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https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/20...the-dream-of-every-nfl-practice-squad-player/
Rams reserve Garrett Sickels living the dream of every NFL practice squad player
By VINCENT BONSIGNORE
Photo by Michael Owen Baker
An NFL roller coaster ride will soar to the highest of highs on Sunday when the Rams host the San Francisco 49ers at the Coliseum. It will be the culmination of a crazy, year-long journey in which resolve, commitment and dedication were pushed to the limits and, ultimately, repaid in full.
And no, we aren’t talking about the Rams remarkable climb to the NFC West Championship, their first in 14 seasons, and their march to their first postseason since 2004.
This ride is much more personal.
You may not know much about Garrett Sickels, who will emerge from the Coliseum tunnel on Sunday wearing an old-school Rams No. 56 jersey and, presumably, get at least a few snaps at linebacker now that the Rams have decided to rest most of their key players in advance of the first round of the playoffs.
He hasn’t made any tackles this season. Don’t bother looking him up of Pro Football Reference to check out how many snaps he’s logged. He’s appeared in exactly zero plays.
In fact, he’s gone 17 straight weeks without actually suiting up in uniform.
All of which makes the moment he’s about to experience all the more special. Not just for himself, either. When Sickels steps foot in the Coliseum he’ll carry all the dreams and anguish and sweat and tears and ups and downs and elation and frustrations of every player that’s ever spent even one week on an NFL practice squad.
Let alone the the three different practice squads Sickels has spent time with this year in a five-month odyssey that would have left the Penn State rookie’s head swimming had he not been so consumed with digesting three completely different playbooks. All the while wondering if the next phone call was to inform him he was getting cut again.
“Those aren’t pleasant calls,” Sickels said.
Only for it to all culminate this week, the final week of the regular season, when Rams assistant coach Bill Johnson pulled Sickels aside when he reported back to work Wednesday to ask him a question.
“You ready for this week?” Johnson asked Sickels, informing him he’d been promoted to the 53-man roster.
“Yes sir,” Sickels responded, trying not to show too much outward emotion.
“Because trust me, I was super excited on the inside,” Sickels said. “I mean, being released by two different teams then coming here, finding a home and being on a winning team and then getting activated the last week of the regular season. It’s a pretty awesome feeling.”
To the average fan Sickels story is fairly unique, if not completely ignored. Our eyes are focused on what we see on Sunday. And that’s the 53 players on either team, 46 of whom are on the active roster on game day. We know their names and stats and we proudly buy their jerseys and cheer them on.
But at any given time there are 320 players across the NFL — 10 per team — who share similar stories to Sickels’.
Each team can keep 10 players on its practice squad and pay them at least $7,200 per week. Or $122,400 provided they remain on the practice squad for the full 18-week season. Teams can pay practice squad players whatever they want, but because those salaries count against the salary cap most teams stick with the minimum.
Practice squad players are allowed to sign with another team at any time provided they are put on that team’s active roster. If that happens, they are guaranteed at least three full game checks, regardless how long they remain on that team’s 53-man roster. Players are not allowed to move from practice squad to practice squad.
And while they participate in every practice and every conditioning and weight room workout and attend every meeting with their teammates on the 53-man roster, they get no real payoff on Sundays other than the personal satisfaction of honing their craft over the previous week and the role they played in preparing their teammates in practice while playing on the scout team. And of course, they get paid a fraction of what someone on the regular roster makes.
On one hand, you’re among a group of fellow football players at the cusp of realizing a life-long dream. A mere phone call away from accomplishing something millions upon millions of others can only dream about.
On the other, the distance between where you stand and where you want to be can seem like a thousand miles. But no time for fretting.
“The worst thing you can do is sit around and pout and feel sorry for yourself,” said Sam Rogers, who has been on the Rams practice squad all season. “If you do that, when your time ultimately comes, you might not be ready.”
Rogers was a sixth-round draft pick by the Rams last April out of Virginia Tech. A four-year starter with the Hokies with legitimate NFL dreams, the practice squad wasn’t exactly on his radar when he reported to OTAs and training camp.
“The goal is to play. You don’t even think about ‘what if I don’t make it.’ You deal with that if and when it comes,” Rogers said. “It’s almost like going into a game thinking: ‘What happens if we lose?’ You go in assuming you’re going to make it. You’re going to play. You’re gonna do your thing.”
While Rogers played well in training camp, it didn’t spare him from being cut after the final preseason game. And even though the Rams coaching staff assured him he had a job on their practice squad if he went unclaimed on waivers, they might as well have been talking a foreign language.
All Rogers heard was he was being released.
“You’re sitting there and you really don’t want to hear anything,” he said. “Almost not even listening.”
Rogers spent a day or so in limbo as he sweated out the waiver-wire process. When no call came, the Rams made good on their word and signed him to their practice squad.
A relieved Rogers went right back to work. The dynamics had changed a little bit but the objective remained absolutely the same.
“Look, it’s never fun being released,” Rogers said. “But when adversity comes you have to roll with it, deal with it and make the best of it. And in this case, it’s focusing on becoming a better player so when the call does come you’re ready to maximize it.”
Rogers caught a break staying with one team the whole season.
Sickels wasn’t so lucky.
An undrafted free agent, he spent the spring and summer with the Colts before being cut at the end of training camp. After a day or so in limbo the Colts signed him to their practice squad. It wasn’t exactly the life-long dream he’s envisioned as a kid growing up in New Jersey, but he was on an NFL team — technically — and he was making decent money.
“I was like, OK, I didn’t make the 53 but I’m still in the NFL I have the opportunity to get better every day.” Sickels said.
That didn’t last. A few days before the Colts opened the season against the Rams, Sickels was told he’d been cut.
A bit disappointed and quite a bit humbled, Sickels returned home to New Jersey to help coach a high school team and stay in shape as best as possible, just in case the Colts are someone else needed him.
Enter the Cleveland Browns, who signed him to their practice squad on September 27th. Better yet, they wanted him to play his natural hand-in-the-ground defensive end position he played at Penn State. He was an outside linebacker in the Colts 3-4 scheme.
“O.K., cool,” Sickels said. “Good opportunity.”
But a week later, Sickels found out he was out of a job again. He was given no real explanation.
“You can take it however you want, it’s just the name of the game,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do about it and really there’s nothing anyone can say that makes it better. You just have to accept it and move on.”
He was back home in New Jersey for a couple weeks when the Rams came calling.
“I got a call on a Monday night to be on a plane at 8 a.m. headed for California,” he said.
One problem: The day Sickels signed with the Rams is the same day the Rams left for Jacksonville to play the Jaguars. Practice squad players don’t travel with the regular team, but with the Rams spending a full week in Florida in preparation for their subsequent trip to London, they brought all their players with them to simulate a regular week of workouts.
That meant Sickels had no time to line up a place to stay in Southern California. And while teams make accommodations for a week or so at a local hotel, Sickels was pretty much on his own after that.
Fortunately for Sickels, he quickly struck up a friendship with Rams practice squad player Johnny Mundt during the two weeks in Jacksonville and London.
“He was like, ‘Hey man, I have a spare room just stay with me,’ ” Sickels said.
After getting burned having to come out of pocket to break the lease he signed in Indianapolis, he jumped at the chance.
“That’s money you’d like to have back,” he said. “It’s all a learning process. And now when friends ask hey man, how cool is it living in California? I’m like, yeah it’s great I’m staying with friends sleeping on an air mattress. They’re like: ‘You aren’t even gonna buy a bed?’ I’m like: ‘Nope.’”
He might not own a bed in California. But he’s going to run on the field as an NFL player on Sunday. And that’s a dream come true. And pretty cool one at that.
“I think anytime a player is rewarded – like I said, that really works hard like that it makes me feel good,” said Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips “And also makes me feel confident that he can do what we ask him to do, and it gives him this opportunity to be a National Football League player.”
