Last Man Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

when the drills Tommy’s dad would put him through didn’t require a ball.
    â€œYou ready to work?” his dad asked.
    â€œAlways.”
    Tonight Tommy’s dad was going to work with him on studying a quarterback’s moves.
    â€œMost guys on defense,” his dad said, “think their job doesn’t start until the ball is snapped. But they’re wrong. They’re the ones who are always going to be a step or two behind the play.”
    His dad didn’t say it out loud, but Tommy knew what he was thinking: Patrick Gallagher’s kid was never going to play a step behind.
    â€œYou start fighting—and winning—the battle against the offense before the ball’s even been snapped.
    â€œLike Malcolm Butler,” Tommy said.
    â€œExactly.”
    Tommy knew by now that his dad thought Butler had made the biggest defensive play in Super Bowl history. And he thought Butler had done so because the play had really started for him as soon as Russell Wilson, the Seattle QB, had approached the line of scrimmage.
    â€œAs soon as that kid saw the formation, he knew what they were planning to run,” Tommy’s dad said. “In that moment, he was smarter than Wilson, smarter than the Seattle coach, smarter than their offensive coordinator. We’re talking about a kid who couldn’t even make it at a junior college in Mississippi. Playing the biggest game of his life he saw the three-receiver set and he recognized it from practice sessions before the Super Bowl. And he just
knew
. That was why he was just sitting there waiting when Wilson tried to throw the slant pass that he was sure was going to win the game for the Seahawks.”
    â€œThey should have run Marshawn Lynch,” Tommy said.
    â€œThat’s not the point. Coach Belichick was daring them to risk not getting that yard and having to use their last time-out. My point is that it wasn’t just Butler’s talent that helped him make that interception; it was his mind.”
    His dad was big on that. Talent plus judgment. He said thatif you didn’t have both in sports, you’d generally lose to somebody who did. His own problem in football, he’d always told Tommy, was that he’d had more intelligence on the field than talent.
    â€œPeople have this idea that quarterbacks are the only great thinkers on a football field. Good thing they’re not, or I would have never gotten off the bench.”
    Tommy grinned at his dad again. “I thought you said we were going to work. Or are you just gonna talk all night?”
    They separated by about twenty yards, Tommy’s dad pretending to be a quarterback dropping back to pass. He told Tommy to watch as much as he could at once, try to see the whole picture, his feet, where his eyes were looking, how he angled his body when he was setting the ball to throw. Sometimes he’d drop straight back; sometimes he’d roll to his right or his left. But every time, Tommy was supposed to react to what he was seeing the way he would if he were back in coverage.
    Then his dad would yell, “Now!” and release the ball, expecting Tommy to anticipate his movements, every single time.
    When Tommy would sprint in one direction and the ball would go the other, he’d not only have to chase it down, he’d also have to explain to his dad why he’d made the wrong read.
    â€œI know how much you love to read books,” his dad said. “Well, I want you to love reading QBs on a football field just as much, even if it’s speed-reading a lot of the time.”
    As their practice wore on, Tommy’s reading got better and better. After about an hour, after he’d not only read him perfectly but picked the ball off, his dad said, “You getting tired?”
    â€œAre you?”
    â€œNever!” his dad said. “You know me. Last man standing.”
    â€œNot when I’m on the field, too.”
    â€œThat’s