Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile (14 page)

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.

A
s 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.

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ack 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.

P
rivately 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 love 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.

But we understood the difference in their balls from practice. The main adjustments were game-day stylistics. How does he feel? What does he like to do? What does he see when he scrambles? What parts of the field does he like to exploit? What do his looks mean? What routes does he prefer? How does he communicate? This stuff comes along slowly.

The next week we go to San Diego and lose to an especially game Chargers team. We are powerless to stop LaDainian Tomlinson’s mojo. He scores three touchdowns in the game, which gives him twenty-nine for the season: an NFL record. The crowd chants “M.V.P! M.V.P.!” He’ll go on to play eleven seasons in the NFL, quite a feat for a superstar running back. 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.

We are on a four-game losing streak now: two with Jake, two with Jay. We need a win to stay in the playoff hunt and we get one in Arizona. Jay settles into his role. We need another win the following week, at home against the Bengals on Christmas Eve, to even think about the playoffs. The media are optimistic about our chances. They have the QB they want. They excuse Jay’s mistakes as growing pains, comparing his first few games favorably to those of John. The JEN drips off the page.

But then a blizzard hits. On Thursday morning, I wake up and can’t get out of my house. There’s a four-foot snowdrift in front of my garage door. I’m alone in my suburban family home. Everyone else will be late to work, too. Eventually Tony comes and picks me up in his Hummer. He can’t make it into my neighborhood so I trudge the quarter mile to his car, with the snow coming up to my knees. The air is calm. The snowflakes fall in slow motion. The world is silent except for the crunch of my boots. Peace is everyone stuck indoors.

We make it to the facility and sit in empty meeting rooms and watch film. Most of the team doesn’t get there until lunch.

The coaches are pissed! So pissed! Fuckin’ snowy, fuckin’ icy, cold frozen watery substance in the clouds! Fuckin’ clouds! Who are the Clouds, anyway? Don’t they know we play the Bengals in a few days?

Whenever the big weather hits, we bus up to the street to an indoor field we call “the bubble.” It is only eighty yards long and is not as wide as a regulation field. I like going to the bubble because it breaks up the routine. After practice we bus back to the facility and fall back into our normal meeting schedule. Jake has accepted his fate and seems more relaxed than I’ve seen him in years.

Despite our lack of adequate preparation we win our next game 24–23. Carson Palmer drives the distance of the field in the final minute to score a touchdown that gets the Bengals within one point. The extra point will tie the game. But the same storm that crawled over us a few days earlier whipped us with its tail on its way out of town. The long snapper loses his grip, and the holder can’t get it down in time. The elements are relevant. We win.