October 24, 2024
Inside the Washington Commanders’ locker room, defensive tackle Phidarian Mathis was wearing an undershirt that hugged his upper body. Though basic and black and not at all stylish, it’s the kind of clothing his younger self would have dreamed of having. That’s because over the left breast is the shirt’s only design: the NFL logo.
Many boys such as Mathis would have done anything for the privilege to wear that logo. Many men such as Mathis are risking everything to keep the privilege. Even a man with a scary history of brain trauma might be “willing to play the odds” — as Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa told reporters this week — to keep wearing the shield and playing a game that could be his undoing.
Why is this game of violence and peril so alluring? On Monday, Tagovailoa was too busy putting up a defiant front to provide any sort of insight into this question. As he faced an onslaught of queries about his health, Tagovailoa either kept his answers short or incredulous. When initially asked whether medical experts said he could face future risk by playing, Tagovailoa replied quickly, “None of that, no.” And though Tagovailoa’s latest concussion happened after he ran head first into the chest of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who would never be confused for the most physically imposing guy on the field, he equated the risk of getting out of bed and potentially spraining an ankle to the risk of having extra large men wanting to flatten you.
“I appreciate your concern. I really do,” Tagovailoa said. “I love this game, and I love it to the death of me. That’s it.”
But why? I wanted to understand this mindset from other men who wear the NFL shield, so on Wednesday I found Mathis, all 6 feet 4 inches and 300-plus pounds of him in his black shirt. Mathis knew about the decision by Tagovailoa, his former teammate at Alabama, to return to play after the third diagnosed concussion of his NFL career. Still, Mathis could not easily put into words what drives players such as himself and Tagovailoa.
“I don’t know,” Mathis said, shaking his head.
Mathis seemed to get into a wrestling match in his mind — grappling with the boy he once was, who would envision himself playing in Super Bowls, and the man he now is, who does not want to be ruled by childish dreams.
“That’s hard because I know if I was in his situation, I’d shut it down,” Mathis said of Tagovailoa. “That’s just me. But I think people love the game. It’s hard to walk away from it, for sure.”
Mathis, however, might be in the minority. While Mathis said he would retire if he was in Tagovailoa’s position — “Oh, most definitely. … I ain’t going to lie; I’m going to take it in, you know, because I’ve got a kid,” he said — plenty of his teammates would still take the risk. Defensive end Clelin Ferrell softly touched his chest while explaining the gravity of the sport.
“We understand we have a short amount of time … and it’s much bigger than us,” Ferrell said. “There are so many fans. People that pay lots of money to watch us play, so even for Tua, him being the quarterback … he feels like it’s much bigger than himself.”
Across the room, another defensive lineman, Andre Jones Jr., was fiddling with his long braids while pondering his “why.”
“You only get one life. And it could be like, ‘Okay, I’m going to be cautious,’ or you’re just going to roll with the punches,” Jones said, explaining his rationale for returning to all the brutal hits. “Whatever happens, you’re going to be happy about it because you gave it your all.”
A few stalls down, safety Percy Butler was moisturizing his hands with lotion. Those hands have been playing in the dirt and dragging down running backs since he was a young boy. Butler was a lightly recruited kid out of Plaquemine (La.) High, then went to Louisiana Lafayette. Now, after all that work from preps to college, Butler has made it. And he’s also making money. For him, the rewards are greater than the risks.
“To do something you love and to be able to make enough money to change your family’s life forever. So it’s like, why not, you know, sacrifice me?” Butler said. “That’s how I feel. I’d sacrifice my body to change my family’s life, to where my daughter would be set up and make sure all them [in my family are] straight. It ain’t just me. When I say ‘my family,’ there’s a lot of us who grew up in the house with me. I take care of all them. If God chose me to do it, I’m special.”
The Commanders won’t play the Dolphins this season, so Butler doesn’t have to deal with the hypothetical of facing a scrambling Tagovailoa. What would he do?
“Tackle him,” Butler said.
Though Butler answered with his instincts, the act of delivering a blow to Tagovailoa might come with reluctance.
“I don’t want to hit him,” Butler said, “but if I have to …”
He would, and so would every defender in the Commanders’ locker room, the same thing they have done since they were boys.
On Wednesday, though, no one was tackling. The temperature hovered around 80 degrees and awesome. The speakers filled the atmosphere with a throwback jam, Naughty By Nature’s “O.P.P.,” and then a radio-friendly version of a Drake song. Guys wore their jersey tops without shoulder pads stuffed underneath and shorts that bared their legs. Those who chose Guardian Caps wore them like beanies over their heads because no one wore a helmet on this day.
Practice felt more like a midday break in the sun. There were no worries about concussions. No one got hurt.
Mathis calls Tagovailoa “brother,” and those years together at Alabama still mean something. So he said that he supports his decision and wishes him the best. Mathis also hopes Tagovailoa will be all right the rest of his career and that there will be no more “hiccups,” which is a nice way of describing a quarterback curled up on the ground while teammates take a knee and call for the medical staff to hurry over. While Mathis may have sympathy, if there comes a Sunday when he sees his brother in the backfield, he will lower his pads and make the tackle.
“I can’t hold back for no man. I still got to feed my family. If that ever was to come, I wouldn’t be thinking about hurting someone. ’Cause if you play the game like that, you’ll be lost in the sauce,” Mathis said. “I wouldn’t be thinking about his protocols or nothing like that. I’m just going to be playing football and doing what I was taught to do.”
They were all once boys with high hopes, but now they’re the men wearing the shield. They have defeated the odds and squashed the risks. And they will do anything to keep the dream alive.