Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile

by Nate Jackson

Nate Jackson’s Slow Getting Up is an unvarnished and uncensored memoir of everyday life in the most popular sports league in America - and the most damaging to its players - the National Football League.

After playing college ball at a tiny Division III school, Jackson, a receiver, signed as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, before moving to the Denver Broncos. For six seasons in the NFL as a Bronco, he alternated between the practice squad and the active roster, eventually winning a starting spot - a short, tenuous career emblematic of the average pro player.

Drawing from his own experience, Jackson tells the little-known story of the hundreds of everyday, "expendable" players whose lives are far different from their superstar colleagues.

From scouting combines to training camps, off-season parties to game-day routines, debilitating physical injuries - including degenerative brain conditions - to poor pensions and financial distress, he offers a funny, and shocking look at life in the NFL, and the young men who risk their health and even their lives to play the game.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Football, Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

Audible Audio

First published September 17, 2013

Reviews

[Matt Zar-Lieberman · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a good amount of well-written football books. There are also many football books penned by current and former players. Unfortunately, there has generally been little overlap between the two. NFL memoirs are often cash-outs after particularly improbable seasons or impending bankruptcy or financially-ruinous divorces. The player's voice is generally diluted by a co-author who invariably has a penchant for lame cliches and generic athlete platitudes. Thankfully, Slow Getting Up, Nate Jackson's reflections on his eight years on the fringes of the NFL, features quality prose and brings a fresh and insightful perspective to a rather stale format. It is one of the most entertaining football books released in the past few years and is a worthwhile read for football fans interested in learning more about the trials and tribulations facing professional football players.

After beginning with a 2008 hamstring injury that ultimately spelled the end of Jackson's career (physical maladies and the arduous rehabilitation associated with them will be a common theme throughout the piece) Slow Getting Up chronicles Jackson's improbable journey from Division III star at Menlo College to making an NFL roster and sticking around and contributing in the league for several years. Each chapter generally covers a season and the book moves at a fast clip and reads like a series of fleshed-out blog posts. He devotes early passages to outlining the draft process and his attempts to stick with the San Francisco 49ers as an undrafted free agent. Jackson is eventually traded to the Broncos during training camp in 2003 and he initially manages to stick on the practice squad before spending a few years as a backup tight end and special teamer with Denver. The author's relatively long tenure allows him to mine a considerable amount of anecdotal gems from his playing career, such as playing for the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe, losing to the Steelers in the 2005 AFC Championship Game, enduring a surreal training camp with Eric Mangini's Cleveland Browns in 2009, and trying to catch on with the cash-strapped Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL.

Slow Getting Up is one of the few player memoirs to really focus on an athlete treading the tenuous line between the practice squad and special teams and a career outside of the NFL. Understandably, most publishers are not really enamored with putting out books by authors with only 2 more NFL touchdowns than their general audience. Because Jackson is not able to describe what it feels like to catch a game winning touchdown in the Super Bowl or catch 100 passes in a season, much of Slow Getting Up touches upon activities outside the games. Jackson details life on an average NFL road trip, playing on the scout team, the incredibly frustrating process of rehabilitating from injuries, and extravagant nights of clubbing. That being said, Jackson does go into some depth about the game when he discusses his larger roles on special teams, where he played on kickoff, kick off return, and punt units for the Broncos. Some of his gridiron observations are also insightful, such as how coaches like Gary Kubiak, who spent his entire career as John Elway's backup, is more concerned with concepts than those with more NFL game experience.

I feel that football players are generally held to lower standards as writers (which makes sense given many of them are pretty poor in the literary department) but Jackson's prose is legitimately enjoyable to read compared to any writer. His writing is peppered with pop culture references and witty turns of phrase. Sometimes his humor can come off as sophomoric and overly scatological, but Slow Getting Up is mostly a pleasure to read. His tone is sarcastic, self-deprecating, and irreverent and it is refreshing to hear a former player be so candid. Jackson even admits to a brief fling with HGH while attempting to recover from an injury. It is hard to think of a better guide (among former NFL players) through Mangini's surreal militaristic training camp, where players watch film cutups of warmups in meetings and are constantly quizzed on team mantras, than the snarky and incredulous Jackson.

Jackson also is able to vividly describe much of his NFL life. This is probably due to the fact that he has essentially been writing this work for several years. Jackson started a journal for the Broncos' website when he played for the Rhein Fire in 2004 and maintained his column for three years. Additionally, Jackson was able to consult with Wall Street Journal writer Stefan Fatsis while the latter attended Broncos' training camp to write A Few Seconds of Panic (a 2000s version of Paper Lion that is worth seeking out for football fans or anyone curious as to the depths of Todd Sauerbrun's craziness). There is a surprising amount of dialogue in Slow Getting Up and while I am guessing most/all of it is based on Jackson's recollections it still demonstrates the robustness of his memories. Jackson also is not bitter about much and does not really have a bone to pick with anyone and he is generally objective and fair-minded. There are no chapters lamenting the physical beatings he endured, rants against the teams that released him, or chastising agents or fans that wronged him. Some may find his portrayals of Adam Schefter (who used to beat a beat writer for the Broncos) and Eric Mangini a bit unfair but who is honestly going to defend those guys? Jackson's riffs on their insufferable personalities were some of the highlights of the book for me.

In Sum
Most NFL memoirs devote at least some pages to describing players' general weekly routines during training camp and the regular season. What separates Slow Getting Up from the pack is Jackson's perspective and insight into such matters. I understand the comparisons to Ball Four, but Slow Getting Up really struck me as the football cousin of Mark Titus' Don't Put Me in Coach. Both books seem geared towards the Grantland-reading demographic who will catch the Radiohead references and appreciate the anecdotes about players and coaches from years past. I don't think it will be added to the literary pantheon of the best football books ever (not that Jackson ever intended that) but Slow Getting Up is a fast-paced, entertaining and enlightening look at life in the NFL that I thoroughly enjoyed.

8/10

[ThereWillBeBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as athlete-writers go there are generally three kinds. Those who put out ghostwritten memoirs that may or may not be interesting, depending on how into their sport you are. Those who are pretty good writers, for an athlete, and these are like watching an elephant paint on an easel or a little kid do a complex math problem, the wonder is that its happening at all. Then there are those rare athletes who are actually good. Not good for a jock, but actually talented and thoughtful separate from their athletic careers.

Nate Jackson is in the third category and this made Slow Getting Up a fascinating read. A peek behind the highly mediated and PR saturated veil of the NFL. Very much recommended to sports fans or to anyone who may be remotely interested in the subject matter.

[Ryan Miksch · Rating 5 out of 5]

You wont put down this book until you finish. Nate finds a way to make you feel like you are in the locker room with him. You feel nervous and excited for him through out. Great book.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sort of liked the book; it follows chronologically the narrative of a fringe NFL from his college prep through his shaky beginnings to seasoned professional. While his career "progresses" in this fashion, his body is in decline, so much so that, as his career peters out in practice for the UFL, his achilles snaps, leaving him down on the 104 degree dirt in the realization that it is over. The book suggests that, while the NFL owned his body, it did not own his mind; there is, however, precious little to support that as Nate was no source of friction, doing all or more than all he was called upon to do.

The writing is solid but unspectacular; football would seem to offer the possibility of pyrotechnics in description and characterization. Neither is forthcoming.

Jackson does make some interesting suggestions about successful coaches and their opposites. He finishes with Jim Fassell, far from the NY Giants, the coach of the Las Vegas Locos (UFL), but he didn't last long enough to get into that phenomenon, a coach falling as far as used-up players.

I will make a note to read Jackson's work as it appears elsewhere: Deadspin, Slate, NYT, etc.

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this book late last year courtesy of a radio interview with the author which I heard one day online from CBC Radio 1 in Canada. Indeed, I was so impressed with the author's story of his experiences as a player in the National Football League (NFL) --- first with the San Francisco 49ers and then with the Denver Broncos, where he played for the majority of his career --- that I eagerly bought the book. Though I am a sports fan and have followed the NFL in varying degrees for years, I am NOT a football fan. (Baseball is my great love.) But I do have a certain fascination with the lives of athletes within the context of the sport which they have been able to make their life's vocation.

Despite a good, solid college football career, Jackson was not a shoo-in for a slot in an NFL team when he was invited to try out with the 49ers. The 49ers was a team he had followed and loved since childhood, when it was one of the premier NFL franchises, boasting of 2 stellar quarterbacks (Joe Montana and then Steve Young), Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice. During one of the try-outs, Jackson was spotted by former coach Bill Walsh (under whose tenure the 49ers won 3 Super Bowl championships), who was impressed with his performance and encouraged him to persevere. That Jackson did and thus began his 6-year NFL career. (The average stint for an NFL player, given the rigors and demands of the sport, is 3 years.)

Reading the book was for me a vicarious (no holes barred) journey into the everyday life of a professional NFL football player, not only during the regular season, but also in the off- and pre-season periods. I was particularly struck by the following observation Jackson made as his time with the Broncos began to draw to a close:

"An NFL football team is not built to depend on one man. It is built to rely on one system. The men are temporary. The plan is permanent. The scouting department brings in the talent, and once they're in that front door, they become cogs in a machine. Jake [the starting quarterback for the Broncos] has never been benched in his life. Confronting the reality of the machine is something he hasn't had to do until now. Franchise quarterbacks are the last bastion of sentimental aw-shucks football fairy tales. Former quarterbacks and quarterback coaches wear suits on television and tell football fans why the quarterback is all that really matters. But someday the quarterback will be thrown out with the trash. Eventually the lie reveals itself to everyone."

I enjoyed the journey and my respect for pro athletes has been deepened. Thank you, Nate Jackson.

[Tucker Menzies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow Getting Up, by Nate Jackson

Important People: Nate Jackson, Mike Shanahan, Bill Walsh

This book details life in the National Football League from a former player who started and finished his career at the bottom of the pile. Nate Jackson played college football at D-III Menlo, and entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent, thanks to Bill Walsh, who recruited him to sign with the 49ers. Jackson attended training camp with the 49ers in his first season but was cut and signed with the Denver Broncos. There he met Coach Mike Shanahan, and began to succeed in the NFL throughout a six-year career, twice as long as the average NFL career. However, Jackson was bitten by the injury bug countless times, making his life as a football player more difficult. Jackson writes of life in the NFL, NFL Europe, and his career ending injury playing in the UFL.

Through many years in the NFL, Nate Jackson managed to stay on a team for a long time. However he did not play much, and he did not escape life in the league unscathed. He encountered many injuries, and came to learn how brutal and dragging the NFL can be. Through 5 seasons, he never scored, but in his sixth season, he became a starter for a short amount of time. This was the absolute pinnacle of Jackson's career success. Although he suffered the final injury not much later, Jackson shows how good of a writer he is, and that he can make it, in and out of the NFL.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading about the NFL from the perspective of a player, who truly encountered the hardship, and the fantasy of playing professional football.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly I probably gave my review an extra star for being a Bronco's fan and for being a Nate Jack fan while he was here. Still, this certainly isn't your average football player biography. Jackson has a quirky humor and an even more quirky depth, honestness, if you will, that I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get from Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

While he offers candid honesty about his relationship with football, there is the sense that he glosses over his human relationships in the book. With the "jersey chasers" as he calls them, I think that is understandable, even telling. I think it would be interesting to hear a professional athelete's take on intimate relationships and throwaway sexual conquests in the context of being famous for God-given talent. This isn't a book about that. However, I think that being a book about football and the camaraderie of teammates being so intrinsic to that, he does fall short on giving us a view of how it FEELS to be a teammate.

There is so much a football fan WILL love in this book that what might be missing can easily be overlooked. After finishing it, I sincerely hope that Nate Jack is working away at his next book. Maybe the next one can be a mystery-thriller about how an entire football team goes in together to off their chubby, 38 year-old, tyrant of a coach.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe the best sports book I've ever read. It's not about glory and historical achievement, it's life as cannon fodder, in the genre of autobiographical account of an American dream not being at all what it's cracked up to be. Kids dream about catching a Super Bowl winning touchdown, not tearing a hamstring and contemplating painkilling injections for a chance to eke onto a roster as a special teamer.

Not sure why this one isn’t more well-known. Possibly because it’s not a sensational tell-all. Nate Jackson has largely positive things to say about his coaches and teammates, except for his brief stint with the Cleveland Browns, and the sports media, and who can blame him about either of those. More likely it just never got the hype, not unlike Nate Jackson as a player, a replacement-level NFL receiver/tight end who sometimes caught passes but mostly played special teams in between stints rehabbing from injuries. But he hung on, finding enough of a niche to eventually appear in 41 games over six years.

Jackson has a sparse, nakedly honest (sometimes literally) writing style that's perfectly suited to describing life on the NFL fringe, with the right amount of optimism, pessimism, and black humor. I can only imagine the details he left out that would get people in trouble, but this also isn't a blissfully clean-cut, consequence-free episode of A Football Life either. He presents football in its accurately dissonant form: a highly fun and entertaining sport that has a truly brutal side. It's an activity that physically wrecks its participants, though for Nate and others who sign up for it, if they didn't have this particular form of sanctioned competitive violence available, they'd probably just find another one.

More sinister are the consequences of an enjoyable pastime being corrupted by unmitigated capitalism. I’d contend that 90% of football's problems derive from it, and mostly in the category of detached ownership valuing profit over people. (Like…just about everything else in modern life? Which is why, though I can’t disagree with people who have stopped supporting the NFL, I find it a strange place to draw a line in the sand. Laborers all over the world are exploited, most with much worse prospects than NFL players.) As just one example, concussions became a chronic problem because league ownership ignored them and covered up data instead of going all-in on player safety. Given all the money in the sport, there’s no reason why every person who signs an NFL contract shouldn't have it guaranteed, with health care for life attached, and with more money for the Nate Jacksons that keep the machine churning.

Not that Jackson isn’t immune to frustration about being a piece of meat in the machine, or that the TV spectacle reduces players to uniformed avatars to be carted off, traded, and forgotten. He realizes this is a dehumanizing situation and all, it’s just that it’s ultimately worth it to him to be one of the meat avatars. He’ll work his way through injury rehab, wondering why he’s bothering, then get back on the field, and talk lovingly about the deep satisfaction of hurling himself into his professional colleagues. Plus it pays well. Also there are perks. Lots and lots of perks, especially for the young American male. Including, but not limited to, epic Vegas trips, various intoxicants, team parties, and succumbing to the jersey chasers.

So it’s a very successful book in that it portrays a very ambiguous situation ambiguously. Similarly, I’m still more or less a football fan, which means accepting the good and the bad simultaneously. I wanted him to succeed, and I also wanted him to quit. Especially as he got increasingly beat up and had to face ever-worsening options about accepting short-term treatments (even flirting with HGH) that would prolong his career but with unclear long-term consequences, or agreeing to sketchier gigs on poorly-run teams or even secondary and tertiary football leagues. But he always opts in, until he can’t.

As Jackson summarizes, “Football players are smart and all, but it's not our main thing.”

Originally read 2018, re-read 2022, review lightly edited.

[Michael Backus · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is good in this book and Jackson's writing is solid throughout, though there were a couple of self-conscious flourishes clearly meant to be more "writerly" (for lack of a better term) than is typical in a book like this, and these carry no impact. But it gives a genuine sense of what it is like to play pro football at that level and from a POV generally not heard from (Jackson is a real NFL journeyman, barely holding on each year in his career), he's honest about things like pot smoking and groupies and strippers, though he really has nothing significant to say about either (other than that they exist in his life). And he gets across the sense of tension that goes with playing in the NFL at that journeyman evel (maybe at any level, though there's no doubt that there was extra tension not knowing if you were going to be cut from week to week); Jackson struggled to hold on weight during the season because he was never very hungry because he was so wound up all the time.

And it's as good as any book I"ve read on the injuries that go with the game; his career was in many ways the story of one injury after another (pulled hamstrings and groins are common and in Jackson's description, he never just pulls a hamstring, he pulls it tendon from bone), and how these injuries usually came out of nowhere at a bad time when he was on the field. You feel the tension as he describes the game, knowing another injury is likely. So the nature of pain in the NFL comes through, which is hardly news but it has impact when one player is talking specifically about his experiences.

But I rated it this low (and I admit it's a bit unfair to criticize a book or a film on what it could be rather than what it is) because I expected something with a bit more existential oomph, a book that had a critical POV about the whole process, a jaundiced "North Dallas Forty" take on the business that simply isn't there. Jackson is a true believer and remains one to the end of the book, there's nothing of Pete Gent's Phil Elliott in Jackson. We get zero sense of the real personalities at play in the league. Mike Shanahan is a great man, Bill Walsh is a great man, he loves Jake Plummer and Rod Smith (the best teammates ever!!), this player and that player were great teammates. Only Eric Mangini gets criticized and that takes up about half a page and involves only two or three days in Jackson's life.

I guess in the end, without some larger, coherent, developed take on his experiences in the league, we're essentially left with those experiences and while there's value there, Jackson just isn't that interesting as a writer or football player or thinker to carry a book like this all the way through.

[Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow Getting Up comes with plenty of advance praise in reviews and (of course) in the jacket blurbs, and the book partially delivers.

On the plus side, Jackson clearly portrays the pervasiveness of injuries, the routines of training camp, and the rituals of game day. He explains the different coaching styles (particularly in a take down of the Browns coach, Eric Mangini), and he captures the insecurities for the marginal players under the constant threat of being cut. Throughout the narrative, he scatters some philosophical reflections, which provide some interesting insights into the life of pro football.

But there's a downside to the book too. Though Jackson claims his fellow players are his close comrades, he doesn't capture much of the rapport among the players beyond the locker room hijinks and crazy road trips. I never felt the players were close even though Jackson says they are. Similarly, Jackson's family life and his relationships with his girlfriends seem vague and distant. I realize this is a football book, not a memoir about friends and family, but the unexplained personal life outside football makes the narrative incomplete for the reader. For me, there's too much "then we won...then we lost...then we won again." I prefer more insights, more interpersonal relationships (both football and personal), more descriptions of specific game plans, and less chronology on the team's record.

So I enjoyed Slow Getting Up, but for me, the book falls short of the hype.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate Jackson was no Jerry Kramer, but this book is the perfect companion read to his "Instant Replay". Jackson, a reasonably fast white guy wideout from the Bay Area, meets Bill Walsh, but isn't good enough to make the 49ers. Walsh sees something in Jackson, however, and trades him to Denver, which moves him to tight end. This book, then is about the life of the marginal player--just good enough to get a spot on the taxi squad, maybe a roster spot when a starter goes down.

[Kirsti · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading after Jackson claimed that he tracked a mountain lion and its cubs to their cave, threw sticks and a live snake into the cave entrance, taunted the lion when she emerged, and then killed her with his bare hands and a pocketknife after she attacked him. What a jerkhole.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and getting to know the author through his NFL career. Interesting behind the scenes things I've never considered about the Broncos or NFL as a whole.

[Charles Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take your pick from this hodge-podge—high-minded idealism, crass cynicism, desperation, intense male bonding, intense physical violence, horrible injuries, martinets, men of honor, joy in your personal physical prowess, and play-by-play professional football; all are recurring elements in Nate Jackson’s autobiographical treatment of his six years in the NFL.

Presentation of this somewhat disjointed list is not a complaint about the book’s organization. It is simply a statement about the bizarre world of professional football in which Jackson survived. He survived, but never truly prospered, except in the most prosaic ways. He got more money, playing time in the big game, and more sex, but those benefits came at considerable costs.

My somewhat disorderly list above is also a statement about my own complex, schizophrenic feelings about the sport and this book. The glow on Jackson’s face in his moments of triumph jumps off the page. He pulls in a pass, crosses the goal line for the first time in his NFL career, and then spreads his arms and sweeps around the end zone like a supersonic jet lining up with the runway, holding the ball as he flies back to the bench. Any reader who has participated in competitive sports will have to suppress the urge to run out on the field and hip-bump with him. In moments like this, Jackson gives us a grand glimpse into the instances that are the joy of this strange and violent endeavor.

Of course, in the main, Jackson’s story leaves us with a much more complex picture of professional football, both the players and the game. As they say, “the devil in in the details.” This work enmeshes us in those details. Along the way, we find that much about the game and those in it, especially those controlling it, dramatically dulls the shine on those fleeting, but nonetheless golden and transcendent, moments of joy.

Nate Jackson came to the NFL after great success as a wide receiver at a small college in California. Cal Tech dumped him, but he landed in Menlo College amidst an array of coaches who were former professional football players. He also made contact with the man who would become his “rabbi,” the legendary Bill Walsh. His Menlo years were his golden years. He loved the campus and the college; he especially loved the football. At Menlo, he learned the intricate language of the wide-open west coast offense that Walsh pioneered, and he dominated as a wide-receiver.

Named an All-American in his senior year, he was invited to participate in the high-profile East-West Shrine Game, in part because of Walsh. Walsh had watched him for years and believed he could play at the “next level.” Who would know better? An injury kept him out of the game, but it did not keep him out of the NFL job fair at the site. This beginning was, in light of latter events, prophetic.
“I walk to the front of the stage and stop as instructed. I am in my underwear. A trickle of sweat runs down my side. One hundred men sit in folding chairs with clip boards in their lap. They look me up and down and scribble notes.”

As was his reaction to not being drafted but picked up as a free agent by San Francisco and traded during first pre-season training camp to the Denver Broncos. Bill Walsh, no longer coaching but still a presence, had seen that Jackson was not going to fare well at San Francisco. He contacted Bill Shanahan in Denver and arranged the trade. Jackson was grateful, but he understood his place in the scheme of things in pro ball.

“I am meat, traded to the highest bidder: the only bidder. Fine, I’ll be your meat. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. Just give me a helmet.”

Jackson proved Walsh was correct; he could play at the next level. During his six years in professional football, he was a player (at least in name) with the San Francisco 49ers, the Denver Broncos, a team in Germany in the NFL Europe, and the Cleveland Browns. He began this journey earing just over four thousand dollars a week, worked his way up to over 15 thousand a week with a signing bonus of over 400 thousand dollars. At the end of the downward spiral in his career, he signed on with a start-up team that was part of the short-lived United Football League.

“First we have to sign the contract. Get it in ink! ....The real salary, the one we will be receiving for our services, is $35,000: $35,000 to keep the dream alive. Look, Ma, I’m a Las Vegas Loco.”

Along with way he accumulated incredible experiences, including shoulder separations, pulled hamstrings, pulled groin muscles, Achilles tendonitis, injured core muscles (obliques), a strained chest muscle, a broken finger, a concussion, a neck injury, a deflated knee bursa, and a broken leg. When the average person thinks, if they do, about hamstring injuries, they think about a light strain. Here we are talking about some of the most powerful muscles in the body ripping completely lose from the bone to which they are attached.
Y
ou might want to call such gluttony for punishment stupid. It is not. If anyone doubts the intelligence required for professional football, especially in the “skill positions,” this book will open your eyes, widely. Getting what is probably close to a verbatim discussion of game and practice films is like sitting in on a lesson in a foreign language in which you grasp just a few words.

“—Nate, who are you supposed to block on this play?
—Depends on the coverage.
—What coverage are they in?
—Three.
—Yes, but it’s a Three Cloud: we call that Four.
—I thought Four was quarters.
—Some places it is but we call quarters Cover Eight. You should know that by now. …….
—What you really have to watch for is that Cover Six: the quarter-quarter-half. That’s Cover Two on half the field and quarters on the other half.”

And this conversation about one busted assignment and how this single play should be run against different sets goes on for pages

You might also find yourself surprised to discover the Bronco’s offense linemen were a deeply religious group of very large men who had Bible study meetings and had a prayer group meeting on game day to prepare for play. The non-believers among us may want to scoff. But, these are men who found their path and brought it into their
professional lives. The world would be a much better place if politicians and mortgage bankers did the same.

Unable to tie down a consistent starting position as a wide receiver with the Broncos, where he spent most of his career, he committed himself and his body to “special teams.” No matter whether Denver kicked off or received the opening kick, Nate Jackson played the first down of every game he was healthy. In earlier generations, special teams were dubbed “suicide squads.” The name was well deserved. Racing down the field at close to top speed, which is something that rarely occurs in regular play, desperately hoping to collide head-to-head with someone who is running in the opposite direction at high speed, is not a prescription for good health. But, Jackson persevered through his anatomy chart of injuries, and Bronco’s head coach, Shanahan, continued to have faith in Jackson’s skills and determination not to be sidelined by injuries.

The mantra of professional football players who are not household names is “the more I do; the more chances I have to stay here.” This attitude “forced” Jackson into playing tight end, rather than wide receiver. This meant that someone whose true playing weight was somewhere south of 230 pounds was assigned to block defensive ends whose true weight was usually somewhere north of 300 pounds. Jackson sometimes wore ankle weights under his sweats when he weighed, so that his coaches would believe he was maintaining the desired weight. He should have been playing at something near 250 or 260, but that was an unachievable fantasy.

As his time with the Broncos lengthened, he became one of the many players whose continued presence on the field on game day depended on intramuscular injections of pain killers and anti-inflammatories on the night before a game. He was badly beaten down, but he was not defeated.

“Last night after meetings I lined up for the needle again: 60 milligrams of Toradol, a powerful anti-inflammatory and painkiller. Ten or fifteen of us rely on it every game, physically and mentally. We live in pain during the week. We want to feel good on game day, and adrenaline isn’t enough anymore.”

It was only with Shanahan’s firing as head coach of the Broncos that Nate Jackson lost all his anchors and became a free agent seeking a slot somewhere or anywhere. He spent a short time with the Browns. He is called to tryouts by Philadelphia and New Orleans. He landed in Las Vegas, where his journey finally ended with a final injury that stamped paid to his ticket to play professional football.

During the 2008 season, the NFL had almost eight billion (yes, that is nine zeroes) in revenue, none of it considered for Federal corporate taxes. Roughly 57 percent of that amount was paid out in player salaries. In 2013, base salaries for Denver Bronco players ranged from 15 million (Peyton Manning) to between 400 and 500 thousand dollars for the lowest paid 37 of the 53 players on the team roster.
Under the NFL retirement plan, Nate Jackson, by my calculations, is eligible for just over $2800 a month when he reaches 55, unless he has additional money in a 401k plan, which the NFL matched at two to one.

The average number of years of play for those rookies who are on a team roster at the beginning of their rookie season is six years, according to the NFL. That was Nate Jackson. As for health insurance to combat the injuries sustained in his career, take a look at website of the “Gridiron Great Assistance Fund” for stories that will break your heart. Also, serious question are arising about whether the recent three-quarter billion dollar settlement between former players and the NFL includes enough money to cover injuries to the class of plaintiffs.

Many players, at the sunset of their career, will imitate Nick Nolte’s morning-after routine in North Dallas Forty. Nate Jackson certainly did. He and those others will be almost continual candidates for orthopedic surgery as they get older. Some players will survive their playing years with relatively intact bodies only to sink decades later into early dementia resulting of far too many head injuries. Some, like young Ryan Swope, will now see their lifelong dream of being a professional football player dissolve before their hungry eyes because of the utterly fearless way they played collegiate ball and the injuries that resulted from their combination of skill and courage.

Profession football is a dirty industry. Owners make tons of money. Cities give up more tons of taxpayer’s money. Players are maimed for life. It was our own version of Rome’s gladiatorial games, at least until ultimate fighting became the rage. It remains one of the distillations of our culture’s disturbing concept of manliness. Jackson often gives us a glimpse into that distillation. The hyperbolic description of his emotions during the last few plays of a game against Green Bay capture an important aspect of that distillation.

“I want blood. I want to taste the iron on my tongue as I rip the flesh from a safety’s bones and play Hacky Sack with his testicles.”

This is a well-done piece of writing. Jackson’s imagery is vivid. His honesty is refreshing. If you want an interesting and relatively enthralling look at professional football and some of those devoted to it, then Slow Getting Up will be very satisfying. If you want thoughtful introspection about why the boys and men in professional football endure what they endure or a discussion of the context in which a game becomes a major industry that rakes in billions while riding the bloodied backs of its players, then you need to find something else to read.

I am convinced the only way the game can be played safely is for it to be done in a virtual reality environment, one that integrates movement and power. That is not something that will makes fans swoon, owners rich, or players godlike. So, football, as we know it, must die. But, it will not go without kicking and screaming. It will take time. Remember, the appendix did not become a vestigial organ overnight.

In part it will continue because it is a source of revenue and adventure for powerful men. But, that is only part of why it will persevere. It will also continue drawing breath because there are young men today watching quarterbacks scramble and pass, receivers who seem like gymnasts blessed with hands covered in glue, and middle linebackers who prowl the line like enormous panthers and flex their hands because they want so badly to reach their prey.

After a televised game ends, front lawns and backyards will suddenly be populated by boys who saw the game. A football will appear, and they will play. Each boy will imagine himself on a field with thousands of people ready to cheer his prowess. Like Nate Jackson, these boys will be willing to sacrifice their bodies and minds to achieve that dream and stand with their fellows amidst those cheering throngs—for as long as they can.

[Alexander Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you get a chance, get this book on Audible. It is one of my favorite Audible books of all time, and I have hundreds of them.

Nate Jackson is an incredible storyteller, period. To hear him read his own book is a pleasure. When he tells you about his insecurity while he walks through a night club, you're right there with him. His affectation takes on the dazed feeling one has in those locales. When he's talking about training camp in the desert, he gets gritty. He gets in your face. When he's retelling his talks with coaches who didn't believe in him, you can hear the desperation in his voice. You can hear how he feels his dream is slipping away.

More impressively, Nate Jackson can write. His ability to turn a phrase is excellent. He can write comedically, which is supremely difficult. His perspective on the NFL is jarring because he knows exactly how to cut the tense real moments with humor.

This is one of the best sports autobiographies I've ever read. This is football's Ball Four. Absolutely essential reading for a sports fan.

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not generally much of a fan of autobiography, but I am a fan of the Broncos, so I thought I'd give this one a go.
Jackson's inside story really lifts the lid on the "football industrial complex" with a lot of wit, candour and bawdy stories that kept me chuckling and wincing in equal measure. Football at this level is an unthinking machine that chews people up. Nate is one of the good men who got spat out; but he tells the story with honest, mature reflection and even in the darkest moments, never ceases to be entertaining.

[Grace Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

really great, informative read. i learned so much about the inner workings of the league from the point of view of someone who lived through it, and Jackson’s storytelling was 10/10. i don’t typically read memoirs but this one was exceptional!

[Larry Pachicano Jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accidentally read twice. It good both times.

[Duncan Platts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into the life of NFL player fighting for his job every day.

[Errol Mortland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aye. A week after I read it, I can’t remember a lot of it. NFL players go through a lot of pain. It’s a pretty tough career.

[Ezra Eidem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. Man can write.

[Lloyd Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow Getting Up is way different, but, then again, not so much. Life in the NFL has some prison-like elements to it. The head coach is the warden, and the assistant coaches are the guards. Even more similarity between the 2 is a player's specific position coach. Every prisoner has a CO, or Correctional Officer, assigned to her. Crazy similarities, don't you think? Well, on to Nate's book.

Nate grew up in San Jose and went to high school with my daughter-in-law (he was 3 years behind her). He went to Menlo College in the Bay Area, which is a division 3 school. And let me tell you, there aren't very many D3 football players that make the pros. Nate defied the odds. He didn't get drafted, despite 2 outstanding years at Menlo, but got signed to a free agent contract with his local home team, the 49ers. Nate obviously thought he had died and gone to heaven. Although he didn't make it with the 49ers, Bill Walsh, who was acting in an advisory capacity with the team by this time, orchestrated a trade with the Denver Broncos, who were coached by Mike Shanahan, an ex-assistant coach with the 49ers. Bill was definitely looking out for Nate. And so begins Nate's 6 years with the Broncos.

Just like with Orange Is the New Black, there are no plot give-aways here. We know right up front that Nate lasted 6 years with the Broncos and then was done. What's interesting is what happens during those 6 years. Nate tells some fascinating stories about his life in the NFL. And it doesn't matter if you like football or not. Like any good memoir, you care about the author, not necessarily about his accomplishments, or even his profession (or, in Piper's case, her imprisonment). Nate makes us laugh, cry, and, oftentimes, wince. I want you to read the book, so I won't give up any of the good stuff. But let me mention a couple of teasers.

He tells us about the pre-game rituals. He tells us how much information they have to learn (wait until you read about his tryout with the Cleveland Browns). He tells us how different it is to catch balls from different quarterbacks. He tells us, in great detail, what it's like to be on special teams. I'll give you one quote from late in the book:

"I rail against what I now see as years of mishandled injuries, against the emptiness of fornicating with the jersey chasers, against my own inability to turn from the game, against my monetary motivations for still wanting to play it, against the media's petty ownership of the players, and against the entire bastardized commercialization of what to me is the most beautiful game on earth. And here is the crux of it: I still believe in the beauty of the game. This above all else is true. But to be a fly on the wall, or to be Derek, is to be struck in the face with how delusional a man scorned by his lover can be. Here I am telling him all the reasons why I hate her, in between sets of an exercise specifically designed to lead me back into her arms. I am sick."

Read this one too. A solid 3.

[Nasos Delveroudis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has got to be one of the most honest sports autobiographies out there. It speaks volumes of how the vast majority of NFL athletes are treated throughout their (usually short) professional careers and vividly describes all the hardships they have to endure. Nate is very outspoken and it's worth following up his multiple interviews on Youtube.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was mentioned in the New Yorker - otherwise I doubt I would have looked for it in the local public library. I enjoyed it.

I read sports memoirs from time to time. I am not a sports fanatic particularly, but I watched some football on TV with my father growing up and later as an adult, so like many Americans I suspect I imagine that I understand football better than other sports played professionally.

As far as football memoirs are concerned, I read "Paper Lion" by Plimpton years ago (which perhaps is not a true memoir) and more recently, "A Few Seconds of Panic" by a place kicker for the Denver Broncos.

Nate Jackson was pretty much in the trenches, a wide receiver converted to a tight end, who played for half a dozen years for the Denver Broncos (somewhat overlapping the author of the "panic" book, oddly). Given the subject, he adopts the right sort of breezy browse and level of detail, moving from his pre-NFL days reasonably quickly to a season-by-season description of his experiences as an NFL player, followed by a brief period after he failed to make the team and tried other football "opportunities" until he gave in to reality and stopped with football.

Given the fuss lately about the hazing and so on with the Miami Dolphins (that came up after I started reading this) it is remarkable how little that sort of thing is featured here. I think it is mostly because he played on a team coached by Mike Shanahan and the environment didn't feature that sort of thing much - he credits Shanahan with being good with the athletes (particularly compared to his short stay with the Cleveland Browns later).

The book is just his description of his experiences - it doesn't segue from those experiences to lengthy descriptions of blah blah blah the history of this or that and pro football. The book is 240 pages and the print is fairly large, so you can get through this quickly. Even I did.

[Tahj Dickerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile" is about a NFL veteran wide receiver from a small Division III Menlo College in California. The novel is about how Nate Jackson was good enough in high school to go to a Division III college, but not Division I or II. In college he did good enough to sign with the San Frisco 49ers while he was a free agent. Then after spending time with the San Frisco 49ers he joined the Denver Broncos and played 6 NFL seasons with the Denver Broncos. During his time with the Broncos he was being switched to the practice squad a lot then to the actual roster, finally being put in the starting line-up.

What I liked about the novel is that it was about football. It showed how someone can come from nothing to something. He didn't actually start from nothing, but not having a lot. The novel gave me courage to actually play football even though I was short and skinny. I also liked how the author, Nate Jackson, showed how he worked extremely hard to get where he is at today and how he never doubted himself and never gave up. There was nothing I did not like about the novel. Everything in the novel I liked and enjoyed reading.

I would recommend this novel to someone who enjoys reading novels about football or sports. Also, this novel would be a good read for people who enjoys life stories. I'll rate this novel a 4 out 5 because this novel helped me learn about many things. Also, it helps people to always have faith. Finally, I would like to recommend this novel to people who use others lives to motivate themselves. But for anyone who likes this novel, I'll suggest they read "Bo Knows Bo" by Bo Jackson or "The Greatest: Muhammad Ali" by Walter Dean Myers.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never heard of Nate Jackson before seeing and reading this book. Which is probably a good thing. He's a former NFL player who was in the league for 6 years, but primarily as a back up tight end and special teams player. Had he been a star quarter back or wide receiver his memoir likely would have been pretty typical...highlights of a career with emphasis on a couple of 'big' games. But the story Nate tells seems really open, honest, and at times pretty funny. He isn't afraid to write about his entire experience in the NFL whether it was good or bad or really bad. He gets into great little stories from training camps, team flights, and pre game meals that in other sports books would come off as boring, but Nate's knack for telling a story and his humour are what make these stories great. These are the little things that you never get to hear about from the stars of the game. It's a great inside look at his experience in the NFL and worth checking out.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the best book on life in the modern NFL out there - not that it has a lot of competition, since football players are generally known for hitting, not writing (Kluwe excepted, and he's a punter AND his book dealt very little with playing football). Tim Green wrote a book 15 years ago or so, but it was very bland.

Nate Jackson writes well.You can feel the hits as they take place. You can also feel the boredom, the longing, and the contradictions in between all the hitting.

I hope to read more of his writing in the future, and not just about football.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've often wondered why they do it and cringed, looked away and tried not to think too hard about the brutality on the football field. But at the same time, I'm a fan - a huge Bronco fan in fact. This book did not answer the question of why but it certainly gave insight into the reality of being a professional football player.

I'm as bad as the players - without the pain - because I will still love watching the games just as they apparently continue to love playing them - in spite of the pain.

Nate Jackson has a great fall-back career however, in writing. I totally liked this book.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An authentic memoir that captures the real highs and lows of a football life that's much more common than the ones we see captured on NFL Network specials and magazine profiles. Sans typical jock cliché, Jackson shows the fan/reader aspects of the game and its players that we wouldn't normally know to look for.

[Scott Sykes · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I have read quite a few sports biographies, I was eager to dive into Jackson's NFL journey, and while some of his stories were interesting and funny, the chapters seemed to read as not-too-deep diary entries and not the reflections and insights into the mind and the life of a player I was hoping it would be.