Gunslinger Page 17

  Herock then turned to Glanville. An ornery man who thrived upon social unpredictability, Glanville repeatedly assured Herock that he, too, liked Favre’s style. As long as other positional needs were filled, Glanville would gladly add the young quarterback. Hence, Herock looked at the coach and said, “Jerry, you onboard with this?”

  “You know, Ken,” Glanville replied, “I wouldn’t take him.”

  “What?” Herock said.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t take him,” Glanville said. “We should get Browning Nagle.”

  Herock waited for the punch line. Browning Nagle? “I couldn’t believe it,” Herock said. “I mean, there was no comparison between the quarterbacks.” He let Glanville’s words sink in, then looked toward June Jones, the offensive coordinator. “June, you saw both these guys,” he said. “What do you think?” Herock figured this to be the world’s easiest question. “OK, so I like Brett for some reasons,” Jones replied, “and I like Nagle for some reasons. It’s your decision, but I’m a bit torn.”

  Four minutes passed.

  Five minutes passed.

  Six minutes passed.

  In New York, Wolf—hoping the Falcons were about to commit a colossal blunder—called the Favre household to speak to Brett. When the phone rang, an ocean of relatives poured into the small bedroom. Wolf insisted he was their guy, and Brett would love the Big Apple, and he could learn behind Ken O’Brien and everything would be fantastic. “If Atlanta’s not taking me, the Jets are taking me,” Favre announced to the room.

  “Nagle was OK,” Wolf said. “But Favre was special. Clearly.”

  For the Falcons, six and a half minutes passed.

  Seven minutes passed.

  Eight minutes passed.

  “The room is silent,” said Herock. “And that’s usually not a good thing. Silence, silence, silence, silence. I’m thinking to myself, What do you do now? Here your coach doesn’t want the player, your coordinator said he doesn’t know if he wants the player now. But in the meetings they did want him.”

  With one minute remaining, Herock gathered his courage and said aloud, “Gentlemen, we’re going to take Brett Favre. I think he can be a great player.”

  Glanville flashed a piercing look that Herock would never forget. “He was clearly pissed,” he said. “And I think he harbored that resentment for Brett far beyond the draft.”

  Favre was talking with Wolf when he heard the call waiting click.

  “I’ve gotta take this,” he said.

  “Don’t answer,” Wolf replied with a laugh.

  It was Jerry Glanville on the line. Even though he hated the pick, he insisted, as head coach, that he be the one to welcome new players. “Hey Brett! It’s Jerry Glanville from the Atlanta Falcons! How do you feel about playing for us?”

  “That’d be great, Coach,” Favre said.

  “We wanted to take you in the first round,” Glanville said, “but we needed to take a receiver and Pritchard’s a good one. When you were there in the second, we were thrilled.”

  It was ludicrous.

  “He didn’t want Brett,” said Herock. “No matter what nonsense he said later on. He didn’t want him.”

  When Brett told everyone the news, the house shook. Despair and anxiety were replaced by hugging and laughter. Don Weiss, an NFL official, leaned into the microphone at the draft and said, “Atlanta has selected Brett Favor, quarterback, Southern Mississippi.” It was one of the proudest moments of Bonita Favre’s life. “I was just thrilled he’d be near home,” she said. “Atlanta was pretty close.” On the outside, Favre smiled and accepted congratulations. On the inside, however, he was hurt. “I still believe I’m the best quarterback in the draft,” he told Robert Wilson of the Clarion-Ledger. “I’m disappointed I wasn’t the first one taken, especially with Marinovich. He hasn’t played but two years. But it’s not the end of the world. Joe Montana and Boomer Esiason were [not first-round] picks and look what they did.”

  In New York, Wolf was crushed. The best player in the entire draft had lasted for five and a half hours, and somehow the Jets were unable to get him. Moments later, New York announced the selection of Browning Nagle. He lasted three seasons in New York, threw seven touchdowns and 17 interceptions, and now sells medical supplies.

  “I think Brett wound up the better quarterback,” said Herock. “But just by a little.”

  10

  Hotlanta

  * * *

  THE LOST YEAR of Brett Favre’s football career is, in many ways, the most fascinating year of Brett Favre’s football career. Which is quite peculiar, because nobody ever seems to discuss it.

  Just look through the magazines, the newspapers, the books, the documentaries. When it comes to the 1991 season, it’s as if everything can be summed up in 10 words or less. Even in his own autobiography, Favre devotes nine paragraphs to life as an Atlanta Falcon—and two of those are single sentences.

  Traditionally speaking, the days that follow the draft serve as a period of mental adjustment. Young players come to grips with relocating to foreign cities and organizations start the process of figuring out who fits where, and how. There are press conferences to attend and papers to sign and jerseys to hoist and pose behind. Although Jerry Glanville was far from enamored by the addition of a quarterback he didn’t want, he had no choice in the matter. Brett Favre was coming to Atlanta.

  Before bread could be broken, though, Bus Cook—Favre’s naive agent—committed a classic rookie mistake. Having watched his client’s heartbreak over being a second-round pick, and also seeing Raghib Ismail, the presumptive first overall selection in the draft, take big money from the Canadian Football League, Cook reached out to the Toronto Argonauts and Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Then he informed the media. “That Canada stuff, it’s just us talking right now,” Cook told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 23. “Brett wants badly to play in Atlanta, but we have to explore all the options in case things don’t work out.”

  The resulting lengthy freeze between player and franchise involved Glanville uttering the phrase “Fuck that kid” inside the Atlanta offices an estimated 2,762,211 times. During his time not under contract, Favre remained home in Kiln, kicking back in his childhood bedroom, casually throwing the football around with friends, and watching New Jack City, his all-time favorite movie, on a near-endless loop. In mid-May he received a visit from Len Pasquarelli, the Falcons beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It remains one of the greatest (and weirdest) experiences of his journalistic career.

  Recalled Pasquarelli: “This place was hard to describe—like a scene out of the Dukes of Hazzard. And Brett was like Li’l Abner and one of the Hazzard boys. It was just another world. I don’t know what people did for a living, but I suspect they mostly held factory jobs where they worked until three, then came home to work on their cars the rest of the day. I drove to Brett’s family’s house, way in the middle of nowhere. And when I walked in Brett was sitting there with a bunch of buddies watching New Jack City. It was their second or third viewing that day. Finally me and the photographer asked if they wanted to go to lunch. Well, Brett, all his buddies, me, and a photographer packed into the rental car. We drove over to Bay Saint Louis to a little fish place. He introduced me to a shrimp po’boy. We played catch in the yard right near Rotten Bayou, and they told us all these stories about alligators eating dogs, so they never had dogs for long. Then we toured the town, which took 15 minutes. The best part of it came when Brett said, ‘Let’s go down to the VFW.’ Everybody there knew Brett—probably five or six guys at the bar, all drinking draft beers. We go into the backroom and the wall is filled with slot machines, and all these women are illegally playing the slots. They have blue hair, and some teeth, and rolls of quarters, drinking beers. And they all had salt shakers next to them, and they’d throw salt over their shoulders for good luck.”

  The story ran on May 21, beneath the headline FALCONS’ SEARCH FOR A BACKUP QB LEADS TO A BACKWOODS TOWN FOR ONE. It was funny, well wri
tten, and received in Kiln like a Taser to the spine. Favre later lamented that the piece “made me look like a goofy redneck.”

  At long last, on July 17, Favre and the Falcons agreed to a three-year, $1.4 million deal that included a signing bonus somewhere between $350,000 and $400,000. He placed 70 percent of the money in stocks and bonds, and used the rest to purchase a $30,000 maroon Acura. Favre reported to Suwanee, Georgia, the next day for the opening of training camp, commencing his one-year apprenticeship at the strangest and most dysfunctional shop in the National Football League.

  Beginning with the Falcons’ debut season in 1966, the team forged a well-deserved reputation for spirited ineptitude. The franchise was owned by Rankin Smith, a former U.S. Army combat pilot who made his money in the family life-insurance business, and ultimately run by Taylor Smith, the fourth of his five children. “In public they were called the Clampetts,” said Terence Moore, a longtime sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They were nice people who couldn’t figure it out.” Upon Favre’s arrival Atlanta had but one double-digit-win season.

  The team was notoriously cheap with contracts and notoriously indifferent when it came to the quality of the facilities. Their final home game of the 1989 season drew 7,792 fans to Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium. Falcons employees were named in seven different paternity suits over four seasons. “We may not be good,” a player’s wife once noted, “but at least we’re fertile.”

  By the time Favre arrived, however, some around the league felt Atlanta was turning a corner. The roster featured a slew of young, exciting players, including quarterback Chris Miller, wide receiver Andre Rison, and a dynamic defensive back from Florida State named Deion Sanders. And while Atlanta finished 5-11 in 1990, fans seemed to genuinely believe in the vision of the head coach. Glanville was, in the words of Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly, “a scalawag and a raconteur and a pretty fair coach and a man who has too much fun and laughs too loud for some people.” He was loved by a few in the NFL and abhorred by the vast majority. Sometimes he told the truth. Oftentimes he stretched it out. “You can listen to 100 percent of what Jerry said,” said Taylor Smith, “and believe 30 percent of it.”

  In 1985 Glanville was working as the defensive coordinator with the Houston Oilers when, with two games remaining, he took over for the fired head coach, Hugh Campbell. The team was, in his opinion, “a joke—smack ’em in the mouth, pee on their pants, and they still wouldn’t hit anybody. Their mamas loved ’em. Their daddies loved ’em. But they wouldn’t hit if you handed them sticks.”

  Glanville called himself “the dark prince” and issued a challenge to his players—break 100 facemasks per season. He spoke of developing “trained killers.” The Oilers were a dirty team that specialized in late hits and illegal shots. “If the sucker’s moving, our goal is to get 11 guys on him,” Robert Lyles, a linebacker, said. “Put the flag up. Surrender. He’s dead. It’s over. He’s a landmark. It’s hit, crunch, and burn.” Were Glanville unhappy with a player, he’d let him know. When a defensive lineman held out for more money, Glanville ripped the nameplate from above his locker and stuck it over the entranceway to the bathroom.

  Glanville dressed in all black, drove Harley-Davidsons, listened to rock and roll, and left tickets at the front gate for Elvis and James Dean. It was all dramatic and thrilling as the Oilers went 9-6 in 1987 and 10-6 in 1988, but carnivals run their course, and by the time Houston lost to the Steelers in the first round of the 1989 playoffs, the front office had tired of his antics.

  As soon as Glanville was fired, the Falcons swooped him up. In his introductory press conference, he was asked about the terms of his contract. He had no idea. The uniform and helmet colors went from primarily red to primarily black. He encouraged Rison and Sanders to dance. “He was the ultimate player’s coach in many ways,” said Ken Herock. “He bullshits with the players, he has fun with the players. But if he didn’t like you, or he didn’t want you around, it was a different thing entirely.”

  From the day he checked into camp, Favre was an object of Glanville’s derision. Their opening exchange said it all . . .

  Glanville: “Hey, Mississippi!”

  Favre: “Hey, Coach, how are you doing?”

  Glanville: “Call me Jerry.”

  Favre: “OK. Hey Jerry.”

  Glanville: “What school are you from, Mississippi?”

  Favre: “Southern Miss.”

  Glanville: “Aw, damn, we drafted the wrong guy. We wanted the guy from Mississippi State.”

  “I was standing next to Brett,” said George Koonce, a rookie free agent linebacker. “And I remember the look on his face was devastation.”

  To Glanville, Favre projected an unjustified cockiness. The coach relished bravado, only not from rookies. There were four other quarterbacks in camp—Miller, the established starter; Scott Campbell, a veteran backup; Gilbert Renfroe, a Canadian Football League refugee; Mike Rhodes, a former Arena League star—and Favre made it clear he was the best of the bunch. “I’d played in six Pro Bowls by that point, and this kid comes up to me in camp and tells me he has the strongest arm in the NFL,” said Chris Hinton, the offensive lineman. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’”

  “Every week, if I was there on Friday, Brett would find me and start bitching,” said Herock. “He would always say, ‘Mr. Herock, I’m better than the guys you have here. I’m better.’”

  When Herock responded that Miller was the established starter, Favre snapped, “I’m better than him!”

  For the first two weeks of camp, Favre could not throw a spiral. He would drop back, release, and—wobble, wobble. A man known for his fastball was suddenly Phil Niekro. He chalked it up to nervousness. Then a lack of reps. When seven-on-seven drills commenced after a few days, June Jones, the offensive coordinator, increased Favre’s reps. It wasn’t a status thing. He hoped more passes would equal more comfort. “Throwing a football’s something I never had to think about,” Favre said at the time. “But, man, there’s some ugly ones, aren’t there?”

  Glanville ran the least-disciplined training camp in the NFL, as well as the most colorful. No team featured more beer drinkers, more renegades, more trash talkers, more larger-than-life personalities. Sanders, brash and outspoken, bought Favre his first dress-up outfits—two garish suits straight out of Pimp 101. Rison purchased luxury cars as if he was buying cups of coffee.

  There was also a dark side. His name was Bill Fralic.

  A 1985 first-round draft pick out of the University of Pittsburgh, Fralic was both a four-time Pro Bowler and one of the locker room’s more sadistic ringleaders. If his No. 1 goal was to win football games, it often felt as if a close second was teaming with his fellow offensive linemen to make life miserable for young Falcons. Sympathetic veterans warned rookies to steer clear, and with good reason. The offensive linemen lived to humiliate.

  In 1990, for example, members of the unit grabbed a young player as he was showering, taped his arms to a metal bench, and carried both (the man and the bench) onto the field. “He’s out there naked, in front of people, and he can’t move,” said one Falcon. “The fans watched it all.”

  Favre’s draft class included a 10th-round pick from Wisconsin–Stevens Point named Pete Lucas. A six-foot-three, 320-pound offensive tackle, Lucas graduated from high school and spent several years working at Swaggart Furniture, a Wisconsin-based family business. When his grandfather sold the company, Lucas enrolled in college and emerged as a Football Gazette First Team All-American. By the time he was picked by the Falcons, he was 25 and unusually mature for an NFL rookie.

  Fralic and several of his line cohorts made Lucas the target of their aggressions. He arrived in the mornings aspiring to work in peace, then faced a daily nightmare. “I was threatened to have my knees taken out in practice if I didn’t do as I was told to,” Lucas said. “And that was basically to take my clothes off, sing, dance, perform—naked, any time, any place. I don’t know if it was because I intimid
ated them with my size and strength, but it happened to me all the time. On airplanes, on buses. You expect some hazing from time to time. But when the coaches stop meetings so guys can force you to strip and do something, it’s a different level. Literally, in offensive-line meetings the coach would call for a break and I’d take my clothes off.”

  One awful night, Lucas and another rookie lineman, Mark Tucker out of Southern Cal, were commanded to strip naked in front of the entire offensive line, hold each other tight, and sing “Ebony and Ivory,” the Stevie Wonder–Paul McCartney ode to racial unity. Lucas is white, Tucker African American. “It was always the same thing—‘Do this or your knees are taken out,’” said Lucas. “There were times I’d be on an airplane sleeping, and I’d get knocked in the head and told, ‘Guess what? It’s time to get naked.’ I felt sexually violated and humiliated. There was one night where they made all the rookies get up and do a song and dance. I drank as much as I could beforehand, because I was told, ‘I better see nuts hanging out, or your knees are gone.’”

  Lucas’s accounts are confirmed by other Falcons players. Bob Christian, a rookie fullback who roomed with Lucas and went on to a 10-year NFL career, calls the offensive line “perverted,” and said members of the unit threatened to shave off his pubic hair if he didn’t sit for a veteran-administered haircut. “Pete is not lying,” said Christian. “Something was really wrong with the offensive linemen.” Tucker, too, said Lucas is telling the truth. “It was what we had to go through,” he said. “I hate that he was so scarred.”