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I go to our team physician, Dr. Geraghty, and ask him if he could give me something for the pain. —I can’t move my neck, Doc. He says the best he can do is one Vicodin and one muscle relaxer and hands me two pills in a small bag. —That’s it? Two pills? I hold up the nearly empty bag. —You’re going to make me hit the streets for this one? —Sorry, Nate.
By the time Monday comes around I put on my sweats and drive into work, stiffer than a wedding night’s dick, as one of my coaches used to say.
I imagine young Josh McDaniels walking into Pat Bowlen’s office for the interview and tossing a jockstrap on the owner’s desk without saying a word. After a minute of awkward silence, he probably said something like, Go ahead. Smell it. This belonged to Tom Brady, Mr. Bowlen. That’s the smell of success. That’s the smell of the Super Bowl. That’s the smell of . . . balls, Pat.
But Menlo was an oasis. The campus was lush and quiet. The classes were small and inclusive. The professors were friendly and passionate. The surrounding neighborhoods are wealthy and extremely safe. A common police blotter blurb from the local newspaper: “Suspicious looking cat seen near parked car.” Or: “Man tying his shoes across the street from suspicious looking cat.”
The NFL is a pageant. Football is no longer just a game.
I walk onto the field with my helmet in my hand and the stands erupt. What a welcome, I think. Bay Area kid makes good. Yeah, it’s a great story. I glance to my left. There is T.O., and our starting quarterback, Jeff Garcia, walking beside me. They probably think the cheering is for them.
A few days later I strap on a neoprene shoulder harness that looks like I’d got it at a sex shop in North Beach and go back on the field a day before our trip to Osaka, Japan.
The Redskins are staying at our hotel. So are their cheerleaders. I spot one in the lobby who shoots an arrow through my heart. We fall in love immediately. She chooses not to acknowledge it, though, and so I give her the space she needs. I’m still waiting.
I watch the 49ers on TV all year with a new appreciation of the machine. For the first time I’m seeing the big picture through the small screen.
Inside the party I’m formally introduced to pro sports high society. It has a strange, seductive sheen. The women are beautiful. The men are powerful. Everyone is horny.
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.
On Saturday morning before we leave, Shannon Sharpe addresses the offense. He always gives a talk on Saturday morning before we review the film. Shannon’s a three-time Super Bowl winner: two in Denver and one in Baltimore. This is to be his last season in the NFL. He wants one more ring. During his monologue about everyone in the room having a job to do, he says, “Whether you’re Shannon Sharpe or you’re Nate Jackson, everyone has a role on this team.” I’m flattered that I popped into his head, even if it was when he needed the lowest man in the food chain. At least he knows my name.
We are riding along and I’m looking into living room windows, then all of a sudden, like a Mecca of cheese: Lambeau.
On the bus ride back to the hotel, my friend tells me that he’s really looking forward to the few days off. He has a fantastic plan. He’s going to take a Viagra and masturbate all day.
Oh, and there is a once-a-year drug test. —If you can’t pass it then you’re either stupid or you have a drug problem. Either one, you need help.
I shrug off the risks and accept the offer to inject, thus beginning my long relationship with the needle-as-savior approach to injury treatment. Toradol, Bextra, Kenalog, dexamethasone, Medrol, cortisone, Ketrax, PRP; the needle is the last resort when the pain is too much or progress is too slow.
Last year’s 89, Dwayne Carswell, a beloved longtime Bronco, is gone now. His nickname was “House.” Now that I’ve taken over his number, the guys are calling me “White House.” I approve this message.
The fact is, no one will remember any NFL game I’ll ever play in but me.
Jerry smiles and takes a mental picture, then walks up the stairs and out of the meeting room forever. My hero has left the building. The door clicks shut and it’s back to the business of professional football.
Every day has a log-sheet that contains the plays we’ll run that day, in the order we’ll run them. It also has the defensive front, coverage, down and distance, hash-mark, and blitzes, which helps practice move along smoothly. No alarms and no surprises, please. It’s mostly for the coaches. Helps them feel like they’re in control of the product. Inevitably, that all falls to shit on game day. That’s when you need the players to take over. To this day no coach has successfully scripted a football game.
John Elway was the exception to almost every NFL rule. He was one of the most highly touted college athletes ever. He was the first pick in the draft. Then he played sixteen years for the same team. He avoided major injuries. He went to a million Pro Bowls. He won league and Super Bowl MVP, respectively, the latter in one of his five World Championship games. He won two rings, at the ages of thirty-seven and thirty-eight. Then he retired. That won’t happen again. But in Denver, it fucking better!
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.
Running backs have very short careers. The better they are, the more they’re used, the faster they fall apart. The human body can’t absorb that punishment for very long. A thirty-year-old running back is a rare sight in the NFL. LaDainian will play into his thirties and walk away before someone tells him he has to.
The first thing I learn is that Jake has retired. He is thirty-two years old and healthy. Still a star quarterback, he’s chosen principle over promise and left the industry that betrayed him.
Patrick Chukwurah, a muscly, dreadlocked defensive lineman who we hung out with in Denver, is in Tampa now.
rooms and plan to meet downstairs in thirty minutes. It is wise to ease yourself into your Vegas weekend. Don’t walk in the front door of the casino and go straight for the roulette table. Check in, put your bags down, and relax. Have a beer. Go to the pool. Look at the boobies. There will be plenty of time to hate yourself later.
The off-season months, which might be used to make ganja-induced epiphanical deposits in the bank of the soul, instead are spent abstaining in anticipation of the league’s once-a-year street drug test. By the time the draft comes around, you’d better be good and clean, because the testing starts during minicamp. Like Greek said years ago, if you can’t pass this test, you’re either stupid or you’re an addict. Either way, you need help.
The NFL should remove marijuana from their banned substances list. Don’t tell anyone about it: just stop testing for it. Pain is a big problem in the NFL. Pain management is necessary. Weed is the least harmful and least addictive of the painkillers players use to cope with the violent demands of the game. Drug use in the NFL mirrors drug use outside of the NFL. Pills reign supreme. There are more overdoses in America from prescription painkillers than from cocaine and heroin combined. And no one ever overdoses from weed. The problem is pills and booze. A joint can alleviate the need for
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Coach Shanahan always says that if a player is really talented at golf, it’s not a good sign.
But Las Vegas takes on a different hue when you’re hanging out in the suburbs, filling up gas tanks and walking the dogs.
People voluntarily come to Vegas to live a sequin fantasy: dollar signs shooting off like fireworks in the night sky. But the sun rises and illuminates the lie. The vampires scatter like roaches into soon-to-be foreclosed tract homes
Watching pornography with no plan to discharge gives the film a depth that goes unseen when my intentions are lustful.
I know what to do on the field but I don’t always know how to explain it in the terminology required of our pregame written test.
But the result is not routine. Everett collapses to the ground and does not move. The crowd falls silent. Tony and I stand next to each other on the sideline. —He looks dead. We don’t know how right we almost are. Everett has sustained a fracture and dislocation of his cervical spine. We’ll later find out that his life was saved by fast thinking and perfectly executed medical treatment, which stabilized his spine and whisked him off to the hospital so we could finish our football game in peace, without the realities of what we were risking getting in the way. The show must go on.
Past the industrial warehouses off Santa Fe, where the road dips slightly then banks a hard right at an angle that’s left the guardrail permanently scarred.
I go into the bathroom to behold my body in its game-day armor. I’m not the only one who finds strength in the pre-kickoff mirror. There is a clamoring around the reflective glass. We are going on television. We want you to love us.
Not only have we waited all week for this moment, going through the rigmarole of practice and meetings, but so have the fans, going through the rigmarole of American life. This is for all of us.
I reach out for the ball. So does Mathis. But he’s one step late. The ball sinks into my fingertips and I squeeze it into my body. Touchdown. Five fucking years.
We lost the game 23–14. But for a mother, the score doesn’t matter so much. My mom has three criteria that she uses to judge a game. One, did I stay healthy? Two, was I happy with my performance? Three, did we win? Moms are ahead of the curve. The NFL is momless.
There’s a genuine happiness spread across their faces as they meet their meaty unicorns.
We go out to dinner, a Brazilian meat-on-a-stick restaurant downtown called Rodizio. I limp and hop between tables and chairs. People look at me strangely. I am also meat-on-a-stick.
The training room has a sterilized hospital smell to it: salves and creams and freshly laundered towels and cleaning supplies. I hate it, just because I know what smelling it means. I’m injured again.
The medical staff reaches the same conclusion: no point rushing this injury back on the field. Greek tells me I am going on injured reserve. My season is over. What do you call a football player who’s not playing football? You don’t.
The next morning I crutch into the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic for my PRP injection. They give me a hospital gown and I crawl onto a gurney. Of course my nurse is hot. This pattern develops around every genital area injury I have in my career. The more emasculating and uncomfortable the injury is, the more attractive the woman will be who treats it.
Pain isn’t rigid. It’s a choice, a weakness of the mind, a glitch in the system that can be overridden by stones and moxie. I find my switch and flip it. People often asked me how bad it hurt to get hit by those huge dudes. The truth is that it doesn’t hurt at all. The switch is on. I can’t feel a thing. My body is a machine and my emotions are dead.
But the years of abuse are taking their toll. Misaligned joints, stretched ligaments, bruised bones, overworked muscles, and a jangled brain keep pace with an ambitious football mind. One play at a time: one day at a time. My football mind is stronger than my human body.
Training camp, and the Locos’ home base for the duration of the six-game season, will be located in Casa Grande, Arizona. One hour southeast of Phoenix. Population: 48,571. Climate: the fucking desert. Notable landmarks: none. Recreational activities: drinking alone in the dark.
a lonely highway as straight and hot as the devil’s dick.
The Holiday Inn supplies us with all of our meals, which aren’t horrible, but any meal eaten in the dining area of a desert Holiday Inn, no matter how delicious, is seasoned with the flakes of self-loathing.
On one of my first days of rehab, I’m doing pool exercises next to a man recovering from ACL surgery. He says that the ligament they put in his knee is from a cadaver. I ask him if that makes his wife a necrophiliac. His look of confused disgust reminds me how poorly adjusted I am to civilian discourse.
