One Hundred Fourteen
THE PAIN DOESN’T get any better as the game plays out, but it doesn’t get any worse, either. Maybe because I can’t imagine how it could at this point, the area behind the shoulder throbbing constantly.
And I don’t care.
I don’t miss a single play, no matter how hard I get blocked or hit the ground or hit somebody else, not hesitating to lower my right shoulder when I have to.
It all keeps coming back to me with each play I’m in on, what it feels like, really feels like, to be competing again. At any level. Hit and get hit. Knowing how much the guys you’re playing with want it, and knowing the other guys want it just as much as you do.
When I was the quarterback, the game was in my hands every time my team had the ball.
Every play was like pass-fail. This is different.
Sometimes I won’t be anywhere near the play.
Sometimes I have to be satisfied helping out the rest of the defense by just knocking the blocker in front of me to the side, or right out of the play.
The Stallions go ahead, 28–27. I get my first sack and then get another two plays later. Before long, we’re ahead, 35–30. But they get the ball back with under two minutes to play. It’s their quarterback who gets the chance to do what I did so many times in high school and college:
Take his team down the field to win the game.
Jamal Henks completes a pass to the sideline. Then another. Then one over the middle. He’s getting too much time now, everybody rushing him feeling as tired as I do.
Get off, I keep telling myself.
Get off for just one more damn minute.
The Renegades finally end up on our one-yard line after one more pretty great scramble from Henks, three seconds left. They call their last timeout. Kind of thing every kid dreams about, all the way back. One play to win the championship.
The kid comes out with water bottles. I take one. As I do and bring it to my mouth, I can see my right hand trembling all over again, worse than before, so I take a quick drink and toss the bottle back in the kid’s bucket.
Our middle linebacker, and defensive play caller, is a tough bastard named Dickie Nobles, a ten-year veteran of the NFL finishing out his career in this league, having told me during the week that he finally had the chance he’d dreamed about his whole life to win a title, and was about to retire if he did.
“He’s gonna call a run-pass option to his right, no matter what play they send in,” I say to Dickie Nobles.
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I’d do.”
“He hasn’t run that all day,” Dickie says.
“Which is exactly why he’s going to run it now.”
“You know how to defend it?”
“I better” is the best I can do.
Ref blows his whistle, sets the ball back down. They come out of the huddle and line up. Dickie moves some guys around behind me. I’m so dog-ass tired at this point, I don’t even get into a three-point stance. I block out all the crowd noise again, only listening to the snap count.
What would you have paid for one more game? Tay had asked.
Jamal Henks steps back into the shotgun, changing the play as he does when he sees the way we’re lined up—I hear him do it as he calls the signals.
I know it’s the run-pass option, what they call an RPO, without knowing for sure.
Henks looks to his right when the ball is in his hands, the halfback who’d lined up next to him running with him.
I’m chasing the play hard, but feeling lost at the same time, not knowing what my read is going to be in real time.
Not knowing whether he’s going to hand it or run it himself or look for Tyler Moss, who I know is behind me somewhere in the end zone.
Dickie Nobles has a shot at Henks.
But he’s a step slow.
Their right tackle tries to get in front of me at the last second.
He’s too slow.
I see Jamal Henks pulling the ball down, turning the corner, see the angle he has to get to the pylon on the goal line if he wants to run.
If he beats me to that spot, we lose.
And then at the very last possible moment, I can read him just well enough, see body language from a quarterback that is part of my DNA by now.
I see him slow just enough.
And pull up.
And now I’m not running for Henks, I’m running to get in front of him before it’s too late.
Then I’m the one who knows the right move even if I’ve never made it in my life.
I’m squaring up and leaping into the air on tired legs, and my arms are way up there, too, as Henks releases the ball intended for Tyler Moss.
It ends up in my hands instead, probably shocking him almost as much as it shocks me.
And then I’m a runner again, for the first time in a long time. I know that all I have to do is fall down, because the game will be over and the Stallions will win as soon as I do.
But one more time, I’ve got the ball and the game in my hands even though the game was over the moment I intercepted the ball.
And even though it is over, their fastest guys are still chasing me, only they’re not catching me, and I’m going to end up running ninety-nine yards for the touchdown that makes the final score 41–30 for my team.
When I turn back around and see what looks like the entire Stallions team running for me, I see that old Dickie Nobles is leading the pack, like somehow he’s young again.
When he gets to me, he yanks off his helmet and pulls me into a bear hug and yells, “You were right, man! You were right!”
I tip my own helmet back so he can see I’m just as happy about that as he is.
“What can I tell you,” I say. “Once a quarterback, always a quarterback.”