At the relaxed Saturday walk-through, the starters went through the call list out on the turf in the field house, and everyone else stood along the sideline and had real conversations. Julian Posey said that after he was cut from the Jets, he returned home to Ohio, where he worked out and thought about how he’d “cherished” the chance to play professional football and how much he’d give for another opportunity. He said that a quality of professional football he’d never expected was how anxiety-producing it was. Everything was, he thought, accelerated for both players and coaches, and everyone had to get better “right now or forget it, it’s over.”
Practice-squad players didn’t travel with the team, so after the walk-through Posey went home, and the team passed through security and flew to Providence, Rhode Island. During the week, the receivers had been as subdued as I’d ever seen them. Mason was especially quiet. At the team hotel in Providence, sitting around a boardroom-style table in their T-shirts waiting to begin their meeting with the quarterbacks, the receivers all became suddenly lighthearted. Then the meeting began. When Holmes didn’t know his role in a play, Schotty was quick to explain it to him, but the small moment was freighted with reproach. Everybody looked forward to the games. But as the coaches were always saying, every game was built on a week of practices, and lately Holmes did not always run his practice routes at full speed.
Pettine told the defense to be ready for a rapid-fire battle of personnel groups as the teams tried to outsubstitute each other to gain a mismatch. “You’re better than they are,” he told his players. “But they hide their inadequacies well.” A particular Patriot strength was the slant patterns run by Wes Welker and other receivers. Pettine showed the defense film of Patriots low crossers being diverted and the sacks that resulted.
“Going with the untucky!” Ryan said, walking out among his coaches in the locker room to model his black short-sleeved game shirt. It was a warm Indian summer day, and during a messy game filled with penalties and Jets punting, the Jets defense kept things close. It was 10–7 Patriots at the half. Later it would be clear to the Jets coaches that the Patriots people up in their own coaching box had seen something that they’d passed along to Brady during the break. Early in the game, the Patriots used a bunched-receivers formation, and in response Eric Smith had crept up to the line from his safety spot. The Patriots were betting that if they gave the same look again, they’d get the same response from Smith. On the first play of the third quarter, Welker lined up in that bunch formation, Smith indeed came creeping forward, and then Welker, master of the quick-developing pattern, ran a route no Jet could recall the Patriots using out of that look. He went deep. Down the seam Welker sprinted, blowing by the surprised Revis into open space for a seventy-three-yard catch and run.
In addition, the Patriots were rushing the ball well against the Jets’ usually formidable run defense. It was especially deflating to have a perceived Patriots weakness obviate a Jets strength. Late in the game, with the Patriots ahead by six points, on third down, the New England running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis took a direct snap and swept around left end. Rather than holding his ground and forcing the play back toward the middle, Cromartie seemed to disappear. Three plays later, another third down, and this time Brady threw to Rob Gronkowski. The tight end had run a standard Patriots wide receivers’ pattern. Before the snap, all the Jets coaches had recognized what was coming. They screamed at the safety Brodney Pool, warning him. The coaches could see it all: Pool jumping the route, bringing the ball back, winning the game! But because New England tight ends hadn’t run the route out of that formation before, and because Pool’s responsibility for the game was covering the tight end, he knew the tight-end routes and wasn’t familiar with Patriots receiver routes. Pool cautiously fell back into deeper protection, and Gronkowski made the catch. First down. Field goal. Insurmountable lead. The Patriots prevailed by nine, 30–21. Until it was over, the Jets had thought they would win. Ryan was calm afterward in the locker room, saying how “encouraged,” he was. “Stay together,” he urged.
In football, visitors’ locker rooms are designed to promote defeat. They are small, bare of amenities, decorated in sullen colors. (The University of Iowa notoriously painted everything in its visitors’ locker room “puke pink” because the former Iowa coach Hayden Fry had studied psychology and believed pink floors, sinks, and toilets would undermine the opposition’s aggression.) It doesn’t smell good in a visitors’ locker room, it doesn’t look good; there’s a garish glare to some of the lights and gloom in other places, not enough light. The percentage of backed-up toilets tends to run high. After a loss, the cramped spaces with their slick concrete floors and ugly paint make the sad, large men filling them seem sadder because there’s nothing pleasant to distract them from the unpleasantness that just took place.
Afterward in Foxborough, the Jets coaches were almost bent with frustration. Schotty kept wiping his forearm across his eyebrows. Some players quietly derided themselves. One of them threw something hard toward a trash can, missed, and cursed. There were two bus rides and an airplane flight to look forward to. How did the song go? “There’s something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone.” In football, the life was so insular and demanding, so focused on these critical moments, that when things went wrong, the whole world for many coaches became fruitless and grim. There was the stated belief that if you’d truly given your all, that was enough. That wasn’t enough. The point was to win, and all the games were closer than they seemed, which meant that losses were easy to reimagine as wins if only… It was maddening. The coaches had been thinking about the Patriots for months.
Reviewing the game film back at the facility the next day, the Jets coaches saw many questionable officiating calls, and as Pettine nominated plays to be given to the league office for review, he sounded world-wearier and world-wearier—“Send it in. Send it in.” Not that he was blaming the loss on the officials. And not that the league office could provide anything more than an explanation or, at best, agreement without recompense. Today the defensive coaches were mourners because thirty points were on them. Sutton kept thinking about the crucial third down when the Patriots had snapped the ball directly to Green-Ellis, the running back. That play was right there in the tendencies Sutt had prepared, and in the moment, he’d failed to remind David Harris to watch for it. There was only one way for everyone to feel better. “We need a win, boys,” said Pettine at the end of the meeting. “Let’s go get one.” The next opponent would be the Miami Dolphins, and the Jets third-string quarterback, Kevin O’Connell, had recently been with them. Pettine spent much of the next two days running ideas by the lanky O’Connell, trying to find an advantage.
Meeting with his quarterbacks Wednesday morning, Schotty seemed no different than he’d been after the two early victories. Mason was gone, suddenly departed for Houston via a rare NFL in-season trade, and in the team meeting Ryan had asked the players to respect his long career and speak well of Mase. Then Ryan chided Cromartie for playing off the line. The head coach insisted that a player with Cro’s speed and ability needed to “show up a little.” Next, he turned to Sanchez and told him, “Son, we got to find a way to come out of the gate.” You couldn’t keep conceding sizable early fractions of the game without scoring and still expect to win. He asked them all to “put a little fucking chip on your shoulder for the week.”
In the defensive meeting, Ellis Lankster, re-signed from the street, was welcomed back as Lancaster. He sat up front listening to Pettine explain, “There’s nothing magical in football. It’s a game of a million little things. Once you show a weakness, that’s what you’ll get from most teams.” Then Pettine clicked up onto the screen film of a down against the Patriots where no play call had come through to Harris. “This one’s a hundred percent on me,” Pettine confessed. “Technical issue.” The sun had been in his eyes and he didn’t see that he was on the private headset channel rather than the main line, so DT could not hear him speaking. That ha
d never before happened to Pettine. He ran on through the game film, and when Pettine got to the direct snap to Green-Ellis, everyone watched Cromartie retreat and appear to turn his back on the approaching rusher. “You got to show up,” Pettine said. “You got Dave coming across to make the tackle.”
Three straight losses had many players so frustrated that Thursday’s practice felt like a rodeo—all noise and dirt and blood and thudding contact. As Westhoff pointed out, right in the middle of it all, scrimmaging with such furor he gasped for air, was Nick Bellore. Bellore’s practice and special-teams play had been consistently excellent. As a white middle-class kid from the Midwest, Bellore had been regarded skeptically by some of the defensive players, but Westhoff said he’d proven he belonged. Scott agreed. “That big head can hit!” he said. Scott himself had been seeing fewer plays and generally had become more reflective and withdrawn. “Sometimes I go for long drives, listen to my music and I just drive,” he said. “If there’s traffic, I don’t worry about it.”
Watching film with Revis, Cro discussed one of the Dolphins receivers, Brandon Marshall. Cromartie said that because Marshall had been a safety for most of his college career, he played more physically than most offensive players. Revis was the one who’d cover Marshall, but he kept silent the whole time, and when Cro tried to engage him, he just kept staring at the screen.
By week’s end, Schotty had yet to shave, and lately he’d forsaken his usual banter as well. The newspapers had been trotting behind him with wolf’s teeth, assessing his competence, and that constant scrutiny was a part of the job the coaches never got accustomed to, since they had yet to meet a newspaperman who they believed knew enough technical football to judge them fairly. Schotty didn’t seem perturbed, just deeply in it. He took the quarterbacks through the progression of throws on each passing play, quizzed them all on the various protection schemes. Sanchez was subdued. The team was losing and he hadn’t been practicing well or playing well. Cavanaugh told me that part of being a young quarterback was learning how your attitude affected your teammates, even the much older players. What part of yourself you projected to others was an aspect of the primary offensive position that took time to master, just like any other.
At practice, young Ellis Lankster, who had no technique, was a Rough Rider out there, charging up and down the field, making mad, fearless dashes on every play, ecstatic with energy and toughness, trying so hard that both his legs began cramping. The sight of him made people shake their heads at “that great kid.”
Antonio Cromartie, who had all the technique you could ask for, was a man in professional crisis, and the whole NFL was watching. Looking at the practice film later, the defensive coaches could see him on his heels, could see Leonhard cheating over to help him. Leonhard was as worried about Cromartie as the coaches were. Cro so detested criticism that he often shut down in response to it. Something in Cro could never trust that all anybody else on the team wanted to do was to help him. In Baltimore, Leonhard said, the best defensive players—Ray Lewis, Haloti Ngata, Terrell Suggs, Ed Reed, Jarret Johnson—had been the ones most diligent about improving their technique. Cro, like Sanchez, possessed all the obvious skills to dominate at his position. The lesson again was that part of football was temperament, and while the classic cornerback was thick-skinned and fearless, Cro was a sensitive guy. How to raise the confidence of such a player? As Leonhard put it, “If you’re a little tentative as a DB, if you lack even a little confidence, you’re fucked.”
While the coaches watched the film, an O’Jays song came through the radio. “Great one!” said DT.
“Panty-dropper,” Pettine agreed.
“Panty-dropper!” DT laughed, and then they were all laughing for the first time in what seemed like half a month.
During the defensive-backs’ meeting, DT was encouraging of Cromartie. “Keep working at it, Cro! Keep working at it! Good coverage.” All his criticisms of Cro were delivered obliquely. DT said it was up to the room what kind of a secondary they wanted to be. Afterward, walking past the coaches’ kitchen, DT saw that someone had sent over gourmet cookies for the pleasure of all. “I don’t want gourmet,” he growled. “I want ghetto!”
Watching film late in the day with Revis, Cro analyzed the Dolphins. He was, as usual, vivid and precise, and it interested me that he described the nature of offenses with some of the same phrases DT and Pettine liked to use, such as “They’ll do what they do.”
Sometimes, said Revis, Ryan would come to him before an important team meeting and say, “I’m gonna bash you in the meeting.” “He knows I can handle it,” Revis added. At the Saturday team meeting before the Monday-night game with Miami, Ryan told the players he wanted to talk with them about being a good teammate. Brandon Moore and the other linemen continued to feel antipathy toward Holmes for chiding them after the Ravens game. Moore was out there while still recovering from bilateral hip surgery. Mangold had played against the Patriots on an ankle that hurt to walk on, and now he was on the practice field again, preparing to center the line against Miami. They were giving all and here was this receiver going at half speed and then jabbing at them. Ryan told the team that being a great teammate was Eric Smith publicly taking the responsibility for the seventy-three-yard Welker reception that was really Revis’s fault. “Right, Rev?”
Down in his seat near the front, Revis nodded. His view of such matters was “I’m not hurt to be criticized. Nobody that plays football’s perfect. I mess up, I’m, Dang! The team. Me, I always take the blame.” But in the moment the team had been losing and a Revis mistake had cost them against the Patriots. His family down in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, had been hearing in detail about how upset he was. “He remembers everything that went wrong,” Revis’s grandmother Aileen Gilbert told me after the season. “Everything.”
The weather had turned cold and windy, the year’s first real chill. At practice, Revis was, as usual, out there competing against Patrick Turner, Sanchez’s former USC teammate. Turner was tall, wore an Abraham Lincoln beard, and had a friendly, unassuming way about him. He would have been a fine NFL receiver had he been faster. Since he wasn’t, he owed his position on the team to the fact that he was an excellent blocker. Not many wide receivers were. “Blocking is a lonesome thing,” Turner said. “You have to want to do it.” He played exceptionally hard, especially in practice against Revis. When Turner blocked, he tried to give Revis a very physical time of it with his hands. Normally Revis understood that Turner was making him a better player, but today he was not in an understanding mood. Turner was supposed to be mimicking Brandon Marshall’s pass routes, but Revis believed Turner was breaking them off to get open. The right look was everything to Revis. In response to these perceived improvisations, Revis was increasingly aggressive with Turner. Soon the aggression got to the point of fury, and Revis made no attempts to play beyond smashing into Turner as soon as the ball was snapped, swinging Turner around, shoving him. Everybody could see that something had to give.
Suddenly the two were fighting. From Revis, there was an onslaught of blows so savage he seemed momentarily berserk. His knuckles kept crashing against the hard plastic of Turner’s helmet, the sound like a man pounding the top of his uncooperative television set. “That’s the Aliquippa coming out,” Sutton said as he watched. “It’s a hard town. Nothing left.” There was initial silence from the other players and then tremendous excitement. DT was screaming something about Turner knowing his role, which Turner surely couldn’t hear, much less take in, because of all the shouting from the other players and the fact that he was trying to fend off someone who wanted to kill him. Westerman got between them. Perhaps he was thinking what Ryan was thinking: that if Revis kept it up, he’d break a hand. I remembered suddenly what Revis’s uncle Sean had said about football players and their switches, that there was a madness to football.
They led Turner off the field and a few players stood and watched with him while Revis continued practicing. If football could be compared t
o real estate, then Revis was beachfront property; Turner was subletting out near the shopping center. Had it been Sanchez fighting with someone, Sanchez’s opponent would have been similarly escorted away. “I have no problem with PT,” Revis explained later. “We made up. It’s preparation. If it’s training camp, okay, you’re trying to get on the roster. During the season I need your help to get the right look. If it’s the wrong look all week, I’ll be surprised in the game. It irks me, irritates me. Why should I be there if it happens wrong all day? I got to work hard. I’m big on technique and I do, not, like, them, to catch a ball.” He also did not like giving Ryan reason to call him out in a meeting; he did not like that DT had put the Welker play in the practice script for him to see again; he did not like teammates picking at each other; and he did not like losing. And because he was the team’s best player and not given to speeches, he’d expressed his disapproval with his fists.
The guest kicker that Friday was the broadcaster and former quarterback Ron Jaworski. Ryan centered the ball, Tannenbaum held, and Jaworski, wearing elegant slacks and suede boots, sent the ball fluttering just over the upright and scraping inside the post. Booting an extra point in suede was something to see, but all anybody wanted to talk about was what Leonhard had dubbed “the donnybrook.” Football fights last for brief moments, but they feel much longer because the experience of time slows, especially when it expresses the emotions of so many witnesses. In the circle after practice, Ryan told the Jets, “We’ll be all right if we don’t kill one another first.”
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