IT'S A MONDAY NIGHT and Jason Buck is sitting in his hotel room in Detroit, waiting, still waiting. As one of the National Football League's wandering unemployed, he's done plenty of that lately. Like a laid-off carpenter, he's job hunting. Anyone need a young, lightweight defensive end?
The Buffalo Bills called last week. The Washington Redskins called on Monday. So did the Kansas City Chiefs. And the Detroit Lions, who said they had an injury and could he get to town fast for a tryout? A few minutes later Buck was rushing out of his Orem home and racing up I-15 to Salt Lake International to catch a flight for Detroit.Buck is familiar with the routine. He flies to town on vague hopes and promises, performs any of several tests, and then awaits the verdict. One team wants 40-yard dash times and physicals, another team wants foot drills and bench presses. It could be worse. One NFL team actually asked him to stack children's building blocks as part of an evaluation. The Fischer-Price test.
Buck would work out for the Lions coaches on Tuesday morning, and they would decide if they wanted him.
Want him!? Want Jason Buck? Wasn't it only five years ago that Buck, then a defensive end for BYU, was the nation's top college lineman, winner of the Outland Trophy? Wasn't it only 41/2 years ago that he was a first-round draft pick of the Cincinnati Bengals and owner of a $1.5 million four-year contract? Wasn't it only two years ago that he led the Cincinnati Bengals in sacks and started in the Super Bowl?
"Things can change overnight," says Buck.
A week before the 1991 season began, Buck was cut by the Bengals. "Now I'm going through limbo," he says.
Buck's agent, Leigh Steinberg, contacted 20 teams around the league before opening day, but there were no takers. By then, NFL clubs have their rosters set and are leery of making last-minute changes. It's bad for team morale. So Buck waits for injuries to take their toll and for teams to come calling.
Buck's stay with the Bengals was doomed from the beginning. He is convinced that head coach Sam Wyche opposed his selection in the draft from the beginning because he was too small, and wanted to get rid of him. Buck says his position coach at the time bragged that he would drive him out of the league.
"It's a personal grudge," says Buck. "That's all. Wyche was down on me from Day 1. He always ripped on me in the media. Even before I played a down."
Buck started for the Bengals in 1988 and '89 and led the team in sacks, but on the opening day of the 1990 training camp he found himself relegated to second team. "The days of you slender-hipped guys is over," one Bengals coach told him. "You're not big enough anymore." The Bengals went to heftier linemen. They also slipped from one of the league's best scoring defenses in 1989 to one of its worst in 1990.
Buck makes no secret of his distaste for what he considers to be ill treatment by the Bengals. It's one thing to be cut; it's another to be misled. The Bengals, he says, told him that if they were going to release him, they would do so before the final cut so he would have time to shop for a new team. When they did cut him, they told him they would re-sign him. They did neither.
The knock on Buck, who is 6-foot-51/2, has always been the same: his weight. At best, he is a natural 235-pounder. By stuffing himself and downing weight-gaining supplements, he is able to reach 265 pounds, but he drops 10 pounds once the season begins. That makes him a virtual runt among NFL defensive linemen.
Buck has survived instead on his speed, athleticism and strength, but he has never really had the chance to utilize those gifts. He has never played in a four-man line, which would allow him to be a true defensive end, freer from run responsibility and free to use his speed as an outside pass rusher. At BYU and at Cincinnati he was forced to play in a three-man line, essentially as a tackle, a position that demands more weight.
"If I wasn't able to play anymore, I could walk away and admit it," says Buck. "But this was unjust. I had my best camp ever this fall. I led the team in sacks in preseason and led the D-line in tackles the first three (exhibition) games. I'm just entering my prime. I'd like to see how good I can be in a four-man line."
If anyone can overcome the odds, it would be Buck. Just consider the odds he already has beaten. He rose from poverty to NFL riches, from a skinny quarterback nobody wanted to an All-American defensive end. Buck's father lost his Michigan farm 22 years ago, and the rest is an often-repeated story of a young family sleeping under a hay truck for three months, of Jason going through an entire school year with one pair of pants and two T-shirts, and so on . . . Right or wrong, he banked on football, not education, to save him from poverty, and it worked after much perseverance. He walked on at Ricks College as a quarterback and was cut, then returned two years later, 60 pounds heavier, as a defensive end. Four years later he was in the NFL.
"I haven't forgotten all that," says Buck. "I never do. My teammates teased me because I got upset if I had to pay $6 for a club sandwich. I never forget."
He has since used his money to return his father - a laborer all these years - to the farm. "He's happier than he's ever been," says Buck.
Now Buck, who has yet to finish his college degree, is banking on football again to support his own family.