Next Man Up

by John Feinstein

  Saturday night’s meetings were longer than usual. The only remnant left from Christmas was Gary Zauner’s “Merry Christmas” message on the board in the front of the room. Right below it he had written, “Gotta stop #82,” as if to make certain no one lingered on the Christmas message for too long. Zauner was referring to Antwaan Randle El, the Steelers’ dangerous kick returner. Dave Zastudil would be asked to do a lot of directional punting to keep Randle El near the sidelines.

  In the defensive meeting, Nolan reviewed the keys to the game, most of them having to do with attitude and the need to impose their will on the Steelers. But he also reminded them about what to watch for with Roethlisberger: “He tends to eyeball one receiver,” Nolan said. “If it doesn’t work, he’ll take off. We’ve got to contain him. He’s not Mr. Nifty but he can elude people. Be aware of that.”

  Billick didn’t often begin his Saturday night talks with any kind of film or video. He left that to the coordinators. But he was a movie buff and he had asked the video people to put together a cut from Men of Honor, specifically the scene where Robert De Niro orders the navy diver played by Cuba Gooding Jr. to take ten steps in full diving gear even though every step is so painful that he is almost in tears by the time he crosses the room.

  The message across the bottom of the screen was what Billick wanted to get to: “No matter the situation, no matter the circumstance, determination will allow you to achieve your goals.”

  “I know you all had personal things to attend to this morning, that’s why we didn’t have a walk-through this morning,” Billick said. “The challenge right now is to regroup and focus on what’s ahead of us tomorrow. There are three things I want you all to think about:

  “First, we all know what this game is about. These teams are built essentially the same way: physical defenses, run-oriented, play-action passes, and big plays with special teams. We know them, they know us.

  “Second, it’s clear-cut what’s at stake here. We all know about the win-loss situation. But it’s more than that. We’re playing the Pittsburgh Steelers and we know what that means, regardless of our record or theirs. We’ve set a mind-set and a tone the last two times we’ve played them. We took the ball back in September and went ninety yards, right down the field. We dictated to them from the start. Last week we dictated the nature of the game, we just didn’t win. You must dictate your will on the game again tomorrow.

  “Third, there are a couple of things we’d like to change in our season. We all know that. But even if those things were changed, it would not change anything about tomorrow. Sure, the business aspect is there. But even if it wasn’t, even if we had home field through the playoffs locked up or we were already eliminated from the playoffs, it wouldn’t change what this particular game is about.”

  He paused for a moment. “Think about why you do this. I know the obvious answers: money, fame, fortune, women, the physicality of it. But there’s got to be more. A lot of you already have all that other stuff. So why? Why do guys come back from injuries, sometimes from retirement? Because this only lasts so long. The feeling we’re all going to have on that field tomorrow is something none of us can hold on to forever. It’s going to be gone someday. That’s why the business aspect of the game has nothing to do with why we’re playing the game. We’re playing the game because of the way it will feel when we’re out there tomorrow. Enjoy that feeling tomorrow because the number of opportunities we all have to feel that way is limited.”

  It was an eloquent talk, a good message going into a critical game. But a few minutes later, while the players were enjoying their post-meetings snack, Billick couldn’t help but notice Ray Lewis sitting at a table with Andy Tucker and Leigh Ann Curl. They were telling him what kind of painkilling shots—it would take two, not one—they were going to give him to get him on the field the next day. No one understood what this game was about better than Ray Lewis. He would be playing it with one hand. Billick knew even Ray Lewis would have a tough time tackling Jerome Bettis with one hand.

  Corey Fuller got the phone call from his fellow Florida State alumnus Derrick Brooks, now a star linebacker in Tampa Bay, on his cell phone during the short bus ride from the hotel to the stadium. Reggie White, the great defensive end for the Eagles, Packers, and Panthers, had died suddenly early that morning at the age of forty-three. The news spread quickly through the locker room.

  There was no doubting Reggie White’s greatness. He would be voted into the Hall of Fame the first year he was eligible. He had, in many ways, redefined the defensive end position. But he had become a very controversial figure late in his career. White was a lay minister, very outspoken on a number of subjects, including homosexuality. His views had drawn a great deal of scrutiny and criticism during his career and since his retirement. To most football players, though, and especially to devout African American players, he wasn’t the least bit controversial: he was a hero. The news of his death on the morning after Christmas, a few hours before the most crucial game of the season, was both sobering and staggering. Ray Lewis sat in front of his locker for a long time with his headphones on, staring into space, saying over and over, “It all comes back to praying to Jesus.”

  Billick was saddened to hear the news but had little time to focus on it. He needed to know from the doctors if all the injured players who were going to receive shots could play. The more often one gets a painkilling shot, the more risk there is that it won’t take. What’s more, the pain when the shot wears off becomes more acute each time. The shot the doctors put into Deion Sanders’s foot didn’t take. “I feel like someone shot me,” he said. “But I have to deal with it for a few hours.”

  Ray Lewis would get one shot that would get him through warm-ups, then a bigger one that, the doctors hoped, would last until the game was over. “If we do make the playoffs, there’s a chance some of these guys won’t be able to go,” Leigh Ann Curl said. “There comes a point where you just can’t keep giving them painkillers. They stop being effective.”

  They would cross that bridge—painfully—if and when they got to it. The only player on the inactive list who was injured was Bart Scott, whose knee hadn’t improved as quickly as hoped. One surprise healthy scratch was Travis Taylor. Billick had decided during the week to go with Randy Hymes as the third wideout along with Clarence Moore and Kevin Johnson. “I just think Randy has more spring in his legs than Travis right now,” he said.

  He had told Taylor on Friday that he wouldn’t be active on Sunday. This was a major blow for Taylor. He had known all year that his future with the Ravens was at stake, and he had been through yet another up-and-down year. There had been some spectacular catches and some spectacular drops—most notably the fourth-down play in Philadelphia. He had tried to play hurt when he shouldn’t have in Cleveland and he had nursed nagging injuries all season. What’s more, he and his wife, who had been married since Taylor’s sophomore year at Florida and had three children, had separated and were headed for a divorce. Taylor was one of the friendliest men on the team, a truly gentle soul whom everyone liked. It had already been a difficult fall for him. Now, with the team playing its most important game of the year, he was inactive. To avoid embarrassment for Taylor—and questions for the coaches—the reason for his inactivity was announced as a combination of his being banged up and Hymes being fresher.

  On Sunday morning Taylor had called Darren Sanders, the team’s director of security, to tell him that he had to fly to Atlanta right away. His grandmother, he explained, was very sick. He never made the trip to the stadium with the team. His absence was, in many ways, symbolic. Deep down, everyone knew he wasn’t going to be wearing a Ravens uniform anymore once the season was over. That didn’t make anyone especially happy. Everyone liked Travis Taylor.

  Even without a truly biting wind, it was a cold, blustery day. Heinz Field sits right on the banks of the Monongahela, right next to the spectacular new baseball stadium that opened in 2001. Wade Richey, who wasn’t active for the game, sat
on the heated bench during warm-ups and said with a smile, “You feel the cold more when you aren’t playing. I better get warm now, because I’ll feel guilty sitting here once the game starts. The guys playing need to keep warm.”

  Richey was another well-liked player whose future with the team was very much in doubt. If his self-confidence matched his leg strength, he would have been a Pro Bowler. But since his spectacular 21-of-23 (field goals) season in San Francisco in 1999, he had battled confidence problems much the way a golfer with the putting yips does. That was why he had been signed by the Ravens strictly to kick off. For this game, Matt Stover would kick off while Richey watched.

  The locker room was as quiet during the final moments before kickoff as it had been all season. Part of that was Ray Lewis’s absence. He was in the training room receiving his second shot. Billick’s message wasn’t much different from the night before. “Everyone up here tight, where you can all touch somebody,” he said, pulling them together in what was the biggest locker room they had been in all season. “There should be no question in anybody’s mind what the next three hours are about. This is the test you all live for. What you want won’t come easy. You just have to give everything you have for three hours.”

  The game followed a familiar script. The Steelers scored on their first possession, going 80 yards in just five plays, Roethlisberger finishing the drive with a perfect 36-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress. The Ravens answered right away with an eleven-play drive of their own, Kyle Boller setting up Jamal Lewis’s 5-yard touchdown run with a 19-yard completion to Terry Jones. That made it 7-7. On the Steelers’ next possession, Will Demps intercepted Roethlisberger on the first play at the Pittsburgh 45. The stadium, which had been wildly raucous at the start of the game and during the opening drive, was nearly silent. But the Ravens couldn’t take advantage. On third-and-7 from the 25, with the field goal team readying itself for a Stover attempt on fourth down, Boller was blitzed, tried to get a pass off, and watched helplessly as it was deflected by linebacker James Harrison into the hands of Joey Porter.

  The interception was about as painful as any that had occurred all season. To begin with, it wiped out a scoring chance. Beyond that, the interception was made by Porter, the same man who had pushed Heap over after he had been injured in the second game of the season. There was also the issue of Harrison, who was playing only because Kendrell Bell was injured. Harrison had been in the Ravens’ early minicamp and had been released. Clearly, he remembered how that had felt.

  In the coaches’ box, Mike Nolan quietly seethed. To him, that series—pass, pass, pass—summed up everything that had been wrong with the offense all season. “Where was Jamal on that series?” he said later. “We get an interception, we have the ball in their territory, and he never touches the ball. Kyle’s come a long way, but he is still the lowest-ranked quarterback in the league. I just don’t think you go into Pittsburgh and ask him to beat the Steelers.” Lewis had actually touched the ball twice on the series, but not enough to suit Nolan.

  Nolan said nothing, of course, to Cavanaugh at that point. He had already had his blowup back in October and he wasn’t going to repeat it. The tension between him and Cavanaugh and Billick had simmered since then. Cavanaugh and Nolan respected each other, but they were entirely different personalities: Nolan confrontational, Cavanaugh more likely to internalize frustration.

  “I wish Matt had internalized less,” Billick said. “If Mike had done what he did in the Buffalo game when I was a coordinator, I’d have taken off the headset and said to him, ‘There is no f —— way I need some defensive guy telling me what plays to call, now you shut the f —— up.’ My guess is, Mike would have realized right then that he was wrong and he would have shut up. But that’s just not Matt.”

  The Steelers pieced together another drive that ended in a 23-yard Jeff Reed field goal early in the second quarter. That was the end of the first-half scoring. The Steelers threatened again twice but came up empty, once when Terrell Suggs pressured Roethlisberger into an incompletion on a fourth-and-2 from the Ravens’ 32 and once when Ed Reed jarred the ball loose from Randle El at the Ravens’ 30 in the final minute and Demps came up with the loose ball. As a result, it was only 10-7 at halftime, even though the Steelers had more than 100 yards more offense than the Ravens did and hadn’t punted the ball yet.

  Billick talked bravely at halftime: “This is just the game we wanted,” he said. Then, realizing he had said almost exactly the same thing in New England and Indianapolis at halftime, he added, “Now we have to finish it.” Deep down, Billick sensed that his team was in trouble. Ray Lewis was playing gamely but was clearly in pain. The same was true of Sanders and McAlister—who had been beaten on the touchdown catch—and Heap. “How much have you got left?” he asked his players. “We’re halfway through the three hours. But this is the hard part now. This is the part where you have to dig in and battle.”

  They knew all that. But they really didn’t have that much fight left. As they walked back to the field there was very little of the usual yelling and catcalling or promising to do harm to the opponent. Lewis never said a word. He was saving what strength he had left.

  The Steelers seemed to sense that the Ravens were on the ropes. They came out in the second half and put together a long, methodical drive, pounding away on the ground against a defense that wasn’t accustomed to being pounded. After Roethlisberger opened the drive with a 7-yard completion to Hines Ward, the Steelers ran the ball on twelve consecutive plays. Bettis, all 260 pounds of him, hurtled through the line three straight times. Then Verron Haynes, normally the third-string running back (Staley was inactive for the game) came in and picked up 28 yards on four carries of his own. Back came Bettis to pick up 6 to the Ravens’ 9. The defense tried to clamp down, forcing a fourth-and-1 from the 9. Steelers coach Bill Cowher didn’t want a field goal, he sensed the kill. He went for it on fourth down and, unlike the first half when he had tried to throw the ball on a fourth down, he sent Roethlisberger, six foot four, 241 pounds, straight up the middle. He picked up 2 yards and the first down at the 7. Two more Bettis runs put the ball on the 2. Then Roethlisberger rolled left on play-action and found tight end Jerame Tuman wide-open in the back of the end zone for the touchdown.

  Suggs nailed Roethlisberger after he released the pass and was hit with a roughing-the-passer penalty. Roethlisberger had to be helped off, but he had done a lot more damage to the Ravens than Suggs had done to him. The drive had taken 8:34, and the lead was now 17-7. Beyond that, the drive had taken all the swagger out of the defense. The Steelers had no fear of Lewis; they were running the ball right at him. If someone had suggested to the defense that anyone could run the ball twelve straight times on them on a single drive, he would have been laughed out of the room. But that was exactly what had happened.

  The offense tried to answer. Boller completed two critical passes on the next drive, one to Kevin Johnson for 14 yards, one to Hymes for 22. That got them to the Steelers’ 27. From there, they could pick up only one more yard, a familiar theme. Still, Stover’s 44-yard field goal would at least cut the margin to 17-10 with more than a quarter to play.

  Except that Stover missed, wide right. It was only his second actual miss—not counting the block—of the season and his first miss inside 50 yards. He had said prior to the game that the field, though essentially devoid of grass, wasn’t as bad as he had thought it might be. But with the turf getting colder by the minute, he couldn’t get into the ball solidly and he missed. Jeff Reed had better luck on the Steelers’ next drive. After Roethlisberger completed two passes to get the ball to the Ravens’ 28, Cowher decided not to take any more chances with him until and unless it was necessary and put Tommy Maddox into the game. It had been Suggs’s sack of Maddox back in September that had made Roethlisberger the starter. Now, at least temporarily, Suggs had gotten Maddox back onto the field. Maddox was content to hand the ball to Bettis and Haynes until it was time for Reed to come in to kick a
40-yarder that made it 20-7.

  The Ravens’ season was now hanging by a thread. They had to score two touchdowns in under thirteen minutes—and hold the Steelers scoreless—or they would be virtually eliminated from the playoffs. Once again they were able to move into the opponent’s territory. And again they couldn’t finish the job. On fourth down from the Steelers’ 34, Boller’s pass was batted down by Harrison, playing the game of his life against the team that had cut him.

  There were still seven minutes and forty-one seconds left, but the game was over. The Steelers again ran the ball right down the Ravens’ throat. With Maddox in the game and the clock running, the Ravens knew the Steelers weren’t going to throw the ball. They tried ganging up at the line, but it didn’t matter. On third-and-8 from the Pittsburgh 37, Haynes ran straight up the middle and picked up 14 yards. Bettis then carried five times in a row while Billick spent his time-outs, trying to keep the game alive. Lewis was in on all four tackles, trying to tackle Bettis with one arm. He needed help each time. On fourth-and-1 at the Ravens’ 27, Bettis went up the middle one more time and picked up the first down. The Ravens were out of time-outs and out of hope. Maddox took a knee three straight times as the clock ran down.

  At 3:58 P.M. on the day after Christmas, the Ravens hit the pavement after Billick’s leap from the thirtieth-floor window. The crash was almost silent.

  They were now 8-7, a record unthinkable before the season. The Broncos had already won the day before, and the Jaguars were about to win. The Bills were a virtual lock to win in San Francisco. That would put them behind three teams for the final wild-card spot. One might lose the next week, perhaps even two. But three? Just about impossible.

  Billick stood in the middle of the locker room, hands on hips for a long while. Some of the players were slow to reach the locker room. Others were sitting in front of lockers, heads down. Everyone knew what had just happened. Billick was trying to gather himself, thinking about what to say. He knew this moment didn’t call for telling them it was all still out there for them. It wasn’t.