, anything but Giants,” he said. “Because, dude, they’re, like, the opposite of giants. What did they call the little people in that Jack Black movie we thought was so terrible?”
Ben laughed. Sometimes he couldn’t help himself with Coop.
“What’s so funny?” Coop said.
“You,” Ben said. “And you’re talking about Gulliver’s Travels, right?”
“Yeah,” Coop said. “And that’s supposed to be funny?”
“It’s not always what you say, it’s the way you say it,” Ben said. “You do know that was a pretty famous book, right?”
“Whatever,” Coop said. “And so I can’t remember what the little people were called, big deal.”
“Lilliputians,” Ben said.
“So that’s what these guys should be called, then,” Coop said. “The Hewitt Lilliputians.”
“Coming from a mental giant like yourself, that would probably hurt their feelings.”
“Is that a shot at me?” Coop said.
“No way,” Ben said. “But hey? Just because they stunk last year doesn’t mean they will this year. And it’s not like we ripped it up last week.”
Coop looked down the field to where the Hewitt players were doing their own stretching.
“Same old, same old,” he said. “They still look like little Giants to me.”
Only the Giants came out playing big, taking the opening kickoff and marching all the way down the field, the quarterback being a lot better than Ben remembered, the team making one first down after another. They finally ended up with a first and goal from the two and the quarterback walked in from there, then threw for a two-point conversion. Just like that it was 8–0, Rockwell not even having run a play yet.
“Okay, so maybe they don’t stink,” Coop said.
“Man,” Sam said, “you don’t miss anything.”
Ben said, “Let’s do to them what they just did to us.”
But the Rams could only make one first down on their first series, having to punt after Shawn held the ball too long on third down and got sacked. Got up talking to himself.
The Bad Shawn.
Coming off the field Shawn came over to Ben and in a low voice said, “I froze.”
One bad play and it was as if all the good work they’d done during the week was out the window.
“No,” Ben said, “you didn’t freeze. You just got sacked. There’s a difference.”
He wanted to add, Suck it up. But didn’t.
Even now it was like there was a Good Shawn and a Bad Shawn. The good one showed up on their next series, like he’d shown up late for the game, completing five passes in a row, mostly short ones.
But then held on to the ball a little too long again on third down, tried to scramble, got brought down short of the first-down marker.
The Giants started driving the ball again near the end of the half, looking as if they might go up two touchdowns. That was before their quarterback was the one rushing a throw under a pretty heavy blitz, trying to force the ball to his tight end, getting hardly anything on the throw. Sam Brown, who played safety when Coach would put him in on defense, stepped in front of the kid on the left sideline, picked the ball off, and then ran away as if a mean dog was chasing him.
Shawn pitched it to Ben for the conversion, Ben got to the outside before anybody could touch him, and even though the Rams had done hardly anything on offense so far, the game was 8–8, which is the way it stayed until halftime.
When Coach O’Brien gathered the team around him, he acted as if they had the Hewitt Giants right where they wanted them. It was one of those times when Ben couldn’t really understand why Shawn felt so much pressure from his dad, because Coach O’Brien didn’t just want Shawn to do well, he wanted them all to do well. Believed they would do well. And no matter what the situation, did his own best to convince them they were going to do well.
He was like that now behind their bench at Hewitt, kneeling in the grass, like he was more excited than any of his players to get to the second half.
“We’re fine,” he said. “More than fine, actually. You can see the kids on the other side of the field are playing their best game. But that’s gonna be a problem for them the rest of the way, because we haven’t nearly played our best yet. Sam just picked us up with a big play to get us going and I’m telling you, we are ready to roll.”
Then he told them that they were going to come out throwing in the second half, for the simple reason that he didn’t think Hewitt would be expecting it. And also, he said, because he was sure the passing game was ready to click.
“I know something the other guys don’t know,” Coach said. “My quarterback can really throw, and I’ve got a bunch of di
fferent guys who can catch.”
He reached over, tapped the top of Shawn’s head lightly, like he was knocking on a door. “You good with that?” he said to his son.
Ben heard Shawn say in a loud voice, “So good.”
Ben thought: He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“All I needed to hear from my boy,” he said. “We’ll throw and that will set up our running game later when it’s time to put this baby to bed. That’s the way my friend Peyton Manning has always done it.”
Ben thought: Now we’ll see if Shawn can do it here the way he’s been doing it all week with me at McBain Field.
“This should be interesting, airing it out,” Sam said before Ben jogged back to receive the kickoff.
“Shawn’s going to surprise us,” Ben said. “Just watch.”
Sam grinned. “You really need to work on that bad attitude of yours.”
Ben shot straight up the middle, returned the kick to the Rams’ forty-five-yard line. Shawn went to work from there.
The passing game started clicking again, just the way Coach said it would. The line, starting with Coop at center, was giving Shawn all day to throw now. So he did. Short to Ben on the right sideline. To Sam over the middle. Then Sam again on a slant. No pressure now, at least from the Hewitt defense. For the first time, in the second game of the season, Shawn looked like the quarterback his dad said he was, had told Ben he was.
The Good Shawn. Playing like the quarterback his dad wanted him to be.
He completed four more passes in a row. On first and goal from the Giants’ nine-yard line, Sam drew a lot of attention in the defensive backfield going over the middle, Ben curled in behind him, wide open. Shawn almost underthrew him, maybe because Ben was so open. But Ben scooped the ball up before it hit the ground, turned, and ran untouched into the end zone.
Shawn did underthrow Darrelle for the conversion, giving Hewitt’s middle linebacker time to knock the ball down. But the Rams had the lead now, 14–8. As they all ran off the field Ben got alongside Shawn and said, “I told you that you could do it.”
“Long way to go,” Shawn said.
“So what?” Ben said. “When you’re playing well, you want to play all day.”
Ben was hoping they could shut Hewitt down, get the offense the ball right back, make this a game when Shawn wouldn’t be required to make plays at the end.
It didn’t work out that way.
The Giants were the ones who came right back, another long drive, mixing passes and runs, always seeming to have the Rams off balance. Ben was in at cornerback now, and briefly saved a touchdown by tipping a ball away from one of the Giants’ wide receivers at the last second. But then the Giants’ quarterback ran it in from the ten on a quarterback draw, and then their fullback ran straight up the middle for the conversion.
It was 16–14.
Them.
Nobody did much on offense after that. Shawn missed some open receivers, but so did the Hewitt quarterback. So the game stayed 16–14 into the fourth quarter. With about six minutes left, the Rams began a long drive that started deep in their own territory. But on third down from Hewitt’s thirty, Shawn led Sam too much down the sideline. Sam got a hand on the ball, tried to tip it to himself. But when it looked as if he might do that, he got hit from the side, the ball popping straight up in the air.
When it came down, it came down into the hands of their safety.
Hewitt ball, two minutes left.
And maybe game over.
Ben ran straight for Shawn and said, “Not your fault.”
“Did somebody else throw that ball?” he said.
“You were just unlucky,” Ben said. “We were unlucky.”
“My dad always tells me you make your own luck in sports,” Shawn said.
He ran off the field, ran straight to his favorite spot at the end of the bench, like he was trying to crawl into a hole. Ben stayed on the field, Coach O’Brien having moved him to safety, Ben back there with Sam. It was where Ben liked it best on defense, he and Sam were a great team at the back of the defense, each one knowing where the other was going to be without having to talk about it.
Sam said, “We can’t let them run out the clock.”
“No,” Ben said. “Because we are not going to 0–2.”
“You want to make a play, or should I?” Sam said.
As it turned out, they both did.
On third down, the Hewitt halfback broke into the clear, running free into the Rams’ defensive backfield. But Sam closed in on him from one side, Ben from the other. Then Sam went in low on the kid, and as he did, Ben went in high, swinging his right hand at the ball the way Coach O’Brien had taught them.
Knocking it loose.
A lot of players seemed to show up at the party then, fighting for the ball. Too late. Sam Brown had it and nobody was getting it away from him. Rams’ ball on the Hewitt twenty-nine-yard line. A minute and eight seconds showing on the clock.
Darrelle brought the first down play in from the bench. A simple post pattern to Sam. Go down about ten yards, cut hard to the middle of the field, find some open space.
Sam did, two steps ahead of the cornerback covering him, the safety just standing there as Sam put on a burst, like he could, and ran right past him.
Shawn threw the ball so far behind him it hit the Hewitt safety who’d made the interception on Sam a few minutes earlier right between the numbers.
Only the kid was so startled he dropped it, going to his knees afterward and giving the ground a good pounding, as if he knew he might have just fumbled away his team’s chance to beat Rockwell.
Second and ten.
Ben figured it was okay to exhale now.
Kevin Nolti brought in the next play, “Swing 22,” Ben’s number, a quick pass to him coming out of the backfield, Brian McAuley blocking ahead of him, trying to get Ben to the outside. As they broke the huddle Ben said to Shawn, “Just throw me the ball, I’ll do the rest.”
“If I can,” Shawn said.
He was so tight it was like he could barely open his mouth to get the words out.
Shawn only had to throw the ball about five yards. Still he almost missed Ben, Shawn not throwing the ball so much as trying to push it through the air. It was more a little pop-up than a pass, Ben worried that the ball was hanging up in the air so long somebody might blast in to pick it off the way the Midvale guy had the week before.
No one did. Ben finally wrapped his arms around the ball, saw Brian block Hewitt’s outside linebacker to the inside, broke to the outside himself, didn’t get knocked out of bounds until he’d made it all the way to their six-yard line.
First and goal.
Still plenty of time.
Then Ben got stopped for no gain on first down. Same with Darrelle on second. Coach O’Brien called time-out. Thirty-one seconds on the clock, Ben thinking: We waited all week and we’re pretty much right back where we were at the end of the Midvale game.
Just down two this time.
Coach sent in a pass, to Sam, a little fade route where Sam gave a quick head fake to the cornerback covering him, then cut behind him to the right corner of the end zone.
Shawn gave everybody the play, the snap count, clapped his hands. But before he got down behind Coop, he turned to Ben, as if wanting to tell him one last thing before the ball was snapped.
Just not anything Ben wanted to hear in that moment.
“I’m choking my brains out,” the Bad Shawn said.
Sam would joke that way sometimes in a game, never meaning it.
Shawn did.
“Don’t,” Ben said. “Sam is so good it’s, like, ridiculous. You get it anywhere near him, trust me, he will go up and get it.”
But the Hewitt coach crossed them up and called for an all-out blitz, sending in one of his safeties and all three of his linebackers. Total fire drill. Like the whole Hewitt defense was trying to throw the kind of scare into Shawn that Ben’s dad had when he’d bee
n the designated pass rusher at McBain Field, trying to get Shawn ready for a moment in the game like this.
Only he wasn’t ready.
When he saw Hewitt uniforms coming at him from all directions, he didn’t even try to run. He just panicked, didn’t give Sam enough time to make his cut, threw the ball high and wild and out of the end zone.
Fourth down.
Like they were down to their last out in baseball.
Coach O’Brien was smiling on the sideline as he sent in the play with Kevin Nolti, pumping his fist at the Rams. “Let’s do this!” he yelled.
This play was called “Sneak 22.” Ben again. He was supposed to stay home and block while Shawn rolled to his left, the side of the field where Sam had lined up. But as soon as Ben threw his block, he was supposed to jog to his right, almost as if he wasn’t even in the play.
Then Shawn was supposed to turn and throw him the ball and — if the play worked the way Coach O’Brien thought it would — Ben would run from there into the end zone.
Easy throw for Shawn to make, tough play for the defense to read. Ben thought: It shouldn’t have come down to one play. But if it had to, I’m glad the play is to me.
Shawn dropped back. Hewitt blitzed again. Coop leveled one of their tackles, Ben put a good low block on a linebacker. Then he was out in the right flat. All alone.
Now.
One of the Hewitt corners, the one covering Brian underneath the goalposts, had spotted him. But he was hanging back with Brian for now, not wanting to leave him wide open in the back of the end zone.
Shawn waited the way he’d been told to on this play, then suddenly turned toward Ben, brought his arm forward, Ben seeing the tight spiral come out of his hand.
Ben decided to give one quick look up the field and when he did he saw the cornerback on Brian starting to run toward him.
All it took. When he turned back for the ball it was already on him, and he wasn’t ready for it. At the worst possible moment, Ben was the one who turned out to be too anxious, wanting to start running before he had the ball, wanting to get to the end zone, wanting to win the game for his team.