NFL POINDEXTER: THE WIRE

The wire means something more to those who know it personally.

by Alan Grant

The NFL is all about absolutes, especially when it comes to performance. If you're not the best, then you must be the worst. If you get cut from a team, you suck. That's the way it's often presented. And it's the way some players feel about being cut. It's the vibe the business side give off. But I'm not buying it. Not entirely.

I have my own view of the waiver wire, especially that one that comes out after the last cut, just before opening day. I spent some time there myself. The Colts drafted me in the spring of 1990. Following camp in the summer of '92, after two years with the team, my name was added to a league-wide fax of guys who were suddenly "available." That terminology—"available"—is a lot more sexy when used in dating parlance than in an NFL job search. A day later, when the '49ers called, I got a new start. I looked at it like I was transferring, going to a new school.

But there's more than one way to look at this.

Others have been in my shoes. Did they feel the same? Did they spin it for themselves to make it feel less like failure and more like, well, change? One, Panthers' receiver Mark Jones, is full of waver wire scars. In 2004, Jones became a seventh round pick by the Tampa Bay Bucs. After they released him, the Giants saw his name on the wire, called him and signed him. He played well for them that year. He returned some punts and played some wide out. But at year's end, he was released. The Bucs then had a change of heart—which, in the NFL is really a change of need—and signed him again.

In 2005 he led the league with 51 punt returns. That was good enough to earn two more years in Tampa. But then he tore his patellar tendon. After he had successfully rehabbed, the Bucs cut him. Again.

"The first time I got cut?" says Jones. "It had crossed my mind that I might not be with just one team. But I didn't really want to bounce around from team to team."

The feeling it left?

"I knew it was a business," says Jones.

This past June, after he was signed by San Diego, Jones approached the situation with his head, if not his heart. In San Diego he saw the Chargers' Super Bowl-favorite status as a way to boost his own status.

It didn't occur to me at the time: our opening day opponent was New England. They had signed my good friend Stacy just to get some info on his old team. He was a tool, a cheap manual for a complex machine you would use only once. Once his information had been extracted, his job was done.

"I knew a lot of people would be watching that team," says Jones. "I knew if I could get some good film with them, then I would get another chance somewhere."

On August 30, after the Chargers cut him, Jones got a call from the Panthers. He'll be returning punts this Sunday.

I wondered how he'd changed. Jones paused. "I just made the decision that I wasn't gonna be moved by anything," says Jones. "God gave me the ability to play this game, so I just let Him take control of this."

Jones can find God, even in the wire. I'll buy that view. But I know there's a godless one too.

My best friend on the Colts was a guy named Stacy Simmons. Midway through our second training camp, he was released. Like most everyone else with more than a day in the NFL, I knew it was a business. Still, this was the first time anyone I knew had seen that business end of things. A couple of days later, when the Patriots claimed and signed him, I felt better. But then, right before the season was set to start, the Pats cut him loose. It didn't occur to me at the time: our opening day opponent was New England. They had signed my good friend Stacy just to get some info on his old team. He was a tool, a cheap manual for a complex machine you would use only once. Once his information had been extracted, his job was done.

At the time I thought such moves were rare. They're not.

One league GM who wished to remain anonymous tells me more. When it comes the wire, he says, if they really want the player for the long haul—the "long haul" is perhaps a full season—they'll only consider the guy if he's been in a scheme similar to theirs.

"If they have the same language, and have the same philosophy as ours, then it's a fit."

And the whole spying thing? Sometimes it doesn't work out as planned.

One year the GM's team was opening the season against Green Bay. Just days before the game, they picked up a tight end the Packers had just released. "He wasn't much of a player," says the GM. "But he could provide some much needed insight. He knew all their calls on special teams and offense."

But a funny thing happened. The guy played so well on special teams that they kept him around for a while. He learned the offense and played like he belonged. He was more than a weeks worth of signals and audible calls.

"He ended up starting nine games for us and he'll probably be a ten year player in this league."

Still, waiver players know not to get too comfortable too quickly. Scott Young is a hulking offensive guard who's spent the past three seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles. Last week he got the call to the coaches office. But within hours, the Browns took him off the wire and brought him to Cleveland. Young took the practical view, at first. "The odds are if you play in this league for a long time, it won't be with the same team," he says. But since the ink on the transaction page still isn't quite dry, he admits to being a bit raw. "It's like your whole life is turned upside down," he says. "You get into a routine. You don't have any questions because you always know what you're doing. Then you get released."

Young says the euphoria of finding out someone else wants you is quickly replaced. The second you arrive, the realization hits: it's a new system, a new team, you have to learn it all, and all over again.

This is exciting, right?

"There's nothing in Cleveland that's similar to Philly," says Young. "You got the basic stuff, like slide protection and man to man protection. But you gotta' erase all the terms you knew and start memorizing." It seems like it would shake his confidence. I know it shook mine. "No," says Young. "I was playing the best ball of my life in Philly, but then again, when you have to learn a whole new system…" he pauses. "I guess my confidence is shaken a little."

Meetings were starting. The offensive line works as a unit, and if Young was going to be a part of it, he had to join his teammates. You wonder for how long they'll be his teammates.

"I just look at this like a challenge."

A business. A challenge. Everybody has their own way.

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