Page 75 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)
You know the hardest thing for an NFL kicker?
Waiting.
My kickoff after that field goal was good, and so was our defense, who’d woken up just fine after those first twenty minutes, when they’d looked like somebody had run down their batteries.
On third and six, Robertson’s dancing feet and the offensive line let him down the way I’d always thought they would, and we actually got a sack.
A long punt, a decent return by Simmons, and it was first and ten from our own 27.
With two minutes and twenty-three seconds left in the game.
Games go by in a heartbeat when you’re playing.
When you’re waiting for your chance, they move like molasses in January.
Or, since I was Canadian, like maple syrup in January.
Briscoe was going too slowly for my comfort, trying to use up the clock and not allow the Niners’ offense back on the field.
Then there was the two-minute warning, which was just more time to wait.
Or to kick into the net and focus on my heartbeat, which I did.
In this moment, I told myself. You can’t be anywhere but here, and this moment is the only moment. And breathed.
I could also see, though, how frustrated the 49ers’ defense was.
After flailing for most of the game, the Devils’ offense was in sync again.
Pass, catch, and out of bounds. Handoff, run, and out of bounds.
Blown coverage on a passing play, Harlan running for eight yards after the catch, and that was first and 10 from our 45.
Six more yards, and we were over the 50.
An encroachment penalty when a Niners player jumped during that long snap count, because they were losing their composure over there, and a third and four turned into a first down at the Niners’ 41.
The offensive line blocking like they couldn’t be moved, Briscoe playing it conservative, but we were nearly in field-goal range with forty-five seconds left in the game.
Another slant pass. Not to Harlan. To Matt Sawyer, the tight end. A player converging on the ball, reaching for it, stretching .
And Harlan smashing into him like a linebacker. One hell of a block. We were at the 38, and that field goal was looking better and better.
Oh. Keep kicking. I did, because nobody ever got loose by standing on the sidelines with their heart pounding.
I didn’t think about the Super Bowl. I didn’t think about a trophy, about winning or losing.
I breathed in, breathed out, felt my heart beat, and kicked the ball into the net. And then I kicked it again.
That was why I wasn’t watching when we ran into trouble.
Alix
Nobody was sitting down. Twenty-nine seconds left in the game, and it was third and four on the Niners’ 35. A long clutch kick for Sebastian under any circumstances, and boy, did I hope that he didn’t have to kick for 52 in the last seconds of the Super Bowl. He was cool, but was he that cool?
On the other hand, it wasn’t snowing, right?
Four yards for that first down. Only four yards.
Jennifer said, “I can’t watch.”
Dyma said, “I have to pee so bad. Why do I always have to pee at the end of big games?”
Ben said, “Maybe you should’ve gone at halftime.”
Dyma said, “I did go at halftime. I also drank two bottles of iced tea since then.”
“Why?” Ben asked.
“Because I was nervous, all right?” Dyma said.
The quarterback raised his leg and stamped it on the ground. His head turned once, twice. And Owen snapped the ball.
Harlan was running. Not all the way down to the end zone, because they weren’t risking it.
Running about six or seven yards, over near the sideline, and doubling back.
Full of confidence that he could beat the defensive player who was almost on top of him, and already practically leaping for that catch.
The quarterback looking for the perfect moment, running one way, running the other. No panic in him, but now there was somebody else coming around the outside, running straight at him. The quarterback saw him, danced backward, head going left and right, looking for his throw.
Another guy appeared so fast from the blind side, you almost didn’t see it happen. The two players converged, and Briscoe saw only the one coming from the openside. A hand slapped the ball in his hand as he cocked his arm to pass, and the ball fell to the ground.
“Incomplete pass,” Jennifer said. “That’s OK. It’s OK. We still have twenty-three seconds.” She was bouncing Nick like crazy again, but he wasn’t crying this time. A football kid, I guessed, because somehow, he could always recognize his dad down there.
It was going to be a fifty-two-yard kick after all. But Sebastian had done that before. He could …
Something was happening on the field. The officials were standing in a little group of three, conferring. The clock was stopped, the numbers displayed on the screen, big and white and accusing. 0:23. Sebastian was on the sideline, poised to run on, his chin strap buckled.
He didn’t run on. Instead, the screen was showing a replay, then showing it again from another angle. The quarterback’s arm going back. The defender slapping the ball. The ball tumbling to the ground. Over and over.
I said, “What’s happening?”
Ben said, “It’s not an incomplete pass. They’re going to rule it a sack.”
“Isn’t it the same thing?” I asked. The replay was still running on the big screen. In the stands, half the crowd was cheering. The other half was booing. I couldn’t even work out which was which.
“No,” Ben said. “His arm wasn’t going forward. It’s a sack, and the ball will get placed at the spot of the sack instead of at the line of scrimmage.”
“What?” I said.
Ben said, semi-patiently, “If it’s an incomplete pass, they go back to the line of scrimmage. But it isn’t. Briscoe was at the Niners’ 45 when he was sacked. And it’s fourth down.”
Yes. It was. The Devils called their last timeout, and Sebastian jogged onto the field, exactly like normal, and lined up back there. So far back there. Seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, and the line of scrimmage was forty-five yards from the goal line and fifty-five yards from the posts.
It was going to be a sixty-two-yard kick. Could anybody even kick a football sixty-two yards? I had no idea.
The ball was in the snapper’s hands. The players were lined up, poised, expectant, ready to throw themselves into the breach and stop the defense from reaching Sebastian. And I couldn’t breathe.
The Niners called a time out.
“Icing the kicker,” Ben said.
“What?” I said again.
“They have two timeouts left,” Ben yelled over the roar of the crowd, which had increased in intensity until it was like standing next to a moving train.
“If he misses, it’s the Niners’ ball. They don’t even have to run a play.
The QB just takes a knee, time expires, and they win.
So they’re using one of their timeouts to get in Sebastian’s head. ”
“How do you even know?” I yelled back, since everybody was still just standing around on the field.
“I’m not in school yet,” Ben said, “and tutoring and homework don’t exactly take the whole day.
I can read football rules and research schools and walk Lexi, or I can watch TV or play lame computer games, and I’m getting kind of tired of those.
” I heard him, but faintly, like his voice was coming from a long way away.
The timeout was over at last, and it was the same thing all over again.
The players getting set, poised to go. The 49ers fans shouting, stamping, trying to throw Sebastian off.
Both my hands clutching the pendant Sebastian had given me, feeling the tiny diamonds that shone like faith.
The snapper sending the ball flying like an arrow to the target, exactly seven yards.
The holder catching it in both hands, rotating it to put it in the perfect position.
And Sebastian running forward, swinging his leg, and hitting the ball with his instep, head down, arm swinging, the same way he always did.
No noise now. Everybody was silent. Watching.
Sixty-two yards is a long, long way. The ball didn’t start coming down for what felt like seconds, and then it did.
He had the distance. He had the distance.
I don’t think I even breathed.
The ball sailed over the bar.
I burst into tears.
He’d done it. 16 to 14.
I was still crying while the Niners tried an onside kick and recovered it with sixteen seconds to go, but when their quarterback threw a long pass toward the sideline and a guy caught it and ran out of bounds, I stopped crying, grabbed Ben’s hand, and squeezed.
Thirteen seconds. The 49ers called their last timeout.
They were at the 36. That was field-goal range. Fifty-three yards. Long, but kickable. Definitely kickable.
You’re kidding, I thought numbly. How can you make that kick and still lose?
The stadium was a mass of sound, but nobody around me was saying anything. We were on our feet, watching. Frozen .
The timeout ended. The long snapper sent the ball sailing back. The holder spun it around expertly. The kicker ran forward and kicked it. Head down, arm swinging.
He had the distance.
16 to 14. Or 16 to 17.
The ball hit the left upright.
My heart stopped.
It bounced left.
I was jumping. I was screaming. I was hugging Ben, the tears running down my face, and Ben was laughing his head off and shouting, “Why are you crying? We won! We won the fucking Super Bowl!”
I didn’t even care that he swore.