by Mark Bowden
“We had fun with it,” says Randall. “You guys all sold your papers. The TV people blew it up and took it national, and I had fun with it, but I have to get back to concentrating. I can’t do this every week.”
“It’s over?” a hound asks sadly.
“It’s over,” says Randall.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s over. Because people are getting tired of it…. But, hey, that’s the most fun I’ve had with you guys in quite a while.”
14
AN UGLY THING
Seth Joyner had been on his best behavior through the week of the Great Benching.
After the Dallas game, he told the Pack, “Not today. If I say anything, somebody will accuse me of running my big mouth.”
Ever since the night of that first heady win over Dallas, Seth had been battling through a bad streak both personally and professionally. There was going to be a reckoning down the road with Jennifer. That knee injury he suffered in the Monday night game had lingered. He was playing with a big brace on the joint, which slowed him down. Seth had been less of a factor ever since, and at least part of the reason that the Eagles had dropped three of their last five.
During all the locker-room hubbub over Randall and Jimbo, Seth tried to use his new leadership role to distract attention from the QB controversy by lacing into his teammates on defense, whom he accused of forgetting the swagger of their Buddy (and Jerome) days. This was specious. They were, after all, the top-ranked defense in the league midway through this ’92 season. Their excellence breathing down Richie’s neck had helped prompt the Great Benching. Whipping up on his squad just then was just a backhanded way of calling attention to the team’s offensive failings, as if to say, If we could just play even more godlike ball, we could carry these sorry asses the whole way by ourselves! Leadership sometimes demands silence, an aspect of the role Captain Seth hadn’t mastered. His teammates rolled their eyes—just more Seth being Seth. Still, by benching Ran-doll for a week, in what the players took to be defiance of Norman and Harry (actually, Norman thought it was a fine idea and wondered only about the wisdom of promising Randall the starting job back the following week), Richie had earned at least a trace of respect from Seth and the rest of the back end of the locker room. Enough, as it turned out, to last exactly fourteen days.
Because moments after the team literally gives away a game to the Packers on November 15, Seth unloads. Never mind everything else that happened that afternoon in freezing Milwaukee County Stadium, the 410 yards the defense allowed (their worst in more than three seasons), the impressive Randall-led comeback to regain the lead in the second half, and the two game-losing fumbles at the end. Seth is an adept at finding fault, seeing past a confusion of culprits, close calls, and bad bounces to the single quivering shithead with his hand on the very lever of defeat. Locked in his crosshairs this time is the bald, bespectacled face of the head coach.
Seated at the center of the visitor’s locker room, clouds of steam forming in the confusion of pipes and cable hung overhead, Seth focuses his critique on the final one minute, twenty-five seconds, of the game, when the offense got the ball on their own eleven-yard line, with the score tied 24-24.
Richie had two time-outs left, plenty of time to drive downfield to within field-goal range and win the game. But backed up deep on his own half of the field, he had to be concerned about what would happen if they failed to get a first down. A punt from that field position would set the Packers up near midfield, close enough for them to drive down with a quick pass or two and kick a field goal—the defense hadn’t exactly been a brick wall. Richie’s strategy, albeit conservative but arguably wise, was to hammer the ball on the ground, get out to at least his own twenty-yard line before sending in four swift pass receivers and going for the big play. The Eagles had been running the ball well all afternoon—they had already accumulated 110 yards, not counting Heath Sherman’s 75-yard touchdown sprint after catching a little screen pass—and, indeed, Herschel slammed out 9 yards on first down, moving the ball to the 20. Then, at second and one, with just under a minute to play, with the Packers’ defense spread out all over the field to stop the pass, Richie decided to grab the first down with another run, maybe gain 9 or 10 yards more before going to the pass. The worst that could happen at that point, after all, was for the clock to run out and the game to go into overtime … unless Herschel fumbled.
Herschel fumbled. The Packers covered the loose ball with fortythree seconds remaining, let the clock run down to three seconds, and Chris Jackie kicked a thirty-one-yard field goal.
“Real disappointing” is how Richie sees it moments later. Always quick to defend his players in adversity, the coach adds, chin up, “But don’t worry about these guys. There was no lack of effort. They’ll bounce back. They will. They’ll show their character.”
Well, Seth’s character is now on center stage, and it resembles magma. Before the Pack is allowed in the locker room, the linebacker crashes his helmet to the wet concrete and loudly berates the offense. The offensive line just endures this outburst, partly because they’ve grown used to Seth’s rants, partly because they can’t believe how ridiculous this one is. My God, the defense gave up three touchdowns and two field goals! Lord knows there were plenty of games where this defense was blameless, but today? If ever a loss had been well earned all around, this was it!
But Seth’s rant isn’t just a momentary venting; it’s a full-fledged eruption. As the Pack wades in, Seth holds forth patiently on his stool, starting over again for each new wave of eager cameras and microphones. He makes sure nobody misses the message. There’s practically a stampede for the Eagles’ locker room. Word gets out fast that Seth is “ripping the coach,” one of the prized delicacies of postgame reportage. Richie and the rest of the team won’t find out until the next morning the full range of Seth’s critical insights.
Seth figures Richie blew it by running the ball in the final minutes.
“We should be moving the ball down to get a field goal, you know, score. And we’re down there running the ball, playing conservative…. You’ve got the ball back inside the twenty. How far do you think you’re gonna get running the ball? And we’re running it on first and second down.” He bows his head and runs one big hand over the “#99” carved in his hair. “I just don’t understand. Is it me? Somebody please tell me.”
One of the hounds offers Richie’s explanation. “Rich said he wanted to get the first down on the ground and then put it up.”
“It doesn’t make any difference whether you get it on the ground or in the air, does it? Move the ball down the field. We had two timeouts left, one-thirty left on the clock. Every time you run the ball you eat up the clock. If you get a play down in there where it doesn’t work, then you’re in a predicament. The thing is, move the ball downfield, put us in a position to win the game.”
“Seth, you guys on defense were pretty vulnerable today, can you explain what’s wrong there?” asks a hound, gently cautioning the linebacker that he’s standing on shaky ground here. But Seth doesn’t even blink.
“You’re just gonna have your days, you know? The most important thing is, we had an opportunity to win and we didn’t get it done. You got to understand, when you’re the best defense in the league, teams spend the whole off-season getting ready to play you, figuring out your weaknesses. We played a great game last week. But even though we couldn’t stop them all day, we stopped them when we had to and turned the ball back over to the offense when we had to. We put them in a position to go down and get us the field goal. And we call two running plays. You’ve just got to have some balls about yourself. You got to play the game all out. We [Richie] just didn’t handle things in a smart way at the end. You can’t play not to lose. You got to have some guts and nuts about yourself. Step up and call the play! Call the unexpected play!”
Some players standing near Seth begin parroting the theme. Fred Barnett uncharacteristically adds his voice, frustrated that he didn
’t get a chance to perform any last-minute heroics. Even silent Byron jumps in, seeing his buddy Seth out there on a limb all by himself.
“You can’t play not to lose,” seconds Byron.
Seth had exploded his grenadelike personality on the seam of the great rift in the Eagles’ locker room, exacerbating the strain between the Buddy loyalists on defense and the supposed slackers on Richie’s offense. Even in the best of times, the guys in the back end of the locker room merely suffer sharing the same green uniforms with Ran-doll and the pussies upfront. Seth may have chosen the wrong moment to unload, but his sentiments are shared in varying degrees by most of the defensive players. Even Reverend Reggie, the most mature, solid player in the room, agrees in general, although he’s much too mindful of preserving harmony to speak up.
Richie reads the morning papers in a stew. He knows he can’t bench Seth. It would hurt the team, first off, and just make things worse. Why, just the week before, during all the Randall/Jimbo nonsense, he had told the Pack he wasn’t about to silence his players. On his own pregame TV show, aired just before the Packers’ debacle, he was asked if he had considered muzzling some of his players, and he had said, “I don’t do that. I don’t believe in doing that. I think a lot of them talk because they care a lot themselves, and they want other guys to care as much as they do. This team is used to playing with a little bit of controversy. They don’t talk now anywhere near as much as they used to. I don’t want a bunch of Boy Scouts playing for me.”
Well, a Boy Scout Seth’s not, but even Richie knows he can’t have his players so openly mutinous. And that line “You got to have some guts and nuts about yourself” is a direct challenge to his Silverback manhood! It violates Richie’s code. One of the things he hated about Buddy was the old coach’s habit of publicly insulting players. As prickly as Richie can get with the Pack, that is something he never does. Never. Richie defends his players in public, even while he is excoriating them in private. He remembers what it was like to be a pro player, which is something he had that Buddy could never touch. Sticking up for his players is one of the ways Richie asserts his own status and his higher claim to loyalty than Buddy ever deserved. And this is what he gets in return?
During the previous two weeks, all the WIP goons and print columnists and TV windbags have been chewing over the quarterback controversy and how the Eagles are a divided, squabbling team of egomaniacs. Okay, they’d gotten through that. It had been a distraction, but never as much a one as the Pack seemed to think—the hounds tend to exaggerate their influence on things as a rule. Randall had performed reasonably well against the Packers, so maybe that shit would all die down. Now Seth has set the wheel spinning again. It’s all over the papers, radio, and TV—everywhere! Coach Uptight losing control of his locker room. The dread Attitude Problem creeping up. Ghost of Buddy haunting the practice fields. The whole goddamn alphabet circus—ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, HBO, CNN—will be back in town, with cameras and microphones prying at the cracks of the rift, throwing fuel on the flames.
But all that is not what really gets to Richie. He can deal with the Pack jackals. He does that every day. That’s part of the job. No, the thing that gets Richie is Seth’s effrontery. The linebacker is way out of line. His rant shows he doesn’t understand the code. It demonstrates his misguided and lasting loyalty to that asshole Buddy, who was ultimately responsible for this behavior. Buddy had never taught these guys how to act.
So in the team’s Monday morning meeting, Richie stands up before the roomful of players, in full Brooklyn Slouch, as angry as his team has ever seen him. He doesn’t address Seth in particular, but everyone in the room knows exactly who is his primary target.
As several of those present would reconstruct it, here’s what Richie says: “I read in the paper this morning where a few of you guys got some things off your chest after yesterday’s game. Fine. There are some things on my chest that I’ve kept to myself, as long as we’re saying stuff. There are a lot of guys on this team who haven’t been playing to their capabilities,” a low rustling sound in the room as certain players get eyeballed suspiciously. “If you’re going to point fingers at me and talk about play calling and what defenses are being called and such, I think we better be sure that the guys who are being called on to make certain plays are getting them done. Okay? When Bud or I call a certain play, we’re depending on a certain guy to get his job done. If he doesn’t get it done, then what the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t get out there on the field and carry the fucking ball myself! Am I right? Before you blame somebody else, you better look in the mirror. Either you get your own jobs done or you can get your asses out of here now! Okay? Because you’re doing nothing but pulling us down. And, in the future”—now his voice drops an octave, Silverback challenge tone, and he’s glaring unmistakably at Seth—”if you’ve got a problem with me or this organization, come and see me. Look me in the eye. Be a man. This is an inner circle, a family. We don’t wash our laundry out in public. Got that?”
All that morning Bud Carson sticks it to Seth and the rest of the defense as they review film. Bud isn’t usually one to dwell too long on mistakes and who made them. His style is more laid-back, instructive (Now, the right way to handle this formation would have been …) but today he’s scathing. And Seth has made a few boners himself.
All that is minor compared with the going over he’s getting in the press. Seth has become the Pack’s favorite, in a sense. He is, since Charles Barkley left for Phoenix in June, the hottest postgame interview in town. In the locker room, face-to-face, the hounds are one thing. Gracious, grateful, and obliging, a small mob descends on him whenever he sits down at his locker. They stand and nod and smile and hold their little tape recorders and microphones under his mouth for as long as he wants to talk, then prod gently for more. They seem so disappointed when he stops! Only, the next day in the newspaper, Seth would see his comments edited down and strung out between great gusts of critical oratory. He was the mouth that roared, the locker-room scold, the source of division and conflict on a “troubled” squad.
All the Pack needs is a quick glimpse behind the rah-rah, we’reall-a-band-of-brothers facade to brew up a storm of controversy and doubt. Weeks before, after Seth’s lament over the Redksins loss, Reverend Reggie had pulled the linebacker aside and asked him to keep it zipped. “If what you say isn’t going to help, don’t say it,” Reggie had said to him. “And say it to the team, not to the press.” It hasn’t done any good. Seth can’t control himself. After a loss, he comes off the field in such a black funk that there’s no staunching the bile. Only now, as the season enters the final stretch, Captain Seth is starting to feel like a pariah. Everybody is down on him, his wife, his girlfriend, his coaches, his teammates, the Pack, the fans—who needs it? Suddenly this business of leadership feels like a carbuncle on the ass.
SHUT UP AND PLAY BALL
says a headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
STRIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND BLAMELESS
is the headline of a critical Philadelphia Daily News column.
Seth’s feelings are hurt. So he does something truly drastic. When a familiar hound approaches him at midweek with a question, Seth interrupts, “I’ll answer one question.”
“What?”
“Ask me why I’m not going to give you guys any more interviews.”
“Okay,” says the hound, smelling an exclusive. Now here’s a headline:
SETH TAKES VOW OF SILENCE
“Tell me, Seth, why aren’t you going to give us guys any more interviews?” And Seth vents:
I’m not doing any more interviews for the simple fact every time Seth Joyner says something, it seems to be wrong. Things are taken out of context. I give a two-minute interview and somebody takes a five-second spot out of that and throws it in and turns the whole story upside down. I’m made out to seem to be the bad guy.
I speak my mind because I care what happens with this team. I want to win. I want to win a championship, a
nd sometimes the frustration is just too much for me to walk around and carry it inside. I’ve never been one to point the finger at anybody [referring here to the care he takes not to actually name the victims of his verbal assaults], and I’ve always been the most critical person of myself [well, not always]. If I was wrong or did something wrong I was always the first one to raise my hand and acknowledge it. Somehow, through all of that, I was portrayed to be the bad guy. I don’t agree with it, and for that reason I’m not giving any more interviews.
I’m not the type of person that I’m going to say something and then I’m gonna go back and apologize for it. How I feel is how I feel. I have to be me, and the way I think about a situation and the way I feel about a situation is me. I don’t agree with the way I came across … I wouldn’t say it was the correct way. But by no means do I apologize for what I said. So I look like the bad guy. If that’s the kind of grief I have to take for stepping up and caring what happens, then I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Therefore, this will be the last interview that Seth Joyner gives anybody for the rest of this season.
The lead in the next day’s Inquirer article reads: “Mt. Seth blew for the last time yesterday.”
You could almost hear the sigh of relief from the locker room, coaches’ suite, management offices, and from fans throughout the city. Only one group is distressed—the Pack.
“Isn’t there a clause in players’ contracts which says they have to cooperate with the press?” complains one of the veteran hounds— football reporters, as a group, having been coddled for generations by the NFL, believe far more strongly than your run-of-the-mill newspapermen they are entitled to have their questions answered.
“Is there?” says Richie, who recognizes a positive development when he hears one. “I don’t know anything about that.”
