Brian Mitchell has been talking all week about players buying into a good culture and being accessible and available, and when London Fletcher joined BMitch & Doc on Friday, we learned how Fletch (who missed zero games in his NFL career) feels about that.
“I missed a game in high school for a sprained ankle and I was miserable on the sideline watching my teammates play, not being out there enjoying it and having fun,” Fletcher said. “From there on, I was like, if it's within my power, I don't ever wanna miss another game. There were moments where I had bad injuries and things that I could have easily sat out of a game, but I’d ask doctors what the risk was, if I could numb it or tape it up, get to somewhere I could go out and play and hold myself to the same standards I had if I was 100 percent.”
As BMitch said his dad once said, ‘do your job and they can’t take your job,’ and that’s what led to Fletcher going from third on the depth chart as a rookie to a full-time starter in Year 2.
“I started the last game of my rookie year in San Francisco when the starter got injured…and the starter never got his job back,” Fletcher laughed.
“My chance came when two of the guys who taught me how to return got knocked out mid-game, and when I got the job, I knew my job was to make sure the coach don't want to go back to them,” Brian said. “That's just the way you have to feel about it. It's a cutthroat business, but ultimately, it’s a mindset of every game is a job interview, and you gotta bring your best stuff with you.”
Fletcher notoriously threw up before games, and in Doc Walker’s eyes, that’s when he knew where the team stood – and he’s incredulous that, in an era where we’re questioning whether guys are ready to play or not, Fletcher somehow hasn’t been brought in to address them…or, as he put it, ‘tell me how they stuck on stupid.’
That notwithstanding, though, Fletcher agrees with BMitch’s assessment that even in a 4-9 season, there’s ALWAYS something to pay for in the final four games.
“These games are critical, especially when you have a season going down in all likelihood, and not knowing who’s calling the shots next year,” Fletcher said. “These last four games especially, they wanna see how you play when times are bad; it’s easy to get out when, when things are going well, but how does that guy play in the fourth quarter of a game where they're losing by double digits late? How do they perform when things aren’t looking great? People everywhere are evaluating you, and this is the moment in time where your leaders are so important in making sure the mindset is right everywhere. It's easy for guys to kind of check out and start to plan their vacations and think about what they're gonna do in the offseason, but you gotta push to stay mentally locked in because that’s what professionals do.”
And when it comes to complaining about the intensity of coaches, well, both Doc and Fletcher played for Dick Vermeil, who was notoriously a hard coach, but it was that toughness that built character for when times are tough – and if you can’t hack it when the chips are down, maybe you can’t hack it?
“When I hear about what’s coming out of Ashburn with EB, holding those guys accountable and working them, it reminds me of when Vermeil took over the Rams in ’97; they were the losingest team of the ‘90s, and there was a lot of pushback from some veterans,” Fletcher said. “There was a weeding out process that took place. I got there in ‘98 and my rookie year, like the first game, there was almost a revolt from some of the veteran players that he was working us too hard…but come ’99, there was only like 20 guys left from that team in ’97 that hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. There's a process, a painstaking attention details, callouses that have to be built up mentally and physically for your team in order to get over that hump, to learn how to win, and fight through adversity.”