Next Man Up

by John Feinstein

  Even with his new contract, McAlister had money on his mind before the game. “I bet JO [Jonathan Ogden] a hundred bucks on UCLA-Arizona, and you can be sure he’s going to want to collect,” he said, laughing. Most of the time when two players’ alma maters played each other, the Ravens involved would bet $100 on the game. The one sure thing about making a bet with Ogden was that if you lost, he would collect; if you won, he would pay off.

  There was one other pregame problem. As the sun was setting, the temperature was dropping rapidly. Sanders came onto the field for warm-ups wearing a bandana around his neck to keep it warm. The uniform Nazis were swarming. The bandana would have to go when the game started, regardless of temperature.

  Sanders had one other problem: a cap on one of his teeth had fallen out and he needed a temporary cap. Leigh Ann Curl sent someone to ask the Redskins team doctors if they had a dentist on the sidelines or could find one who could give her a temporary cap for Sanders’s tooth. They did. If there is one group in the NFL that is truly collegial, it is the team doctors. Most teams have at least three or four doctors on the sidelines. It is part of the pregame ritual for the home-team doctors to cross the field to welcome the visiting-team doctors. They exchange stories about different injuries they are dealing with, even on occasion trade advice on specific cases. At game’s end, the doctors always find one another much the same way the kickers find one another, the long snappers find one another, and the linebackers find one another. Curl told Sanders that a temporary cap was on the way.

  “That’s good,” he said. “But what I really need is a dentist.”

  For the Ravens, the first half supplied what seemed like a trip to the dentist. Watching the offense was especially painful. The first quarter produced three series of three-and-out and one series in which Kyle Boller completed a first-down pass to Kevin Johnson. Even so, the Ravens never ran a play on Washington’s side of the field. The only good news was that the Redskins’ offense wasn’t doing much better against the Ravens’ defense, producing a total of two first downs, also without threatening to cross midfield. The clicking sound people heard as the teams changed ends of the field after fifteen minutes was the sound of TV sets across America being turned off.

  Amazingly, the Ravens’ offense was worse in the second quarter. Instead of giving the Redskins the ball courtesy of Dave Zastudil punts, the Ravens started giving them the ball courtesy of Kyle Boller passes. First Fred Smoot grabbed an errant throw aimed for Dan Wilcox and returned it 17 yards to the Ravens’ 28. With 8:40 left in the half, the Redskins’ first play of the ensuing series was the first time in the game either team had been in the other’s territory. The Redskins managed to pick up one first down before being stopped at the 8-yard line. Kicker John Hall made a 26-yard field goal with 5:42 left in the half, and the Redskins had a 3-0 lead.

  The Ravens managed to pick up a first down on their next series, but then a Boller pass intended for Randy Hymes was deflected to Shawn Springs. A tripping penalty on Hymes moved the ball to the Ravens’ 43, but the defense dug in and Terrell Suggs sacked Brunell on third-and-10, forcing a punt. The Ravens took over on their own 14, looking to at least run the clock out and get to the locker room down 3-0. After two Lewis runs, Boller hit Clarence Moore with a short pass that gave the Ravens a first down with under two minutes to play. But three plays later, trying to pick up another first down, Boller’s pass for Kevin Johnson was again tipped and ended up in the hands of backup safety Todd Franz. He took the ball back to the 8-yard line. Even the Redskins’ offense couldn’t squander this chance: Brunell found Chris Cooley in the end zone with 26 seconds left, and the halftime lead was 10-0.

  The way the Ravens’ offense was going, that lead looked almost insurmountable. Although two of Boller’s interceptions had been deflections, they were as much the result of poor reads as poor throws. He wasn’t the only one struggling. Lewis had a total of 19 yards on ten carries, which meant neither he nor the offensive line was getting anything done. The defense had been solid, but it needed some help. Billick opted for the “we’re okay” route with the players at halftime. “We have to stick together right now,” he said, not wanting to see any finger-pointing. “We go back out there and play our game and we’ll be fine. We’ve made some mistakes, it’s okay, we’re only down ten. We’ll make a play and turn this thing around.”

  Calm as Billick was, there was clear tension in the locker room. They simply could not afford another loss to a sub-.500 team. The last thing they wanted was to spend two weeks listening to people talk about how they were 2-3 and had just lost to the Redskins. Billick, Matt Cavanaugh, and Jim Fassel were all baffled by Boller’s performance but knew that jumping on him at that moment was the worst thing they could possibly do. Matt Simon, the running backs coach, pulled Jamal Lewis aside as they started to leave the locker room. “Thirty minutes,” he said to him. “Make the most of it.”

  Lewis knew what Simon was saying. It would be three weeks before he would play football again once the game was over.

  The second half didn’t start any better than the first. On the second play, Ray Lewis came off the field holding his shoulder, clearly in pain, his knees almost buckling as he reached the trainers. Brunell promptly completed a pass to Laveranues Coles for a first down at the Washington 32. It turned out that Lewis just had a stinger in his shoulder. Stingers can be very painful because they are just that—a stinging sensation caused by a hard hit—but they don’t involve any broken bones. Lewis came back two plays after coming out, and the defense forced a punt. The offense was no better: three-and-out again. It was beginning to look as if the defense was going to have to score for the Ravens to have any chance to come back and win.

  Mike Nolan wasn’t necessarily thinking that, but he was thinking the defense needed to make something happen. They had been resolute in the first half but hadn’t created any turnovers. That made six straight quarters without a turnover. With the Redskins facing third-and-6 on their own 37, Nolan decided to take a chance. He called “3-2 jacks,” a safety blitz that had Ed Reed blitz from the left side. Since Brunell was left-handed, that would mean if Reed could get to him, he would be coming at him from his blind side. Billick heard the call in his headset and liked it: they had to try something even if it was a little bit dangerous.

  Reed smartly delayed for a split second on the snap, which appeared to lull Redskins’ running back Ladell Betts, the player assigned to pick up a blitzer, into a false sense of security. As Brunell started to roll left a step, Reed exploded past Betts and was on Brunell in an instant. Even before Reed got his hands on Brunell, Billick could sense a big play about to happen: “Get him!” he screamed. “Get him!”

  Reed had him. Brunell’s arm was up to pass and Reed knocked the ball cleanly from his grasp. He stumbled for a step, then took off after the ball, which was now rolling on the ground. “Go, Ed Reed! Go, Ed Reed!” Billick was screaming, running down the sideline in the direction of the rolling ball as if to make sure Reed could see it. Reed saw it. He picked it up in full stride at the 22-yard line and was gone down the sideline for a touchdown. The Ravens’ bench exploded, pent-up anxiety coming out of everyone at once.

  Gibbs, who had already been criticized in the local media several times for wasting time-outs by challenging plays that had no chance to be overruled, challenged again. Instant-replay challenges hadn’t existed during Gibbs’s first stint as a coach, and he had actually hired someone to sit in the coaches’ box strictly for the purpose of advising him when to challenge and when not to. Clearly, the man wasn’t earning his money. There was no way the play was going to be overturned, Brunell’s arm hadn’t even been close to going forward. The play stood, and Matt Stover’s extra point made the score 10-7.

  In an instant, one play, one call—3-2 jacks—the entire game had turned around. The Ravens’ bench was alive again. The stadium, which had been enveloped in noise most of the night, was almost quiet. The Ravens kicked off and the Redskins, having had no suc
cess throwing the ball, decided to try to move the ball on the ground. Portis picked up 9 yards on two carries. On third-and-1, Brunell again gave the ball to Portis. But Reed knifed in seemingly untouched and got to Portis before he could get close to the line of scrimmage and nailed him for a 2-yard loss. It wasn’t a turnover, but it was another huge play. The Redskins had to punt again.

  Billick and Gary Zauner decided it was time to try to make something happen on special teams. They sent Sanders out with B. J. Sams to return the punt. As soon as Sams fielded Tom Tupa’s spiraling kick, Sanders cut behind him, apparently to take a handoff. He was running left, Sams right. When the Redskins’ cover team saw Sanders circle behind Sams, they bought the fake—if only for an instant. Sanders took off to the left without the football. Sams, with an open lane, raced to his right and went down the sideline 78 yards for a touchdown. Without running a single offensive play, the Ravens had gone from a 10-0 deficit to a 14-10 lead in a little more than two minutes. Nolan’s 3-2 jacks call had started the turnaround. Reed had made two brilliant plays. And Sams, with a little help from Sanders and his blockers, had finished off the sudden turnaround.

  The Redskins were staggered. Their offense picked up a couple of first downs on the next series, but then Brunell tried to throw deep on a third-and-9 from his own 48 and Sanders stepped in front of Coles in the end zone and intercepted. There was still a quarter to go, but the game was over. Lewis and the offensive line took complete control the rest of the way, killing more than five minutes with a drive that culminated in a Stover field goal, then running the clock out in the final 4:42, the game ending with Boller kneeling on the Redskins’ 11-yard line. The offense had held the ball for an astounding 12:33 in the last quarter. Lewis carried 16 times during the Ravens’ last three drives for 90 yards. The defense gave up an astonishing total of 107 yards for the game—only 43 of them in the second half.

  By the time Boller knelt on the final play, about the only fans left in the stadium were those in purple and white who had managed to get tickets. They had been hardly noticeable during the first half, drowned out by the Washington fans. Now they appeared to be everywhere.

  For the first time all season, there were heartfelt hugs of congratulations in the locker room. Pittsburgh had been a big win because it was the Steelers and they had been 0-1, but they had been in control almost the entire game. This had been an escape. The defense had started it, the special teams had continued it, and then the offense had finished it with complete ball control in the fourth quarter.

  “We’re going to give a special game ball tonight,” Billick said. “We’re going to give it to Jamal Lewis [cheers all around] not only because of the way he ran in the second half but because we want him to know two things: when he comes back, we’ll be here waiting for him and we’ll be waiting for him with a 5-2 record.”

  More cheers and more hugs. Everyone seemed to be smiling.

  As the defensive coaches made their way to their lockers, Mike Pettine’s voice could be heard clearly above all the shouting: “Someone send Dan Snyder some ice cream,” he said. “And make sure it’s vanilla.”

  Mike Nolan said nothing. He didn’t have to. Three-two jacks had done all the talking that needed to be done.

  18

  Making a Move

  WHILE THE RAVENS WENT ABOUT MOVING from their old facility to the new one during their bye week, two players were the subject of most of the buzz in Baltimore: Ed Reed, who had announced himself as a big-time defensive star in the Redskins game, and Kyle Boller, who had probably played his poorest game since his rookie debut in Pittsburgh.

  Before the players took off for a few days—Billick had them come in briefly on Monday and then gave them off until Saturday—Boller met with Matt Cavanaugh to discuss what had happened in the Washington game. The care and feeding of Boller was a sensitive subject for everyone associated with the Ravens. Every time he made a mistake or looked the least bit vulnerable, the wolves were ready to pounce. They pounced on Boller for not being as advanced as rookie classmates Carson Palmer and Byron Leftwich. Now they were beginning to point out that Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh rookie, was unbeaten since Tommy Maddox’s injury in the Ravens game. They also pounced on Ozzie Newsome for trading a first-round pick to get Boller in the 2003 draft and on Billick for never having developed a quarterback as good as the ones he had coached as the coordinator in Minnesota.

  And they jumped on Cavanaugh, again. Which was fine with him. He was fully aware that if the offense didn’t improve, he wasn’t going to be back in 2005. He had enough self-confidence to believe there was another job out there for him if that occurred. “I’ve been cut, I’ve been fired, and I’ve been ripped from stem to stern,” he said. “I can handle it. My concern right now is Kyle.”

  Boller never appeared rattled by the criticism that seemed to be growing with each passing week. He addressed it with a smile on his face when he spoke to the media. After the Redskins game, he had cheerily greeted his parents (who flew in from California for most games) and talked about how pleased he was that the defense and special teams had been able to rally the Ravens while the offense sputtered. But Cavanaugh and Fassel both knew that, tough-minded as he was, Boller was twenty-three and that the criticism had to hurt. Cavanaugh talked to him quietly that Monday about getting away and relaxing for the next few days and coming back to start fresh when preparing for Buffalo. That was what the bye week was all about, anyway. Fassel suggested that the two of them get together someplace away from the facility the following week.

  No one had to worry about Ed Reed’s mental state. At twenty-six, he was clearly emerging as a full-fledged star. It wasn’t as if his first two years in the league had been unimpressive. As a rookie he had intercepted five passes and blocked two punts, returning one for a touchdown. In 2003 he had seven interceptions—one for a touchdown—and blocked two more punts, returning both for touchdowns. That meant the touchdown he had scored against the Redskins was the fifth of his career. There were offensive players who had been in the league just as long who had not scored that often.

  Reed’s nickname on the team was “Little Ray.” Like Lewis, he wore a black scullcap under his helmet. Like Lewis, he enjoyed celebrating after making big plays. Like Lewis, he was deeply religious. When the defense was introduced before a game, Reed and Lewis were always the last two players to come out of the tunnel. While the rest of the team gathered near the field, they would stand back and apart, each crossing himself repeatedly before moving into the tunnel. Reed was a regular at Lewis’s Thursday night get-togethers at his house. Like Lewis, he had gone to Miami. Unlike most of Miami’s star players, he had stayed five years, had gotten his degree in four, and had never been accused of an attitude problem. That, he said, dated to his upbringing in St. Rose, Louisiana.

  “Where I grew up, there were two paths you could take,” he said. “One led to trouble, the other led out. My way out was always going to sports, football especially. For as long as I can remember, I played football, from peewee on up. And for as long as I can remember, I loved football. I didn’t just love to play, I loved the way it felt. There’s a feel to being part of the game, the way it feels before the game, the way it feels in the locker room and on the field, the way it feels after the game—whether you win or lose, there’s a feel to it I’m not sure I can describe, I just know I’ve always loved it.”

  Reed grew up in a big family—the second of five boys. His dad, Ed Sr., was (and still is) a welder; his mother, a dietician. His elder brother was an excellent baseball player, but Ed was always into football first and foremost. Because his parents were always working, they would sometimes let him stay over at a friend’s house if he had an early game because it was tough for them to get him to the game and then make it to work. “They came to a lot of my games, though,” he said. “They were always there for me.”

  Like a lot of kids growing up in tough neighborhoods, Reed benefited because he was identified early as a gifted at
hlete. “When people see that you have a chance to get out, they want to help you,” he said. “There were times when I would start in the wrong direction and one of my cousins or friends would grab me and say, ‘Oh no, not you, you stay away from this.’”

  Reed stayed out of trouble, but he also stayed out of school more than he should have. “I was like a lot of kids,” he said. “I showed up when I needed to—for a game.”

  By the time he got to high school, he was behind academically. He took only two ninth-grade classes—the rest were eighth-grade—as a freshman because he wasn’t ready to be a full-fledged freshman, except in sports. Early in his sophomore year, Jeanne Hall, the school secretary, made a proposal to him: Come stay at my house. Your parents have enough going on with four other kids. I’ll make sure you get to school every day. Reed and his parents agreed. “It might have been the most important decision of my life,” he said. “I’m not sure I’d be here today if not for Miss Hall.”