NFL Poindexter: What Is Love?

Samari Rolle knows. He also knows he loves the game too much to head to the booth.

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Samari Rolle on T.O. this weekend: "It is possible to get too emotional, yes."

Like Foreigner's Mick Jones, I want to know what love is. And this week I want to know how that love is manifested in sport—especially football. I know how I love it. I see it, digest it and put my observations to paper in a sort of mash note. But not everyone in the game—from the playing field to the press box—shares my warm fuzzy feelings for the sport that has provided me with a living for the past 18 years (if you include playing time and my life as a sportswriter).

A few years back, I was talking with Garin Veris, a former 49ers teammate and the guy who hosted me on my recruiting trip to Stanford, about my job as a sportswriter. "So," he asked me, with an incredulity bordering on disbelief, "you have to go to games every week?" I told him yes, I did and that I enjoyed it. I still do.

Veris asked a fair question, though. When you play on the professional level, the bulk of your workweek is spent in studious pursuit of your opponent's tendencies, which means watching hours and hours of video tape. When most players are done playing—be in the offseason or retirement—the last thing they want to do is watch football. But there are a few who just can't get enough of the game. I figured I talk to one.

Back in 1976, around the time Mick Jones was forming his band, Harry and Grace Rolle welcomed a son, Samari, who grew into a fine football player at the cornerback position. After starring at Miami Beach High School, Rolle moved on to Florida State. These days, he plies his trade for the Baltimore Ravens. While his chosen vocation may attest to his love of the game, his love goes a little deeper. We're not talking about the rush he gets running out to the field at M&T Bank Stadium to take his place in one of the best defenses in the league. We're talking about a guy who just can't get enough of watching ball.

And not just while he's preparing for an opponent. In the dead of winter, long after the season has ended, Rolle holes up in his home and pores over tape of burgeoning talent. If there are high school or college players whose futures include playing on Sundays, Rolle probably has a file on them. "I saw Adrian Peterson when he was in High School," he says. "I thought he could have gone pro then!" Shortly after the Ravens hired Jon Harbaugh last winter, Rolle discovered that his reputation as a tape hound had earned him some currency. "Coach Harbaugh asked me straight up, who should we draft?" says Rolle. "I told him (Tennessee State's) Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. But he said he didn't want to pick him that high!"

In the fall, Rolle's video pursuits are more conventional. He'll make time to catch some high school games, but most of his attention goes to his next assignment. Still sore from Sunday's game, Rolle starts feeding his brain on Monday night by watching his opponents previous game. "I want to see how they're calling plays," he says. "Then I break it down by situation." It continues on Tuesday, the players' off day, and after he leaves the Ravens' complex on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. "I even watch the night before the game," he says. "But a lot of guys do that here. Ed Reed does and Ray (Lewis) does. You can't be around the ball as much as they are without studying."

Every offense has a myriad of plays and formations from which to run them. But each week, that extensive menu is condensed into a plan. To know one's opponent you have to know yourself. I know there are the basic rules of combat, but they're worth stating for the purposes of this discussion. After every practice, a great defense, like the Ravens, takes a glimpse at their own tendencies, so they might get a preview of what to expect from an opponent. Then its time to deconstruct the adversary. For a cornerback, the key is in the details: which foot does the receiver lead with when he's running an out route? Does his body language tip off when he's going deep?

This mix of brain (the preparation) and brawn (the violent confrontations that result) is part of why I love the game. The formula is especially intriguing this week as the Ravens prepare for the Dallas Cowboys and Rolle preps for the volatile Terrell Owens. Allow T.O. to get inside your head and he'll stay there for as long as it takes to throw you off your game. So when preparing for Owens, it behooves a corner to be pragmatic. The logical temptation is to press Owens, get into his face and rough him up. But that's not the best solution. Truth is Owens likes contact. In fact, Steve Young called him the most "physically dominating" receiver he had ever seen.

As you might expect, Rolle has a plan, but he won't reveal it. "Yeah, it's possible to get too emotional," is all he'll say about this week's assignment. I understand. I recall a conversation I once had with . He wouldn't tell me which cornerback played him the best, for fear that the corner would gain some advantage against him.

After eleven years in the league, Rolle is of the age where mental advantages are more valuable than physical skill. Life's disadvantages have fortified his strength. He's dealt with the recent passing of his father and being diagnosed with epilepsy. But from the beginning, Rolle has known what moves him. This will serve him well in his post-football life.

In the case of pro athletes like Rolle, the road is pretty well paved by ex-jocks that may or may not have interesting things to say about the current state of affairs. Rolle makes it clear that the booth holds no appeal for him.

"It's easy to get on t.v.," he says. "But I love the game too much to do that. It's not real." Of all the former players in the game, only one gets Rolle's respect. "Deion is the only one who really pays attention to the game," he says. "I believe him."

Besides, he's already easing into the front office side of things, dubbing himself Ozzie Newsome's understudy. Rolle is up front with his appreciation for the Ravens General Manager. "He's an African-American man who built a Super Bowl team," says Rolle. "Ozzie knows I'd love to do that. And he knows I have a passion for it."

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