Manuel getting closer to clinching backup role
NAPA, Calif. — That was it: The final period of Friday’s practice.
First, Derek Carr led the starters onto the field. The defense continued its strong day, rookie tackle Eddie Vanderdoes made a sack on the opening 11-on-11 snap. Several plays later, the starters retired to the sideline. Their practice was done.
Next, it was EJ Manuel. He and the second-team offense tried their luck while Connor Cook watched. Manuel and Cook began training camp engaged in what was advertised to be one of the
RAIDERS
neck, back, knees, shoulders, hips and head have taken a toll on a quarterback who played 15 NFL seasons and led the Raiders to two Super Bowl victories.
His body is a patchwork of medical magic: Artificial knees, an artificial shoulder and a surgically repaired back. After 18 operations, Plunkett’s activities have been reduced to golf and light workouts at home on a Crosstrainer.
A quiet figure during his quarterbacking days, Plunkett represents a generation of men who played football with a taste for violence. For decades, Sunday’s heroes have suffered in silence from degenerative brain disease, depression, opioid addiction, Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The price for playing football has come due.
“Think of getting in 50 car wrecks a week for 20 straight weeks a year,” said Hank Bauer, a former San Diego Chargers running back known for his reckless special-teams play. “Everybody hurts at our age. We just hurt more.”
Latest health problems
A year ago, Plunkett contracted Bell’s Palsy, a temporary facial paralysis that causes one side of the face to droop. No sooner had the disorder disappeared than the throbbing headaches began. The head pain has been diagnosed as a neurological disorder that his physician thinks is connected to Bell’s Palsy.
These are the latest in a series of health problems that began four years after Plunkett left the NFL in 1986. He takes six pills in the morning, seven at night for his heart, blood pressure and other problems. Plunkett usually takes an opioid to play a round of golf, but otherwise stays away from the addictive painkillers. In early summer, he even tried hemp oil for a month but stopped when he didn’t see any results.
“There are a couple other drugs I take — I can’t know them all,” he said. “I’ve got to take them every day to quote-unquote survive.”
Plunkett’s football career began in the 1960s at James Lick High School in East San Jose. Then he played four years at Stanford, appearing in 32 games. After winning the Heisman Trophy in 1970 — he remains the only Heisman recipient in Stanford history — Plunkett was the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft by the New England Patriots.
He weathered 380 sacks in a pro career from 1971-86, and that doesn’t begin to account for all the times he was hit after throwing.
A year after Plunkett retired, NFL officials began addressing ways to protect their most valuable asset as quarterbacks were getting injured at an alarming rate. They prohibited pass rushers from taking two steps before smashing into a signal caller after the ball had been thrown. Such tactics were legal in Plunkett’s era. So was slamming quarterbacks to the ground.
Plunkett was sacked 36 times in his first season while playing for a team that went 3-11. One of the worst hits came from Miami’s Bob Matheson, a 6-4, 238-pound linebacker.
“He knocked me silly,” Plunkett said.
Afterward, Plunkett got to the huddle and called a scheme out of Stanford’s playbook. His linemen just stared at him. The Patriots had to call a timeout to give Plunkett a chance to regroup.
Still, he never missed a down during the rookie season. The next year, Plunkett was sacked 39 times, then 37 the year after that.
“He just got hammered — I mean hammered brutally,” said Randy Vataha, who played receiver for Plunkett for three years at Stanford and five in New England.
“He got up a lot of times when he shouldn’t have. Probably played some games when he shouldn’t have. That’s Jim.”
Gerry Plunkett’s face carries the tension of her circumstance as she sits on a couch in the couple’s Atherton, California, home.
Her husband has exhibited growing signs of symptoms of traumatic brain injury in the past few years.
For example, Plunkett is lively with friends or at autograph signings but returns home exhausted. But, until recently, he mostly dismissed concerns.
“I think he was in denial,” Gerry said.
Comeback with Raiders
Plunkett’s career should have ended after two mediocre years with the 49ers, who acquired him from New England in a trade before the 1976 season. But Raiders owner Al Davis picked him up off waivers for $100 before the 1978 season.
Davis told Plunkett to rebuild his confidence and regain his health. He hardly played the next 2 1/2 years.
By the time Plunkett replaced injured Dan Pastorini early in the 1980 season, Plunkett felt revived. He won comeback player of the year after leading the Raiders to a victory over Philadelphia in Super Bowl XV. He won a second Super Bowl ring in 1983 after replacing an injured Marc Wilson.
But all the while, Plunkett’s body and brain still were taking a beating.
After everything he has endured, Plunkett wants to help educate teenage football players on how to deal with head injuries. He joined about 40 former NFL players — half of them ex-raiders — in June for the Game-changer Celebrity Golf tournament in Rocklin to raise funds for research on traumatic brain injuries involving high school athletes.
“Kids are stubborn and when they get hurt they won’t report it,” Plunkett said.
He wants to help make football safer so it doesn’t disappear because of fears over concussions. Plunkett even hopes his 5-year-old grandson wants to play. For now, Grandpa throws footballs and baseballs to the boy on a vacant tennis court in the back yard that used to be Plunkett’s physical outlet when he could still run.
“I would love to see it,” he said of his grandson playing football, “but that would be selfish on my part.”
Then Plunkett considered another possibility.
“Golf ’s a great sport,” he said. “Nobody hits you.”