Mike Drago
Reading Eagle
10/3/2013
(Image By: Ben Hasty)
There's a great irony in William Thomas' life right now: The thing that drove him away from football a dozen years ago is now suddenly, surprisingly, pulling him back in.
The former star linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders left the game bitterly following a 2002 divisional playoff loss to the Patriots.
You probably remember it as the infamous "Tuck Rule Game," the one that helped transform Tom Brady and the entire New England franchise.
Thomas, like many of his Raiders teammates, remembers it simply as the end. The bitter end.
In fact, he doesn't want to remember it at all.
"That game left a sour taste in my mouth," said Thomas, now 45 and a volunteer assistant coaching linebackers at Conrad Weiser. "After that, (I said) I can't play no more."
Thomas was 33 at the time and still had some tread on the tire. He had started all but one game that season for the Raiders and was second on the team in tackles.
And it was a good team, one with Super Bowl aspirations. Some believe the Raiders would've won the Lombardi Trophy that season had fate not stepped onto that snow-covered field in Foxborough, Mass.
The Raiders thought they were a couple of kneel-downs away from a spot in the conference championship game when Charles Woodson wrapped his arms around Brady, knocking the ball loose and causing a fumble.
The Raiders offense came on the field, prepared to run down the clock on a 13-10 victory.
After a lengthy delay for replay, the play was overturned, ruled an incompletion because of a relatively new rule - the now-infamous "tuck rule."
You know the rest of the story. Adam Vinatieri kicked a game-tying 45-yard field goal into the driving snow to send the game to overtime, then hit another to win it 16-13.
The Patriots won their first Super Bowl, Brady married a super model and Bill Belichick became a super genius.
And the Raiders stewed. For years. Still are.
When an NFL officiating crew made its way to Raiders camp two months ago to explain rule changes for the current season - among them a modification of the tuck rule - Woodson, now in his 16th NFL season, didn't want any part of it.
"I don't need no lesson in that," he told the San Jose Mercury News.
When the NFL refs showed up at Raiders camp in 2002 for a preseason rules review, the players got up and walked out of the room.
"None of us, I don't think, will ever get over it," Woodson said. "When you feel like a game was stolen, that hurts. It probably burns for everybody on that team."
It still does for Thomas. He said if he's watching television and highlights of that historic game show up on his screen, he lunges for the remote control.
"Just the way it happened, it's just too much for me," he explained. "After that, I said I have to go. To me, if that can be taken from you, then anything can be taken from you. So I was, 'All right, it's not meant for me to go (to the Super Bowl).' "
Thomas still hopes to make it to a Super Bowl - and here's the ironic part - as an NFL official.
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