You didn't just quit on a team like the Anchors, though. They took good care of you. Gave you a good job in the front office, managing personnel, they called it, or heading up the scouting department. That's what happened with Watt, but he made out like it wasn't anything to do with managing anything except a reasonable retirement check. They took care of you, but you didn't get the keys to the kingdom.

Carter wasn't interested in retiring -- he'd had a good career and his regrets weren't much, but the two-a-days and three-a-days that coach Lloyd put them through these days felt like they were more to weed out the weak than they were to condition athletes. Everyone said the same thing about Lloyd -- tough but fair. Carter understood the tough part. The jury was still out on the fair with the rookie head coach, though.

Carter remembered Lloyd. Lloyd had given him the biggest hit of his career. Carter couldn't remember his own name after that game -- they held him out for three weeks. Defense-oriented wasn't even in it for the man who used to be a safety. He was all defense.

Being on the offense when the coach was all defense wasn't all rosy, though. They had a mean-ass offensive coach who didn't take nonsense. He was one of these sure-fire throw-every-down coaches who thought the ground game was for Turk Renshaw and the rest of those old-timey coaches. Grind it out? Get your nose dirty? Not for coach Woods, no.

The Beginning

Carter had never thought much about retirement. The game was fun, and sure you took a beating, but they paid you for it, and paid you well. He wouldn't say the game had passed him by. He would never say that. But it was hard to understand what drove the people on his team.

He'd seen his share of showboats. It was hard not to, playing on the same team as Harry "Hundred" Watt, the man whose ego was bigger than his talent, which was pretty impressive, considering his four Pro-Bowls in eight years.

Still, the characters that had made up the league of his past were few enough that they stood out. They may have had their problems, whining for more recognition, fighting for playing time, but nothing like this.

It seemed that every other player drafted now had personality problems. They liked to drink or they liked the smoke. Whatever it was, it didn't help the Anchors in what they were trying to do, which was building a dynasty.

With training camp about to begin and Carter's protesting body telling him it didn't like training camp, the first notions of retirement crept in.