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4:38 A.M., Sonny Jurgensen, and Pure Mojo
It is 4:38 in the morning. I am awake on purpose. Not because anything is wrong, not because of a baby or a flight or a crisis, but because this is the hour you get up when you're about to do it all over again. There's a particular quality to being conscious at 4:38. The house has opinions about the noises you make. The coffee maker sounds like a construction project. And somewhere out there in the dark is a run I have agreed to go on, with myself, apparently voluntarily.
Last night I was back in the box. Nicole's job at UVA puts us in the President's Box at Scott Stadium, and I want to be precise about the division of labor here: she works incredibly hard, at a job that is genuinely demanding, and I help out. That's the arrangement. She earns the catered seats and the roof and the view, and I arrive with her and eat things. I am aware of how this looks. I have made peace with it.
Virginia took Delaware to the woodshed, 42 to 3. Now, let's not get carried away, Delaware is Delaware. But in fairness to the Blue Hens they came in 3-0 against the spread this season, which is more than most teams can say about anything, so beating them by 39 counts as a genuinely massive Saturday. I'll take it. In a September like this one you take what's offered.
But here's the actual reason last night mattered, and it wasn't the football. Sarah and Daniel were there, and so was the LAW. That's what we call their son, because it cracks us up every single time, and there is no better reason to call someone anything. It was his first tailgate. He was, and I say this with the full weight of my judgment, an absolute delight. We ate, we drank, we stood around, and the whole thing had that quality where you pick up mid-sentence from a conversation you started months ago and it doesn't feel like any time passed at all.
And since this is my website and I make the rules, a proper shout-out to the crew: that's Sarah on the left holding the man of the hour, then Nicole, my love, second from the left, then Sarah #2 (yes, we have two, no, we are not renaming either of them), then Ann Marie, then Gracelyn. A genuinely excellent group of people to stand in a parking lot with.
Which brings me to the part that nags. It had been months. It shouldn't have been. Nobody schedules the drift, it just happens, a week at a time, until you look up and it's been way too long and somebody's kid has learned to sit up on his own. Sarah, Daniel, the LAW: we are not doing that again. I'm putting it in writing on the internet so it's binding.
And now, bleary-eyed and about to head out into the dark, we come to the Commanders.
We are 0-2 and staring straight down the barrel of 0-3 against the reigning Super Bowl champions. If you put "Commanders start 0-3" on your bingo card back in August, congratulations, go ahead and call it. I genuinely thought we'd have snuck one by now. I said as much before Dallas and I was wrong in a way that got worse as the afternoon went on. Instead the injuries have stacked up like cordwood. Five guys are out today: Jayden, Sam Cosmi, Chig Okonkwo, Frankie Luvu, Nick Cross. Jayden dislocated that left elbow again, the second time now for the same joint, and watching it happen was its own particular kind of sick feeling.
Two things I'm holding onto, though. The first is that they did not put him on injured reserve, and it's his non-throwing arm, which means the door is open rather than closed. The second is smaller and I like it more: the five guys who were voted captains before the season got together and decided Marcus Mariota should be a captain too. Not just while he's starting. When Jayden comes back and Mariota goes back to being the backup, they want him to keep it. That is a locker room deciding something about itself, and a team that does that in the middle of an 0-2 September has not quit on anything.
So here's what today actually is. My dad, my brother and I are making our yearly pilgrimage to Northwest Stadium. Same as the friends thing, we do not do this nearly as often as we should, and I have exactly zero interest in examining why. What I know is that we'll be in that building together, and that by pure mojo, by force of will, by whatever it is three related men can generate in a stadium on a Sunday afternoon, we are going to take this game. I have decided. The reigning champs can file a complaint.
Oh, and Jon Bernthal is supposed to be there. Jon Bernthal. The goddamn Punisher. A DC guy, a real one, not a celebrity who got handed a jersey at a photo op but an actual lifelong sufferer of this football team like the rest of us. I don't know what he's doing there or in what capacity and I truly do not care. All I know is that if we're going to summon enough collective force of will to beat the reigning Super Bowl champions while starting our backup quarterback, I would like Frank Castle in the building for it. That is the correct energy. That is a man who understands a revenge arc, and friends, we are 0-2.
And then I found out what else is happening today, and it stopped me. They're honoring Sonny Jurgensen and Monte Coleman at the home opener. Sonny Jurgensen. Number 9. My dad is the reason I care about this team at all, the whole thing traces back to him, and today of all days I get to stand next to him while that building says thank you to a man he actually watched play. I don't have a joke for that one. I'm just glad we picked this week.
Nicole will still be asleep when we roll into DC, and she has earned every minute of it. The sun isn't up. I'm going for a run. It's the home opener, we're 0-2, our quarterback is hurt, we're getting the champs, and I have never been more sure of anything in my life. Hail.