Next Man Up

by John Feinstein

  The Ravens could have cared less about the record. All they knew was that they were ten points down. This time the offense responded. Boller quickly found Heap for a 24-yard pickup into Indy territory at the 46. Then he found Moore, who showed no signs of short-arming the ball, over the middle for 17 more yards and a first down at the 29. A pass to Jamal Lewis and then a run by him picked up another first down at the 17. If they could punch it in and cut the margin right back to three, it would be a ball game. But then, as had been the case so often all season, the offense bogged down. Lewis got 4 on first down to the 13, but then Boller threw incompletions to Heap and Chester Taylor. Fourth down. The consolation was that Stover’s field goal, which would come from 31 yards, would get them within one score, at 13-6.

  At that point in the year, Stover had missed one field goal—a 50-yarder—and had made 23 others. He was the closest thing the Ravens had to a sure thing. Stover, Zastudil, and Maese trotted out with 2:34 left in the quarter. Stover went through his usual routine, left arm in the air, shoulder down. He looked almost like a wooden soldier when he lined up and went through all this, but it worked. “If I do it the same way every time, I remember the same things every time,” he said. “The important thing is to keep my head still and keep it down. If I do that, I’m pretty sure I’ll make the kick.”

  This time something went wrong. The snap was good, the hold was good. But the kick never cleared the line of scrimmage. It was blocked, right in the middle of the line, by defensive tackle Larry Tripplett, who at six-two, 314, was not blessed with a great vertical leap. The immediate assumption on the sideline was that somebody had missed a block and let one of the Colts get too much penetration. Stover corrected that: “I messed up,” he said. “I just kicked it low. My fault.”

  The ball caromed backward and was picked up as it bounced on the carpet by defensive back Von Hutchins. Dan Wilcox finally dragged him down on the Ravens’ 31. You could feel the life go out of the Ravens’ bench at that moment. If they couldn’t count on Stover, could they count on the sun rising the next morning? On Tuesday following Monday? The offense not getting in the end zone was nothing new. Stover having a kick blocked—and it being his fault—was unheard-of.

  “I’ve coached him for six years, I’ve never seen that happen,” Billick said later. “Never seen it in a game, never seen it in practice. The guy is that good, that consistent. It’s unfair to criticize him even for a second for turning human once in six years.”

  It didn’t take the Colts long to capitalize. Manning completed passes to Stokley and Wayne to set up a first down at the Ravens’ 7, then James needed two more carries to get into the end zone. Vanderjagt’s extra point made it 20-3 with twenty-eight seconds left in the quarter. Exactly one quarter earlier, they had been at the Colts’ 39 in a tie game, looking to take a halftime lead. Now they were three scores down with just a little more than a quarter to play. They finally managed to get into the end zone on the next series, Boller finding Heap from 13 yards out. One couldn’t help but think how different the game might have felt if that touchdown had come the previous time the Ravens had been on the Colts’ 13. This time it gave them a flicker of hope, down 20-10 with 12:50 still to play.

  During the TV time-out prior to the kickoff, Ray Lewis called the defense together. “This is what makes a Super Bowl team,” he said as they surrounded him. “If you want to be a Super Bowl team, you have to get this team three-and-out right now. There’s no choice. Now or never.”

  They responded. James got one yard before Adalius Thomas slammed him down. Manning threw incomplete to Stokley. Then Baxter broke up a pass intended for Harrison. He came off holding his shoulder in obvious pain. “GB,” said Lewis, who was playing in a fair bit of pain himself, “don’t you even think about feeling pain. Not now.”

  They had gotten the Colts off the field three-and-out and used only a minute to do so. Now it was up to the offense. Sure enough, they began to move the ball. A Boller pass to Dinkins got them to the Colts’ 41. Boller found Heap for 8 more. Then, scrambling to avoid a blitz, he found Heap again for a first down at the 15. Except that there was a flag. As often happens to linemen when a quarterback starts to scramble, Casey Rabach had turned upfield, thinking Boller would run, and had crossed the line of scrimmage, looking to block someone. When Boller threw the ball, that made him an illegal receiver. The play came back. Instead of first-and-10 at the 15, they had second-and-7 at the 38.

  They never moved the ball another inch: Boller threw three incompletions, the last one on fourth down, a strike to Moore who couldn’t hang on to the ball when Jason David hit him as the ball arrived. Billick had gone for the first down at that moment, understanding that giving the ball up without points at such a late stage was probably fatal.

  The Colts then held the ball more than four minutes and even though the usually reliable Vanderjagt (perhaps out of solidarity with Stover) missed a 33-yard field goal at the end of the drive, the clock was now ticking toward four minutes. The Colts were in a prevent defense, giving up short passes. The Ravens took them. Boller got them to the Colts’ 35 with a completion to Heap that wasn’t called back with 1:46 to go. Again they bogged down in scoring territory. Again Billick went for it on fourth down, this time a fourth-and-3 at the 28, figuring the chances of Stover making a field goal and then getting the ball back on an onside kick and scoring a touchdown in 1:12 were close to zero. A touchdown, an onside kick, and a field goal was unlikely, but less unlikely.

  It was all moot when Boller’s pass intended for Travis Taylor was picked off by Cato June, who ran it all the way back to the Ravens’ 4-yard line with fifty-nine seconds left. The crowd was screaming for Manning to throw the ball into the end zone and end the game by breaking Marino’s record. Neither Manning nor Dungy wanted to do it that way. The game was over. There was no need to rub any salt into the Ravens’ wound. Manning knelt twice as the crowd howled angrily.

  “We’ll see you again,” Dungy said to Billick as they shook hands, trying to give his old friend a quick pep talk.

  Billick put an arm around Dungy. “They’re booing you,” he said. “You’re 11-3 and you just won a hell of a game and they’re booing you. Your problem is you aren’t an asshole like I am.”

  That was Billick’s way of saying, “Thanks for having so much class.”

  Dungy’s class and his pep talk couldn’t make the loss any easier to take. They had done what Billick had asked: put themselves on the line and given everything they had. It had not been enough. In the locker room, Mike Nolan made a point of pausing during his postgame handshakes to spend an extra moment with McAlister. “Mac, you fought hard,” he said softly. McAlister had been beaten on the first Colts touchdown. Other than that, he had been outstanding.

  “Everybody listen to me for a minute,” Billick said, as they knelt or sat, many of them in obvious pain. “All I can ask of you is that you do what you did tonight. I asked you for passion and you gave it to me. All you can ever ask for in this business is to play games that matter in December. You played in one tonight. We’ve got two more that are going to matter. You have got to hold on to this feeling and remember it’s still out there for you. I know it doesn’t feel that way right now, but it’s still true.

  “I’m proud of all of you. We still have a lot to hold on to. Let’s not forget that.”

  Forgetting what had happened that night—and what could have happened—was going to be easier said than done.

  They had two games left. Coming close in the next one would not be good enough. Their margin for error was now down to a round number: zero.

  27

  Crash

  THERE WAS NO NEED for Brian Billick to show his players the schedule or the NFL standings on the Wednesday after the loss to the Colts. The team had the day off on Monday, after arriving home at 4 A.M. from Indianapolis. When they came back to work on Wednesday, everyone knew exactly what was going to be at stake on Sunday in Pittsburgh: the season.

  A victory ov
er the Steelers would make the Ravens 9-6 with only the Dolphins at home left on the schedule. No one was absolutely certain how the tiebreakers would shake out, because so many different teams could still finish 10-6, but there was a strong sense that 10-6 would get the job done. The Jets were still in the driver’s seat in the wild-card race at 10-4. Then came the group at 8-6: the Ravens, Broncos, Bills, and Jaguars. Unless the Jets completely collapsed, only one of those four teams could make the playoffs.

  Life would have been a lot simpler if the Ravens had been in the NFC instead of the AFC. The NFC was so weak that teams with records of 5-9 were still mathematically alive for the wild-card spots. In all likelihood, 8-8 would be good enough to make the playoffs in the NFC—and 7-9 was not out of the question. “That’s just the way life works out sometimes,” Billick said. “It doesn’t do a bit of good to sit here and talk about how unfair it is. As my good friend Bill Parcells says, ‘It is what it is.’”

  What it was in Baltimore was Christmas week without too much joy to go around. The Christmas trees were lit up all over the building, but there wasn’t a lot of caroling going on in the hallways. Everyone now knew that Ray Lewis had broken his wrist in the first quarter on Sunday night. He had played on gallantly the rest of the game and was planning to get a shot in the wrist on Sunday that would allow him to play. That would make him one of at least three players who would need pregame shots in order to get on the field. The others were Jamal Lewis and Deion Sanders. There wasn’t any question about whether they would play. There wasn’t any choice at this point in the season. Todd Heap was another story: he had reinjured his ankle playing on the turf in Indianapolis and was again having trouble walking. “If I can walk, I’ll play,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk.”

  By Monday night, it appeared very possible—even likely—that Billick would be calling the plays in Pittsburgh. Matt Cavanaugh had met a second time with Pitt AD Jeff Long on Monday and had come away believing he was the front-runner for the job. The Pittsburgh newspapers had the same idea: they were reporting that Cavanaugh was likely to be named before the end of the week. Within the coaching staff the word was already circulating that Billick wanted Ron Turner, who had been fired as the head coach at Illinois, to succeed Cavanaugh at the end of the season.

  The larger concern, of course, was the Steelers. Remarkably, they had not lost a game since that second-week loss in Baltimore back in September, a Sunday afternoon that now felt as if it had been a lifetime ago, not three months. Ben Roethlisberger was going to be the runaway choice for rookie of the year, and stories comparing him with Terry Bradshaw were starting to crop up. Jerome Bettis, benched at the start of the season in favor of newly acquired Duce Staley, had stepped in after Staley had been injured and played so well that Staley couldn’t get back on the field. The Steelers had a chance to clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with a win on Sunday. The Patriots had dropped a shocking Monday night game to the Dolphins in Miami and were now 12-2. That meant the best they could finish was 14-2. A Steelers victory over the Ravens would mean they could finish no worse than 14-2, and since they had beaten the Patriots head-to-head, they would get home field should the teams meet in the conference final. Given what it was like to play in Foxboro, that was undoubtedly just about as big a deal to the Steelers as a keeping-their-playoff-hopes-alive win would be to the Ravens.

  What’s more, the Steelers would want to show the Ravens, the world, and themselves that the one-sided Ravens victory in Baltimore had been a pre-Roethlisberger fluke and that there was good reason why they were 13-1 and the Ravens were 8-6. In short, it would be a long, grinding day in a very tough place to play. Heinz Field, named for the same company that had turned the “red zone” into a corporate promo, was such a hostile place for visitors that Steve Bisciotti had decided not to make the trip. “The last time I was up there, our box was right next to some very loud people,” he said. “They all knew exactly where the visiting team’s box was and every time they scored, they started banging on the walls. I figure if we win, I’ll be so happy I won’t mind being at home. And if we lose, I’ll be very happy not to be there.”

  The team didn’t have any such options. Not only did they have to make the trip, they had to make it on Christmas afternoon. Billick reminded them during the week that they would have all afternoon and evening on Christmas Eve with their families and Christmas morning, too. “Enjoy all of it,” he said. “But when we get to Pittsburgh, be ready to get your heads back into playing the game.”

  As he often did late in the season, Billick adjusted his practice plans to take into account how bruised and hurt and tired the team was. Ray Lewis wasn’t going to practice all week. Jamal Lewis, Sanders, and McAlister would be limited to light work. Todd Heap was held out of most practice work but insisted that he would play on Sunday, too. It was a tired, cranky group that reassembled on Wednesday. Jonathan Ogden was steaming after reading and hearing for two days that Dwight Freeney had “done a number on him.”

  “The guy’s good, especially indoors on that turf,” Ogden said. “The sack was a blown call. I thought I had the corner and at the last second I realized Freeney was unblocked and I couldn’t get to him in time. Blown calls happen, but it looks like I got beat and I end up getting killed.” He sighed. “I get paid a lot of money and I don’t need people writing or saying every week that I’m great. But I do get tired sometimes of only seeing my name in the paper when people think I’ve screwed up. It gets old.”

  Knowing that his team was fragile both mentally and physically, Billick limited practice on Wednesday to little more than a walk-through of the plays they would be using in Pittsburgh. At this point in the season, there wasn’t much to be accomplished by hitting in practice anyway. Billick’s message Wednesday morning was about not giving up even though giving up might be understandable.

  “What we can’t do this week is give in to the circumstances,” he said. “I know you’re hurting physically. I know how disappointed you are about what happened in Indianapolis because I know you sold out to try to win that game. The easy thing to do now is just say, ‘Hey, it’s too tough this year, we caught too many bad breaks.’ But we’ve never been like that. I know you guys are sick and tired of hearing me say this, but I’m gonna say it one more time because it’s as true now as it was in July: it is still all out there for you. We win the next two Sundays, we’ll be in the playoffs. I still haven’t seen a team out there that we can’t go on the road and beat. Anyone in here think that game on Sunday was unwinnable? I don’t.”

  Later that day Ray Lewis walked through the locker room speaking to no one and everyone: “I pray we get to play in Indianapolis again,” he kept saying. “I pray to God we get to go there again.”

  The week began to turn in the wrong direction on Thursday. The Pittsburgh newspapers were reporting that Dave Wannstedt’s name had resurfaced in connection with the Pitt job. In fact, they reported, the job was his to turn down. Cavanaugh understood the thinking: Wannstedt was an established NFL head coach. He had been mildly successful in Chicago and very successful in Miami until the roof had fallen on his head beginning with the Ricky Williams retirement fiasco during the summer. He had been Pitt’s first choice but had said no, undoubtedly because he had been hoping to get another shot in the NFL. But as the NFL season wound down, it was starting to look as if the number of coaching changes would be fewer than usual. Wannstedt had apparently called Jeff Long back and told him that he had reconsidered. Given that a local columnist in Pittsburgh had written on Tuesday that the hiring of Cavanaugh—or any of the other finalists—would be proof that the Pitt people undervalued the job, Wannstedt was something of a savior for Long; a big name with Pitt roots.

  “If Dave wants it, it’s his,” Cavanaugh said on Thursday, clearly disappointed. “Believe me, I understand where they’re coming from. I’d probably do the same thing if I were in their shoes.”

  Still, it hurt. Cavanaugh had started out as little
more than an afterthought in the process, put on the list because he was a Pitt grad with an NFL pedigree. He had interviewed his way from afterthought to clubhouse leader only to have Wannstedt show up at the last possible minute to snatch the job away from him. On Friday, Pitt made it official, introducing Wannstedt as its new coach. By then, Billick had sent the players home for their Christmas celebrations. He had been pleased with their one full practice of the week on Thursday, but Friday had been sloppy. “Christmas Eve,” he said. “Their minds are elsewhere. Happens every year.”

  Billick and his family had their own Christmas traditions. After having dinner and exchanging presents, he and Kim and Aubree and Keegan went upstairs for the family’s annual reading of The Polar Express.

  “We started doing it when Aubree was two, and we’ve done it every year since then,” Billick said. That was followed by Kim venturing outside to shake the leather bells on the windows to make them ring. It was a nice escape for Billick from the realities he would be facing the next day.

  Given the time of year, they got lucky with the weather. It would be cold on Sunday, but there was no snow predicted and the biting wind that often cut through Heinz Field late in the season would be milder than it frequently was in December.