Eighty-Four
I’D FORGOTTEN WHAT it was like to be in the zone, and in the moment, when your whole world is just the next snap, when it’s you on your side of the line and the other guys on theirs, and you’re not trying to win the game, just the next play.
But I am right back there now, being carried along by adrenaline and good nerves and the drug of competition, even on a practice field on a Saturday morning, without pads, with just four guys between me and the quarterback.
Play after play I’m going through my own progression, at top speed, doing all the things I’ve taught myself to do, in what’s been like my own personal boot camp for the past couple of weeks.
I’m getting around Shane Motha on the outside, or getting between him and Hassan Hilton, the guard, when I go with an inside move on my way to Kyle McNulty.
There’s one play where I’m spinning off Motha and catching him with an elbow, because all the best pass rushers know how to use their elbows to get traction and leverage, and I hear the wind come right out of him.
“The fuck,” he growls, doubling over.
“Sorry, man,” I say.
But we both know I’m really not. Something else has already come back to me, as fast as everything else:
Either you want to compete or you don’t.
Before long, it’s as if I know when the ball is going to be snapped before it’s even in McNulty’s hands. I have to stop myself more than once to keep myself from running right through him, the way guys used to try to run through me when I was the one with the ball.
“Dude,” McNulty says to me at one point. “You sure you never played defense before? You’re on fire.”
I tip back my helmet just enough for him to see the smile on my face.
“Being unemployed will do that.”
I go back and line up. Blasingame blows his whistle. I blow by Motha and Hilton again. Speed, I keep telling myself. That’s what he wants to see.
On the next snap, another one I almost jump, I am nearly past Shane Motha again, making another inside move, when his right forearm is suddenly and violently underneath my chin strap, catching me squarely in the throat, knocking the air out of me and knocking me on my ass as I gasp for breath.
I hear Gus Blasingame’s whistle before the back of my helmet is snapping off the ground.
“What the fuck was that, Motha?” Blasingame asks.
“Football,” Motha says, and walks away.
Blasingame reaches down to help me up.
“You need a break?”
“I’ve already had my break.”
Two plays later, I fake a spin move, stay to the outside this time, and throw an elbow to Motha’s big belly that’s as hard as if I just threw a punch.
And then he’s the one falling on his ass and even though I don’t really need to, I let all of my weight fall with me, like a house crashing down on top of him.
I don’t move, and he can’t, until I hear him say this:
“Get off.”