The Opener

At five in the afternoon, Nolan walked out of the tunnel at Texas Stadium and into a noise he knew by heart.

The colors in the stands were familiar. So were the signs, the faces turned toward the field, and the cheerleaders lining the players' entrance. The difference was the jersey on his back. This time, he had come to play against Dallas.

The fans welcomed him anyway. He had brought them the franchise's sixth Super Bowl trophy, and plenty of people still held up his name and picture. The DCC stood in their blue-and-white uniforms with the same bright smiles. Kelsey no longer occupied the captain's place. Rachel did. As Nolan passed, she gave him a small nod.

Then the Cowboys came out, and the roar grew louder.

There was his reminder. They could welcome him home without wanting him to win.

Jerry and Stephen were talking to an ESPN reporter near the sideline. Both looked delighted. From their gestures, they seemed to be explaining how much better Dallas would be with the changes they had made.

Nolan looked past them to Ryan Leaf.

The second pick of the previous year's draft had arrived from San Diego without much of a first season to recommend him. The three coaches had agreed on one point during preparation: pressure the quarterback. Make him move, make him hurry, and see how much of the Cowboys' offense survived.

Emmitt Smith was still the foundation of that offense. The rest of the old trio had changed. Aikman was on the bench. Irvin had retired after his neck trouble, and Daryl Johnston had stepped away too. Dave Campo remained in charge. In the reshuffled Dallas roster Nolan now faced, Jerry had also used a future first-round pick to acquire Seattle receiver Joey Galloway.

It was an expensive way to spend tomorrow's draft, but it addressed a need without committing to a much larger bidding war. Nolan could dislike Jerry and still learn something from the way he ran a team.

He met Emmitt for the coin toss. Dallas got the first possession. From the booth, the ESPN commentators found time to joke about Nolan's familiar bad luck with the toss, then moved on to the unidentified model photographed with him in London.

He was not the only football player with a private life. He was merely better than most at giving people something unexpected to discuss.

Jeff Ogden took the opening kickoff and brought it out to the Dallas forty-one. The Angels' coverage unit looked nervous.

Most of those men were reserves on an already shallow roster. Even if Nolan had taken a smaller salary, the club could not have manufactured a complete special-teams unit overnight. He had hoped for better, but he could hardly call it a surprise.

Dallas needed three downs to earn its first new set. The ball was moving, slowly enough to encourage the Angels and steadily enough to annoy Nolan.

"Leaf's taking his time," he said. "He's still getting it away."

"Allen," Holmgren replied. "We aren't getting past him."

The next few snaps confirmed it. Nolan had put much of the club's draft capital into the defensive front, but Gary Stills and Mike Rucker were struggling to make the investment show. Rucker lined up on the defense's right, across from the offense's left. That should have given him a chance to attack a right-handed quarterback's blind side.

Larry Allen kept shutting him down.

Even the stunt Reid had prepared, with Rucker and the linebacker crossing paths, failed to confuse the protection. Allen recognized it and passed it off. Nolan had played beside him and had seen him at the Pro Bowl. The man had earned much of the credit for Dallas's championship. He was going to make Leaf look better than he was.

'He'll keep him upright all afternoon.'

Nolan leaned close to Reid and said something the others could not hear.

On a brief stoppage after a ball went out of bounds, Reid called Rucker over.

"His left wrist," he said quietly. "Make him work through it."

Rucker paused, understood, and glanced toward Nolan. He did not ask for more.

Holmgren's expression hardened into a smile.

"Some people will tell you that's a dirty way to win," he said. "They haven't spent enough time in this league."

Nolan knew what he was doing. An opponent's weakness was one thing. Using knowledge from his time as a teammate to make an injury hurt again was another. He had chosen the second.

On the next rush, Rucker challenged Allen with a different angle and pulled inward during the hand fight. Allen's left wrist took the strain. The pressure came again on the following snaps. Eventually, the lineman pointed toward the sideline and came off for attention from the medical staff.

Campo looked straight across the field at Nolan.

"You son of a bitch."

He raised his middle finger. He knew who had told the rookie where to attack.

Allen returned after treatment, but he was no longer as comfortable using that hand. Rucker finally beat him one-on-one, closed on Leaf before the throw, and brought him down for the first sack of his career.

The pressure plan began to work. Leaf could neither throw nor move through a collapsing pocket the way Nolan had. Dallas stalled near its own thirty-five and sent out the punt team.

Ronnie Powell fielded the kick for Los Angeles. He had come out of Northwestern and spent the previous season on the Rams' practice squad. Nolan did not expect miracles from a returner who had struggled to find a place on a weak club.

At five-ten, Powell reminded him of Flea from high school: quick in space, much less useful once someone got hold of him. His return gained twenty-four yards. Nolan took that and led the offense onto the field.

"Nolan Callahan is back," the commentator announced. "We haven't seen him take an NFL snap since the Super Bowl. Four preseason games, not a single appearance. We've heard about the ankle, we've heard about his conditioning. Forget the rumors for a minute. Let's see him play."

Near the sideline, the DCC could barely hear over the stands behind them.

"They still love him," Holly said.

"Who isn't watching him?" Rachel replied.

His timing had helped. Several of the quarterbacks who had defined the decade were leaving the league, while players such as Peyton Manning and Leaf were still finding their way. Nolan had arrived without waiting for permission and had taken Dallas to a title. Now he had a role in building another franchise, with the prospect of an ownership stake after his playing career. He was not simply a quarterback looking for a new contract.

Rachel remembered the first time she had met him. She had never imagined this, and she no longer trusted herself to guess where he would end up.

Kelsey had gone with him to Los Angeles. Rachel had gained the captaincy by staying, yet she could not help wondering whether Kelsey had received the better opportunity.

'If he'd sat beside me on that flight, would I be there now?'

Behind his center, Nolan was thinking about Ovitz. The salary, the club's expectations, the warning about his place in the arrangement if the team failed: he had reasons to win that went well beyond the score.

"Set! Go!"

The snap reached his hands. So did the sight of two Dallas rushers getting through far too quickly.

'Already?'

He fired a short pass to Edgerrin James before they could close.

Drafting James fourth had not satisfied everyone. Ricky Williams had gone fifth to New Orleans, and his college career made a powerful case. The 1998 Heisman winner had left Texas with 6,279 rushing yards and 7,206 all-purpose yards, along with a long list of NCAA, conference, and school records. Choosing anyone ahead of him demanded an explanation.

The staff had studied both backs closely at the combine. Williams's performance and testing impressed them, but they trusted James's fit with Nolan and the offense more. Nolan had heard the less flattering talk surrounding Williams too. Rumor was not a scouting grade. Their decision had to stand on the player they wanted, not on a story about the one they passed over.

Nolan had his own reasons, too. Williams's star power did not appeal to him, and signing a player with that reputation would cost a fortune.

New Orleans had been determined to get Williams. It had committed current and future draft resources to the pursuit and, after all the deals that followed, had its man. The August cover of ESPN The Magazine, with Williams in a wedding dress beside Mike Ditka, made the commitment impossible to miss.

Nolan remembered where that enthusiasm had led in the other life: Williams gone after three seasons, the Saints changing their coach and general manager after 1999, and the transaction remembered as a warning rather than a triumph.

He also remembered the career James might have. Offensive Rookie of the Year, repeated thousand-yard seasons, and eventually the Hall of Fame's Class of 2020. There had been personal grief along the way, losses no football projection could account for. None of that belonged to the young man taking the field beside him yet. Nolan wanted the dependable back his coaches had chosen, not a guarantee that memory could not provide.

James accelerated, kept his legs working through the gap between the two ends, and carried the Angels' first regular-season play for seven yards.

Nolan would take that all day.

On second down, he went back to James with another quick pass. The back made the catch and moved the chains.

"Callahan's easing into it," the commentator said. "He's getting the ball out early and letting James do the work."

It had been the plan all along. Their line could not hold off Dallas for long, and the staff did not intend to make Nolan prove it by standing in the pocket. The ball had to leave quickly.

On the next first down, he kept it himself. His former teammates charged as though stopping him would settle an argument that had started in the offseason. They found the answer unpleasant. Nolan broke through for seventeen yards and brought the offense near midfield.

Quick releases kept Dallas from settling. The Angels worked their way downfield, and with five minutes left in the first quarter, James finished the drive with a touchdown. Cunningham added the extra point: Los Angeles 7, Dallas 0.

"The Angels have their answer for the doubters! Against the defending Super Bowl champions, they're on the board first!"