The Once and Future Freak

Beneath the bright wash of white, electric light on a Friday evening in August, Vince Young and his receivers are putting on a show. The quarterback drops back and shoots bombs at the sprinting, slanting, juking receivers, as speedy corners try to knock the ball out of the thick, hot air.

There are over 2,000 people watching, and they jam the metal bleachers of the Titans practice facility in Metro Center. They ooh and aah with each aerial display, like the crowd at a fireworks show.

But on another part of the field, at the edge of the light far from the fans and surrounded only by empty grass, the players of the Titans defensive line repeatedly smash into each other with graceless ferocity. It is oppressively hot and muggy, the air redolent with swamp stench wafting in from a stagnant pond that sits near the back end of the practice field.

"Jesus, are you even paying attention?!?!" screams a graying, seemingly furious coach named Jim Washburn.

"Did you really just watch us do this drill half-a-dozen times and then come at him with that crap? Do it again!"

Washburn is the defensive line coach, and his rant is directed at a player who did not sufficiently level his partner. There are about a dozen players standing in a tight gaggle behind Washburn. Jevon Kearse is right there, but he stands off behind his teammates, hands on hips, occasionally adjusting a black neoprene knee brace on his left leg.

Washburn is holding a small green football on a long leash. He places the football on the ground, and the players line up on either side of it. Washburn yells "Hike," pulls the leash, and his players assault each other. They are practicing the three-man-rush, part of a blitz package that will have many AFC quarterbacks crumpled on the turf with canaries circling their helmets.

When Kearse's turn comes, the 31-year-old shows a burst of speed and tangles briefly with his opponent before shedding him and breaking free. He looks good. But as Kearse walks back to his spot to stand a little behind and a little apart from the others, there is a stiffness in his gait. A slight wince wrinkles his normally implacable face. While his teammates clap and whistle encouragement, Kearse adjusts the neoprene brace, puts his hands back on his hips and says nothing.

When Kearse lines up against the Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday, Sept. 7, it will be the beginning of his 10th season in the NFL, and his first with the Titans since 2003. He began his career here in 1999, exploding out of the University of Florida and instantly finding success in the NFL as a sack specialist. Nicknamed "The Freak" for his tall, chiseled frame and thoroughbred speed, Kearse became an immediate professional success. He was voted Defensive Rookie of the Year, recording a league-high 14.5 sacks during the regular season and another two during the playoffs. He would also be the first rookie defensive end to start in a Pro Bowl since the 1970s. That same season, the Titans would make it to the Super Bowl, losing a heartbreaker to Kurt Warner's St. Louis Rams.

This would be the greatest campaign of Kearse's career. He recorded 57 total tackles, forced eight fumbles and played in every game. In one season he lit up the world, achieving more than most players do in an entire career.

It would never be the same for him again.

Over the next two seasons with the Titans, Kearse's performance was respectable, but never close to the virtuosic performance of his rookie year. Though he recorded double-digit sacks in 2000 and 2001, his overall numbers declined steadily until 2002 when he suffered a broken bone in his foot on the second play of the season against the Philadelphia Eagles.

In 2003 Kearse had another solid, if hardly extraordinary season, and the Titans would let his contract expire at the end of the year. But Kearse's platinum-caliber rookie year performance had sealed his reputation elsewhere in the league. In 2004, the Eagles signed him to an eight-year $65 million deal, the largest contract ever awarded to a player at his position. The contract included $20 million in signing and roster bonuses. In his first season as an Eagle, he was an integral part of a team that would again make it to the Super Bowl and again come up achingly short, losing to the New England Patriots.

Kearse is extremely amiable. Even pundits who have criticized his play say that he is unfailingly one of the nicest guys in the locker room. It's true—meeting him for the first time is like speaking with an old friend. He is quick to laugh and exudes the kind of warmth associated with baseball players from the middle of last century—not the high-paid, post "Neon Deon" pitchmen that populate today's NFL.

Still, when he failed to record more than eight sacks in either of his first two years in Philadelphia, the notoriously fickle Philly faithful began to doubt The Freak. After two more injury-plagued seasons in Philadelphia—which included spraining multiple ligaments in his left knee during overtime against the Giants—the Eagles cut Kearse loose. He earned just over half of the potential money his contract allowed.