Next Man Up

by John Feinstein

  If the Bengals had put up a couple of touchdowns, maybe Nolan would have made the radical move of benching his All-Pro cornerback. But they only had three points on the board. Maybe he could get through thirty more minutes without getting burned too badly. Nolan wasn’t even concerned with McAlister’s confrontation. He was far more concerned with how McAlister was going to react to Chad Johnson.

  The offense picked up where it had left off at the end of the first half, marching 85 yards after the kickoff in what might have been its most impressive drive of the season. Boller was sharp, completing passes to five different receivers, and Chester Taylor had 5 carries, including a 1-yard dive for the touchdown. Jamel White, the little running back signed a week earlier, came off the bench to set up the score with a 16-yard run. They kept the ball for almost seven minutes. The lead was 13-3. It was 20-3 a few minutes later. First, Clarence Moore, who had become the team’s most dangerous receiver, committed an unpardonable sin, short-arming (not reaching for) a Boller pass over the middle, which allowed Bengals safety Madieu Williams to make an interception that wasn’t Boller’s fault. The play set Cincinnati up at midfield. But Palmer finally made a mistake, floating a pass intended for Johnson a bit high. Ball-hawking as usual, Ed Reed swooped in to intercept it at the 15. Darting and dodging the way he always did, Reed was at the 39 when he got hit from behind. Carrying the ball loosely as was his wont, Reed lost control of it. But the ball took one hop and was picked up by McAlister, who was trailing the play. Before anyone on the Bengals realized that he—and not Reed—had the ball, McAlister was gone, down the left sideline for a touchdown.

  Now they had control. Whatever had been going on with McAlister in the first half was forgotten as he and Reed were mobbed on the sideline. Reed was shaking his head, angry at himself for the fumble. But it didn’t matter. The lead was 20-3 with 2:29 left in the third quarter. The Bengals were shaken. Their offense stalled again and Kyle Larson floated a punt to B. J. Sams near the sideline. At the last second, Sams decided to fair-catch the ball, waving his arm in the air. Perhaps he lost his focus for a split second, maybe his arm blocked his vision of the ball for just a moment. Later, Sams wasn’t sure exactly what happened.

  The ball slid through his hands and bounced on the ground, with everyone in pursuit. The Bengals’ Marcus Wilkins ended up on top of it on the Baltimore 19. It took Palmer two plays—a pass to Houshmandzadeh for 6 yards to end the third quarter and a 13-yarder into the end zone to Johnson to begin the fourth—and the lead was 20-10. Instead of beginning the fourth quarter with a three-score lead, the Ravens were in a game. More important, the Bengals now believed they were in the game.

  The Ravens’ offense went three-and-out. Palmer was suddenly brimming with confidence. It took him five plays to go 76 yards, the touchdown again coming on a pass to Johnson. Nolan was beside himself in the press box. The entire defense was suddenly in disarray, and McAlister again looked lost. “It isn’t as if he was the first DB in history to have trouble with Chad Johnson, the guy is a hell of a receiver,” he said later. “But it looked to me as if he wasn’t even really trying. No one could say anything to him to bring him back at that point.”

  In seven quarters, the Bengals’ offense had failed to score a touchdown on the Ravens, putting up a total of twelve points. Now it had scored two touchdowns—in a little more than four minutes. The sideline, which had been so joyful a few minutes earlier after the McAlister touchdown, turned grim and quiet. Even Ray Lewis had nothing to say, sitting quietly on the bench while the offense went back onto the field. Everyone came back to life when Travis Taylor broke loose for 47 yards on the first play of the next series. But with a first down on the Cincinnati 26, they couldn’t put the ball into the end zone. Stover came in and made a 38-yard field goal to make it 23-17, but the margin was still less than a touchdown and there was all sorts of time—8:34—left to play.

  The Ravens appeared to have the Bengals stopped on the next series when Palmer was called for intentional grounding after a blitz forced him to throw the ball away. That set up second-and-20. Palmer found Houshmandzadeh wide-open at the Ravens’ 20. Three plays later, Houshmandzadeh was in the end zone, celebrating with the ball, and the Bengals had the lead, 24-23, with 5:38 to go. There were no boos. Just silence. The crowd was as shocked as the Ravens.

  Houshmandzadeh had given the Ravens a break with his celebration because he was whistled for it and the Bengals had to kick off from the 15. Sams, trying to make up for his fumble, returned the kick 29 yards to the Ravens’ 46. On the bench everyone had the same thought: this might be the most crucial drive of the season. The way the Bengals’ offense was suddenly dominating the defense, the Ravens might not see the ball again if they failed to score now.

  “Come on, O,” Terrell Suggs yelled as they trotted onto the field. “Bail us out.”

  It was full-fledged role reversal.

  Patiently, Boller and the offense did what they had to do. On third-and-6 from midfield, Boller hit Kevin Johnson for 11 yards and a first down at the Bengals’ 39. They were chipping away, not necessarily eager to score quickly because they didn’t want to give the Cincinnati offense time when—if—they scored to take the lead. Two plays later, Chester Taylor fumbled and the Bengals’ Brian Simmons recovered. But there was a flag downfield: far from the play, cornerback Tory James had been called for holding. The NFL’s new rules on defensive holding, which had been the subject of lengthy debate when the officials had come to training camp for their annual briefing of the team on rules changes, had bailed out the Ravens.

  Taylor picked up a yard, to the 32. Then Jamel White, giving Taylor a breather, sprinted left and picked up 12 yards to the 20. They were now well into Stover’s range. The goal now was to kill as much time as possible. The Bengals knew that. White picked up 6 more yards to the 14. The two-minute warning stopped the clock. A touchdown would be far better than a field goal because it would mean the Bengals would have to go the length of the field and score a touchdown. But Taylor was stopped for a 3-yard loss and the Bengals used their second time-out. Third-and-7. Billick and Cavanaugh weren’t going to risk a turnover. The ball went to Taylor again and he was buried behind the line for a 7-yard loss. Worse than that, Casey Rabach had made one of the few mistakes he would make all season, being caught holding. The Bengals, hoping to push Stover out of range, accepted the penalty and moved the ball to the 27.

  The flags on top of the stadium were whipping. The wind was clearly going to be in Stover’s face. As he always did, Stover had trotted onto the field at the end of the third quarter to check the wind. He had told Zauner his yard line was the 30. That was now forty minutes ago. There was no guarantee now that the 27 was close enough. Aware of that, Cavanaugh called a short pass to Travis Taylor, trying to pick up a few more yards for Stover. But the pass was broken up. Stover would have to try from 45 yards.

  These were the kicks that Stover was paid the big bucks to make. He went through his routine: head down, right arm up. Murphy was the holder. Even though he had now been Stover’s holder for three games, he had never had to get a snap down at a moment quite like this. Joe Maese’s snap was perfect and Murphy got the ball down. The kick wobbled in the wind, seemed to hang in the air for several minutes, and floated down toward the goalpost. It was on line, but was it long enough?

  Yes. It dropped just over the crossbar and the bench exploded with relief. The Ravens led, 26-24.

  The game was far from over. The penalty and the incomplete pass had stopped the clock and allowed the Bengals to save their last time-out. Palmer had 1:42 to work with. That felt like an eternity.

  The Bengals started from their own 34, meaning they probably needed to go about 35 to 40 yards to give their kicker, Shayne Graham, a reasonable shot at a game-winning field goal. On first down, the Ravens’ defense made a huge play: Anthony Weaver and Suggs got to Palmer before he had a chance to even think about looking downfield. Palmer ducked Suggs for a moment, but Weaver ran him down for an 8-yard
loss. It was second-and-18, the ball now on the 26 and the clock running.

  Standing on the sideline, Billick felt a wave of relief. “We did it,” he thought. “We scared the hell out of ourselves, but when we had to come up with a play, we did. We’re going to get out of this.”

  Even as those thoughts were going through Billick’s head, Palmer was lining up in shotgun formation. The clock was at 1:13 as he dropped back. Houshmandzadeh was wide-open, working single coverage on Baxter with the Ravens still focused on Johnson. Palmer put the ball on the numbers and Will Demps had to come up to make the tackle. The play was good for 32 yards. All the relief Billick had felt disappeared. The Bengals were now at the Baltimore 42. Palmer raced up and spiked the ball to stop the clock with fifty seconds left. The Bengals were no more than 10 yards from field goal range and they still had a time-out to get their field goal team on the field.

  Palmer wasn’t done. With the entire defense gearing to stop Johnson and Houshmandzadeh, he went over the middle to tight end Matt Schobel for 11 yards and a first down. Again he spiked the ball. Then, from the 31, he went back to Johnson, running the same out pattern that he had tortured McAlister with most of the day. Johnson caught the ball running out of bounds on the Ravens’ 9 with thirty-three seconds left. Now, all the Bengals wanted to do was line the ball up in the middle of the field and run the clock down as far as they could. Rudy Johnson tried to run up the middle—he picked up nothing—but the Ravens were in such disarray that they had twelve men on the field; Chad Williams had run onto the field as an extra defensive back and no one had come off. The ball moved to the 4. Palmer willingly took a 2-yard loss to line the ball up in the middle of the field and called time-out with two seconds left.

  Graham had little more than an extra point, lining up on the 14 for a 24-yard kick. It was a no-doubter, straight up the middle as time expired. Final score: Bengals 27, Ravens 26.

  The loss could hardly have been more devastating. Not only were they now 7-5, but their confidence, especially on the defensive side, had been punctured. The Bengals had scored 24 points in the fourth quarter. Palmer had finished with 382 yards passing, 200 of them in the fourth. Johnson and Houshmandzadeh had 10 catches each, Houshmandzadeh for 171 yards and Johnson for 161 yards.

  Billick was calm in the crushed locker room. He told them they would have to come in to look at the tape on Monday because there were corrections that clearly had to be made. “You’re going to hear a lot of negative things the next week,” he said. “You can’t buy in. Our fate is still in our own hands. But we definitely took a hit today. There’s no denying that.”

  25

  Crisis

  MONDAY’S WEATHER was exactly what it should have been: bleak, rain spitting down the entire day, a cold wind sweeping across the parking lot as coaches and players quietly parked their cars and ran, heads down, into the building.

  The hallways inside were completely silent. People passing one another simply nodded hello rather than saying anything. The cafeteria, usually a noisy, cheerful place at lunchtime, was almost as quiet as the hallways. There was nothing anyone could say that was going to mitigate or change what had happened on Sunday. Instead of being alone in the second wild-card spot, just one game behind the Jets, the Ravens were now tied with Denver for the second spot, with Buffalo, Jacksonville, and Cincinnati just a game behind. The worst part was the schedule. They had blown one of the home games that was considered almost a sure win, meaning they would now have to win the remaining two home games and almost certainly win in either Indianapolis or Pittsburgh. Even that would get them only to 10-6, and at this point, that was far from a lock to make the playoffs.

  There were, however, more immediate concerns. The noon meeting was as somber as might be expected. The coaches went through their analyses of what they had seen on tape. For the first time in anyone’s memory, there were even questions raised about Ray Lewis. Mike Singletary defended him. “He’s worked hard on improving against the run,” Singletary said, a reference to the concerns that had come up at times since the Kansas City game. “He only had one M.E. [mental error] the entire game.”

  Kyle Boller had played well: 19-of-33, with four passes dropped, and his only interception caused by Clarence Moore pulling up going over the middle. “Clarence did that twice yesterday,” David Shaw said. “I’ll talk to him about it. It’s the first time he’s done it all season.”

  There was talk in the room that perhaps Moore and Sams were hitting “the rookie wall”— a common malady when players go from college football to the pros, where the intensity is higher and the season is longer. Sams had started the season at 188 pounds. He was now down to 179, perhaps confirming Gary Zauner’s earlier concerns that he was wearing out. He hadn’t dropped a ball from minicamp in April until November. Now he had dropped two punts in four weeks. They had survived the one against the Jets. They had not survived the one against the Bengals. There was also concern about Dan Wilcox, who had played in NFL Europe the previous spring before being signed by the Ravens. “He may have European [tired] legs at this point,” Billick said. “We have to keep an eye on him.”

  Ethan Brooks had played his best game as a Raven, filling in for Orlando Brown. “Even if Zeus comes back, I’m not sure we aren’t better off with Ethan playing at this point,” Jim Colletto said.

  Jamal Lewis might be ready to play this coming Sunday. The same was true for Deion Sanders. They would be as healthy as they had been at any time all season. The question hanging in the air was simple: was it too late?

  Finally, Billick came to the point that was going to be most delicate. “Back end,” he said, which was the terminology used to describe the secondary. Johnnie Lynn cleared his throat and dove in: “Will Demps had a solid game,” he said, getting the good news out of the way early, “except for the one catch the tight end made on the last drive. Gary Baxter played well, but he made two key errors at the end. Corey Fuller did well but had two bad plays also. Chad [Williams] was good except for being the twelfth man on the field at the very end.”

  He was working his way up to where it was going to get tense. “Ed Reed tried to cover up for Chris as best he could. Chris just didn’t produce at all. He made a bunch of mental errors.”

  Billick looked at Dennis Thurman. Lynn was new to the staff, having come to the Ravens after being Jim Fassel’s defensive coordinator the previous year in New York. When defensive backs coach Donnie Henderson had been hired by the New York Jets as their defensive coordinator, Billick had hired Lynn. Thurman had been with the team three years and knew McAlister longer and better than Lynn. Now Billick turned to him, looking for answers. Thurman sighed and shook his head as if to say he had none.

  “Until he got hurt [the shoulder injury in the Jets game] he was busting his ass,” he said. “I think after he got the contract, especially, he was as happy as I’ve seen him. Since the injury he hasn’t been the same player or the same person. He’s not doing anything in practice. He’s not competing. He gets beat, he just shrugs his shoulders. I couldn’t believe he let Chad Johnson talk all that trash to him yesterday and never said a word. We have to show him the plays in this game where he just let himself get beat and say to him, ‘Is this who you are?’”

  Nolan and Billick had already had one conversation about McAlister earlier in the day, Nolan filling Billick in on what had happened at halftime. “You know, through all the ups and downs we’ve had with Chris, we’ve always said the important thing is that he likes football,” Nolan said. “He always did his work and he really liked to play. Right now I’m not sure Chris likes anything.”

  They asked Newsome if there was anyone who might be able to sit down and talk to McAlister, to find out exactly what was bothering him. Newsome shook his head. “He listened to Donnie [Henderson] a little and he might listen to Earnest [Byner] every once in a while,” he said. “With them gone, he’s a loner around here.”

  “Even Ray and Ed don’t feel like they can talk to him,” Nolan adde
d.

  It was Billick who raised the most crucial question of all: “How much of this is about his lifestyle?” he asked.

  Everyone in the building knew that McAlister liked to stay out late at night and that he liked to drink when he was out. Since the DUI stop the year before—the charges had been dropped, but McAlister admitted he had been drinking—he had been careful about having a driver whenever he went out.

  Now, though, the question came up about whether his lifestyle had affected his performance on Sunday. There was even some question about whether he had gone out on Saturday night after the team meetings. That, according to McAlister, had never happened in six years.

  Billick changed the subject. They discussed personnel changes that had to be made: Dave Zastudil should be ready to punt Sunday, but Nick Murphy would be kept on the fifty-three for the week, just in case. They might give Wilcox a week to rest, a move they could afford with Heap now healthy and Darnell Dinkins playing so well. Zauner wasn’t thrilled with the idea because of how Wilcox was on special teams.

  Quietly, Billick asked the scouts to excuse themselves. Newsome stayed, as did Steve Bisciotti, sitting in on his first Monday meeting since his surgery. He had listened silently throughout the McAlister discussion, waiting to see if anyone asked him what he thought should be done. Once the scouts were gone, Billick returned to the subject of McAlister. “We just made a huge commitment to this guy financially,” he said. “He’s a pivotal player for us. We need to figure out a way to get to him. If I thought motherfucking him would do it, that’s what I’d do. But I’m sure if I did that, I’d lose him.”

  Newsome nodded his head in agreement. “Someone needs to talk to him about what happened yesterday,” he said. “Because if he isn’t embarrassed about it, then we’ve got a real problem.”

  “The problem is, he doesn’t really trust anyone,” O. J. Brigance said. “He honestly believes no one cares about him. When I tried to talk to him about his shoulder he said to me, ‘You’re just like the rest of them, you just want to use me.’”