The Cut (13 page)

CMC88: I'm not close enough to the situation to be able to answer that with any authority, but I know Brookman's statistics have been good since he arrived in New York.

Smart, safe answer
, Bolton thought.
Whoever this guy is, he's no fool.
Someone in the front office, most likely. An assistant, or maybe an executive trying to undercut Gray or Palmer so he can take a step up.

GEB@ESPN: How is the rest of the team responding to the conflict?

A dual-purpose question—again, to gain insight into the mystery person, but also to dig up more information for the next piece.

CMC88: I don't think the mood around the club is very good, but it's probably due more to other things than to this. But this isn't helping.

Bingo!
What a terrific sentiment, definitely usable.
The natives are restless.

GEB@ESPN: What other things? I'm guessing you can't tell me everything, but can you tell me ≫ some ≪; things? Anything?

CMC88: There's a losing attitude around here, a sense of hopelessness. The team hasn't had a winning record in a while. I'm not saying a mutiny is about to occur, but the players, I think, are beginning to lose faith.

GEB@ESPN: That's interesting. How about the other three tight ends? The new ones? How are they doing?

CMC88: Too early to say.

GEB@ESPN: Any chance one of them could replace Brookman, and Brookman could be released?

CMC88: Again, too early to say.

GEB@ESPN: What about the—

CMC88: I have to go now, Greg. Sorry. I'll be in touch.

GEB@ESPN: Wait, please. One more question.

Bolton waited, but after a few minutes it was obvious his source had abandoned him. That's how it always ended, abruptly, without warning. He was a little disappointed, but not much—once again, he got the scoop. His competitors were going crazy trying to figure out how he knew so much about the story; everybody wanted to know who was feeding him. A little professional jealousy, but that was life. He frankly wasn't even sure he
cared
who the source was. He had begun to think of the guy as his personal Deep Throat—the NFL equivalent of Mark Felt, the former assistant director of the FBI who gave
Washington Post
reporters Woodward and Bernstein the information that eventually led to the exposure of the Watergate scandal and the downfall of President Richard M. Nixon. What was more of a mystery to Bolton was why this person had chosen
him.
There were other sportswriters and broadcasters with more experience, more respect, more prestige. Why Greg Bolton? He was certainly thankful for it, but he couldn't help wondering about the rationale.

Now he had to call around the Giants' offices and talk to a few people, follow up on the information to confirm it. He knew it would be solid; so far it had been dead-on. Still, this was the procedure. He got the feeling the front-office folks over there were beginning to hate hearing from him. The last person he spoke with was so nasty that he knew he was on the right track.
A bitter employee?
he wondered, then replaced the word “bitter” in his mind with “disgruntled.” It was an adjective that had become popular in recent years, the buzzword for people who were angry with their employers and decided to strike back in whatever way they could. If they were postal workers, it usually involved weaponry and bloodshed. In this case, however, the method of vengeance was a bit more subtle.

Pure gold.

With renewed energy and less than an hour to go before his plane departed, Bolton closed out the yawner of a Panthers story and opened a new document. Forty minutes later it was traveling to his editor via the miracle of cyberspace.

From there it became one of the lead stories on
SportsCenter.

12

Training camp, Daimon
Foster realized after a few days, was all about one thing—
execution
.

You didn't make the team because you were the biggest or the fastest. You didn't make it because you went to the best school or had the most impressive stats at the combines. You made it because you could execute. A lot of guys who appeared to have everything going for them, at least on paper, couldn't do it. They had the strength of bulls and the speed of gazelles, but, for one tragic reason or another, they just couldn't make the plays happen.
It's all about getting it done.

When he pitched this notion to Jim O'Leary on the sixth day, as they walked to the fields in the morning, the O'Leary smiled and nodded. “You got it.” Foster thought he was impressed, perhaps because he had figured it out so quickly whereas some who had been to camps three or four times never made this crucial realization. “No team in the league can afford to keep a guy who can't make plays,” O'Leary added. It was as simple as that—nothing else mattered. You could be a walk-on who was working as a car mechanic the week before, and if you could make amazing throws as a quarterback or amazing catches as a receiver, they'd sign your ass to a contract.

Foster stood on the sidelines, along with Reese, Hamilton, and most of his other teammates, and watched Greenwood take small groups through one drill after another. Everyone who had played organized football—from Pop Warner to the pros—knew about drills. There were literally thousands of them, each with a different purpose. Some focused on the running game, some on passing. Some were for the benefit of the defense, some for the offense. Some exposed weaknesses in single positions—and, to that end, a few matched up only two guys in what amounted to little more than tests of raw strength and willpower. There were drills being used that had been dreamed up by coaches half a century ago, and others that had been designed within the last few weeks. They produced nothing but data.

Greenwood started the session with a drill for the offensive line. He wanted to see who could stop the blitz. He borrowed some of Gray's defensive hopefuls, and he purposely made the situation disproportionate—five O-liners against seven D's in a 4–3 formation. They were in full pads, but the quarterback was redshirted and therefore untouchable. The belief was that if the O-line could hold off all seven of them for a respectable amount of time, they could more than handle similar pressure in a real game, where they would have the added support of the rest of the offense. The quarterback made the count, and the D-backs bounced and jittered, juiced by the challenge and hungry to prove their worth to their own coaches. Greenwood clicked his stopwatch the moment the ball was snapped. The defense would, of course, eventually penetrate and collapse the pocket; the issue was how long this would take. At one point, a second-year linebacker knocked starting quarterback Mark Lockenmeyer to the ground, which earned him Dale Greenwood's considerable, albeit rarely displayed, wrath. There were some shoving matches as well.

At just after eleven, Greenwood turned to his three new tight end prospects and said, “Okay, you guys are next. Daimon, you first, pal.”

With butterflies in his belly, Foster jogged out to the field and waited for the others to line up. This would be another lopsided drill in favor of the defense. The goal of the offense was to open a lane for the running back. The defense also had the ridiculous advantage of knowing exactly what play was coming, so the challenge for the O-guys was even greater. Again, it was believed that their success in this one-sided situation would prove their ability to execute in a normal game, where the opponent would be much less likely to know what to expect.

Foster positioned himself in the traditional three-point stance on the right side, and his butterflies turned into bats when he saw Jared Kirch, the 255-pound, six-five outside linebacker, move directly in front of him. Kirch was a walking oak tree. In his fourth year with the team after being drafted in the third round out of Fresno State, he looked more like a creature from a sci-fi novel than a human being. The dark face framed inside the helmet was carved from granite and featured the wild eyes of a serial killer. There was little doubt that Kirch would make the team, but he wasn't taking any chances. He was the perfect Alan Gray–type guy, bordering on madness and eager to inflict pain.
This guy could snap my head off and eat it,
Foster thought, mustering all his strength to appear casual. In that moment, for whatever reason, he also remembered something he read way back when he was preparing for the combines.
Everything is faster in the NFL. Forget what you saw in college.

As Lockenmeyer called the count, Foster realized Kirch was staring him down, looking not just at him but
into
him. At this level, the psychology was as important as the physics.
If they successfully intimidate you, they've already beaten you.

When the ball was snapped, Kirch came off the line as if he'd been fired from a bazooka. Foster had watched other guys do this for the last five days, yet it was an entirely different experience when you were part of it. He compared it to watching a baseball game. On TV, you could actually see the ball move from the pitcher to the catcher. In person, it appeared as little more than a blur.

Kirch's monster-hands came up and pushed Foster off his feet in a span of perhaps half a second. The next thing Daimon Foster knew, he was staring at the blue sky and being serenaded by the humiliating sound of his teammates' laughter.

“Sonofa
bitch
!” he growled, jumping back up.

“We may want to try that one again,” Greenwood said flatly. Foster was too embarrassed to make eye contact with him, but with his peripheral vision he could see Jim O'Leary smiling. He seemed to have been granted a pass on this first error. A little comedy to ease the tension.

As Kirch jogged past Foster to return to his side of the line, he quipped, “Get used to it, princess.”

Few things shifted Foster's motivation into high gear faster than being kicked when he was down. Sci-fi freak or not, Jared Kirch was not going to get the better of him twice. And Foster realized something else, something that would prove invaluable in the future.
I've established an image of myself in his mind, so now he has an expectation of me
.
I can use this to my advantage.

They lined up again, and when the ball was snapped, Foster didn't make the mistake of moving upward, where his body would be an easier target. Instead, he attacked low and in, applying his hands to Kirch's considerable torso while planting one foot a bit behind the other. He pushed with all available power, and the world spun around crazily. For a fearful moment he thought Kirch had somehow gotten the better of him again. When he opened his eyes, however, he found he was still standing, his running back zipping past him on the left, and Jared Kirch lying on the grass at his feet. There was more laughter, accompanied this time by sporadic applause.

“Holy shit,” Daimon said so quietly that no one heard it. A smile began forming on his lips, too, but he squelched it.

“Lucky motherfucker,” Kirch said as he scrambled up. Foster wanted to say,
Not bad for a princess, huh?
but thought better of it. He had made his first enemy, one who no doubt would have him in his gunsights for the next few weeks. There was no point in throwing more fuel on the fire.

Corey Reese was next. He faced off against one of Gray's rookies. The kid wasn't as big as Kirch, but he had the unmistakable fire and intensity of a greenhorn.

“I'm gonna getcha,” the kid kept saying, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He said it so fast that it sounded like one word.
Umgonnagitcha. Umgonnagitcha
. Reese ignored him, watched Lockenmeyer, and waited for the count. When the ball moved, the kid lunged forward—but his target was almost gone before he got there. Reese dropped low and inside, and the rookie missed him completely, stumbling over Reese's well-conceived chop block and sailing to the ground. The laughter was almost deafening, and the kid walked sheepishly away, quickly dispatched and a little wiser. Everyone remembered why Corey Reese had once been one of the best in his position—he was a notch or two smarter than most.

Turning randomly to one of his teammates, Reese said with a grin, “I love doing that.” The teammate, who had had no earlier exchanges with Reese, smiled back and said, “Sweet.”

Jermaine Hamilton lined up opposite another kid, one who had remained quiet throughout most of camp. His name was Dorwin Leer. Like Kirch, Leer was a giant and in immaculate physical shape. Hamilton had seen him around, knew that he wore little round glasses and read classic literature when he wasn't on the field. He kept himself well groomed and moved in a careful, measured way. An intellect—a guy who reflected upon football in an
intellectual
way. If he hadn't been gifted with his physique, he'd probably be a professor somewhere. Hamilton had seen his type before.

Leer lined up on the opposite side. His stance was picture-perfect, as if he were posing for a photograph in a how-to guide. When the snap came, he launched flawlessly off the line, leaning forward just enough to produce leverage without risk of losing his balance. He'd probably practiced this in front of a mirror a few hundred times.

Hamilton couldn't help laughing as he ducked low, reached out, and actually grabbed a hunk of Leer's stomach with both hands. The stunned defensive end wanted to push Hamilton away, but he instinctively realized this would likely cost him a skin graft about a foot long. Hamilton then drove his hopelessly perplexed victim back far enough to create a lane wide enough for an ocean liner. The running back participating in the drill didn't even bother going through it.

“You won't find that one in a book,” Hamilton said, putting his arm around Leer as they walked away, “but you better watch out for it.” Hamilton then made the good-natured gesture of showing Leer how to defend against it—by slapping the tight end's hands down first, then continuing the motion with an upward push against the chest.