Some Guys Make It Look Easy
Jeff Foley
Tuesday May 16, 2000
“All you new guys, listen up,” Brown says. “If you have any questions, ask me or one of the other veterans. Ain’t nobody here so worried about you taking their job that they ain’t gonna help you out. So you ask questions if you don’t know what you’re doing, and if somebody gives you a hard time or they don’t want to help you out, you let me know. I’ll take care of it.”
Offensive coordinator Ed Hodgkiss has Brown demonstrate nearly every pattern before anybody else runs it. Each time, the future Hall-of-Fame athlete draws rave reviews from Hodgkiss. And on several occasions, Brown tells Hodgkiss that he wants to change the route a bit, adding his own personal touch.
“That’s OK,” the offensive coordinator says, spitting chewing tobacco into a paper cup. “Go ahead. Nobody’s going to run them that way but you.”
On a deep pattern, where Brown sprints about 40 yards, Jeff Loots comes up short on the throw. Then Raymond Philyaw does the same thing, causing Brown to break his stride and turn around to make the catch.
“What, are y’all out of bullets already?” Brown shouts. Every receiver watches him challenge the quarterbacks. “I know I ain’t running that fast. I shouldn’t have to slow down for the ball. Y’all must be out of bullets.”
Loots and Philyaw glare, but both respond by throwing strikes. Neither comes up short again.
On the next play, a rookie receiver takes his pattern to the cones, which represent out-of-bounds barriers. Loots puts the ball right where the receiver wants it, near the cones, and the rookie drags both feet as he falls to the ground with the ball in his hands. He laughs and holds up an arm, signaling that he made the catch.
“You know what those cones are for, right?” says Brown, addressing the group behind him. “Y’all know there’s a wall on the inside game, right? He never would have caught that indoors. If you want to smash into the wall at full speed, that’s up to you. But it’s a lot better to run that part of your route under control, so you can turn it upfield. Sometimes you gotta take one for your quarterback, when he has no choice but to put the ball there. Then you do what you have to do. I hit the wall so hard once, that when I came back to the huddle I said to (Mike) Pawlawski, ‘Beers are on you tonight. Beers are definitely on you.’”
It’s obvious that Brown considers dispensing knowledge part of his job.
“I try to help out,” says the two-time AFL Player of the Year. “I sit back and I remember my days. I was in their shoes one day. When I first came here I was fourth or fifth team. Fifth string. And I was brought to a place, didn’t know nobody, didn’t know where I was at. I was on foreign land. But I had a mission, and my mission was to get a job. So what I try to do is let those guys know that’s what you’re supposed to do. You don’t have time for nothing else ... You got to prepare yourself before you even get here. Be in shape, be in good condition. Ask 400,000 questions so you know what you’re doing, so you’re not making mistakes.”
Brown takes pride in knowing that rookies feel comfortable coming to him for advice.
“That shows that not only am I a good football player, but I’m a good person. And I think being labeled as a good person carries more weight than a lot of things in life.”
I may turn to Brown for answers soon. During a receiving drill, with no defender on me, I drop three passes in a row. Each ball is well thrown, but I flinch and close my eyes every time. “The ball is your friend,” says a teammate. Philyaw pats me on the helmet after I drop one of his passes, a perfect toss that hits me in the hands and flutters to the ground. “It’s OK,” he says. “You’ve got time.”
Carl Sacco is not having any problems catching the football. In an eight-on-eight drill – representative of an actual game, where each team plays eight guys – the wide receiver/linebacker falls and hauls in a low bullet by Loots with one hand. Sacco hits the ground hard as his teammates cheer.
After, Sacco says of the catch: “It wasn’t worth it. Now I’m all banged up. I should’ve just walked back to the huddle and said, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to get those up.’ It’s not worth it. I don’t dive.”
Loots says his shoulder, the one he had surgery on during the off-season, is sore.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “No matter how bad you get, I’ll always be the bad Jeff.”
Finally, Coach Dailey calls an end to the day. I feel terrible, having dropped so many passes. It’s all I can talk about as we walk to the locker room. Preston Vinson, a rookie lineman, hears me talking about my inability to hold onto the football and grabs me by the shoulder pads. His grip makes it clear that I’m supposed to hear him out.
“I don’t care how many you dropped,” he says. “You keep trying. That makes you OK with me. And when I’m doing pass protection, I put myself in the best possible place. I see myself home with my wife. That’s what you’ve got to do. Put yourself in the best place. Picture that ball being a baby’s head cradled in your arms. You’ll get it, man. Just keep trying.”
Jeff Foley was a writer for ArenaFan Online from 2000 to 2001.
