Empty chairs. That's all you see when you look around the meeting room. Even though most of the guys are still here, it's hard not to notice the ones who aren't. It's a stark reminder of what was at stake these last five months, when the room was packed with 91 football players pursuing their dreams.
As the coach stands in front of the room and addresses the team this week, now pared down after roster cuts, two thoughts enter your head as a player, one more powerful than the other. The first thought is this: A lot of my friends are gone. Like, gone gone. Their seats are empty, their lockers are cleared out and their name plates have been removed. I went through this cut-down process seven times as a player in the NFL, and the sad fact is, 99 percent of those guys that just got cut, you don't ever see again. When you're in the same locker room every day, on the same schedule, bleeding together, sweating together and breaking bread together, you're closer than brothers. But then, in an instant, the bubble bursts and your brothers disappear. They were good football players — great, even. But great isn't always good enough for the NFL.
I never envied the coaches during this process. We all followed the Broncos' cuts last week. These difficult decisions weren't taken lightly, and each difficult decision required an even more difficult conversation with the guy you've decided to let go. Whether he saw it coming, or he was blindsided, that moment — the end — requires a delicate touch. It matters more than the coach may ever know. For many of these guys, it's their final moment as a football player. Looking that player in the eye and being straightforward allows him to move into the next phase of his life without the bitterness that follows so many men on their way out of the NFL.
After Mike Shanahan was replaced by Josh McDaniels in 2009, many of us on the team were cut. I was one of them, and, since it was the offseason, I did not get that face to face with the coach. Instead, I got a voicemail on my parents' home telephone line, and when I called Coach McDaniels to get an explanation, I was told he was in a meeting and that he would get back to me — a call that never came. Ultimately, it was my agent that informed me that I was being cut.
I mentioned two different thoughts on viewing those empty chairs. One was sympathy for all the dudes who got cut. But as Head Coach Sean Payton speaks to the newly assembled team, and the conversation shifts from a reflection on the training camp process to the Week 1 opponent, the Seattle Seahawks, a much more powerful thought emerges. My chair is not empty. I made it. And now the real work begins. The reason you were just put through the most extensive job interview known to man is so we could understand who is right, and who is ready.
To be among the right and ready, on a team like this, in a city like this, with a fan base like this, and a coach who understands the game like this, is itself a high honor. You withstood the highs and lows of the offseason process. You battled pain and doubt. You waited by the phone all day, hoping it wouldn't ring. It rang, of course, a thousand times, but it wasn't from the facility telling you to come clean out your locker. It was all your friends and family wanting to know if you made it. And as you sit in the chair, looking at the empty ones around you, you realize that you have. And now the real game begins. Week 1. Seattle. Lumen Field. And the last five months slip out the back door.
About the Author: Former NFL wide receiver and tight end Nate Jackson played six seasons for the Broncos and is the author of the New York Times Best Selling book "Slow Getting Up."
