Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas Page 10

  Not among those on the practice squad, though, was Dustin Vaughan, the second-year quarterback who just couldn’t wow his coaches enough in the preseason and training camp. However, the Cowboys did place two quarterbacks on the unit, including Kellen Moore, a veteran who had been with the Detroit Lions for the past three years. While in Detroit, he was coached by Scott Linehan, a former Lions assistant but now the current Cowboys offensive coordinator. He undoubtedly wanted to reunite with the prospect.

  Moore, who became the first quarterback in FBS history to earn fifty collegiate wins as a starter at Boise State, walked into the locker room at Valley Ranch on the Tuesday before the Cowboys’ first game. When he did, many of the media members on hand wondered, some out loud, just who this was.

  “Man, they get new equipment guys in here every week,” one of the beat writers said with a serious tone.

  “No man, that’s the new quarterback they signed,” said another reporter from a different newspaper. “That’s Kellen Moore.”

  With a generously listed height of an even six feet, Moore and his baby face, rosy cheeks, and less-than-stellar physique more than blended in inside the locker room, especially with the equipment interns and media present.

  Then again, his presence didn’t seem to matter much either way. The Cowboys had Tony Romo playing at the highest of levels coming off the 2014 season and even Brandon Weeden looked to be an adequate backup if called upon. Behind fellow practice squad–mate Jameill Showers, Moore arrived as the fourth quarterback on the team. The chances of him ever getting on the roster, much less getting in a game, seemed to be the longest of long shots.

  Conversely, the Cowboys added a fourth running back with every intention of playing him. In fact, former Texas A&M standout Christine Michael was acquired in a trade with the Seattle Seahawks and given a chance to possibly win the starting job ahead of Joseph Randle and Darren McFadden.

  Quietly, some of the offensive coaches were hoping to add a veteran such as Michael weeks earlier when McFadden was sidelined with a hamstring injury, and Randle never ran away with the starting job despite getting all of the first-team reps during training camp and the preseason.

  For this first game, though, Michael’s lack of knowledge with the Cowboys’ playbook hindered his chances to suit up against the Giants, giving Randle and/or McFadden at least one game to shine. As it would turn out, a different running back would end up stealing the spotlight altogether.

  Of course, when it comes to opening night in the NFL, there’s certainly plenty of spotlight to go around. Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth are the “A” team of broadcasters for the league’s marquee game of the week, which is shown on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.

  However, across the field in the radio booth, there was a major change behind the mic as the team had to find a temporary fill-in for longtime “Voice of the Cowboys” Brad Sham, who was entering his thirty-seventh season as the club’s play-by-play announcer. Due to the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year, Sham was unable to work that evening. Each year he looked for any potential conflict when the NFL schedule was released each April, but remarkably, this was the first time the holiday had actually forced him out of the booth.

  So what did the Cowboys do instead? They approached one of Sham’s predecessors in longtime CBS analyst Verne Lundquist, who actually served as the team’s play-by-play announcer for twelve years before moving on after the 1983 season. It wasn’t Sham’s idea to call Lundquist, but he wished it was, calling it “an honor” to have his former partner fill in for this game.

  Lundquist worked the Vanderbilt–Georgia matchup for CBS on Saturday, September 12, before flying directly to Dallas to prepare for his first Cowboys game in thirty-two years.

  By the time the showdown kicked off, the electricity in the stadium could’ve powered both the radio and TV broadcasts combined. Cowboys fans had waited eight long months since the controversial Dez Bryant non-catch call in the team’s loss to the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round of the 2014 playoffs.

  Now, it was time to right the wrong, and the Giants happened to be the team in their way. Still, the visitors weren’t about to step aside for their NFC East rivals.

  Ironically enough, the infamous Dez-catch resurfaced early in the second quarter when the Giants’ Larry Donnell had a similar play over the middle. The tight end caught a pass for a first down, but when he was brought to the ground by rookie cornerback Byron Jones, the ball popped loose and rolled out of bounds. Jason Garrett, standing five feet from the football, immediately waved his arms in an “incomplete pass” motion. But when the two side officials discussed the play, Garrett nearly dropped to his knees when he heard them rule the pass was complete with a fumble that kept the ball with New York.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Garrett said to his coaches on the headsets. “This is the same damn play as Dez.”

  Out of spite, Garrett had no choice but to drop his red challenge flag and when the lead official came over to hear the head coach’s reasoning, referee Bill Vinovich got more than he bargained for.

  “I mean, we’ve been talking about this rule for eight months now,” said Garrett, referring to the NFL’s competition committee’s attempt to clarify the ruling of a completed catch during the off-season. “Well, if this is a catch, then I don’t know what’s a catch and you guys don’t either.”

  Garrett even told Vinovich to relay that message to Dean Blandino, the NFL’s director of officials, when he went under the hood on the sideline to review the play. Whether or not Vinovich passed along Garrett’s thoughts to anyone, Dallas did win the challenge, as the ruling was reversed to an incomplete pass.

  But the Cowboys still weren’t doing much on offense, settling for two field goals in the first half. Randle fumbled on his second carry of the game but managed to recover the ball at the bottom of the pile, avoiding an embarrassing way to start the season, considering the Cowboys had named him the starting tailback the Friday before the game.

  The Giants’ defense had a lot to do with the Cowboys’ problems. New York scored one touchdown in the second quarter when cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie picked off a pass and returned it fifty-seven yards to the end zone. They then set up another in the fourth quarter with an interception by fellow cornerback Trumaine McBride that was returned to the Cowboys’ 1-yard line.

  The problems on offense, though, were even worse—way worse—than what the numbers on the stat sheet suggested. After a catch early in the fourth quarter, Bryant gingerly walked to the sideline and told the trainers that his foot didn’t seem right. He was experiencing a “funny feeling.”

  What he was feeling was a broken right foot. The training staff took him to the locker room, where X-rays revealed the fracture, ending his night, his first month, and essentially the next one as well.

  Still, the Cowboys had to power on without their most explosive player. Midway through the fourth quarter, with the team trailing 23–13, Romo engineered a quick drive, spreading the ball around to receivers such as Cole Beasley and Terrance Williams, and then to trusted tight end Jason Witten, who scored a touchdown to narrow the gap to 23–20 with just more than five minutes to play.

  However, the Giants looked again like it would be their night. On third-and-goal at the Cowboys 1-yard line with 1:45 left, Manning had his team in position to either put the game away with a possible touchdown or at least run the ball and tick another forty seconds off the clock. Instead, the Giants quarterback threw an incomplete pass and settled for a field goal, giving possession back to Romo and the Cowboys with 1:29 to play and seventy-two yards needed for a touchdown.

  No timeouts, no Bryant, no problem—at least on this night.

  Romo absolutely carved up the Giants, using running back Lance Dunbar out of the backfield with two of his career-high eight receptions. Romo masterfully rushed the off
ense down the field and had the ball on the Giants’ 11-yard line with just thirteen seconds remaining. As the offense got to the line of scrimmage and viewed the New York secondary, Witten yelled over at Romo and put two fists up by his forehead, a signal that showed his quarterback that the middle of the field would be open. A few seconds later, still barking out signals, Romo then did the exact same motion with his fists to let Witten know that he saw the same thing.

  With the snap, however, usually reliable center Travis Frederick dribbled the ball back to his quarterback on two hops. But Romo, a former all-state high school point guard in Wisconsin, calmly got a handle on the ball, picked it up, moved into position to throw and found Witten—over the middle, of course—for the game-winning touchdown.

  Cowboys fans absolutely roared with excitement. Romo couldn’t pump his right arm any harder than he did just after the score, and then he ran to the bench, where he was mobbed by his teammates and coaches, including an equally amped-up Garrett, who can head-slap his players with the best of them.

  Just when it appeared all hope was lost, Romo had pulled out his magic wand and saved the Cowboys from an 0–1 start against a division rival.

  With the 27–26 victory, the Cowboys players were greeted back in the locker room by a barely dressed and hobbling Bryant. Wearing only biker shorts, the star receiver couldn’t hold back his excitement.

  “Hey, hey, that’s what I’m fuckin’ talking about,” said Bryant while giving fist- and chest-bumps to anyone in the vicinity. “That’s how we fight! That’s how we fight. What? What?”

  At that point, Bryant already knew his foot would keep him out for at least four weeks, if not longer, but he didn’t care. His team had found a way to win a game without him. And he was going to find a way to get back earlier than expected.

  One of the last players in the locker room was Romo, who had done a live interview with NBC immediately after the game. On the way to his locker, the quarterback was congratulated by owner Jerry Jones while standing next to HBO’s Bernard Goldberg, a respected reporter from Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, who was doing a long story on Jones.

  “Did you enjoy that one?” Romo said to Goldberg.

  “Wow,” the veteran reporter responded.

  “I know you can’t, because you’re impartial, but don’t be afraid to say you enjoyed it,” Romo said again.

  “Ha, I’m impartial, but I grew up in New York,” Goldberg quipped.

  Romo laughed, but stopped mid-chuckle. “No one’s perfect,” he said as he patted the reporter on the chest and casually walked back to his locker.

  When the shouting, hollering, and commotion finally stopped, an already hoarse Garrett got his players’ attention, praising them for their grit and ability to fight.

  “You guys are relentless … badass … motherfuckers,” Garrett said, creating a rousing response from the team. “And there will be T-shirts in your lockers on Tuesday.”

  The players roared again, although they wondered just how the head coach was going to pull that off. Sure enough, thanks to even more hustling by the team’s equipment staff, players arrived back at the facility to see navy T-shirts hanging in their lockers with “Relentless” printed on the front.

  On the back there was also a short, subtle message that carried more than one meaning. It stood for Garrett’s affectionate nickname, but also the manner in which the Cowboys had come back to steal a victory against their division rival.

  “BAM!”

  Chapter 4

  BROKEN DREAMS

  Friday

  High school football coaches watch fifteen to twenty-five hours of football in a given week.

  About three of those hours are during a live game, and maybe seven to ten are on a practice field. The rest come from a screen, whether it’s a computer screen, film projector, or TV.

  On this particular Sunday night, assistant defensive coordinator Chris Fisher was watching football on the biggest of big screens. He was also watching it live. That kind of double-dip only happens in places such as AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

  Fisher and his cousin Aston had scored some free tickets to the Cowboys–Giants season opener—and not just any seats, but a pair in the Club Level around the 45-yard line. They got a perfect view of the field but were also eye-level with the massive yet beautifully sharp video board that stretched from one 20-yard line to the other 20-yard line, extending sixty yards.

  Make no mistake, Fisher was a huge Cowboys fan, having grown up in Amarillo as part of a family that never missed a game on Sundays. In fact, for those noon kickoffs, he recalled his grandfather Forrest getting a tad antsy at church if the preacher went a little long, and always managing to be the first one up and into the aisle after the final “Amen.”

  But for Fisher, his mentality of “once a coach, always a coach” surfaced even when he was trying to be a fan.

  “I’m constantly looking at the defense. How they line up in formation, coverages they run. It just never stops,” Fisher said. “You want to look at pass rushers and see who is bringing pressure. You’re looking at all of that. You’re a fan, yeah, but your mind just starts racing. I’m trying to figure out what’s going to happen pre-snap, looking if they’re showing pressure, looking at the alignment of the safety. How wide are the outside linebackers? You look for all of those things. You find yourself not following the ball.

  “And then something awesome happens, you high-five your cousin, and you’re a fan again. But you’re not far from it. It’s what we do.”

  While the Cowboys were able to pull out a last-second victory, the nail-biting finish kept the majority of the 93,579 fans in the stands, which meant the traffic outside the stadium put the two back in their Plano homes well past midnight for the start of the week.

  And not just any week—this was Allen week.

  Sure, Plano has crosstown rivals in Plano East and Plano West, but the argument can be made that Allen is the Wildcats’ biggest rival. From a location standpoint, the neighboring communities are so close that there are some families who have a Plano address but are inside the Allen school district.

  Although there is a healthy debate about whether the city is big enough for more than one high school, Allen remains just a one-team town. And that team, for the last few years, had been the best in all of Texas, having won three straight titles heading into the 2015 season. Leading up to this year’s Plano showdown, the Eagles had won 46 straight games.

  When it came to district play, Allen hadn’t lost since 2005. The team’s closest scare occurred against the Wildcats in 2012 on its way to the first state championship in the three-peat. But it took a dropped two-point conversion pass by Plano for Allen to escape with the 35–34 win at its brand-new Eagle Stadium, the plush $60 million venue that comfortably seats over 18,000 spectators and rivals any high school stadium in the country, as well as several Division I home fields.

  But as dynamic as the stadium looked on the outside, the foundation was a different story. The Eagles had to shut down operations at the venue in 2014 due to cracking in the concrete, forcing the matchup between Plano and Allen that year to be played at the Wildcats’ regular home turf, John Clark Field. The stadium was closed for fifteen months, reopening in May of 2015.

  Now the Wildcats were returning to Allen, three years after their last visit. And it was that reality that didn’t quite sink in with the Plano coaches until the team got off the bus and started walking into the place.

  “This is a high school stadium?” the players quipped, but with modest seriousness.

  As the defensive coaches sat on the sidelines, overseeing their squad take the field, it dawned on them that while this might just be “another big stadium” to them, many of these players hadn’t seen the field—or anything like it.

  “We started looking around at our
kids and realized that only two of them had ever played here before,” Fisher said. “You get caught up in things and don’t realize that it’s natural for them to look around and be a little intimidated.”

  But make no mistake, the kids might have been a little star-struck with the stadium, but oddly enough, they didn’t seem so afraid of an Eagles team that hadn’t been whipped in three years. And this despite Plano’s last two meetings against the team having gone Allen’s way by a combined score of 84–16.

  Minutes before kickoff, Jaydon McCullough acknowledged the mountain his team was facing, but seemed ready to climb it.

  “Men, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks about us,” he barked to his huddled players. “It doesn’t matter what anyone outside of this locker room thinks. We believe in you. Believe in yourself and believe in each other. Let’s go out and show them who we are.”

  Similar to a college or NFL venue, the players walked down a large hallway under the stadium before entering the field. “Shock the World” statements were being tossed around left and right as the Wildcats were starting to believe they had a chance to win.

  The problem was, the guys on the other side simply knew they would.

  Allen needed just four plays to score as Eagles quarterback Seth Green scrambled fifty-five yards for a touchdown. After a three-and-out by the Wildcats, Allen reached the end zone again on a 44-yard pass, giving them a 13–0 lead just four minutes into the game.

  Coaches usually drop the usual “We’re all right” or “We’ll get it back” lines when the defense gives up a score. But maybe this time, Plano’s assistants weren’t so sure that would be the case.

  “Let’s go! Get off the field,” the coaches yelled at some of the players walking—not jogging—to the sidelines. “Hustle off. Get some water.”