Fantasy League

by Mike Lupica

  “But now I’m glad you’re around, and not just because you made a couple of calls that even the smartest personnel guys in the league might not have made. Including our own.”

  “Probably because it’s not my job,” Charlie said. “You guys are the ones under all the pressure, every single week. Since I’ve been around the team like this, I went back and looked at all the draft choices you’ve made, especially the lower ones.” Charlie paused and said, “You’ve done way better than people think.”

  Matt grinned. “People like my niece, you mean?”

  “Seriously,” Charlie said. “I like to think I follow things really closely with the Bulldogs. But when I started going over the decisions you’ve made, year by year, I can see how people have focused on the stuff that didn’t work out more than the things that did.”

  “That’s the job, Charlie, at least until you win,” Matt said. “And then sometimes even after you’ve won. I know what I can do. I know I’m a better general manager than all those people you’re talking about think. But my job isn’t to turn them around, it’s to get this team turned around. Which I think we’ve finally done.”

  “People who only focus on Tom coming here this season aren’t seeing the whole picture, are they?”

  Matt grinned and shook his head. “Nope. But it’s like my dad told me one time: Sports fans just see the hole in the donut. Not the whole donut.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Charlie said.

  “Ask me anything.”

  “How come you don’t defend yourself more? Your record, I mean.”

  “Because I’m a Bill Parcells guy all the way. His most famous line was the one about how you are what your record says you are. And everybody can see what our record has been since we were an expansion team.”

  “I got criticized over Jack Sutton and I didn’t want to come out of my room,” Charlie said. “I read the papers and listen to the radio and go on the Internet and it’s like, wow, you have to take it all the time.”

  “But if you get fixed on it, then you’re taking time away from doing your job,” Matt said. “And my job, more than anything else, is to build a winner, for our fans. Mostly for my dad.”

  Charlie looking at Matt now like he was seeing him for the first time.

  “I really didn’t think you liked me very much,” Charlie said. “Especially when Jack was messing up big time.”

  “Like I said, there were times . . . But guess what? That was so dumb it made me not like me.”

  Then: “Take a walk with me, Charlie.”

  And so now Charlie began a walk around another football field, this time with Joe Warren’s son at Bulldogs Stadium.

  “I’m just glad those guys worked out for us,” Charlie said.

  “Not as glad as I am,” Matt said. “All I’ve ever wanted to do was put together a team like this. Not just a quarterback who can get it done, or a linebacker who’s found a second chance. But all over the field, up and down the depth chart. But those two players, they really fit like missing pieces to a puzzle. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I never officially thanked you for what you did to help the team. I am thanking you now.”

  “I was never looking for a thank-you. I used to just want the Bulldogs to win for me, because it would make me happy. But now I want it even more for your dad.”

  “That makes us more alike than either one of us would have ever thought, huh?”

  They had gone up the Bulldogs’ side of the field, crossed the end zone, were heading down the visitors’ side now.

  “You know what that means?” Matt said. “You and I—we were always on the same team.”

  Then he paused and said, “He told me he told you about being sick.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So now he’s a happy guy who happens to be sick,” Matt said. “Which is why it’s a good thing that you help make him even happier. I watch the two of you and you both make being around each other look so . . . easy. Makes me wish it had always been that easy between us. My dad and me.”

  They kept walking, Charlie saying, “He tells me all the time how proud he is of you. How he knows how hard it is for you being the owner’s son. The other day he was saying again how none of this would have been as much fun for him if the two of you weren’t doing this together. Even in the bad times.”

  There was a stray football in the grass in front of them that the equipment guys had somehow missed. Matt picked it up and then surprised Charlie by getting off a booming punt—crushed it—that traveled fifty yards in the air at least.

  “Seriously?” Charlie said.

  “Once I realized in college I was never going to be good enough to make the NFL as a player, I started kicking, thinking I could punt my way there. That was long before the Bulldogs. Made it through a couple of cuts with the Cardinals before I got sent home.”

  They started walking again, Charlie not sure how long they’d been out there, or what time it was. Just enjoying the talk more than he’d thought he would.

  “When Dad got sick,” Matt Warren said, “I started to wonder if I had even less time than I thought to get this team figured out. Not so much in the draft, that’s a crapshoot even for general managers a lot smarter than I am. I’m talking about some of the quick-fix trades I made.” He paused and blew out some air and said, “There’s this old racetrack expression: Scared money never wins. I was getting more and more scared that I was running out of time with him.”

  “I get jumpy just making fantasy trades!”

  They were back at the Bulldogs’ bench now. They both sat back down. Matt looked at his watch. “Dad should be out any second.”

  “Thanks for the talk,” Charlie said.

  “Should have had it sooner.”

  Then Matt said, “Here comes the big guy.”

  There was Joe Warren, coming out of the tunnel, walking as slowly and carefully as before, as if afraid the turf might reach up and bring him down.

  Don’t fall, Charlie heard him saying.

  “One last thing, Charlie?” Matt said. “It turned out to be good for me that you were around, too. Because I learned something from you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “No, I did. I figured out that one of the reasons you get on the way you do with Dad is because you don’t need anything from him, the way I’ve always needed his approval.”

  Charlie was about to tell him that he was wrong, that he needed Joe Warren—needed all of this, the team and the place and all the rest of it—more than Matt could ever know.

  But now Joe Warren was walking up to the bench area, saying, “Well, look at my brain trust.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, looking at Charlie and grinning. “Look at us. Couple of brains.”

  Thirty-Six

  MR. WARREN’S SUITE, BULLDOGS AGAINST the Cowboys, Seattle having already won its game the night before and taking its record to 9–6, Bulldogs needing a win to match.

  If the Bulldogs lost to the Cowboys they would be out of the playoffs. Even if they beat the Seahawks next week to split the season series, the Seahawks still had the tiebreaker on the Bulldogs because of a better record in their division.

  It was really win or go home for the Bulldogs as far as the playoffs were concerned.

  As the Bulldogs tried to get Joe Warren into the playoffs for the first time.

  Charlie wanted this for himself, wanted it as much as he’d ever wanted anything in sports. This was his team, the only team he’d ever rooted for, his team now more than it had ever been. And he wanted this for Anna, too. And for Tom Pinkett, having had this kind of season when most people in football thought he wasn’t going to have any season at all.

  Charlie wanted it for Jack Sutton, not only having made a comeback out of retirement, but now making a comeback from the way his first comeback had started.

 
But Charlie knew in his heart he wanted it for the old man most of all.

  He was Brain when it came to football, whether he liked people calling him that or not. But not a brain about everything, certainly not about doctors or medicine or illness. He also wasn’t an idiot about those things. So he knew that just because Mr. Warren said the cancer wasn’t going to kill him anytime soon, that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t.

  • • •

  Less than two minutes left in the half, the Bulldogs were losing to the Dallas Cowboys, 24–7.

  They weren’t playing all that badly. It wasn’t lousy play that had put them in this kind of hole. More like lousy luck. There had been a punt return for a touchdown. There had been what looked to be a sure interception by one of the Bulldogs’ cornerbacks that ricocheted off the corner’s hands directly into the hands of the Cowboys’ tight end, who spun around and found himself with nothing but green field between him and the end zone thanks to one of the Bulldogs’ safeties, who had slipped on the turf as he changed direction on the run.

  “This,” Anna said, “is not the way the story is supposed to go.”

  Before her grandfather could say anything, she turned and pointed a finger at him and said, “And please don’t tell me there’s a long way to go.”

  Joe Warren hadn’t moved much since he’d taken his usual seat between Charlie and Anna, his “lucky” seat not very lucky so far, the old man looking every bit as exhausted as he had been every time Charlie had seen him lately.

  All he did now was wink at Charlie. As if that was all he had in him, other than a weak smile.

  Somehow Charlie knew what he wanted him to say.

  “There is a long way to go,” he said to Anna.

  “Very funny,” Anna said.

  But her gramps said, “You didn’t say anything about Charlie saying it.”

  “If we can manage a touchdown here,” Charlie said, “we can close out the half with some momentum. And then we’ll get the ball to start the second half with a chance to get right back in the game.”

  “And what makes you think that’s going to happen the way things have been going for us today?”

  Now Charlie was the one giving Joe Warren a wink. “Trust.”

  That word again.

  Three plays later, after an interference call against the Cowboys at their five-yard line, Tom Pinkett threw to Mo Bettencourt, the tight end who’d become his favorite receiver, and the Bulldogs were down only ten.

  “Game on,” Charlie said as the first half clock expired.

  Then Isaac Powell nearly took the opening kick of the second half back all the way, before being knocked out of bounds on the Dallas thirty-eight by their kicker. Tom didn’t waste much time from there—throwing immediately into the end zone, where Harrison Mays outjumped what looked like the entire Dallas secondary to make it 24–21.

  “Game so on,” Charlie said as the crowd erupted. Even Anna jumped and whooped with excitement.

  Charlie looked at Mr. Warren, but he was quiet. Not even a joke or a wink. Instead he just coughed into his hand, a weak-sounding noise that frightened Charlie.

  When Charlie and Anna made a popcorn trip early in the third quarter he said to her, “I’m worried about your gramps.”

  “I know, me too. But when I asked my mom, she said it’s just more about him acting his age finally than being sick. Mom calls it the same old same old, emphasis on the old.” She smiled, but Charlie could tell it was forced.

  They went back to their seats without saying another word. The Bulldogs stopped scoring now, but so did the Cowboys, the third quarter all defense. The fourth quarter began the same way, neither team able to push the ball past midfield.

  Until Jake Kincaid, the Cowboys’ second-year quarterback out of Baylor, made a great play getting out of what should have been a Sack Sutton sack, ran to his right, and threw one as far as he could to Zak Connolly for the touchdown that made it 31–21 Cowboys, five minutes left.

  The stadium grew quiet again, as quiet as it had been at 24–7, like somebody had hit the mute button.

  Except for Anna Bretton, who leaned past her grandfather and said in a loud voice to Charlie, “Two-score game. Remind me again: I was supposed to trust you about what, exactly?”

  “We need a quick score” was all Charlie had. “Score and a stop.”

  They got the score, Tom Pinkett going into his two-minute offense a few minutes early working the sidelines with short passes, needing to use only one of the time-outs he had left, and finally taking the ball in himself on a sneak with two minutes and twenty seconds left to make it 31–28 Cowboys at Bulldogs Stadium.

  Charlie looked over and saw Anna squeezing her grandfather’s hand. It was going to be one of those wild finishes that every football fan loves, win or lose.

  After the kickoff, the Cowboys ran it on first down, trying to run off some clock. Coach Fiore called the Bulldogs’ final time-out, using it before the two-minute warning. The Cowboys ran it again on second down. Four more yards.

  Third-and-four, clock running, no way for the Bulldogs to stop it. Just needing a stop to get the ball back. A first down would mean the game was over.

  “He’s gonna throw for it,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, great, Gramps,” Anna said. “He’s having another one of his visions.”

  “Nope,” Charlie said. “Not seeing the future, just the season Tom Pinkett has had. The Cowboys have seen it, too. They know that even without time-outs, even a minute is too much time for him. They can’t take the chance on another run.”

  “Any other brilliant observations?” Anna said.

  It was then that Joe Warren spoke, in a soft voice.

  “This young quarterback Jake Kincaid, who’s lit up the scoreboard for them all season, he never plays it safe, no matter what the score,” the old man said. “He doesn’t want to ask his defense to end the game. He wants to end it right here.”

  Mr. Warren and Charlie were both right.

  It was a pass play.

  A safe one, to Connolly, two yards past the first-down marker—a neat, simple curl.

  That was the way it was drawn up, anyway, the way it was supposed to go, until Jack Sutton came flying in from Jake Kincaid’s back side, got to him even though the Cowboys’ fullback tried to put a good block on him.

  Jack Sutton ran right through that block and hit Kincaid the way Charlie had hit Graham Yost at Memorial Field.

  And knocked the ball loose just as Kincaid’s arm came forward, the ball going straight up into the air before landing in the arms of Chuck Stoner, the Bulldogs’ outside linebacker. Stoner made sure to wrap his arms around the ball before most of the Cowboys’ offensive line fell on him.

  Chuck had gotten the interception.

  But Jack had made it happen.

  The next thing everybody at Bulldogs Stadium saw was Jack Sutton pointing up at Joe Warren’s suite, like he was pointing right at the old man.

  Like that play was for him alone.

  • • •

  There was some drama right after that, a holding call on first down that pushed the Bulldogs back to the Cowboys’ thirty-five and put them in a first-and-twenty situation. Then Tom nearly threw an interception on second down that tried to end the game and stop Charlie’s heart at the same time.

  But then Tom threw a couple of perfect balls to get the Bulldogs inside the Cowboys’ ten-yard line with twenty seconds left, time running out. The players ran to the line of scrimmage as fast as they could. Everyone on both teams—every person watching in the stadium and on TV—knew what was coming next. Tom Pinkett had to spike the ball to stop the clock and prepare for one shot at the end zone.

  Only, that’s not what he did.

  Instead, he faked the spike, pulling the ball back up like it was a yo-yo on a string before turning and faking a throw to Mo Bet
tencourt on his right, only to whip around and fire a strike to a wide-open Harrison Mays in the left corner of the end zone.

  Touchdown. The defense never knew what hit them.

  But the game was over. Along with the Cowboys’ season.

  It took a while, but Joe Warren finally got himself up and out of his chair with a little help from Charlie and Anna, hugged his granddaughter, then turned to Charlie and hugged him, too. For the first time. Pulling him in and saying, “I told you great things can still happen.”

  Then he said, “C’mon, you two, it’s a special occasion, let’s all of us go downstairs to the locker room.”

  Carlos was waiting for them at Joe Warren’s private elevator, a security guard with him. Another security guard was waiting for them when the doors opened at the basement level of Bulldogs Stadium. They all walked at the old man’s pace down a long hallway to the door that led to the home team’s locker room.

  “Be back for you in a bit,” Joe Warren said as Carlos held the door open for him and he disappeared through it.

  “Got a little pep in his step now,” Charlie said.

  “I think pep might be a bit strong,” Anna said. “But I’ll take it.”

  About ten minutes later the same door opened and Joe Warren came back through it.

  He wasn’t alone.

  No security flanking him this time, just Tom Pinkett and Jack Sutton.

  Jack with a football in his hands.

  He said to Charlie, “Tom and I were talking inside after the rest of the team gave me this game ball. Mostly talking about how the two of us ended up here. And how neither one of us would have ended up here if it hadn’t been for you.”

  He handed the ball to Charlie.

  “I thanked you one time for believing in me,” Tom Pinkett said. “Thanks for believing in both of us.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Charlie said. In that moment, all he could muster was a simple thank-you.

  “No,” Jack said. “Thank you.”

  “I can really keep this?”

  “You better, kid,” Jack Sutton said. “Told you I owed you one.