Vickers keeps pushing toward elusive dream
ASHBURN – He keeps pushing because the payoff is huge. Redskins tight end Lee Vickers knows that; tells himself that often. And then he talks to his kids. And his 6-year-old daughter just wants him home in Alabama. And then he sees his 1-year-old daughter now running about the house on a video. When Vickers left, she was barely wobbling about.
“That stuff gets to you,” Vickers said.
However, there’s a feeling that’s worse: getting cut. And Vickers knows that better than anyone. Since he left North Alabama in 2006, Vickers has been cut eight times by four teams. He’s also appeared in eight games.
That’s why Thursday’s game vs. Arizona is a crucial one for Vickers, and other players on the bubble for a roster spot. Vickers must play well and hope that’s enough to unseat Logan Paulsen for the No. 3 tight end job when the final cuts are announced Saturday.
If not, he’ll return to a familiar and undesired spot.
“You feel like, ‘I have to provide for them’ and when you get cut you feel you’ve failed your kids,” Vickers said. “It hurts you.”
Vickers — who backed up current San Diego quarterback Phillip Rivers in high school — entered the NFL as a defensive end but was quickly switched to tight end by Pittsburgh. After they cut him that summer, the journey started. Philadelphia put him on its practice squad in 2006, only to cut him the next summer and then put him again on the practice squad. A couple weeks later the Eagles cut him. Baltimore picked him up and he played in eight games, starting two.
Those eight games sustain him.
“It’s hard to turn your back on it and walk away when you know how close you are,” he said, “and you know what it can do for you in the long term.”
The Ravens cut him in the summer of 2008; then the Steelers signed and cut him again before camp was finished. The Giants released him last September. Now he’s waiting to see what happens in Washington.
“The toughest thing as a coach is [cutting] down your 53-man squad,” Redskins coach Mike Shanahan said, “because you’ve just told someone the dream they’ve been dreaming won’t be real here.”
Meanwhile, Vickers’ family awaits the news in Athens, Ala. Vickers hasn’t seen them since he left for camp. With his daughter, Jillian, starting school and with no guaranteed money coming in, they couldn’t visit.
Jillian once asked him, “Why do you have to work? I don’t like the Redskins. Why don’t you come home?”
“I said, ‘Baby, you want daddy to buy you a car one day?’” Vickers said. “She said, ‘You can go ahead and work dad.’”
And his wife, Delana, nudges him to persist.
“She says you have to keep going, that it will work out eventually,” he said. “Every time I get cut it hurts the same because you put so much effort into it. When you get cut it brings you down so far, but you have to keep pushing. I know how close I am.”
