Next Man Up

by John Feinstein

  Sanders proved to be easy. He said he would gladly do the production meeting. “I have no hard feelings toward CBS,” he said. “Almost all of the people I worked with there were good to me. I consider them friends. No problem.”

  As soon as the team arrived at the Ritz-Carlton in Cleveland, Byrne sent Chad Steele to start rounding up players while he went to scout out the room CBS had reserved for the meeting. The CBS people were waiting—Cross and Smith sitting on one side of a conference table, Harlan and Schneiderman on the other. They had flip cards and notebooks in front of them. A seat at the head of the table was left empty for whoever was being interviewed. Byrne sat at the far end of the table. In an upset, Jamal Lewis arrived first. Production meetings are done by pecking order in terms of the players. Biggest star first, second-biggest second. The reason for that is simple: the sooner you finish, the sooner you can go to dinner. Apparently the Lewises had switched because Ray was going to dinner with Sanders and had to wait for him to finish anyway. Sanders would follow Ray Lewis.

  Each network has a slightly different approach to the production meetings. In a CBS meeting, the analyst takes the lead, asking mostly technical questions. Naturally, Cross asked Jamal Lewis about Ogden’s absence. “Ethan will be just fine,” Lewis said, then paused. “Of course I’ve never played without J.O. It will be different.”

  Schneiderman had promised Byrne that each player would be kept no more than ten minutes in return for his agreeing to bring six of them. (CBS had agreed to drop Ed Reed.) When the discussion with Jamal inched toward fifteen minutes, with Ray standing outside with Steele, Byrne gave a quick wrap signal to Schneiderman. The last thing anyone in the room wanted was Ray getting impatient and walking off.

  Of course, when he walked into the room, one might have thought that being in the production meeting was a true-life highlight for Lewis. He hugged Cross, player to player, then shook hands warmly with everyone else. The Ravens require that players dress neatly when they travel, so Lewis was still wearing the blue and white pinstripe suit, yellow shirt, and matching tie he had worn on the plane. He was both funny and charming as he talked, discussing Boller’s newfound presence in the huddle. “It’s tone of voice,” he said. “He has more presence.” When they asked him about the Browns, Lewis laughed and said, “I don’t expect any surprises. I’ve been playing these guys for nine years.”

  Everyone nodded. Lewis was starting his ninth year in the league. Of course, the Browns had only been in existence for six years.

  Midway through Lewis’s interview, Sanders burst into the room. He was dressed as Prime Time—white suit, wide-brimmed Panama hat, giant gold crucifix around his neck. There were more hugs, more funny stories, and more talk about how thrilled Sanders was to be back. “Right now, I just want to be a nickel back,” he said. “But that might change with time.”

  That got everyone’s attention. When Billick came in, Cross and Harlan immediately asked if Sanders might be returning punts or playing on offense. “Not yet,” Billick said. “Right now I see him getting fifteen to twenty snaps, and those will be on defense. Down the road, when he’s ready for more snaps, yeah, we might use him to return kicks. He’s been going to special teams meetings.”

  That made CBS’s day. They would be able to tell their viewers in detail about Billick and Sanders’s plans down the road. Clearly, Deion’s return would be a big part of the CBS story the next day. And Cross could say, “Brian Billick told us last night that Deion is already sitting in on special teams meetings.”

  Everyone left the room happy. Especially Kevin Byrne. Terrell Suggs had shown up on time.

  13

  Sucker Punch

  SUNDAY DAWNED CLEAR AND COOL, a perfect end-of-summer day for the start of a football season. The new Browns Stadium that Art Modell had once dreamed of sparkled in the morning sun as tailgaters began arriving on the shores of Lake Erie, most of them abuzz with anticipation at the new beginning that an 0-0 record means for all thirty-two NFL teams each September.

  If one had any doubts about the NFL’s grip on American culture, picking up that morning’s Cleveland Plain Dealer would wipe them away quickly. In addition to the regular Sunday sports section with the usual advance stories about the Browns-Ravens opener, there were two special sections devoted to the Browns. One looked back at the fortieth anniversary of the Browns’ last championship, the 1964 team led by the great Jim Brown, quarterback Frank Ryan, and Hall of Fame receiver Paul Warfield. There was no escaping the irony of the fact that the Browns’ victim in that championship game had been the Baltimore Colts and that the owner of the team that year had been a young businessman named Modell. The second special section looked ahead to the new season, one filled with question marks with the arrival of a new quarterback—Jeff Garcia—and speculation about the future of fourth-year coach Butch Davis. When Davis trotted onto the field for warm-ups he looked considerably heavier and older than the confident young coach who had arrived on a white horse from the University of Miami in 2001 and led the team to the playoffs in his second season at the helm.

  The Ravens weren’t the least bit concerned by any of that. The buildup to the game was proof that time does heal most wounds. Almost none of the pregame talk had been about the ex-Browns taking on the current Browns or about Modell and his departure from the city. It hadn’t come up even once in the CBS production meeting, and other than a lone sign in the lower corner of the stadium urging Hall of Fame voters to continue to overlook Modell, it was apparent that most people in Cleveland were far more concerned about Garcia’s throwing arm than they were about their former team.

  Billick had shown the team the Ray Liotta “across the street” tape again the night before in their Saturday night meeting. After reminding the players that “we’re already across that street,” he turned the meeting over to Ray Lewis.

  This wasn’t unusual. The coaches treated Lewis almost as a player/coach. Each week, Lewis would give Mike Nolan a list suggesting possible calls for the defensive script. Most teams script their first fifteen plays on offense, based on down and distance. The Ravens do the same thing on defense. When he first became defensive coordinator in 2002, Nolan encouraged Lewis to make suggestions about the defensive game plan. Eventually, those suggestions had been formalized into a list of specific calls Lewis thought would be effective at the beginning of the game.

  Lewis would also go to Billick several times a year and ask if he could speak to the team. There was no pattern to it: he was as likely to do it on the field after practice as in a scheduled team meeting. Billick always told Lewis that it was fine with him, in part because he thought hearing a different voice was healthy for a team, in part because, like Nolan, he trusted Lewis’s instincts. “I always scale back what I’m going to say when Ray asks to talk,” he said. “I’m pretty certain that his message is going to be one that I’m in agreement with.”

  On the first Saturday night of a new season, Lewis’s message was about football and the potential for the team to do big things but also about the experience they were all about to go through together. “We’re living our lives together,” he said, his voice, as always, full of passion. “We will never again be together as a group this way when this season is over. Never. We all know how things change. We should remember that on every single play. All we need to do is make every play in every game important. Play it as if you’ll never play the game again. We do that and then, whatever happens, we can walk away when it’s all over and feel good about ourselves and about each other. Every single play. That’s what football is. I pledge to give you everything I have on every single play. I want all of you to pledge that to yourselves and to each other.”

  Now they went through their pregame rituals, familiar ones to the veterans, new ones to the rookies. For those who had gone through them before preseason games, the change in the way they felt was almost unnerving. There was very little of the locker-room chatter that went on before preseason games. No one joked about how many seri
es the starters would or wouldn’t play. Three hours before kickoff, Jim Colletto sat on a bench in the empty stadium and looked around while Matt Stover, Wade Richey, and Dave Zastudil stood at midfield checking wind currents and angles.

  “This will be a very tough football game,” Colletto said with a sigh. “They’ve got a huge offensive line, plus openers are always emotional, especially for the home team. Their feeling has got to be that this is a must-win game if they’re going to have any kind of season.” He worried about Ethan Brooks. “Ethan’s good enough. We just have to keep him from getting tight and down on himself the way he can.” He smiled. “I told him not to drink any coffee this morning. The last thing we want is for him to be hyper.”

  Billick arrived, as he always did, on the second set of buses. The first buses always leave the hotel three and a half hours before kickoff. Many players and coaches like to be in the stadium very early just to relax, stretch out, perhaps walk the field. The kickers are always the first ones out. There isn’t a wind current on the planet Earth that Stover hasn’t studied or dissected during his fifteen years in the NFL. Almost always, the other team’s kickers will be on the field doing the same thing, and a conversation, in a language spoken only by kickers, nearly always ensues.

  The second wave of buses leaves two and a half hours before kickoff. The Ravens rarely stay at a hotel more than five or ten minutes from the stadium, and since NFL buses always receive a police escort, it takes almost no time to arrive inside the bowels of the stadium. Billick is as superstitious—or, in his terms, “ritual oriented”— as anyone. He drops his bag in the locker room, walks out to the field, and circles the perimeter. He then spends a few minutes chatting with the opposing head coach (if he encounters him at that point) before heading back to the locker room.

  Ninety minutes before kickoff, each team makes its list of eight inactive players known. That was the moment when the Browns knew for certain that Ogden was out. That was also the time when two of the game officials met with each coach. Billick is not a believer in making small talk with the officials. After handshakes, he looks at his watch and says, “I’ve got 11:31:20 right now.” This is so the schedule the team is following leading up to kickoff is identical to the one the officials are following. When the NFL says kickoff is at 1:08, it does not mean 1:05 or 1:07, it means 1:08. Billick then told the officials that Jeff Friday was both his get-back and uniform coach. (The officials don’t worry about sock levels, but they do randomly check one lineman coming out of the locker room before each half to make sure no foreign substances—like Vaseline—are on his uniform. Friday is charged with delivering the requested lineman.) Billick went on to say that Matt Simon would be on the headphones with the coaches in the press box in case of a possible challenge on a call but that he (Billick) would be carrying the red flag that is thrown if there is a challenge.

  “Trick plays?” the officials ask.

  Most of the time the answer is no, but Billick always reminds them that his punter is left-footed (which affects where the referee stands on punts) and finally tells them who his captains are for that day. The meeting rarely lasts more than five minutes.

  Normally, for the opener, Billick’s captains would be the most established player he had on each unit: Ogden on offense, Lewis on defense, and Stover on special teams. With Ogden out, Billick had decided to make Orlando Brown the offensive captain. This would be an emotional day for Brown. His mother had died the day before, and he had made the decision to play, knowing, as athletes often do, that his mother would want him to. The players were all aware of what had happened, and Lewis made mention of it in the pregame prayer.

  Billick’s pregame speech was brief. There really wasn’t much need to say anything. They all knew what needed to be done and what the game was going to be like. Billick did tell a white lie, hoping for a small edge. “They’ve decided to introduce our offense,” he said. “I don’t know why they would want to introduce Jamal Lewis in this stadium, given what he did to them last year, but that’s their choice.”

  Everyone hooted about that one and how sorry they would soon be. Of course, it wasn’t the Browns’ choice to introduce the offense. It was the Ravens’ choice. Each team decides each week which unit it will introduce.

  The only change Billick made was what he thought was a minor one: eliminating the Lord’s Prayer from the pregame. In the past, the last thing the team had done before taking the field was say the Lord’s Prayer together. Billick thought one prayer was enough. “I told you in camp this was your team,” he said. “You guys have taken it upon yourselves to say a pregame prayer of your own, and that’s exactly how it should be.”

  They came out of the tunnel, hearing the usual catcalls and challenges and profanities that visitors almost always hear in visiting stadiums in the NFL. Players learn to turn a deaf ear because doing anything but that can only lead to trouble. For the toss of the coin, Lewis, Stover, and Brown had to walk around a massive platform that had been set up at midfield for G. E. Smith, the former Saturday Night Live bandleader, and his band, who were going to play the National Anthem. Smith stood on the platform, peering down at the players and officials as they gathered at midfield.

  The toss of the coin did not go especially well. Billick knew that Brown was in an emotional state. He had spent time with him on Saturday after hearing the news about his mother’s death to make certain he was okay to play. Brown assured him that he was. But as the Ravens’ captains and the Browns’ captains shook hands, Brown was starting to lose control. He slapped hands hard with the Browns’ captains, then informed them in no uncertain terms what was about to happen to them. Matt Stover wasn’t certain exactly how many times the word motherfuckers was used, but he estimated it was more than one time and probably less than a hundred. Andra Davis, one of the Browns’ captains, finally decided he had heard enough.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” he shouted. “Just shut the fuck up and let’s play football!”

  The officials got in between Davis and Brown before anything more than shouting could take place. The season hadn’t yet started and the first fight of the year had almost broken out.

  “Don’t ever send him out there again,” Stover said to Billick when the three Ravens returned to the sideline.

  Billick grabbed Brown. “You need to get ahold of yourself,” he said. “Don’t let these guys get to you. That’s not the way to deal with this.”

  Brown was near tears—for obvious reasons. “Zeus, are you okay?” Billick asked. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay!” Brown screamed.

  Billick hoped he was telling the truth.

  Standing a few feet away, Kordell Stewart, who had played all but one year in his NFL career in a division that included the Ravens, Steelers, Browns, and Bengals, shook his head. “This division is different than the others,” he said. “Everything is personal. It’s never just about football.”

  At precisely 1:08 the season began with Wade Richey kicking the ball off to the Cleveland 3, where Dee Brown fielded it and returned it to the 33. Chad Williams made the first official tackle of the season. The defense proceeded to move the Browns’ offense 4 yards backward in three plays. A near-perfect beginning. Unfortunately, the offense couldn’t match the defense—coming up a yard short of a first down on a Kyle Boller pass to Todd Heap. Late in the first quarter, the offense had its first real chance to score. Starting at their own 12, aided by a Browns penalty, the Ravens moved to a third-and-1 at the Browns’ 49.

  Matt Cavanaugh knew that the Browns expected the Ravens to do what they did best in that situation: pound Jamal Lewis into the line to pick up the yard and hope he might get into the secondary for a long run. He called, instead a play-action pass deep, Boller pulling the ball out of Lewis’s stomach, drifting back, and lofting a perfect pass down the middle to Travis Taylor. As Taylor accelerated to run under the ball, he felt his groin muscle pull. He missed the pass and went down in pain.
David Shaw had asked Taylor before the game if he was absolutely certain he was healthy enough to play. Billick had kept the rookie Devard Darling active just in case Taylor couldn’t go. Taylor had told Shaw he was fine, ready to go.

  “I like the toughness,” Shaw said later. “Now I have to question the judgment.”

  NFL players frequently play with injuries. They learn to deal with pain almost as a constant during the season. Some take painkilling shots in order to get on the field, knowing that when the painkiller wears off, they will be in agony. There are only sixteen games a year. To miss one is a big deal. Taylor didn’t want to let his teammates down. He was also in the final year of his contract and wanted every possible chance to show the Ravens they needed to re-sign him for big money in 2005. Now his body had let him down. As a result, instead of lining up for an extra point, the Ravens lined up to punt.

  The rest of the first half was no less frustrating. The offense couldn’t get anything going. Without Ogden, the running game sputtered. The Browns, helped by a short Zastudil punt that put them in business at the Baltimore 45, managed to move to the Ravens’ 20 to set up a 37-yard Phil Dawson field goal. That was all the scoring in the half.

  There may be nothing faster in sports than an NFL halftime. It is only twelve minutes long—as compared with college football, which is twenty minutes—and everything happens in a blur. Billick rarely says anything to the team; he leaves most of the talking for the coordinators. Only if he is extremely upset about something does Billick address the team. The players and coaches split up, the offense going to one side of the locker room, the defense the other. The offensive coaches meet in Billick’s office, while the defensive staff huddles in any corner they can find. They go over which plays and calls worked in the first half and which did not. Suggestions on changes are tossed around. Matt Cavanaugh always writes down a list of calls he wants to make in the second half and then puts the plays on a screen so he can go over them with the players. Mike Nolan uses the old-fashioned greaseboard for anything he wants the players to see.