Enough's Enough

Dwight Freeney will do anything to make sure his season won't end in New England. Again

Well, forget it. We're not buying. This is just absurd. Everyone in the NFL may be trying to do the same thing he's doing--looking for a way to beat the Patriots--but, for crying out loud, does Dwight Freeney really think this plan is going to work?

Actually, he's sure it will. Or thinks he's sure. Or hopes. At the very least he's trying something, anything. And if he's willing to go to such bizarre lengths-if Freeney is willing to think this far outside the box-it says one thing: the Patriots are really tough to beat. Because a player of Freeney's caliber shouldn't have to go to extremes. He's an All-Pro defensive end. He's led the league in sacks. One NFL analyst-after extensive film study-anointed Freeney the most dominant player in football. Not the most dominant defensive player. The most dominant player.

But you too would reach as far as Freeney has if the Pats had put the kibosh on your season two years in a row. Freeney and his Colts teammates have studied schemes, plays, diagrams, charts, expert opinions, analysis of New England's weak points, strong points, key points and pressure points-but nothing has worked. Bring up the Patriots and Freeney's patience runs turpentinethin. "Everyone wants to know, why can't you beat the Patriots?" Freeney says. "It gets old. But it won't end until we beat them."

So here are five things Freeney did this offseason to do just that, starting with one you need to be as desperate as he is to believe.

1. He Kept His Hands Out of His Pockets

He kept his hands out of his what?

"I tell him, never, ever, put your hands in your pockets," says Jay Schroeder, Freeney's trainer. "It causes the muscles in your back to contract."

As it happens, Freeney's back muscles are contracting as Schroeder speaks. Trainer and client are in Schroeder's Gym in Phoenix on a 112° July day. Thirty minutes earlier, a pack of NFLers that included Terrell Suggs, Adam Archuleta and a few scrubs from various teams was here. Now it's just Freeney and Schroeder. Schroeder co-owns Accelerated Recovery Performance Program, or ARP, a company that makes a cable box-size unit that helps worn-out muscles recover quickly via electrical stimulation. Schroeder is taking some silver dollar-size pads, dipping them into a gel that smells like Preparation H and sticking them onto Freeney's bare back. Then he flips on the ARP machine, cranking it to the highest level, 10. Almost immediately, the skin on Freeney's back starts flowing like a waterbed, loosening him up from yesterday's workout. Still, Schroeder wonders if Freeney has had his hands in his pockets recently. Any time the lineman does something as innocent as that, his recovery time is delayed. And when that's delayed, so is his route to the quarterback. If not today, then on Nov. 7 at New England.

Freeney's ARP time is one reason why an undersized rusher dominates tackles six inches taller and 60 pounds heavier. Coming out of Syracuse in 2002, the 6'1'' Freeney was considered too short to be an impact player. Then he ran a 4.38 40 in predraft workouts. Colts coaches stopped worrying and picked him 11th overall. Freeney had 13 sacks his rookie year, relying mainly on a quick first step. His second year, he added pro pass-rush moves like chops and clubs to his repertoire, and had 11. A falloff, yeah, but he also faced constant double-teams and played with an abdominal strain and a cracked rib. Freeney decided then that to be wrapped around the quarterback like a tortilla, his body had to be primed every week.

Freeney had used ARP training occasionally his first two seasons, but last year the machine and the player might as well have been a match.com testimonial. "I slept with it on me," he says. "And I felt fresh for every game." Says K.C. Joyner, author of The Football Scientist: "It was like Lawrence Taylor. He was the league's most dominant player."

Last December, Freeney faced eight-time Ravens Pro Bowler Jonathan Ogden after a night of ARPing. On one play, he bull-rushed the 6'9'', 345-pound Ogden into the pocket, forcing Kyle Boller into an incompletion. On another, Freeney used a 360 spin to send Boller fleeing again. In the fourth quarter, Freeney was often two steps into the backfield before Ogden was out of his stance. "I'm not going to say how many sacks I'd have had if I hadn't missed so many tackles," Freeney says. The film said seven. "Well, the film doesn't lie." Officially, Freeney had two, and his 16 for the year led the NFL.

Freeney religiously adheres to the tao of the ARP, trying not to break any commandments. "Look at what I'm wearing," he says, spreading his 79-inch wingspan to give a full view of his 76ers throwback jersey and basketball shorts. "I couldn't put my hands in my pockets if I wanted to."

2. He Got Hot

Early in 2004, the Colts threw a players-only bash at the Indy club World Mardi Gras. The team's best defender stepped to the door and showed his ID. "You're not going in," the female bouncer said.

"What? I'm a player for the Colts. That's our party! I'm Dwight Freeney."

She'd never heard of a Dwight Freeney. That hurt. How could she not know the first two-time Colts Pro Bowl defender since 1977? But she didn't think Freeney looked like a player. He didn't need to hear why. He knew it was his height. All-Pros aren't supposed to be barely 6'1'', and he's as sick of that subject as he is of the Patriots. "How's height going to help me?" he says. "Tipping passes? If I do that, I'm not getting sacks."

Freeney is resigned to the fact that Indy will always be a Peyton-Edgerrin town, that some bouncers at some clubs won't ever know him. At least not until the Colts win it all. And so, while he didn't spend this off-season looking for ways to get ticked off, he did file away every offending incident. Any time bouncers halted him at the door, any time he heard TV airheads yapping about Simeon Rice or KGB or Julius Peppers without mentioning his name, Freeney took it as a slight. A slight that can be rectified only one way.

Win in November.

3. He Scripted His First 15 Plays

Freeney takes football seriously. Before a game, he always scripts his first 15 plays. "That's how I won the championships," he says.

Championships?

"Madden."

Oh, boy. Freeney is 25 and taking a video game so seriously he scripts his first 15 plays? That's how badly he wants to win a title, any title. And he says that's how he's become a two-time champ of the Madden Bowl, the annual players-only tourney at the Super Bowl. When Freeney loses, it's news. James beat him once last year and posted signs throughout Indy's complex that read: "I'm the Madden Champion!" Freeney didn't laugh.

His Madden obsession doesn't mean Freeney is happy with the digital Dwight. Too weak, too slow. It's hard to replicate Freeney because no great pass-rusher has ever been constructed like him. Growing up in Bloomfield, Conn., Freeney played soccer, football, basketball, tennis, piano and trombone (and bowled on the school team). No activity was spared his intensity. When he lined up during football practice at Bloomfield High, he would tell whoever faced him not to lay a hand on him. "I don't care how much Coach yells at you," he'd warn. "I will hurt you if you touch me."

In college, Syracuse strength coach William Hicks saw the short-legged Freeney's low center of gravity and thought he could be a freakish rusher if his force ever matched his quicks. So, prior to Freeney's junior year, Hicks put 100-pound plates on the floor and had Freeney explode out of his stance and then push them without letting his knees touch the ground. Freeney's legs burned as his thighs became as round as kegs, but the exercise worked. During games, Freeney would clear tackles so fast he'd have to U-turn back to the passer. Still, Hicks wasn't done. He made Freeney stretch his ankles every day. "He needed leverage," Hicks says. "His ankles are as flexible as Barry Sanders'." No surprise: as a senior, Freeney led the nation with 17.5 sacks.

Not that all this work created the world's most graceful pass-rusher. When Freeney turns the corner, his arms fly up, as if he's signaling a touchdown. But being up in arms helps him strip the ball; he's forced fumbles on 42.5% of his 40 career sacks. Madden's Freeney doesn't emphasize this unique rushing style, but that didn't stop the real Freeney from taking on Madden's Patriots more times than he can count this off-season, as if virtual domination might translate into the same thing this fall.

For the record, he didn't lose once.

4. He Avoided Lime

Freeney sits in a Phoenix steakhouse. A waitress brings a glass with a lime on it. He cringes. "May I have a glass with no lime or lemon?" Food freaks out Freeney more than double-teams. If Jessica Alba leaned in for a kiss with a lime in her mouth, he'd pull back.

Such is life when you're on the Sari Mellman diet. Mellman is a nutritionist in Miami, and her program begins with an analysis of a client's blood. Then clients are given a list of foods that their body metabolizes best. Freeney e-mails Mellman his info every day. Yesterday was perfect.

Weight and time: 267.2, 7:50 a.m.
Day before: 270.4
Night before: 268.4
Hours of sleep: 5
Water intake: Good
Foods eaten: Beef, grapes
Gas: Yes

Every particle entering Freeney's mouth is accounted for. He'll eat steak only with sea salt, brush only with Colgate Total Plus Whitening toothpaste. And he's convinced that he could gain two pounds in a day eating lime.

Freeney talks up the $4,995 diet to whomever will listen, which wears thin with teammates. "He always sends his steaks back," James says. "Every time. They never use the right salt." Manning asks the Colts chefs if they hide when Freeney walks up. Tony Dungy walks up to Freeney midmeal and says, "You know, fried chicken isn't bad for you." When Freeney leaves the steakhouse in Phoenix, he puts a toothpick between his lips, then gets a sick look on his face. He swishes water from a bottle in his mouth, rinsing and repeating.

Shaking his head, he explains: "The toothpick was flavored." With lime.

5. He got his hair cut

Only one person was allowed to cut Freeney's hair this off-season, and he's not even a barber. He's Chancellor Barjona, a high school friend who also lives in Phoenix. Freeney is not especially superstitious; it's just that getting his buzz cuts at Barjona's allows him one more chance to watch film--in this case, a highlight disc of his 2004 season. Here he is terrorizing Boller, Joey Harrington, David Carr, Trent Green, Brett Favre, Jake Plummer, Byron Leftwich, Carr again, Kerry Collins, Steve McNair and whoever it was who quarterbacked the Bears. Then Tom Brady comes on.

Freeney was constantly in Brady's face during the two games they played, the Colts' first and last. Here's Freeney putting a chop-spin move on left tackle Matt Light, barely missing Brady. Here he is with a slap-chop-spin, again just missing Brady. Freeney did get a sack in each game, but he had to play every defensive-line position to avoid doubleteams. Even then, the Pats found him. During one play in New England's 20-3 divisional playoff win, Pats receiver David Givens came over to chip-block Freeney. "What are you doing f-ing with me?" Freeney said. Givens gave a look that said, "I wish I weren't." On second-and-11 in the third quarter, Freeney speed-rushed past Light as if he were an I-70 Steak 'n Shake, but Brady still passed for a 17-yard gain. Brady patted Freeney's helmet and said, "You almost got me that time."

Almost. That sums up Indy vs. New England. The Colts have their ideas about how they'll free Freeney on Nov. 7: stunt him more, blitz more from his side, play tighter coverage against the Pats wideouts to stop the quick pass. Freeney knows that Light can't block him, but he doesn't care: "Until we win, it doesn't matter."

So he'll keep searching for any edge, including while he's getting a trim. Freeney shakes off the barber's bib and leaves Barjona's apartment for the airport. In a week he'll report to camp. This was his last day working with Schroeder, his last haircut from Barjona, his last meal at the restaurants that recognize him as "the sea salt guy." He needs to be at the airport in an hour and he still has to return his rented Escalade. For once, though, Freeney's not in a rush. He strolls to his SUV and … wait. What's that?

Are those his hands in his pockets?

His eyes roll and he laughs. "You think I really don't put my hands in my pockets? Come on!"

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