I really couldn't
believe what was happening. I was standing under center in the 6th game of the
season for the Oakland Raiders. We were playing one of the best teams in all of
football, the Seattle Sea hawks. I was at the 35 yard line about to give the count
to snap the ball. I wouldn't even bring myself to believe that I was here, in
front of everyone here in the dome, and doing what I didn't think that I could
ever do. I gave the count. 'hut hut... set... set... hike...set and the ball
flew too me. I caught the ball and looked to the side to were my reviver was.
He was open running down the side line. I brought my arm back to throw but I
got sit from the side. I shook off the hit and scrambled to the left to were I
released the ball. It flew down the sideline and hit him right in the hands. He
caught it and ran over 60 yards for a touchdown. It was my first play in the
NFL, and i threw a 60 yard touchdown. I couldn't believe it. A 6th round pick
just got a starting job and threw a touchdown. I was amazed at myself and I
just ran and gave him a high five. I was really impressed by that play.

  "Catch the dang
ball!" My coach yelled at me.

    I was a wide
receiver who wasn’t all that great. I never really played all that much in
games because I didn’t have very good hands, but I was fast. I was really fast
and I could hang on to a ball. SO if I was able to catch the ball, I would get
a good pick up and most likely a first down. My coach didn’t like me for no
reason what so ever because of my life off the field. My Dad had a really bad
temper and has gone off at my coach a couple times to many. So, because my Dad
has done stupid things, my coach takes it all out on my. I mean, really? I don’t
know why they think I am the problem.

  I just walked over
to the line and got back in the huddle, I really didn’t care about what my
coach did to me as long as I still got to play a little bit. I really was
scared that if I missed a few more catches, he would go off any never play me
again so I knew that I had to be careful.

  I got on the line
and when the snap came, I ran my route. I went long and then to the side and
looked for the ball. It was coming right at me. I knew that this was a ball
that I was really going to need to catch. I went up to catch it and I saw a
defender coming right at me. It was the biggest fastest, hardest hitting defensive
back in the game. His name was Charles Sinclair. I made sure to stay focused on
the ball as it hit my hands and I brought it in. I felt the hard hit but I was
able to keep my hands on it. I went down and the ball stayed put. I left the
ball there and went back to the huddle. I had the same route other than the
fact that it was just going strait. I ran the route and it was again thrown to
me. The ball hit against my hand and went flying off. It hit the ground. I knew
coach was made at me when I got up.

  “Rodgers” Coach
yelled at me, “Get over here.”

  I didn’t want to,
but I knew that if I didn’t, he would completely go off on me. I slowly trudged
over to the sideline to see what it was this time.

 “Yeah, Coach?” I
asked him.

 “Why did you not
catch that ball?” He asked me, but he already knew my answer.

  “I don’t know, I
guess I took my eyes off it.” I answered him.

  “Is that going to be
your answer every time?” he asked me, angry. 
All I did was shrug. “Get back out there and catch the ball or you won’t
be seeing another play in your life.”

   And I knew he wasn’t
lying, as he has done that to people before. I knew what I had to do, but as
soon as the next ball came too me, it again bounced off my hands and hit the
ground.

  “Rodgers!” He
yelled, “Come sit down.” I wanted to go punch him in the mouth, but I knew that
would get me in more trouble then I needed.

  He sent out a
replacement for me and sat there for the rest of practice, doing nothing.

It was game day, and I wasn’t playing. But on the first play
we had, our quarterback went down. Coach knew that I could throw and run so he
told me to go out there and all some plays. I just kind of looked at him as it
wasn’t the same coach that I knew.  I
thought that he would never let me play again, but I guess that I was wrong on
that.

 I went out onto the
field and called some plays. I ran the ball a lot and picked up over 100 yard
rushing while I was out there. I also passed for 350 yard and 4 touch downs. I
only had one pick during that whole game. I did really great for a high school
player here in no where Wisconsin. After that game, I was named player of the
game and my coach came up to me and told me a lot of great things. He said that
I played like I was an NFL quarterback and that he would like to play me until
our normal quarterback was healthy. I really couldn’t complain that I was going
to get some playing time, and a lot at that, so I just said yes and he gave me
a smile. That was what shocked me the most. He NEVER smiled. And when I say
never, I mean that this was the first time I had ever seen him smile. I was really
happy that he had loved how I had played and I would get more chances to play.
But then, that would also give me more chances to have a really bad performance,
which would make him and the other team mates quite mad, so I decided that I should
really go work on my playing.

  I went to the field
with one of our d backs to throw some passes to him. We were there for about an
hour and I threw him mostly on target passes. But then again, there was no one
running at me and there was no one to block him, so there really wasn’t any
point to that other then working on targets.

  The next game there
were a lot of people there. There was a lot of hype for this game as it was us
against the best team in the state. We were ready to get killed by them, but
our first drive we went 56 yards for a touchdown. We played a pretty good game
and they were held to a field goal. We didn’t always have this luck during the
game, but we did come away at half time leading 31 to 24. When we got in the
locker room, coach was really impressed with what we had done, he just said
that we needed to go back out there in the second half and play the same way
that we had during the first half.  But,
we didn’t exactly do what we needed to do. We fell behind by 7 points in the 3^rd
quarter. After that, I came back and passed a touch down and then the next
drive we got a field goal. It was now a 3 point game. It continued like this
until it got down to the final moments of the game. I scored a touch down and a
2 point conversion to go up by one point with 1: 56 to go in the game. But as
soon as that happened, they ran back a 92 yard kick off return to go up by 1
point. It was then 73 to 72. We really needed a field goal to win the game, but
we only had 1: 48 to go in the game. I knew what I needed to do. I hate to put together
a great drive to get into field goal rang, which was only the 25 yard line
because our kicker wasn’t very good.  I
went over to coach and he told me that when I got out there, I should only pass
the ball. But I knew that I was going to run it and pick up some yards. We only
had 2 time outs left so we couldn’t get too many plays done. After the kick off
we had the ball at the 18. I took the field. I called a play where I will be
passing the ball over the left to our best receiver, Johnson. I ran over to my
spot and I was ready to go.

  “hut... set. set...
hike...set.. hut.. hike...set.” On the last set the ball came to me. I caught
it and I saw a hole. There was an open lane. I tucked the ball and ran through
the gap in the line. After that I shook a tackle and broke another one. Finally
they caught up to me but I was at the 48 yard line. I had a pick up of 30
yards. I ran back to the line, I knew we had a little time as they re set the
chains.

 “hut... set. set...
hike...set.. hut” On the last hut the ball came to me, I backed up 3 steps and
fired over the middle to Johnson. He caught it and went down at the 46. I knew
that would be enough for the first down and I ran to the huddle and called
another play.

 “Hut… hut… set… hike!”
On the hike the ball once again came to me, they were great snaps, I ran out to
the right side of the pile and threw the ball. It went down field to about the
20 where Stevens, our 3^rd receiver, caught the ball and went down at
about the 18. There was only 1: 08 left on the clock and I went to the line. I
knew I had to give the ball off to Lacy, our running back, to run out the clock
to where we could kick the field goal.

 “Hut.. Hut.. Hike!”
The ball was put into my hand and I went back and handed it off to Lacy. He ran
the ball quite well and he get to about the 13 before going down. It was a pick
up of 5. I rushed up to the line and ran the same play, but this time I dropped
back as if I was going to pass, but I faked a pass to the outside and ran the
ball all the way to the 3 before going down. There was 0:31 left on the clock
and rushed us all to the line and played a QB keeper. I snapped the ball with
15 seconds to go and I ran it off tackle and ran into the end zone. We had the
tie there.  All we needed was an extra
point to win the game. I went to the huddle and told them that we were going
for 2. Our kicker wasn’t the best and we needed to end it now. I took the ball
and had it snapped to me. I looked left then right. I saw the open man, it was
lacy in the end zone. I through it over the pile and right to him. He caught
the ball and got us the 2 points. All we needed to do was kick it off and get a
stop.

  We kicked the ball off
and they brought it back to the 46. Our D went out onto the field with only 6
seconds left in the game and we knew we had to do this. We got the stop. Sinclair
had come over the middle and got the pick 6. We had won the game. The final
score was 73 to 87 with us coming away with the victory. I went 42 for 48 for 749
yards and 6 touch downs. I also rushed for 83 yards and 1 touchdown. There was
no defense in the game.

End of chapter 1