Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile Read Online Free PDF Page B

sit. I’m trying to peek at the papers. I wonder if any of them have to do with me. What is it that Bill Walsh reads all day up here?
    —Well, I’ll get right to it. We’ve traded you to Denver. As you know, you’ve been stuck down at the bottom of the depth chart. I asked Coach Erickson if you were going to make the team here. He said no. So I asked his permission to make a few calls on your behalf. I called Denver and Mike Shanahan was interested. He’s a great coach. You’ll get a fair shot there. I can promise you that. I think this is exactly what you need, Nate. You okay with all of this?
    —Yeah, of course.
    —I know it’s a lot to take in right now but you’ll be fine. Your flight leaves in three hours. You better get going. Good luck, Nate.
    I thank him for everything, we shake hands, and I’m out the door. I change out of my 49ers gear in the empty locker room and leave. My teammates will come back after practice and my locker will be cleaned out. I will never see them again without a helmet on.
    Two hours later I’m at the airport with a duffel bag. I am meat, traded to the highest bidder: the only bidder. Fine, I’ll be your meat. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. Just give me a helmet.

2
    My Life as Randy Moss
    (2003)
    I arrive at Denver International Airport and am greeted by a driver holding a piece of paper with my name on it. I sit in the backseat and look out the window as he narrates the passing landscape.
    —You can’t see it now but directly ahead of us are the Rocky Mountains. Beautiful sight when it starts snowing. Usually get our first snow in late September or early October. As you can see, downtown’s over thataway.
    He points across the passenger seat with his gloved hand.
    —But we’re headed south of that to Dove Valley. That’s where Broncos headquarters are. Boy, Denver is Broncos crazy, I tell ya. I’m not a Broncos fan myself. No offense. Everyone takes football so seriously around here.
    —Huh.
    —No idea why they built the airport so far away. Kinda makes you feel like you’re landing in the middle of the prairie, doesn’t it? And I gotta drive up and back and up and back, all day long, forty minutes each way. Anyway, it could be worse, I guess. You see that building?
    —Yeah.
    —We call that the ‘Sore Thumb’ building.
    —Why’s that?
    —Because it sticks out like a sore thumb.
    We exit the freeway at the Sore Thumb building and go east on Arapahoe Road. It is lined with car dealerships, all bearing the licensed name of Denver’s golden child: John Elway Ford, John Elway Toyota, John Elway Honda, etc.
    —Wow, you were right. They really do love their Broncos.
    —You have no idea.
    He drops me off at the Holiday Inn, right up the street from the Broncos facility. I check into my room and look at the clock: it’s just after eleven. I sit down on the bed. I am chasing my dream alone.
    Nine hours later I sit in my new locker fiddling with my equipment. The Denver Broncos locker room buzzes around me. I am summoned into the training room where I have a brief physical exam with Steve Antonopulos, aka “Greek,” the Broncos head trainer, whom I’ll come to know as a sometimes not-grumpy bald man with a walrusy mustache. He scribbles his findings and files it with my already growing medical chart: “Physical examination demonstrates a left shoulder that appears stable on exam today after arthroscopic stabilization and some minimal achilles tendinosis. His plan therefore will be for routine foot care, continue shoulder strengthening exercises and treatment as needed. Continue anti-inflammatory medications and treatment in the training room for his left achilles tendon.”
    I’m given jersey number 14: standard-issue training camp receiver number. The eighties numbers go to active receivers and tight ends. The rest of us get numbers in the teens—the leftovers, basically. I jog out onto the field for morning practice and my new teammates look at me and