Coming Back Stronger (13 page)

By the time summer came, I could tell my legs were in good shape, my core was where it needed to be, and my mind was as focused and tough as it had ever been. But I still wasn’t sure about the arm and shoulder. Will Demps, a safety for the Giants at the time, was coming off an ACL injury, and he would throw with me at the rehab facility. On the weekends, when the rehab place was closed, Brittany and I would go outside her parents’ home, and I’d throw to her or have her help stretch my arm to keep it loose. I was amazed by the team of medical staff, family, and friends who rallied around me and helped me get to where I needed to be by the time training camp rolled around.

I was excited—I couldn’t wait for my first training camp with the Saints. But I was more anxious than I’d ever been. Would I be able to perform? In training camp you throw so much that even a healthy arm gets fatigued. What would happen to an arm with a bunch of anchors in it—an arm that was still in recovery mode?

In July 2006, six months after my surgery, I headed to Jackson, Mississippi, for training camp. It wasn’t just a first for me—this was Sean Payton’s first training camp with the Saints too. More than that, it was his first training camp as a head coach. He warned the team beforehand about how hard it would be. “You’d better come to camp with your mind right and ready to work harder than you have ever worked in your life,” he said. It was just like boot camp, where they tear you down as an individual before building you back up as a team—a unit that can never be broken. Later some of the guys said the 2006 training camp took years off their lives. I was there, and I believe it.

Every training camp I’ve ever been part of, from high school to college to the pros, has been about survival. It’s always intense. But Sean wanted to make it exceptionally tough to show he was going to expect the very best from us. He wanted us to blow past the perceived limits of history and set new standards for what we could accomplish. Couple that determination from the head coach with the humidity of a Mississippi summer, heat indexes over 110 degrees, and full pads, and you have a recipe for sweat, fatigue, and plenty of sore muscles.

We had a lot of consecutive two-a-days, which tends to be rare for teams in the NFL now. For five weeks we were outside in the sun every day, and there was no respite from the other trials that plagued us. Mosquitoes. Muscle cramps. Dehydration. Fifteen or twenty guys would get IVs after practice to replace the fluids they’d lost. It was physical, hot, and brutal.

As a quarterback in training camp, you aren’t taking quite the same pounding on your body that the other positions have to deal with. Your legs get sore from all the footwork drills and drops in the pocket, and your arm might be sore from throwing so much, but the rest of your joints are spared from the constant banging that players in other positions endure on the field. The grind for a quarterback is more mental than it is physical. You have to study to make sure you know what every person on both offense and defense is doing. On top of that, I was adjusting to playing football again, getting acquainted with a new team, and getting used to a new coach, a new system, and a new playbook. It was the first time I’d had any physical contact since I’d shredded my shoulder. And it was the first time I’d sported a Saints fleur-de-lis on my helmet.

During the past six months of recovery, I had convinced myself to take it slow and trust the process of healing. But I knew coming into training camp that my arm was not 100 percent; I was probably closer to 70 percent at the time. I told myself that as long as I could creep up a percent or so each day and continue to get stronger, by the time the regular season started, I would be ready.

Sean and the other coaches understood I had to ease into things, but I really wanted to show them I was close. The first day went pretty well. It was good to be back on the field after spending all that time stuck in a La-Z-Boy and tossing the ball around on a patch of grass. It was rejuvenating to be with teammates who welcomed me and were ready for a new start, a new season. As you can imagine, it was hard to attract free agents and other young talent to the Saints that year. Many of the core players from our 2009 Super Bowl team were “castaways” from other teams, brought in for the 2006 season. We had either traded for them or signed them in free agency when few other teams wanted them. It’s not a knock on those guys—it’s just the truth. This mentality that nobody else wanted us put a chip on our shoulders and united us and made New Orleans our safe haven. With so many people doubting my return as a starting quarterback in the league, I felt like one of those castaways myself.

That year we acquired our center Jeff Faine in a draft day trade with Cleveland, as well as our noseguard Hollis Thomas from Philadelphia. In fact, our entire starting linebacker core was acquired that year. Scott Fujita was a free agent from Dallas, Mark Simoneau came in a trade with Philadelphia, and we got Scott Shanle in a trade with Dallas. To a lot of people’s surprise, these guys who had been written off by the rest of the league played a critical role in our success in 2006.

We had a throw count during training camp—like a pitch count in baseball—that consisted of the number of balls I threw to receivers each day. That first day I threw about eighty balls. I threw during the entire morning practice and then rested my arm in the afternoon. Going back to the dorm that night, I felt pretty good. Not a bad start to a new era, I thought. I had every reason to believe the next day would be even better.

I went out the second morning of training camp and began to stretch my arm. It didn’t take long to realize how sore it was from throwing the first day. I tried to ignore it, and I certainly wasn’t going to let on to anyone that I had a sore arm after that first stinking day of practice. I got past the long walk-through and stretching time and the ball-handling period with the running backs, and then the horn blew for our traditional “routes on air.” This consists of quarterbacks throwing routes to the receivers with no defense. It’s an opportunity to work on timing and technique and to visualize the play as you execute the route. Sean Payton was a quarterback and had played at all levels—in high school, at Eastern Illinois University, and professionally in the World League in England. He was also the starting quarterback for three games with the Chicago Bears during the 1987 players’ strike. Plus, he had been quarterbacks coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, offensive coordinator for the New York Giants, and passing game coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys before coming to New Orleans. So he knew what goes into being a quarterback and how to coach guys at my position.

Sean was standing about five feet behind me as we began these routes on air in the first practice of the second day. It was just quarterbacks and receivers on the field. The offensive coaches were around, and everyone was anxious to see the improvement of the team from day one to day two. I have probably thrown thousands of balls in thousands of routes on air periods, but the butterflies inside me wouldn’t go away that day. This was my chance to prove that the rehab had worked. I needed to impress these guys—my teammates and my coaches. I was the new quarterback and one of the main building blocks of the new team. There was a lot resting on my right arm.

My sore right arm.

We would start off with short routes to get loose and then gradually progress to throws deeper down the field. As Joe Horn, the receiver to my right, stepped up to the line, I began to stress about the weakness in my arm I had not been able to shake. I stepped up to take the snap and thought, This should be interesting. I took the first snap and dropped back to pass. It was a simple three-step drop to throw a slant to the receiver—the simplest route in football. I have thrown this route a million times and could do it with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back.

The ball thumped into the dirt at Joe’s feet.

I stared at the ball still rolling on the ground as Joe returned to the line. When I released that pass, I had been sure it was heading for Joe’s face mask. If anything, I actually thought it might be a little high. I couldn’t believe how short I was. The velocity was terrible. I had no accuracy. I could feel the coaches staring at me.

Okay, I thought. Still getting loose. No worries. I’m okay.

I took the next snap, dropped back three steps, and threw to another receiver. I don’t even remember who it was now because I was so concerned about sending that first pass into the ground. I put a little more oomph into this pass.

It hit the ground in the exact same spot.

Immediately my thoughts started combusting. My new head coach was behind me, watching every move I made, and it was very quiet back there. But through the thick, humid air, I could feel what he was thinking. Did we make the right decision by bringing him here? Is this guy going to be ready for opening day?

I didn’t even want to look at Sean. It was bad enough that my body had failed me—now I’d failed him too. For the past six months I had been telling myself over and over, You’re going to be ready. Don’t worry. Don’t get frustrated. Don’t get down on yourself. It just takes time. I had visualized what those first passes in training camp were going to be like—what they would feel like, what they would look like, how the receivers would catch the ball, how the coaches would respond. Now that the moment was here, I wanted the instant gratification of making that completion and showing them I was back. Right then, from day one. But I couldn’t even throw a simple slant route.

At that point, I expected Sean to bark at me. He could have kicked himself for choosing me and second-guessed himself, me, Dr. Andrews, and Kevin. Instead, he said three words that epitomize his personality.

“Use your legs,” Sean said.

It was as simple as that. Use your legs.

There was a lot wrapped up in those three words. He was saying to me, I know your arm is not where it needs to be yet. Since your arm is still weak, you need to use the rest of your body to compensate. Your legs are strong. They’re 100 percent. So use your legs.

There was also a little humor in those words. Sean has a unique way of saying things that are funny and seem like casual conversation or simple coaching points but in reality are ways to challenge you mentally and physically as a football player.

Since Sean’s background is in the quarterback position, he was able to give me those types of tips during training camp, and this continued as my arm grew stronger. If I threw a ball that sailed over a guy’s head, he would usually say, “You’re overstriding.” When I would miss a throw behind a receiver to my left, I knew what was coming out of his mouth next. “Get your hips open” or “Get your foot in front of the target.” He knew the mechanics of the position so well that he could tell immediately what went wrong. “Step into it,” he would say if you threw one in the dirt, or “Slow yourself down” if he saw me with happy feet in the pocket. Whenever I was struggling with something, he had advice to help me work through it.

It’s similar to what happens to a golfer when he has a shot that goes astray. It helps to have someone watching his swing who can tell if the timing is off, if he opened up the club too soon, or if he didn’t keep his head down. Same thing with a baseball pitcher. A good coach can tell if his body position was off in his windup or if he needed to adjust his release point. For a quarterback, so much of your success depends on mechanics. Especially when a game gets tight and the pressure mounts, it becomes even more critical that you have those basic fundamentals to lean on. You can’t be thinking about your throwing motion or your feet when you have to convert a fourth-down play to win the game. Those things have to be ingrained in you through repetition and muscle memory. I had been so worried about getting my arm back to throwing 120 balls a day that I’d lost track of the fundamentals. Quality over quantity. As soon as Sean said, “Use your legs,” it clicked. Back to the basics.

My arm got stronger and stronger as training camp progressed, and five days into camp, my pitch count had increased to 120 balls a day, allowing me to take every rep with the first team in both practices each day. Two weeks later we were into the preseason games. Despite my optimism, things didn’t start out so well for me. Our first possession of the preseason ended with a throw right in the dirt in front of Chris Horn on third down and three. Getting back on the field after an injury feels a lot like having live bullets flying at you. Next we played Dallas. I became flustered early in the first quarter because of my lack of success, and we got smoked. Then we faced Indianapolis in Jackson. The final score of that game was 27–14, Colts. Not much to be proud of based on the scoreboard. But something happened in that game that gave me hope.

It had been about four weeks since training camp, when I had thrown that first pass into the dirt. I was playing more than I normally would in a preseason game. Sean had told the starters we were probably going to play three quarters of that game. But we knew from previous experience that if things don’t transpire as planned throughout the course of the game and he doesn’t like what he sees, then you’ll stay in and work. When we hadn’t scored by the middle of the third quarter, he said we needed to get the ball in the end zone before we would come out. It was now a matter of pride for us. We didn’t want to walk out of that game with a zero by our name.

By almost all counts it was a forgettable game. But there was one moment I’ll never forget. In the first quarter, Coach called the play—a twenty-yard route run by the receiver across the field. In order to complete the throw, you end up having to throw the ball about forty yards in the air. I took the snap, reading the defense on my way back. The cornerback covering my primary receiver was playing soft, therefore allowing us to throw the deep out. As I hit the last step in my drop, I hitched up, cocked the ball back, and let it fly.

There’s a feeling unlike any other when the ball leaves your hand just right. You know immediately that it’s a good throw, and there’s a thrill as you watch it spiral downfield into the hands of your receiver. That pass was a good forty yards as it made its way across the field into the hands of Donté Stallworth on the left sideline. He actually dropped it, but I didn’t care. It came out at just the right velocity, perfectly timed with the stride of the receiver, right into his arms. It was just like the old days, before the injury.

That is what I’ve been waiting for, I thought. I’m back! Whatever you want to call it—the magic, the mojo—it was coming to life again. I had the velocity. I had the accuracy. The ball came off my fingertips, and the second it did, I knew that was the exact throw I wanted. Until that game, I knew I was getting better each day, and I could feel the strength coming back to my arm. I had tried to build on the small successes from the previous day. I’d followed the throw count; I’d done my rehabilitation routine consistently; I’d done my stretching—I’d done everything I was supposed to do. I trusted that as long as I did things the right way, good things would happen, and eventually I would be where I needed to be. But it wasn’t until that one throw that my confidence returned. It wasn’t until that moment, when the ball left my hands, that I felt deep down, This is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for. True, it was the only pass out of thirty in that game that felt right. But this proved it was possible. Now I just need a bunch of those to come in a row.

Sean must have thought I was crazy when I approached him after the game, completely excited. I had played poorly, and so had the whole team. The third preseason game is supposed to be a dress rehearsal for the regular season, because generally the starters see the most action in this game prior to the season opener and might not even play in the fourth preseason game.

I walked into Sean’s office after the game with a grin on my face. Scott Fujita has been known to give me a hard time for being “annoyingly optimistic,” and that day was a case in point. There was no reason anyone should have been encouraged by the game we had just played. But I was.

Sean looked at me with a concerned but hopeful expression as I closed his office door and sat down. “Coach, I know things didn’t go the way we wanted them to today.” I couldn’t quench my optimism, but I did understand his frustration. Ever since training camp he had been working hard to pull us together as a team. Despite all his efforts, our offense just wasn’t in sync. We were trying hard and there were occasional bright spots, but for the most part we kept coming up empty.

We needed something good to happen—and soon. When you’ve been beaten down for so long, it doesn’t matter how hard you work; it can feel like the next thing around the bend is going to be another blow. Whether it’s in football or in a job or in a relationship or with finances, it often seems like bad things compound on each other. Pretty soon you start to wonder if you can ever get out from under them. On the verge of the new season beginning, we were finding it difficult to believe—not just in ourselves, but in the process.

My philosophy has always been that it takes only one good thing to break the seal on what lies ahead. Just one positive turn of events can build your confidence and help you get the momentum going in the other direction. Once that happens, one good thing leads to another and then another. Pretty soon you find yourself riding a wave of good things.

Our team wasn’t anywhere close to playing like we could play, and we all knew it. As Sean and I sat in his office, he looked dejected, which was unusual for him. He has the same positive-attitude DNA as I do. I felt bad about my performance. I felt bad about how we’d played as a team. But the one good moment—my autopilot throw—overshadowed those negative feelings. For all I knew, that well-thrown ball could be our turning point.

“Coach, we’re going to be all right,” I said. “I’m coming back. I felt it tonight. This game was a milestone for me. I know it.”

He looked at me with a mixture of incomprehension and concern.

“Seriously,” I continued. “I’m going to be all right. We’re going to be all right. I know that sounds crazy right now, coming off a game like this, but I think we’re on the verge of something good.”

And it was true—things did start to improve. The next practice, I threw two passes that felt as true as they have ever felt. The day after that I threw three more, and the next day, four. It seemed like each time out on the field resulted in yet another pass that would come flying out of my hands like a gunslinger. Little by little, the confidence was building and the throws were becoming automatic. Let the season begin.