Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile by Nate Jackson
Authors: Nate Jackson
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no group hug for me. I’m with my new family. Football takes precedence over everything: even Jesus.
Ed McCaffrey invites me over to his house for Christmas dinner, under one condition: I have to dress up like Santa Claus and play with his kids. Ed is a quirky Stanford grad and is Denver’s second-favorite son. When he makes a catch, the crowd chants E-ddie , E-ddie. Because of our mutual whiteness and similar size, I was often compared to him coming out of college. I hope to live up to those expectations, as skin-deep as they are.
I show up at the agreed-upon time and meet Eddie at the side of his house, where he has already prepared my costume. He tells me to come to the door in ten minutes. I put on the white beard and the red suit, take a few pulls from Santa’s whiskey, and head to the front door.
—Ho! Ho! Ho!
I bellow like a lunatic making minimum wage at the mall. Eddie’s wife, Lisa, opens the door with a wink and in I go with my sack of toys that Eddie left me, my deep Santa voice echoing through the house.
—Well hello there young man! What’s your name? Ho! Ho! Ho! Have you been a good boy?
And so on. Things are going fine with the youngest two, but the oldest boy, probably eight or nine, stands at a distance regarding me suspiciously. After ten minutes of jolly platitudes I back out the door and head down the path to the side of the house. I change back into my civilian clothes and sit around next to the garage for a while.
Then I reenter through the same door I had exited and am warmly received as if for the first time by all of the house’s inhabitants—except for the oldest boy, that clever little buzzkill, who puts the exclamation point on his tiny epiphany: my daddy plays football with Santa Claus.
T he game on Sunday is at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Though the game doesn’t matter for us in any real way, they need a win to make the playoffs. They also need some help from the Cardinals. The Vikings are ahead of the Packers in the standings, but if the Vikings lose and the Packers win, they’re in. We drive through the neighborhoods of Green Bay on the way to the stadium and I’m struck by the surrealism of the moment. I’m on a bus with my NFL team in Wisconsin on our way to play the Packers. The entire town of Green Bay is the Packers. On every lawn there are signs and banners and parties and barbecues and happy people bursting at the seams. With wide, unthreatening grins, they drink responsibly and politely urge us to go fuck ourselves. Lambeau Field lies at the edge of what appears to be a typical midwestern suburban community, unlike most other stadiums, which are built in downtown or in industrial areas. In Green Bay, the stadium has the feel of being a park at the end of the street. We are riding along and I’m looking into living room windows, then all of a sudden, like a Mecca of cheese:
Lambeau.
I find my locker and sit down. There is a program for the game on my chair and I thumb through it while listening to my mood music. I look for the cheerleader photos in the back of the program, a road-game ritual of mine, and am disappointed to find that the Packers don’t have any. But I see my name on the roster list, and here I am, sitting at my locker: a man alive inside a dream.
I jog out of the tunnel and take it all in. A security guard in a yellow jacket smiles and wishes me luck. It’s a crisp, dry night. Once the game starts I stand at attention next to Blade and when someone needs a rest I run onto the field and into the huddle. Jake’s resting, too, and since Steve Beuerlein snapped his finger in half a few weeks earlier, Danny Kanell and Jarious Jackson are sharing the duties at quarterback. The Packers kick our ass. They’re playing for something and we aren’t. But when I’m on the field I feel calm. I see things happen in slow motion. I’m comfortable. It is still just football. People always question whether a guy can perform “when the lights come on,”
Ed McCaffrey invites me over to his house for Christmas dinner, under one condition: I have to dress up like Santa Claus and play with his kids. Ed is a quirky Stanford grad and is Denver’s second-favorite son. When he makes a catch, the crowd chants E-ddie , E-ddie. Because of our mutual whiteness and similar size, I was often compared to him coming out of college. I hope to live up to those expectations, as skin-deep as they are.
I show up at the agreed-upon time and meet Eddie at the side of his house, where he has already prepared my costume. He tells me to come to the door in ten minutes. I put on the white beard and the red suit, take a few pulls from Santa’s whiskey, and head to the front door.
—Ho! Ho! Ho!
I bellow like a lunatic making minimum wage at the mall. Eddie’s wife, Lisa, opens the door with a wink and in I go with my sack of toys that Eddie left me, my deep Santa voice echoing through the house.
—Well hello there young man! What’s your name? Ho! Ho! Ho! Have you been a good boy?
And so on. Things are going fine with the youngest two, but the oldest boy, probably eight or nine, stands at a distance regarding me suspiciously. After ten minutes of jolly platitudes I back out the door and head down the path to the side of the house. I change back into my civilian clothes and sit around next to the garage for a while.
Then I reenter through the same door I had exited and am warmly received as if for the first time by all of the house’s inhabitants—except for the oldest boy, that clever little buzzkill, who puts the exclamation point on his tiny epiphany: my daddy plays football with Santa Claus.
T he game on Sunday is at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Though the game doesn’t matter for us in any real way, they need a win to make the playoffs. They also need some help from the Cardinals. The Vikings are ahead of the Packers in the standings, but if the Vikings lose and the Packers win, they’re in. We drive through the neighborhoods of Green Bay on the way to the stadium and I’m struck by the surrealism of the moment. I’m on a bus with my NFL team in Wisconsin on our way to play the Packers. The entire town of Green Bay is the Packers. On every lawn there are signs and banners and parties and barbecues and happy people bursting at the seams. With wide, unthreatening grins, they drink responsibly and politely urge us to go fuck ourselves. Lambeau Field lies at the edge of what appears to be a typical midwestern suburban community, unlike most other stadiums, which are built in downtown or in industrial areas. In Green Bay, the stadium has the feel of being a park at the end of the street. We are riding along and I’m looking into living room windows, then all of a sudden, like a Mecca of cheese:
Lambeau.
I find my locker and sit down. There is a program for the game on my chair and I thumb through it while listening to my mood music. I look for the cheerleader photos in the back of the program, a road-game ritual of mine, and am disappointed to find that the Packers don’t have any. But I see my name on the roster list, and here I am, sitting at my locker: a man alive inside a dream.
I jog out of the tunnel and take it all in. A security guard in a yellow jacket smiles and wishes me luck. It’s a crisp, dry night. Once the game starts I stand at attention next to Blade and when someone needs a rest I run onto the field and into the huddle. Jake’s resting, too, and since Steve Beuerlein snapped his finger in half a few weeks earlier, Danny Kanell and Jarious Jackson are sharing the duties at quarterback. The Packers kick our ass. They’re playing for something and we aren’t. But when I’m on the field I feel calm. I see things happen in slow motion. I’m comfortable. It is still just football. People always question whether a guy can perform “when the lights come on,”
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