Eighty-Three
AT NINE THE next morning, Vince and I are with Gus Blasingame in the Steelers locker room at Rooney Sports Complex.
By now it’s all over social media that the tryout is happening, which doesn’t surprise me, just because I’d been dealing with the media long enough to know there aren’t any secrets anymore, at least not for very long.
“I just want you to know it wasn’t me who leaked it,” Gus Blasingame says. “I frankly don’t know who might have done it.”
“Same person who always does,” I say, grinning at him. “Somebody.”
“Anyway, it’s like we already talked about,” Blasingame says.
“Got three of our backup offensive linemen for this, a kid running back from our practice squad, and our third-string quarterback. And I gotta tell you, Silas, those three hogs from the O line are more than a little ornery about me bringing them in here after a preseason game on Thursday night and on what was supposed to be one of their last days off before the start of the regular season.”
“Tell them it might be for the greater good,” I say.
“Tried that already. Didn’t fly.”
No pads today. Shorts, T-shirt, helmet, all of which had been set out in front of the locker they’d given me, one that even had my name over it. Maybe one they’d had the nameplate made up for before my accident.
Gus Blasingame had also told me they hadn’t forgotten my helmet size.
“Neither have I.”
He says he’ll see me out there and then it’s just Vince and me in this room, with its locker-room smells and feel, the locker-room air I’m breathing again, all of it making me so excited I feel like I’m about half drunk.
“How we lookin’?” Vince asks when it’s time to go out there.
“Like home,” I say.
Gus Blasingame has decided to have a little fun with my tunnel walk, just for the hell of it, having somebody blast one of the Steelers stadium songs from the loudspeakers at the corners of the field—Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow.”
There are a dozen or so media people at midfield, along with a couple of cameramen in the scrum.
“I figured they’d be able to use their phones to take some video, anyway,” he says. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Coach,” I say. “I’ve had cameras on me since I was about fourteen years old. A couple more won’t hurt.”
“One last time,” he says. “You know this is a long shot.”
“Just as long as it’s a fair shot.”
“It is.”
The biggest offensive lineman is a former All-Pro, Shane Motha, still way past 350 pounds and still a wagon, even if he’s a backup at this stage of his career. Motha doesn’t even bother shaking my hand.
Shane Motha walks away from me and says, “Let’s get this dogshit-and-pony show over with.”
“Be nice, big man,” Gus Blasingame tells him.
“Nice wasn’t part of the deal.”
The drills, in the hands of an undrafted rookie quarterback named Kyle McNulty, are going to be simple enough.
Ball gets snapped to McNulty and he either hands it off or throws it in the direction of Vince Tarplay—the only one out here not wearing a helmet, and standing about twenty yards down the field.
My job is simple: get to the ball. I know that’s what Gus Blasingame is looking for, because it’s the same thing they’re always looking for from edge rushers, how fast they can cover those five or so yards.
My father told me one time: You had the speed when you were a baby in a crib, same as you had the arm. The world just didn’t know it yet.
Now those five yards between me and the quarterback are pretty much my whole world.
It’s all there in every video I’ve watched for weeks to get ready for this, the same message, or maybe mantra:
Get off.
They all use that expression, over and over again. Get off once the ball is snapped. Get to the quarterback, or the ball. Move so fast, and the best ones move blindingly fast, that you feel as if you’re being blocked by only half a man, even when the man is as big as Shane Motha.
Hand-fight when you have to, the way I’ve been teaching myself to do with Vince in that field behind his house. Spin if you’ve got time.
Get off get off get off.
From the first time the ball is snapped, I’m flying.