I avoided the paper stack in my locker like it was a bad final report card.
Because that’s exactly what it was. John Shoop, my quarterback coach with the Buccaneers back in the day, would drop off a collection of play sheets in our lockers with his handwritten thoughts scribbled over them. I knew what kind of end-of-year review awaited.
And I was right. We concluded a 5-11 season with the worst kind of loss—the kind where I screwed up a wide-open throw and it cost us a chance to close out 2004 the right way. Sure enough, Shoop had that screw-up circled with so many notes I almost punched our locker room wall.