Part 2 – Intentional Grounding
Roger has just begun his life as a quarterback in the American Football Association, in the nation’s capital. After weeks of bad performances and a minor scandal, the coach feels the need to move on and explore other options, leaving Roger a broken man. He is given a fresh start in Minnesota. Will he take advantage and prove his doubters wrong?
(Delay of Shame is a three-part series. Part 2, “Intentional Grounding,” explores the struggles that Roger experiences as his dream of a magical second season in the NFL begins to crumble.)
Watch Your Mouth
The players arrive at Bluefin Park to a swarm of reporters craving sound bites. “Kyle, do you have anything to say about last night’s locker room incident? Samuel, any comments on the relationship between your coach and your owner?” The players refuse to speak.
Nobody on the team can comprehend why there are so many media members at their stadium for a Week 8 matchup against the disappointing Green Bay Booze Hounds. Eventually, one of the offensive linemen picks up his phone and sees that there are reports that Driver and Shannon were involved in a fist fight the previous evening. The players make their way into the stadium and they start asking questions. Once they enter the locker room, the questions become personal.
“Gifford – this wasn’t you, was it? You didn’t start this [expletive], did you?
“No. Why the [expletive] would I do that? The whole team already got too many problems…you think I wanna deal with this nonsense on top of that? Come on, man!”
“All right, then who opened their mouth? Yo Rusty, you left dinner early to go do an interview, right? What did you say?”
“I basically said that it’s been a rough season and it’s affecting all of us and we’re all doing everything we can to get back on track.” The team inquires further.
“Did the reporter ask you anything about Stan and Coach Shannon’s relationship?”
“Yeah, they did. I said that they’ve had their disagreements, but it seems like they worked it out.” Grover stops. “Aw [expletive]. I made a joke about them having a fist fight and shaking hands and they probably ran with it.”
The players are in disbelief. Rusty ran his mouth again. And while this interrogation was going on, Coach Shannon had made his way toward the lockers. Coach caught the last few words out of Rusty’s mouth.
“Rusty – I need to talk to you for a minute.” Coach Shannon points toward his office and he and Rusty head into the hallway. Rusty returns from the office a few minutes later cursing at himself and hitting himself in the head.
“What happened, man?”
“I got deactivated for the game.” The players console him, but it’s easy to see they knew that it was the right move so that Rusty could learn from his countless mistakes.
Roger Gifford and the rest of the team recover from the pregame shenanigans and jump out to an early 7-0 lead over the Booze Hounds with a 22-yard touchdown run by Gifford. The Bluefins continue to play well and go into the locker room up 14-13 at the half. Shannon is excited about the team’s effort, both on offense and defense. The Bluefins return to the field for the second half, which turns out to be a defensive battle. Gifford finds himself facing a 16-14 deficit late in the game, but he is able to lead the team down the field and set Washington up for a 41-yard field goal attempt. The ball splits the uprights as time expires and the Bluefins win, 17-16.
The Beginning of the End
Thankfully for the Bluefins, their Week 9 matchup against the Conquistadors is in Dallas, far away from the media circus in Washington that has only recently begun to die down. Facts about the relationship between Coach Shannon and Stan Driver are of no interest to reporters in Texas. The team is coming off a good win and the team is still a threat to win the division.
Gifford starts the game once again and struggles throughout the first half. The Bluefins are trailing 14-6 at halftime, and Gifford is visibly shaken when all of a sudden, Gifford feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks back and sees Kurt Cutcliffe behind him.
“Roger, you look like you don’t think we can win. You look beat. How do you think the rest of the team feels when they see you like this? Come on, man – we’re down eight points, not 38. There’s still a whole [expletive] half left. You just need to start strong and show Dallas that we’re not going down easy. Fix your [expletive] face and get out there.”
Gifford smiles, and then the smile turns into a scowl that seems to say, “It’s on.” Gifford and Cutcliffe high-five and head back onto the field for the second half. Gifford begins the second half very strong, and with a good performance by the defense, the Bluefins are only down 21-20 with three minutes left in the game.
Washington’s offense gets back on the field with one more chance to get into field goal range to attempt a game-winning kick. Gifford drops back and throws a pass to a wide receiver who never turns his head to locate the ball. A defender gets under the pass and snatches it out of the air, taking the ball away from the Bluefins’ offense. Gifford has thrown his first interception of the game at the worst possible time. With no timeouts, the game ends and Washington’s record drops to 3-5 on the year.
Gifford walks into the locker room, removes his helmet, and throws it at a wall. All of the turmoil and losing had come to a head. “I’m tired of this [expletive]! I’m so [expletive] tired of it, man!” Coach Shannon hears the commotion in his office while watching film. He pauses the tape and sighs. The coach then picks up a binder, flips over to the Depth Chart tab, and grabs a pencil. Coach Shannon taps the pencil repeatedly as if he’s unsure whether he wants to make a change at quarterback right then and there, but he comes to his senses and puts the pencil back in his World’s Greatest Dad coffee mug.
“He’s got one more chance.”
Spiraling Downward
The Washington Bluefins are quickly falling out of playoff contention and Roger Gifford is struggling mightily. Coach Shannon could yank Gifford at any moment and Stan Driver doesn’t seem to be defending Gifford as adamantly as he had in previous weeks. If winning cures all, then losing opens new wounds and this team is bleeding out.
In Week 10, the Bluefins are away at New Orleans to face the Mudbugs. Washington is dominated in every aspect of the game and cannot overcome the four interceptions thrown by Gifford. Gifford is benched in the fourth quarter, and the game ends 31-3. Coach Shannon pulls Gifford into his office and gives Roger a few words of advice.
“Roger, I’m not going to lie to you. Today, you played about as poorly as any quarterback has played this season. I’m telling you – one more game like this and I’m going to have to sit you down for the season. We’re extremely close to being knocked out of the playoff race and I’m not going to keep playing you if there’s nothing to play for.”
“You’re right, Coach. I have to respect that. I’ll do better.” Roger begins to walk out and Coach Shannon stops Gifford.
“Go out there and prove it.”
Roger walks back to rejoin the team and sees Rusty Grover packing up his belongings. Roger asks some of his other teammates why Rusty is cleaning out his locker. He later finds out that Rusty was released minutes after the game ended for conduct detrimental to the team. Coach Shannon had found out that Rusty Grover was drinking tequila on the sidelines during games. This major incident as well as the interview that led to the media uproar was enough to justify his release. The Bluefins are sinking fast, but they are still a few weeks away from hitting the ocean floor.
The End of the Road
Washington returns to Bluefin Park for a game against the surging New England Pilgrims. Roger Gifford plays better than he has played in about a month, but Washington’s defense and special teams allow four touchdowns in the second half. The Bluefins lose the game, 28-21 after leading 14-0 at the half. Shannon has no interest in benching Gifford after one of his better games of the season. He does, however, threaten to release every member of the special teams unit after their lackluster pe
rformance.
Next on the schedule is a Week 12 matchup against the New York Helicopters. Once again, the Bluefins are leading late in the game when a Washington defender falls down and allows a 58-yard, game-winning touchdown pass. The Bluefins drop to 3-8 with a 17-16 defeat. Roger handles the postgame press conference as well as a quarterback can, knowing that he could lose his starting job at any time. He takes full blame for the defeat, although the media sees his responses to questions as nothing more than nonsense and lies. Radio hosts demand that Gifford be demoted to backup. Fans demand that he be traded.
The Bluefins return to New York, this time for a divisional game against the Ogres. Gifford’s streak of satisfactory play at the quarterback position ends at two games. New York has its way with Washington’s offense, forcing three interceptions by Gifford and a fumble in the first half. For once, the Bluefins’ defense keeps its team in the game, holding the Ogres to 10 points after three quarters. The Ogres start the fourth quarter strong with two consecutive touchdown drives, and the final score is New York 24, Washington 6. He won’t say as much, but the look on Coach Shannon’s face at the postgame press conference says it all: Roger Gifford has played his last game in the 2013 season.
“Mark, have you considered shutting Roger down at all?”
“We will evaluate the situation and make a decision before our game against Philadelphia.”
Fresh Start
Kurt Cutcliffe is named the starter against the Philadelphia Finches in Week 14 on Wednesday, and the coach has announced that he will be the starter for the remainder of the season. The team has lost five straight games and has been eliminated from the playoff picture. The season is an absolute disaster and the fans are outraged. Fans are threatening to protest in front of Bluefin Park during the final two home games of the season. The players and coaches have already begun to plan their postseason vacations.
On the bus to Philadelphia, Roger Gifford does not remove his headphones and never says a word. Right now, Roger can barely be considered a member of the Washington Bluefins. The team begins the game by returning the opening kickoff to midfield, and they capitalize on the good field position by scoring a touchdown. The Bluefins go up 14-0 on an interception return for a touchdown. Unfortunately, the offense stalls in the second half and the Finches score 20 unanswered points. Philadelphia is able to hold on for a 20-17 victory, but Cutcliffe showed promise.
A few days before the Bluefins’ second to last home game against the Carolina Ocelots, the team announces that the game would be blacked out locally because the team could not sell enough tickets. Newspaper headlines such as “FIN-ISHED” and “BLACK & BLUE” appear before game day. Cutcliffe, the team’s new leader, posts a copy of each negative article written about their team on the wall. He gathers the team around the wall, reads every headline aloud, and proceeds to tear them all down.
“We’re not done! We got games to play. We got three teams ahead of us and they’re all trying to get into the playoffs. We can shake up the whole season if we start handing out L’s to these teams. We’re not done! Let’s go show them that WE’RE! NOT! DONE!”
The team takes a 19-0 lead into halftime, with Cutcliffe completing his first 15 pass attempts and the defense forcing two turnovers. The Ocelots attempt a comeback in the second half, bringing the score to 19-14, but Cutcliffe keeps the ball himself for a 5-yard touchdown run which all but seals the win for the Bluefins, with a final score of 26-20. The team travels to Tampa to take on the Swashbucklers, another team with playoff hopes. Once again, Cutcliffe has an impressive start to the game, and the team takes a 17-10 lead into the locker room. Washington’s offense continues to move the ball quickly and efficiently and is able to hold off a late threat by the Swashbucklers for a 31-27 victory to raise the Bluefins’ record to 5-10.
Coach Shannon decides to reward the team for two impressive efforts in a row. Practice on Monday is canceled, which has not happened since the coach was hired by Washington. On Tuesday, when practice begins, Roger Gifford is nowhere to be found. He arrives 20 minutes later and is immediately forced to do wind sprints. Gifford’s lack of effort shown during the drill angers the coach and much of the team. Roger is called into the coach’s office after practice ends.
“Roger, what’s going on? I know you’re not happy with the situation, but if you show up late to practice with no excuse, you do wind sprints. And you better do the drill like you’re supposed to. I’ve noticed throughout the past few weeks that you’ve distanced yourself from the team, and as a captain, that just won’t fly. So, from this moment on, you will no longer be a captain.” Roger nods his head and walks out of the office without saying a single word.
The final home game of the season against the Ogres is shameful. Bluefin Park has a capacity of 90,000 people, but fewer than 55,000 people are in attendance for this game. Only about a third of the fans in the stadium are Bluefin fans; the rest are Ogre fans who made the trip to see their playoff-bound team play in its final regular season game.
After two excellent performances in consecutive weeks, Kurt Cutcliffe finally comes back down to earth and the Bluefins find themselves in a 20-0 hole at the half. On Washington’s first offensive play from scrimmage, Cutcliffe is sacked and is very slow to get up. Gifford quickly grabs his helmet, but Cutcliffe picks himself off the turf and gets back in the huddle. Gifford sits back down and continues watching the game from the sidelines. The Bluefins get a few late touchdowns in garbage time, but the Ogres win easily, 23-14. The Bluefins season is finally over, with the team having finished one of the most dreadful 5-11 seasons in the history of the league. Mark Shannon is fired the next morning.
The Offseason
The Washington Bluefins’ regular season is finally over. Stan Driver addresses the media and attempts to outline how the team will deal with the previous season as well as what plans he has for the franchise going forward. After speaking with reporters, Stan Driver goes to check up on Rusty Grover to see how he’s doing, and to apologize for how he was treated over the previous season. Stan and Rusty play a couple hands of Texas Hold ‘em when Rusty asks Stan to join him on a trip to Las Vegas. Driver accepts, and they head to Vegas together a week later.
Stan spends 12 straight hours gambling after Rusty goes up to his hotel room. Rusty returns to the casino the morning before their flight leaves, but cannot find Stan anywhere. Attempts to call Stan are futile. Later that day, Rusty is forced to return to Virginia without Stan. While in Vegas, Stan develops a major gambling problem and loses half his net worth within two months. Stan Driver is forced to sell the team weeks before the draft. The new ownership sees Gifford as expendable based on his performance in the previous season, and Roger Gifford is traded to the Minnesota Anglers for draft picks, one of which is used by the Bluefins to draft a quarterback in the first round. Roger Griffin’s career as a Washington Bluefin is officially over.
How will Roger handle this news? Will his relationship with Stan Driver continue? Will Roger be the backup or the starter? Will Roger’s wife join a book club? Find out in Part 3 of Delay of Shame: Roger’s Story.
Delay of Shame: Roger’s Story