COMMENTARY : They Know the Risk, but They Still Play--It’s What They Do

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —  Kyle Clifton shuddered as he spoke. His voice trembled. His eyes were wet and his nose ran. His breath came and went in gasps and sighs.

“You never think about it until it happens,” Clifton said. “Not until it happens.”

He had been one of the Jets who stood around Dennis Byrd as he lay on the field, as he asked the trainers and doctors, “Am I going to be paralyzed? I can’t move my legs!”

Some of them reached to clasp Byrd’s hand as he was placed gingerly onto the rigid spineboard, his body and legs strapped down, and lifted onto the cart. They heard the reports that Byrd had been taken to Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, that he had suffered a spinal injury. It was determined that he had suffered a broken vertebra and that there was some paralysis from the waist down. The players already knew Byrd couldn’t move his legs.

Clifton sighed and sniffled. “He’s a good friend,” he said. “He’s a good football player.”

Clifton is a linebacker. He played behind Dennis Byrd every week in the games, when the feeling is like that of a platoon in combat.

“Every week you get a glimpse of it,” Clifton said. “You ask how bad is everybody. It’s been part of the deal ever since you’ve been a football player. But not to this extreme.”

Byrd had charged from his left side toward Kansas City Chief quarterback Dave Krieg. Scott Mersereau, the nose tackle, had stunted around the right side toward Krieg. Krieg stepped up and Byrd drove his helmet into Mersereau’s chest, converging at full force. Mersereau didn’t know what hit him and gasped for air. The others heard Byrd asking the trainers and they knew it was bad. Perhaps they heard him pleading. They will not forget the moment.

The danger of that impact is far greater than any danger of playing basketball with Magic Johnson. If the mothers across the land had watched the films before football tryouts, how many kids would have gone out for soccer?

These players will not forget the moment, but they will put it out of their minds, not because they play football but because they’re football players.

“That’s what we do,” said rookie tackle Mario Johnson, who stood over Byrd, who reached to Byrd on the back of the cart when the injured end said, “Grab my hand.”

Byrd, 26, has insights beyond those of most athletes. He is a football player. Doctors told him he would be sidelined for six weeks because of a separated shoulder in September; he was back after four weeks. Angela, his wife, rode to the hospital with him Sunday.

Coaches are always telling players that when they are cautious is when they are most vulnerable. Players buy it. Coaches want players feeling invulnerable; they want the defense flying around, crashing into anything that moves. It’s the way to win, and that’s why they play.

Imagine if those two defenders had hit Krieg with those converging forces, which was what they had intended. There’s no score for shattering the quarterback, but it has its effect. Instead, Kansas City immediately exploited the shock to the Jets with a 55-yard pass that effectively broke the game open.

“It’s the hand you’ve been dealt,” cornerback Mike Brim said, meaning himself and anyone else. “It’s a living . . . it’s a good living.”

It’s beyond that.

They played that hand even after so many of them saw Mike Utley, a former lineman, in his wheelchair, honored before the Lions-Oilers game on Thanksgiving Day, a year after suffering irreversible damage to his spine. Everybody knows that could happen to any of them, but then none of them knows.

“You usually never think of it until this situation, even with the Utley deal, unless this brings it to the forefront,” Clifton said.

He was speaking as if merely saying what he felt was grief therapy. He had been in the same foxhole with that man.

It was clearly a bad injury when Bruce Coslet, the coach, went out to the figure on the 18-yard line. Coaches don’t want to focus on injury. Ray Handley went out for Lawrence Taylor because of who it was. Coslet was there for what the injury was.

The coach’s son, J.J., was on the sideline with him as he is for every home game; it’s a nice touch. J.J. Coslet plays tackle on his high school team. He is a senior--a college football candidate--and the conflict between father and coach was on the sideline with them.

“That’s too morbid for now,” Coslet said. “I can’t answer that. I just can’t.”

Clifton said he knew from fifth grade what his mother felt about football. Jet rookie Johnson’s father told his mother, “If the boy wants to play, let him play.” And Johnson said he thought he was risking an ankle or bumps and bruises “until today.” Put it out of your mind.

“It’s not like Dennis to not get up,” Johnson said. “He’ll be right back. I told him I love him. He said, ‘Grab my hand.’ I grabbed it. I kissed him on the hand. There’s so much love in there, he’ll be walking in this locker room tomorrow.”

Johnson is a 10th-round draft pick; he doesn’t get big money.

“I like to play this game,” he said. “Dennis likes to play football. We risk our lives, we could be vegetables. Sometimes I’m so sore I can’t touch my wife . . . sometimes my wife can’t touch me.

“I’m not saying people shouldn’t play football. We’re like stunt people, we do crazy things. It excites us. This excites me. I’m out here doing it because I like it. I risk my life every day. That’s what I do.”

And if Dennis Byrd comes out of this, he will want to be a football player again. That’s what he does.