Coming Back Stronger (9 page)

In February, a little over a month after my surgery, negotiations began for the next season. I was waiting for the Chargers to make me a long-term offer, as A. J. Smith had promised. Dr. Andrews gave the Chargers his report. After several weeks of therapy, I was hitting my short-term goals and feeling pretty good about next season. I still had a long way to go, but I was making progress and was way ahead of schedule.

Through my agent, I finally got the news I’d been waiting to hear: “We’re going to offer you a long-term deal.” But as the terms of the contract unfolded, I grew more and more disappointed. The deal they were presenting was basically equivalent to a backup quarterback’s salary. There were incentives in the deal to put me at a starter’s salary, but who was to say I was going to even get an opportunity to compete for the job? It wasn’t about the money; what hurt the most was the underlying message. They were saying, Yeah, we’ll sign you; we’ll bring you back. But you’re no longer our guy. We’ve moved on to Philip Rivers.

I know that football is a business, so I try to never take negotiations personally. But it was obvious to me from the get-go what their vision was. And it hurt a lot. Yes, the Chargers had offered me a long-term contract. But it wasn’t a contract that told me they wanted me to stay. Now, I’m a pretty confident guy. I have a strong belief system and a solid faith. But when you play a team sport, you need others to believe in you too. And I wasn’t feeling that support from San Diego right then, at the moment I needed it most.

I knew Coach Schottenheimer believed in me. Brian and Cam and a lot of the guys on the team believed in me. Many of the fans believed in me too. I had downplayed the injury to the media and tried to paint the picture that it might have been a tough break, but I was a tough guy. I wanted everyone to know that I was one of those people who might get knocked down but comes back stronger. Still, management and ownership had their doubts. They might have respected my work ethic and the way I approached the game, but when it came to the question “Who can lead us to a championship?” they didn’t feel like I was their guy. That feeling was worse than any hit I’ve ever taken in a football game.

The worst part was there was only so much I could do to get them to see the truth about me. I could point to the 2004 and 2005 seasons. I could remind them that I was still a young player with my best years ahead of me. I could tell them I wasn’t a quitter—that I was going to take the adversity and turn it into an opportunity to come back better, for my sake and the team’s. But it was tough to convince them of this when my arm had just gotten out of the sling and my shoulder was held together with steel anchors.

The minute I got that first offer, I knew I wasn’t going back. Negotiations went back and forth for the next two or three weeks and my agent did his best, but deep down I knew that my era with San Diego was ending. It was a difficult truth to accept—it was hard to let that dream die.

I wasn’t the only one who struggled when things ended with the Chargers. Brittany was really hurt by the process, especially knowing how much I had given to the organization. She probably took it twice as hard as I did. She cared about me, and she knew what this was doing inside me. Her protective instincts kicked in, and she wanted to do whatever she could to defend my honor and encourage me.

That’s one thing I love about her—she is as fierce as a lioness protecting her cubs when it comes to the people she loves. If the Chargers didn’t want us, fine. We’d go someplace where someone did. What meant the most to her was not where we lived but being with people who believed in me as much as she did. When something major happens to a player—like an injury or a tough loss or a move to another team—people tend to focus on how it affects him and his team. But the truth is, the player’s family is impacted even more. We as athletes are somewhat immune to the drama because we see it all the time, but our families aren’t used to it and always take it the hardest.

Brittany and I had planned on starting a family during that off-season, but when I got hurt and the Chargers’ offer didn’t come through as we’d hoped, there were suddenly a lot of unknowns. Where would we wind up? Where would we live? Would I get a long-term deal so we could settle down somewhere, or would it be a temporary situation where we couldn’t put down roots? How far would we be from family and friends? We knew God had a plan, and this felt like a sign that we needed to put our dreams for children on hold for a little longer.

As a football player who had experienced all different levels of the game, from flag football to the NFL, I was pretty well equipped to handle what was happening. Even if I hadn’t experienced an injury or a letdown to this extent before, I’d at least seen it happen to other guys. But it was hard for Brittany to see me in physical pain—and even worse, to try to understand why the team didn’t believe in me.

Through it all, with the strength of her faith in God and in me, she was able to trust me during that time of hurt and uncertainty about where we would wind up. She assured me she’d follow me anywhere, that we were a package deal. This bump in the road was just that—a bump. Brittany had grown up in the Midwest, so she could handle any weather situation. She had also moved around a lot as a child, so the idea of packing up again didn’t affect her much. She always says, “Home is not necessarily where you were born—you had no control of that. Home is where you make it.” She told me, “Don’t worry about me. You just concentrate on getting your shoulder better.” God knew I needed her then. Now we can see how the Lord used that time to deepen our love and to help us become more committed to each other than ever.

This experience really showed us the people in our lives who were with us through good times and bad. There were those I thought would have been there for sure, and they weren’t. There were also a lot of people I never thought would be there for me, and yet there they were. You can’t help but make a mental list and remember those people. When I was at my lowest—when I didn’t know if I’d ever play football again—I discovered the people who were truly there for me. At that point you realize family doesn’t only include blood. I have friends who are like brothers—the guys who stick around even when you’re not all smiles and good times. It turns out that family really means the people in your life who are always there, even when you are at your weakest.

When negotiations with the Chargers broke down, it was clear that free agency was my next step. At the beginning of that process, a lot of teams tend to throw their hats into the ring. In my case, as many as eight teams expressed an interest. At best, they were offering the same deal as the Chargers . . . meaning they wanted me to be their backup. In essence, their offers were saying, We like you, but we’re just not sure if you’re going to recover from this injury. We don’t want to make a big investment. If it worked out, great. If I didn’t come back, at least they hadn’t put too much on the line.

As I was going through my rehab, fighting to make my way back, I didn’t have my sights set on a backup position. That was not even an option in my eyes. I understood that I was considered a big risk after such a serious injury. But I believed God wasn’t finished with me in the NFL yet, and I was going to return better than before. I wanted somebody to share that vision—someone who would take a chance on me. So far, no team had done that.

In the midst of fielding offers, I continued the grueling rehab. In the end it came down to two teams: the Miami Dolphins and the New Orleans Saints. Over the past few years some people have speculated about what really happened during this process. Why did I choose one team over the other? Well, it wasn’t exactly a straight path east, all the way to New Orleans—there were some twists and turns along the way. I was perhaps more surprised than anyone about the way things turned out.

Miami vs. New Orleans

Football is all about timing. There’s the timing of the snap count. The speed and depth of the receiver running his route. The pause of the running back before he explodes toward the line.

When I was lying on a gurney in the training room during the last game of 2005, my shoulder shredded and my career in jeopardy, I couldn’t imagine how anything good could come out of something so awful. But as I would soon learn, sometimes the way God works is all about timing too. I had to wait. I had to work. But in the end, he had a clear purpose in everything that happened.

I’ll admit, his timing often felt slow—especially while I was going through rehab. When will I feel back to normal? When will I be able to play again? When will the right opportunity come my way? But no one ever said the Christian faith is about living according to your own terms or timetable. It’s about dropping anchor even when you’re in an unpredictable place. It’s about knowing that though things may not make sense on paper, you have to trust God to see the bigger picture. You have to choose to live from the heart and trust what you cannot see.

Less than a year after my shoulder injury, I was already starting to experience the unexpected good that can come out of adversity. That event took me to new places in my faith, as I knew God was sharpening me for a significant task down the road. It marked a new place of vulnerability and openness in my relationship with Brittany. It was a time of growing closer to her parents while I lived with them in Alabama during rehab. And in terms of my career, this incident allowed me to discover the people who were really on my team. In a strange way, I’m grateful for it, because it was a catalyst to change that needed to happen.

One of the most significant lessons I learned during that dark period of injury and rehab is this: if God leads you to it, he will lead you through it. Everything happens for a reason, and everything is part of his master plan. If you let adversity do its work in you, it will make you stronger. When you come out on the other side, you just may be amazed at the things God has allowed you to accomplish—things you might not have believed were possible.

God’s refining process is never easy. It’s kind of like a blacksmith creating a sword. The metal is strengthened when it is repeatedly put in the fire and then pounded with a hammer. But the end result is perfection. All the heat and pounding create a strength and beauty, not only on the outside, but especially on the inside. God sometimes puts us in the fire, and it’s going to hurt, but it will mold and shape us into the people he intends for us to be. When I went through that fire, I didn’t know what was ahead for me, and I didn’t know what the end result would be. I had to trust and believe that there was a purpose for all this and take things one day at a time.

I’ve been asked on a number of occasions what happened between head coach Nick Saban, the Dolphins, and me. To the outside observer, it must have seemed really obvious what my choice would be when it came down to Miami or New Orleans. But there were other factors at play besides geography and football.

I met with Tom Condon, my agent, after things fell through on my contract with San Diego. Once the dust settled in the days prior to the start of free agency in early March 2006, it was clear that there were only two contenders who saw me as a starting quarterback in the NFL: the Dolphins and the Saints. Tom and I sat together and talked through the pros and cons of each.

“Here’s how I see it,” Tom said. “For New Orleans, you have to factor in that the city has just been through the biggest natural disaster in the history of the country. More than 80 percent of the city was underwater. I don’t know how many good places there are to live. The whole city was devastated—it still is.” That was no exaggeration. At the time, the team had been relocated to San Antonio, Texas, and there had been talk of moving the team permanently. Plans had even been made to tear down the Superdome. The previous season had been played entirely on the road—San Antonio, Baton Rouge, even New Jersey. Tom went on, “Now, they have a brand-new coaching staff—but there are a lot of unknowns.” It was true: a lot of good things were being said about Sean Payton, but he had never been a head coach before. Then there was the clincher: “Drew, the overall reputation of the organization is not good. The team has been pretty dysfunctional for a long time. I like the general manager, Mickey Loomis, but he is going to have a hard time attracting talented players to come down there.”

If you would have asked me in 2004, before Hurricane Katrina, “What one team in the league would you least want to play for?” I probably would have said the New Orleans Saints. That’s not a knock against the city. I had been through New Orleans once before, for a wedding, and the only thing I saw aside from the ceremony was Bourbon Street since our hotel was right there. That was my concept of the city.

My impression of the team wasn’t much better. I didn’t know many of the players personally, but I’d heard about the team’s reputation from other players in the league and observed it from afar. Most people viewed the Saints as a dead-end organization at the time. When you thought of New Orleans, you just didn’t think of a great atmosphere conducive to winning and building a championship-caliber team. So before we even started talking, I had an overwhelmingly negative view of the club.

After a successful 2000 season, in which the Saints won their first playoff game in franchise history, they followed it up with four consecutive mediocre seasons from 2001 to 2004. The Saints had a lot of talent, but they couldn’t figure out how to win consistently. They were streaky and unpredictable. They then went 3–13 in 2005, the Katrina year. Now here they were knocking on my door in 2006. Tom was trying to go through the pros and cons of New Orleans with me, but it was hard to see anything but the cons. The assignment was fraught with challenges and downsides—the rebuilding needed in the city, the uncertainty about the future of keeping the organization in New Orleans, and the fact that this was not where I had imagined starting a family. Besides, from a football perspective, it just didn’t seem like a great prospect.

“Then there’s Miami,” Tom said. “First of all, there’s the obvious advantage: you’d get to live in Miami. It’s a great city, a great climate.” He had a point. Plus, there was no rebuilding needed there. “Second, there’s an unbelievable tradition with the Dolphins. They’ve won Super Bowls. They have a great ownership structure. And Nick Saban has a reputation as a winner.” Saban was a young head coach with a lot of energy and ideas, and he had turned the team around the previous season, his first as an NFL head coach. They were 9–7 in 2005, and every indication was that they were going to win more. Tom went on, “Saban is an extremely talented defensive coach, so you know he’s going to take care of that side of the ball. And you’ve also got superb coaches on the offensive side. Mike Mularkey, the offensive coordinator, has head coaching experience and is running the same offense you did in San Diego. Jason Garrett is one of the best up-and-coming young offensive minds in the league, plus the O line coach is your old O line coach from San Diego, Hudson Houck. You’ve got familiarity there.”

On paper, the obvious choice was Miami. It was an organization on the rise. They wanted to win. And they were coming after me.

Daunte Culpepper was another highly regarded quarterback looking for a new team that year. He had torn up his knee in 2005. (Incidentally, Dr. Andrews had operated on both of us.) The consensus around the league was that one of us would play for Miami and the other would play for New Orleans. The question was “Who will go where?”

In reality, the Saints really weren’t interested in Culpepper, and I knew it. Rumor had it they would be drafting a quarterback with a high pick in the first round if they didn’t get me. I also knew that the Dolphins preferred me over Culpepper, in part because in order to get Culpepper, they would have to trade a high draft pick to Minnesota, whereas getting me was free. However, both teams were going to negotiate hard and use the fact that Culpepper was out there to their advantage. I figured it was a matter of trying to get the deal done and making it work financially that would move the negotiations with the Dolphins forward.

I had all but made up my mind by the time I talked with Saints head coach Sean Payton. He had a tough sell—you’re not going to attract sought-after free agents with “Hey, come to our city that was destroyed six months ago.” The organization had just moved back into the facility that had been taken over by the National Guard for several months. There was no guarantee that the Superdome would be playable by the time the season started. They were hoping it would be ready by the third game, but no one knew for sure yet.

I had never spoken with Sean Payton before, and I knew I needed to have a conversation with him before making any decision about New Orleans. Our first conversation occurred while I was going through the Arby’s drive-through in Birmingham, and I realized right away that I liked his personality. I appreciated what he had to say about the team and the direction they were going. The business side of me said it made sense to use a New Orleans visit as leverage against Miami. But the loyalist side of me, the more powerful side, was reminding me that the Saints were the first team to throw their hat in the ring. I could feel that they truly wanted me and would very much appreciate a chance. (I found out later that they were somewhat shocked I decided to make the visit, under the circumstances.) So instead of jumping for Miami, which was my first inclination, I decided I owed it to myself to take a trip to New Orleans and at least see it with my own eyes. I had no idea what I was going to see when I touched down at Louis Armstrong International.

Tom and I agreed that I would take a trip to both New Orleans and Miami and then make the call. I still felt pretty confident I’d ultimately end up in South Florida, but I wanted to give each team a fair shot. Apparently the Dolphins also thought the idea of my playing for the Saints was pretty far-fetched. Who in their right mind would pick New Orleans over Miami?

They believed they were in the driver’s seat.