Chapter 90 Draft night (Patreon)

A/N: This chapter is longer than usual—I've been feeling quite inspired now that my college years have come to an end.

April 28, 2016

The hotel bathroom mirror in Chicago had the kind of lighting that good hotels put in room bathrooms—a lighting that didn't lie, but didn't underline what didn't need to be underlined either. Wyatt stood in front of it wearing the navy blue suit that Rosenhaus had sent to the Clemson apartment three weeks earlier with a note saying that a quarterback who is going to be selected with the first pick of the NFL draft has to dress like someone who knows he is going to be selected with the first pick before that even happens, because image communicates before any word does.

Wyatt adjusted his tie.

He adjusted it again because the first time it hadn't turned out exactly as he wanted.

The tie was blue as well, but a different blue than the suit—which according to Rosenhaus was the type of combination that photographers appreciated because it produced contrast without creating visual noise. Wyatt hadn't had any particular opinion on that, but he had followed the instruction because he had learned in the three months they had been working together that Rosenhaus had specific reasons for every instruction he gave, even if he didn't always explain them.

Wyatt looked at himself in the mirror for a moment.

In a few moments he would be at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, twenty minutes away from the hotel by car, while Les Snead and Jeff Fisher and all the scouting directors of the thirty-two teams in the league were finishing up reviewing their draft boards and verifying one last time that the right people were in the right places before Roger Goodell took the podium and began.

The bathroom door opened.

Wyatt looked in the mirror's reflection.

Blaire came out with an earring in her hand that she hadn't finished putting on yet, adjusting it on the lobe of her left ear with the specific concentration of people who make that gesture, which in Blaire's case came accompanied by the expression of someone thinking about something else while doing it—because Blaire was always thinking about something while doing things that didn't require her full attention.

She was wearing a green dress.

It wasn't a flashy green, but that specific green that certain garments have that makes the person wearing them be what matters, with the garment serving to make that evident. It took Wyatt approximately half a second to process all of the above and reach the conclusion that this half-second had been the shortest of the entire night, even though it hadn't officially started yet.

Blaire finished adjusting her earring and looked up at Wyatt, who was still at the mirror.

She saw him looking at her.

"Do I have something on my face?" Blaire asked with the tone of someone who has arrived at that conclusion as the only available explanation for the fact that the person in front of her is looking at her that way.

"No," Wyatt said.

Blaire looked at him for an additional second.

"Then why are you looking at me like that?"

Wyatt turned away from the mirror toward her, walked over to where she was, and placed a hand on her cheek without saying anything for a moment—because there were things that could be said and things that were more efficient to demonstrate, and in this particular case, demonstrating required less time.

"You look beautiful," Wyatt said.

Blaire looked at him with the expression of someone evaluating whether the comment is specific enough to accept as valid, or vague enough to require additional precision.

"The dress," Blaire said.

"You," Wyatt said.

Blaire looked down for a moment at her own belly, which at fourteen weeks had begun to show the curve that the first months had promised without quite producing, and which in this specific moment under the green dress was visible if one knew where to look—which Wyatt always knew.

Wyatt's hand moved from her cheek to her belly with the naturalness of something that had become a habitual gesture over the last few weeks without either of them deciding for it to be one, but simply occurring in the same way habitual gestures occur—without announcement or formal decision.

"The doctors said everything is going well," Blaire said in a quiet voice, not because it was necessary to speak softly, but because that was the tone that matched the moment.

"The doctors said everything is going perfectly," said Wyatt, who had paid enough attention during the last checkup to know the difference between the two adverbs and what each implied.

Blaire looked at him.

"They're going to see me in photos with this belly," Blaire said.

"You're going to look beautiful in the photos," Wyatt said.

"With this belly."

"With that belly," Wyatt confirmed without changing his expression, because there was no reason to change it.

Blaire looked at him for another second and then nodded with the nod of someone who has concluded that continuing to argue the point is not the most efficient use of available time before the cars arrive.

"Ready?" Blaire said.

"Ready," Wyatt said.

Hotel Lobby

Ed and Elena were in the hotel lobby when they came down the elevator—Wyatt first, with Blaire slightly behind him adjusting her coat over the green dress, because Chicago in April still had the temperature of a city that hasn't decided whether winter has ended or not, and the outdoor temperature that day in particular had sided with the option that it hadn't ended yet.

Elena saw them come down first.

The expression Elena had when she saw Blaire in the green dress, with her belly barely showing beneath the coat, was the expression Elena had when something hit her in a way she hadn't fully anticipated, even though she should have anticipated it.

She didn't say anything for the first two seconds.

Then she said Blaire's name just once and went over to her, hugging her with the specific care of someone hugging a pregnant person, wanting to convey exactly the right amount of warmth without applying any extra pressure.

Ed looked at Wyatt.

Ed's handshake was the same as it had always been for as long as Wyatt could remember—firm and brief, conveying in those two attributes everything he conveyed when shaking a hand, which in this case was pride, approval, and the discretion of someone who needs no more words than those to communicate what needs to be communicated.

"How are you feeling?" he said, looking at Wyatt with the question that wasn't just about the draft.

"Ready," Wyatt said with equal brevity.

His father nodded once.

That was enough for both of them.

The cars were waiting outside, with Rosenhaus already in the first one reviewing messages on his phone with the concentration of someone who has been receiving relevant information over the last few hours and needs to process it before the day officially begins.

"The Rams have confirmed their position at number one," Rosenhaus said when Wyatt reached the car, without raising his eyes from his phone. "Goodell starts in forty-five minutes. When we get to the auditorium, we split up—you with Blaire and your parents to the prospects' area, and me to the agents' section."

"Got it," Wyatt said.

Rosenhaus looked up from his phone for a moment and looked at Wyatt with the expression of someone about to say something that wasn't part of the operational plan, but something else.

"3 years at Clemson, the Heisman, the championship, the combine, and tonight," Rosenhaus said. "Everything has led to what happens in the next two hours. You've done the work."

Wyatt looked at him.

"I know," Wyatt said.

Rosenhaus went back to his phone.

The car began to move.

Los Angeles, California

In the Rams' war room, Jeff Fisher had Jared Goff's name written at the top of his draft board in the same handwriting he had used the first time he wrote it—back in January before the combine—and which hadn't changed in the three months since, despite what had happened in Indianapolis and despite the conversations with Snead, which over the last few days had reached a frequency neither of them had anticipated when the season ended.

"Jared Goff fits better with what we want to build offensively," Fisher said for the third time that morning, with the patience of someone who has said something enough times to feel that repeating it is unnecessary, even if the context indicates it isn't.

Snead looked at him from the opposite side of the table.

In the three months since the combine, Snead had held conversations with the Rams' scouting departments about both prospects with the frequency and level of detail required for a decision of this magnitude, and the consensus from those conversations hadn't been as unanimous as Fisher seemed to believe.

"The combine film says one thing," Snead said. "The championship film says another."

"The combine isn't the championship," Fisher said. "Combine drills don't translate directly into NFL productivity."

"No," Snead said. "But the ability to make decisions under pressure before the snap does translate directly into NFL productivity, and that's what the championship showed Sterling does, and what the combine confirmed."

"Goff makes pre-snap decisions too."

"In Cal's system," Snead said. "Which is what worries you, and what worries me too, but for different reasons. What worries you is whether our system is similar enough to Cal's for what Goff does at Cal to work with the Rams. What worries me is what happens when the system doesn't work perfectly—which, in our first season in Los Angeles, is going to happen, because it always happens in the first season of any team in full rebuild mode."

Fisher looked at him.

"When the system doesn't work perfectly," Snead continued, "you need a quarterback who can keep the game competitive without the system. And that quarterback is on the other card."

Fisher took a breath.

"Alright," Fisher said, in the tone of someone who has concluded that continuing the argument at this point won't change the outcome, and that there are other battles to save for later in building the team. "Alright."

Snead looked at him for a moment.

"Thank you, Jeff," Snead said.

Fisher nodded, picked up his papers, and left the room with the expression of someone who has conceded something, knows he conceded it, and isn't entirely sure that conceding was the right choice, though he wasn't entirely sure it was wrong either.

Snead was left alone in the war room.

In front of him was a blank sheet of paper and a pen on the table.

The blank sheet was where the name of the Los Angeles Rams' number one pick in the 2016 draft was going to be written before that name reached Roger Goodell's hands.

Snead looked at the paper for a moment, elbows on the table and fingers interlaced in front of his mouth.

He thought about the twenty-three years the city of Los Angeles had spent without an NFL team.

He thought about the seventy thousand seats at the Memorial Coliseum that would be filled in September with people who had waited all that time, and who were going to judge what they saw in that first season in a way no subsequent season would be judged.

He thought about the game against Alabama in January.

He thought about the pass to Laquon Treadwell, with pressure coming from the right faster than the line had anticipated, and Wyatt Sterling releasing the football at the exact right moment before being brought down—because he had already made the decision before the pressure arrived.

He picked up the pen.

He wrote a name.

He looked at it for a second.

He called the assistant waiting at the door and handed him the folded paper without saying another word, because there was nothing else to say that the name on the paper hadn't already said.

Auditorium Theatre

ESPN's cameras had been outside for two hours before the draft started, with the host doing the intro with the building in the background and the crowd of fans that had begun assembling in Grant Park since early morning—wearing hats and jerseys of their teams, carrying that specific energy of people who have come to see something that doesn't happen every day, even if for them it happens every year.

The prospects' cars arrived in the order established by event logistics, with draft staff guiding each toward their designated entrance and camera operators moving between cars with the speed of people who know they have approximately thirty seconds between each arrival before the next one pulls up.

Wyatt got out of the car with Blaire at his side.

An ESPN reporter who was outside with a microphone saw them arrive and moved toward them, the camera operator following.

"Wyatt, tonight is the day everyone has been waiting for since you won the Heisman in December. How are you feeling?"

"Good," Wyatt said. "Ready."

"Your family is here tonight?"

"My parents," Wyatt said. "And my girlfriend."

The reporter looked toward the girl beside Wyatt with the recognition of someone who had seen her on camera during the national championship in January, and who at this particular moment—with the coat over the green dress—looked slightly different than in January, though the reporter didn't articulate exactly how.

"How are you tonight?"

"Good," Blaire said, with her usual brevity when answering questions she didn't find specific enough.

"Do you have expectations about what's going to happen tonight, Wyatt?"

Wyatt opened his mouth to answer.

Rosenhaus appeared from the left with the specific speed of an agent who has been monitoring the outside of the auditorium since the cars began arriving, and who has a strict maximum time limit for media interactions outside the building—one considerably shorter than any ESPN reporter would consider sufficient.

"Thank you," Rosenhaus said, placing a hand on Wyatt's shoulder with just enough pressure to communicate the direction in which the situation was moving. "Wyatt, the prospects need to be inside in five minutes."

The reporter lowered the microphone slightly with the expression of someone who had expected this, but still wasn't pleased.

Wyatt followed Rosenhaus toward the entrance of the auditorium with Blaire beside him and his parents behind them, the cameras following until the building's doors closed and the outside world became something happening on the other side of those doors.

Inside, the Auditorium Theatre had the scale of early 20th-century grand theaters—spaces designed so that whatever happened on stage would be visible from any point in the room. In this specific context, with the NFL podium on stage, the team tables distributed throughout, the prospects and their families in their designated area, and ESPN's cameras set at production angles, it produced the feeling that what was about to happen carried a weight that the space itself helped communicate.

Wyatt took his seat at the table assigned by draft staff, with Blaire on his right, Elena on his left, Ed beside Elena, and Rosenhaus standing behind the group—phone in hand, eyes sweeping the room, processing information from various sources simultaneously with the expertise of someone who has been in that room or equivalent ones enough times to know exactly which information matters and which doesn't in that specific moment.

The room's hum rose gradually with the arrival of each group until Roger Goodell appeared on stage, at which point the noise dropped just as fast—because that was the specific effect Goodell had when stepping onto the draft stage: the effect of someone controlling a room simply by being in it.

Goodell adjusted the microphone.

"Welcome to the 2016 NFL Draft," Goodell said in the voice he has developed for this specific moment—clear and unhurried, because it's the kind of moment that doesn't call for haste, but the exact opposite. "Welcome to Chicago."

There was applause.

Goodell continued with his speech, which included mentioning Chicago as the host city, thanking the fans, and describing what the draft represented for the league and for the players in that room—who, according to Goodell, were the best of college football over the past year.

Wyatt listened to the speech without moving in his chair, hands on the table, eyes on the stage, with the same focus he had listened to Dabo's pre-game instructions during his college years—the focus of someone who knows that what comes next depends partly on what he hears now, and who can't afford to miss any part of what is being said.

Blaire had her hand on the table, and Wyatt placed his over hers without saying anything.

Blaire didn't say anything either.

"And with that," Goodell said as his speech reached its conclusion, "the clock for the Los Angeles Rams for the number one pick of the 2016 draft begins now."

At the Rams' table, the assistant who had received the call from Los Angeles quickly wrote the name on a piece of paper before passing it to a staff member inside the auditorium, who then handed it to Goodell.

In the auditorium, the main screen showed the clock for the Rams' pick counting down from ten minutes.

Wyatt looked at the clock.

Elena had her hand over her mouth.

Ed had his elbows on the table with fingers interlaced—the exact same posture Snead had taken in the war room half an hour earlier, though neither of them knew it.

Blaire looked at the screen with the expression of someone who had been waiting for this moment since Wyatt arrived, and who now that it was here, needed all available resources to maintain the composure that the situation wasn't making easy to keep.

The clock counted down.

8 minutes.

At 4 minutes, Rosenhaus placed a hand on Wyatt's shoulder from behind with a pressure that said nothing in words, but said everything that needed to be said in that moment: that what was coming was coming, and it was what they had been waiting for.

2 minutes.

The clock reached 0.

A staff member appeared from the side of the stage and handed a folded piece of paper to Goodell.

Goodell unfolded it.

He read it.

He raised his eyes toward the room.

"With the first pick in the 2016 NFL Draft," Goodell said in the voice he has crafted for that specific moment—clear and deliberate, because it's a moment that needs no rush—"the Los Angeles Rams select Wyatt Sterling, quarterback, Clemson."

The auditorium exploded.

It wasn't the kind of roar that happens when something surprises people, but the kind that happens when something many had anticipated occurs anyway—and the fact that it was anticipated doesn't lessen the impact, but amplifies it in a way, because those who saw it coming feel validated, and those who didn't feel like they missed something.

Wyatt didn't move for a second.

A second that wasn't a normal second, but the kind that exists between the moment something happens and the moment the brain confirms that what just happened is real, and not a projection of what one hoped would happen.

Blaire was looking at him.

Wyatt turned to her.

Blaire's eyes were glistening with the restraint of someone who has decided not to cry, even if her body has a different opinion, and Wyatt didn't say a word—he just kissed her with all the warmth and emotion the moment called for, considerably more enthusiasm than Wyatt usually showed in public, but in that specific moment, he didn't care in the slightest.

Elena was crying without the restraint Blaire had applied.

Ed had a hand on Wyatt's shoulder.

Rosenhaus was already on the phone.

Wyatt stood up.

Draft staff appeared from the side holding a Los Angeles Rams cap and the jersey the team would wear in the upcoming season. Wyatt took both items with the hands of someone still processing that he was holding them, and that the process of holding them was real, not theoretical.

He put on the cap.

Staff guided him toward the stage.

The cameras were on him, and on stage there were even more cameras. Goodell was waiting in the center with an outstretched hand, and Wyatt walked up the steps with the stride of someone who had walked onto many stages over the last few years, though never this specific one with this specific meaning.

He shook Goodell's hand.

The commissioner said something that the music and noise prevented from being fully heard, but which Wyatt partially processed as congratulations and welcome to the NFL, and Wyatt responded with something equally lost in the din—though it was probably the kind of response one gives in that moment when the commissioner of the NFL shakes your hand and says welcome.

The official draft photographer appeared in position.

Wyatt stood beside Goodell with the Rams jersey in his right hand, the cap on his head, and Chicago's Auditorium Theatre surrounding him with lights, cameras, and people who had come to see this exact moment happen on stage.

The photographer gave the signal.

Wyatt looked into the camera.

He thought about his days in Texas and the backyard where his father had taught him to throw at eight years old with a football that was too big for his hands, but which his father used anyway because it was the only one in the house.

He thought about his first game at Clemson, when he walked onto the field as a backup without knowing yet that he would become the starter before the season ended.

He thought about the moment he met Blaire at that party years ago after beating Boston College.

He thought about the national championship and Laquon catching the ball with both feet inside the end zone, the orange confetti falling from the stadium towers, and the trophy he had carried to the bus and from the bus to the hotel in Glendale.

He thought about the meeting he had held with Les Snead at the combine months ago.

The photographer took the shot.

Wyatt stared into the camera for that extra second after the photo is taken, before the photographer lowers the equipment.

"This photo," Wyatt said quietly enough that only the photographer with his camera still raised could hear, "is going to go down in history."

The photographer lowered his camera.

Wyatt walked off the stage.

Outside in Grant Park, two hundred thousand people were watching what had happened on the Draft Town screens with the same energy Wyatt had left behind in the auditorium. In ESPN's studios, the analyst panel talked about the selection, his three seasons at Clemson, the Heisman, the national championship, the combine, and what Wyatt Sterling meant to the Los Angeles Rams in their first season back in a city that had waited twenty-three years to get an NFL team back.

And Wyatt Sterling—who had started running with a football in his hands in Katy, Texas at eight years old, and who had made it all the way to the first overall pick of the 2016 NFL Draft in Chicago, Illinois—walked back toward the table where Blaire and his parents were waiting for him, wearing the blue Los Angeles Rams cap on his head, with everything coming after that night still ahead of him.