Chargers’ Linsley protective on, off field
In April 2014, Corey Linsley came in 160th in the NFL’s annual beauty contest.
Five months later, he was snapping the ball to Aaron Rodgers on the first play of the NFL season.
Talk about survive and advance.
J.C. Tretter, the starting center, was hurt two weeks earlier. Linsley’s moment came at him like a locomotive through a tunnel. It did not help that the opponent was Seattle, in Seattle, where quarterbacks and eardrums are pressured equally. The Seahawks were reigning Super Bowl champs, and this was Thursday Night Football.
“It was a hell of a deal,” Linsley said Friday, his first official day as a Charger. “On Saturday, I could feel my heart racing. I thought, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ Doubt creeps into your mind.”
It wasn’t just a matter of delivering a football into Rodgers’ prying hands. It was recognizing defensive fronts that were designed, by Pete Carroll, to be unrecognizable. It was deciding to slide the protections and, beyond that, making himself heard to four beleaguered mates.
And, yeah, it was blocking. Linsley lasted until the fifth round because, as centers go, he was on the frail side at 6-foot-3 and 296 pounds.
Careers have been vaporized by less.
But then Rodgers got up the day before the game and talked about the “I belong” moment.
“He said that when you get on the field, you’re good enough to play in the NFL,” Linsley recalled. “That helped me out a lot.”
Linsley did belong. On his first play, Eddie Lacy gained six yards. On the third play, Lacy got 15 up the middle.
The Packers punted and then punted again, but recovered a fumble. Six plays later, John Kuhn scored. Seattle eventually won 3616, but Linsley started all 16 games and started 99 in seven years. He has since refined that job to gruntand-lift
art.
In 2020, Linsley was rated the NFL’s top center by Pro Football Focus and was named first-team AllPro. The Packers chose to pay other people, so Linsley became the latest care package for a Chargers’ offensive line that seems resistant to improvement. With quarterback Justin Herbert as the kid prince, you never have enough bodyguards.
“I don’t let things get too complicated,” Linsley said. “Obviously the weather here is a cool factor. But it’s a job, and now it’s up to me to hold up my end of the contract. I don’t need to tell Justin much. I remember every spectacular throw Aaron made, but his work and his intelligence for the game are why he’s the quarterback he is.”
Few NFL fans get stressed about the comings and goings of the big men. From the seats, they appear interchangeable.
Linsley’s move hits Green Bay harder, because the city saw the man outside the
helmet. He was the Packers’ Walter Payton Award nominee, primarily for the work he and his wife Anna did on the part of Court Appointed Special Services.
Those who volunteer for CASA represent neglected and abused children. They go to court on their behalf, they meet with their kids once a week. In some cases, they’re de facto parents.
“We had one child whom Corey and Anna had worked with for more than a year,” said Kristin Jacobs, the executive director of the Brown County (Wis.) CASA chapter. “He had no idea that Corey was a football player. Then he was watching a game that went to overtime, and Corey was at midfield for the coin toss with his helmet off. He said, ‘Look, that’s my CASA.’”
While Linsley was getting squared away in Costa Mesa, Anna was checking out local CASA opportunities.
“We’re the voice for the children,” Linsley said. “They can’t testify for themselves in court. I had
a pretty comfortable upbringing (in Youngstown, Ohio). I didn’t know what a social worker was. A situation like this affects children from all demographics, from all economic groups. Kristin had a connection to us because she’s from Youngstown originally. The more we learned, the more we were drawn to this. The fact that not everybody gets that, that not everybody knows what’s going on, is tragic.”
“It was a tough day for a lot of us when Corey and Anna left,” Jacobs said. “They approached this like any other volunteer. They took the 30 hours of training like everybody else.”
Andy Herman, who works for Packers.com, commemorated Linsley’s career by asking fans for $63 donations to CASA, since Linsley wore 63. In fewer than 12 hours they had delivered $5,000.
The Chargers will do well to prove they belong on Corey Linsley’s team. Some centers find a way to be central.