The Blind Side Read Free Page A

tackle.”
Offensive linemen were the stay-at-home mothers of the NFL: everyone paid lip service to the importance of their contribution yet hardly anyone could tell you exactly what that was. In 1985 the left tackle had no real distinction. He was still expected to believe himself more or less interchangeable with the other linemen. The Washington Redskins’ offensive line was perhaps the most famous in NFL history. It had its own nickname: the Hogs. Fans dressed as pigs in their honor. And yet they weren’t understood, even by their own teammates, in the way running backs or quarterbacks were understood, as individual players with particular skills. “Even people who said they were fans of the Hogs had no idea who we were,” said Jacoby. “They couldn’t even tell the black ones from the white ones. I had people see me and scream, ‘Hey May!’” (Right tackle Mark May was black; Jacoby was not.)
That night, with Jacoby out, the Redskins moved Russ Grimm from his position at left guard to left tackle. Grimm was four inches shorter, 30 pounds lighter, and far less agile than Jacoby. “Little Porky Grimm,” line coach Joe Bugel called him. As a result, he needed help, and got it, in the form of the extra tight end, a fellow named Don Warren. If Taylor made his move to the inside, Grimm was expected to deal with him; if Taylor went on a wide loop outside, Grimm was meant, at most, to punch him, to slow him down, and give Warren the time to stay with him. From his spot on the sidelines, Jacoby watched as Taylor went outside. Grimm couldn’t lay a hand on him and so Warren was left alone with Taylor. “They weren’t used to his speed,” said Jacoby. He watched Taylor race upfield and leave Warren in the dust, then double back on the quarterback.
Jacoby then heard what sounded like a gunshot—the tibia and fibula in Joe Theismann’s right leg snapping beneath Taylor. He watched as Grimm and Warren removed their helmets and walked quickly toward the sidelines, like men fleeing the scene of a crime. He listened as Grimm told him that Theismann’s bone lay exposed, and his blood was spurting straight up in the air. “Russ was a hunter,” said Jacoby. “He’d gutted deer. And he said, ‘That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.’” And Jacoby thought: It happened because I’m standing over here. Years later he wouldn’t be surprised that Theismann did not realize his great left tackle was standing on the sidelines. “But that’s why his leg got broken,” he said.
A few minutes later, six men bore Theismann on a stretcher to an ambulance. In ABC’s booth, Joe Namath said, “I just hope it’s not his last play in football.” But it was. Nearly a year later Joe Theismann would be wandering around the Redskins locker room unable to feel his big toe, or to push off his right leg. He’d become a statistic: the American Journal of Sports Medicine article on the injuries to NFL quarterbacks between 1980 and 2001 would count Theismann’s two broken bones as just one of a sample of 1,534—77.4 percent of which occur, just as this one had, during games, on passing plays. The game continued and the Redskins, surprisingly, won, 28–23. And most people who did not earn their living in the NFL trying to figure out how to protect their increasingly expensive quarterbacks shoved the incident to the back of their minds. Not ten minutes after Theismann was hauled off the field, Lawrence Taylor himself pounced on a fumble and ran to the bench, jubilant. Frank Gifford sought to persuade his audience that Taylor was still obviously feeling upset about what he had done to Joe Theismann. But the truth is that he didn’t look at all upset. He looked as if he’d already gotten over it.
What didn’t make sense on that night was Taylor’s initial reaction. He leapt out of the pile like a man on fire. Those who had watched Taylor’s career closely might have expected a bit more sangfroid in the presence of an